Shame: Intentionality in Reverse

This essay puts forward the idea that shame is effectively a structure of inter-subjectivity that most remarkably posits an ethical gesture that trumps all moral orders and precepts. Shame stands for a form of ethics that is basically one of radical responsibility. This responsibility is not the state or fact of having a duty to the other; it is instead a solidarity not to the other, but paradoxically to one’s own cumbersomeness and that such solidarity is precisely what allows one to live ethically. Drawing on the work of Emmanuel Levinas, this essay attempts to think what would an ethics without violence could mean, that is, without a judging gaze, without the duplicitous open hand and without economy and morality.