For Levinas the enemy emerges within alterity, not outside it

Evidence

Thus the Nay finds its opponent directly in front of itself here. But the metaphor of a pair of wrestlers is misleading. There is no pair. This is a wrestling match not of two parties but of one: the Nought negates itsel£ It is only in self-negation that the “other,” the “opponent,” bursts forth out of it. — Gil Anidjar, The Jew, the Arab, 449 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Levinas made the Self-Other relationship philosophy’s central concept — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom,…, 625; The enemy is derivative and potential rather than primary and natural; Kafka’s parable figures the enemy as a powerless thing carried within (+7 more)

Broader Connections

• The enemy emerges from the self’s own self-negation, not from a true pair. #complicates (0.82) — Gil Anidjar, The Jew, the Arab, 449