Catequese - Dia Quatro

So part of the reason that general relevance in the work I do is hard to name is because it is an argument against that kind of general relevance. It is an argument for, in the most simple-minded way possible, a kind of reveling in finitude, and that there is no way of doing ethical action outside of actual engagement, no way of listing of the conclusions of the bottom line outside these domains of practice, and that they must not be conceived in a relativist fashion, but instead in a way so that domains of practice make claims on each other, which at times results in partial translation and stuttering communication. It’s a kind of ongoing-ness that refuses the easy closing off of cultural relativism or social constructionism, that insists on making claims in the world and making claims on each other, that insists on a kind of taking-life-up-with-each-other because of an inhabiting of difference together, because you are not the same, and because translation is never perfect, or even close to perfect. That is why communication can take place, because translation is not perfect. That is not a barrier, it is the condition of signification. Surprise. The condition of language is troping. Troping is tripping. Etymologically, there is no making sense in general, there is only making sense in fact. Well, then the question comes to be: which questions matter? That is a serious problem, and it’s about taking other people’s dilemmas seriously, about putting forward what matters in non-arrogant ways and without the illusion of an equal playing field. It is about taking all those kinds of questions seriously, regarding the way that we inherit histories of trauma and violence, so we are not under the illusion of some kind of democratic playing field. It is about asking seriously what matters and to whom, and as a result, seeing what one is called upon to do.

Donna Haraway

Hoje: Aula de canto by Vasco Araújo