Ethical response to another demands risking that no signal is actually sent

Evidence

It is uncanny for me that Derrida’s notion of the “trace”—our conviction, faced with a situation, that something wants to signal something else—must also run the risk that there might be no signal. Love is not do-gooding, ethics is not social work, although a bit of both is possible. — Donna Landry and Gerald MacLean, The Spivak Reader, 2257

Categorization

• DEFINE: Clarifies Spivak’s sense of the ‘trace’ as a conviction that risks there being no signal at all — central to her ethics of the subaltern.
• XREF: connects to: Communication codes require a taken-for-granted foundation immune to negation — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 688; Unilateral, non-reciprocal communication can coordinate both parties’ expectations — Thomas C. Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict, 201; Distress calls must trade off warning others against betraying the caller’s own location — Almo Farina, Soundscape Ecology: Principles,…, 802

Broader Connections

• Communication codes require a taken-for-granted foundation immune to negation #complicates (0.75) — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 688
• Unilateral, non-reciprocal communication can coordinate both parties’ expectations #complicates (0.72) — Thomas C. Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict, 201