Moral responses to catastrophe get displaced by nationalist ideology that shields power structures.

Evidence

The complicated and fraught process that Levinas identifies with “the face,” one which destabilizes self and other and reorders the moral universe, was covered over by a veneer of racist, nationalist and jingoistic assumptions which, in the end, protected the extant systems of power, rather than the precarious lives those systems promise to protect. — Max Haiven, Cultures of Financialization, 218

Categorization

• DEFINE: Introduces Levinas’s ‘face’ concept as destabilizing self/other, which is a load-bearing definitional term for the chapter’s framework.
• XREF: connects to: Nationalist myths function as symbolic insurance against unbearable uncertainty. — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities: Living With…, 241; Nationalism’s puzzle is why recent small imaginings yield huge sacrifices. — Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on…, 42; Ideologies act on people structurally through a process that escapes them (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Nationalism’s puzzle is why recent small imaginings yield huge sacrifices. #exemplifies (0.80) — Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, 42
• Nationalist myths function as symbolic insurance against unbearable uncertainty. #qualifies (0.75) — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities, 241
• Ideologies act on people structurally through a process that escapes them #expands (0.75)