On the Great Illusion and the Philosophy of the Other
Оleksandr Filonenko / Photo from personal archive
SHORT PROFILE
Name: Oleksandr Semenovych Filonenko
Date of birth: 18 October 1968
Profession: Ukrainian Orthodox theologian, public intellectual, Doctor of Philosophy
We continue our conversation about the future of Ukraine and the world with renowned theologian Oleksandr Filonenko. Why is utopia returning to our world? Is it possible to remain human in a concentration camp? And who was the first in history to be served kosher food at the papal table in the Vatican? In our interview, you’ll find unconventional answers to these and other questions.
THE NEW MIDDLE AGES
The rehabilitation of religiosity in today’s world has led some to speak of the dawn of a New Middle Ages. This idea is, paradoxically, both true and false. The general discourse on the subject goes like this: first there was modernity, then postmodernity, and clearly something must come after. Let’s call that «something» metamodernism.
In my view, the term «New Middle Ages» describes what is happening much better than «metamodernism.» Philosopher Nikolai Berdyaev coined the phrase under the curious circumstances of a «turn of eras.» Traditionally, it was believed that utopias were unachievable. However, according to Berdyaev, the 1930s showed that utopias could indeed be realized.
The problem is that nothing good comes of it — realized utopias are pleasing to no one. In this sense, the concept of the New Middle Ages is a response to the looming horror of utopianism. Today, we can speak not just of Berdyaev’s New Middle Ages, but of some kind of «new New Middle Ages.»
PAVLO MAKOV’S UTOPIA
The Middle Ages are returning — but not in the way they did at the beginning of the last century! I, for instance, know a Ukrainian «new utopian» myself — the Kharkiv-based artist Pavlo Makov. For ten years or more, he developed a large-scale project, creating an artistic space that included a book titled Utopia.
We’re used to thinking of utopia as something distant and unattainable, yet it turns out that it is always very close, always somewhere nearby. Makov did something quite intriguing: he asked friends abroad to send him letters to Kharkiv. But instead of writing «Ukraine» as the country, they wrote «UtopiA (UA).»
Amazingly, the letters to the country of Utopia were delivered… Since they were sent and received, it means such a country truly exists. It is located at a Kharkiv address — in Pavlo Makov’s studio. Utopia can be discovered in different ways. One way is Makov’s. Another is that of French philosopher Michel Foucault, who contrasted utopia with heterotopia.
HETEROTOPIA: UTOPIA WITHOUT IDEOLOGY
If utopian modernity is the gathering of meanings around the nonexistent, then postmodernity is heterotopia — the discovery of multiple, actually existing places. Heterotopia presents life as a multiverse, as a non-modernist way of assembling cultural spaces. In this sense, heterotopia is a new utopia, but without ideology.
Life, revealing the openness of the vertical dimension, unfolds not around any «-isms» but around events. And it is precisely in the language of events that God speaks to a person. Pay attention — God speaks! That’s why, for modern people, God is above all мThe One to turn to.» For all sorts of reasons: when faced with life’s challenges, natural disasters, wars — people begin to pray. They have many requests. And yet, in prayer, people understand that God will not answer them immediately.
It is commonly believed that He rarely responds at all, and only if we plead hard enough. And, of course, we expect the answer to be the one that suits us. However, true dialogue with God begins when you realize: God answers immediately, even when He hasn’t been asked, and the content of His answer may not match your expectations.
THE GREAT ILLUSION OF CIVILIZATION
God is the active party. While people debate whether God exists or not, whether He responds or remains silent — He acts! It’s no coincidence that another French philosopher, Jacques Derrida, avoided applying any labels to himself: atheist, skeptic, gnostic, and so on.
He explained it this way: «Imagine, for instance, that I am an atheist and claim that God is the Great Illusion. Why ‘great’? At the very least, because, based on this illusion, people have created great civilizations. Science knows of no civilization that began with an atheistic impulse. Atheism is a very late phenomenon. All cultures begin as religious — born of the Great Illusion. But then the question arises: what kind of illusion is this that enables the creation of entire cultural worlds and civilizations? It turns out that this illusion possesses some incredible and entirely non-illusory power! So let’s, for the sake of simplicity, call this power God — and then the question of whether it’s an illusion becomes less important to us.»
For Derrida, God is not an idea, but our experience of living through events — an experience of encountering the Other.
EMMANUEL LÉVINAS: THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE OTHER
There were a few such defining encounters in my own life… As Mandelstam once wrote: «I was awakened by friendship as if by a shot.» That’s exactly how I was «awakened» by my encounter with the ethical philosopher and Sorbonne professor Emmanuel Lévinas. It was a meeting with the problem of the Other and the dialogical nature of existence. It’s a bit ironic, because back in Kharkiv I was surrounded by brilliant followers of the «dialogist» Mikhail Bakhtin — such as Ihor Solomadin, who now lives and works in Prague.
By the way, the school of dialogists has strong Ukrainian roots. In Kyiv, at the same time as us, lives one of its leading figures — Anatolii Valerianovych Akhutin. He was once among the closest associates of the outstanding philosopher Vladimir Bibler, founder of the school devoted to the dialogue of cultures.
Anatolii Valerianovych is already of advanced age. It’s truly unfortunate that journalists are in no rush to interview him… In Kharkiv, I had every chance to immerse myself in the ideas of Bakhtin and Bibler. But it so happened that I moved to England — and only there, in an English library, did Lévinas’s lectures descend upon me. I was struck, as they say, by «the grandeur of the vision»!
HOW TO REMAIN HUMAN IN A CONCENTRATION CAMP
Lévinas was a Lithuanian Jew who sincerely served German philosophy. During the war, he suddenly found himself in a prisoner-of-war camp. When he was released, it turned out that his wife and child had survived, but all other members of his family had been killed by the Nazis in concentration camps. In trying to comprehend the horrific catastrophe that had struck Europe, Lévinas developed what he called the philosophy of the Other.
It began with a single, fundamental question: «How can one remain human in a concentration camp, where no one intends to treat you as a human being?» If you are seen as a «thing» but still want to realize yourself as a human, what must you do? Lévinas put forth a powerful and, at the same time, terrifying thesis: you must accept the other person as the Other — regardless of how they perceive you. This Other may see you as a thing, may kill you, rape you, or be indifferent to your presence…
But it’s not about their attitude toward you — it’s about your attitude toward them! I realize myself as a human being only if I accept the Other in the full reality of their otherness. This idea of Lévinas radically departs from the dialogical concepts of Martin Buber and Mikhail Bakhtin, for whom dialogue is based on symmetry, mutual respect, and mutual trust. For them, reciprocity is a key condition of dialogue. For Lévinas, however, the philosophy of the Other begins precisely with the rupture of reciprocity.
LÉVINAS AND UKRAINE
But how does one remain human in a totalitarian state, where reciprocity is impossible? Lévinas offers an ethical answer. For him, ethics is higher than metaphysics. Because the ethical question — «Am I willing to perceive a person as the Other, in whatever form they appear?» — determines everything else: my ontology, my metaphysics… Of course, this was a radical philosophical provocation, one that allowed for a reevaluation of dialogical philosophy and revived interest in the names of Bakhtin, Buber, and others.
Interestingly, there’s a curious «blind spot» in my own story with Lévinas. It turns out that, in a sense, he was a Kharkivite too! He studied at a gymnasium in Kharkiv, where his family — then still the Levins — had fled the horrors of the revolution. After World War I, Ukraine seemed to many a haven of calm and stability. Upon finishing gymnasium, he returned with his family to their native Lithuania, where the Levins became Lévinas. Perhaps this was his first experience of otherness — an experience that would later give the world a great philosopher.
On the other hand, I was surprised to discover that Ukrainians knew almost nothing about Lévinas. In Ukraine, there was only one person who studied his work — an outstanding ethical philosopher, Viktor Aronovych Malakhov, who now lives in Israel. His contribution to contemporary Ukrainian philosophy is hard to overestimate.
It’s no coincidence that when people speak of Ukrainian philosophy today, they usually name three figures: Popovych, Krymskyi, and Malakhov. For me, Lévinas was the «back door» through which I entered the philosophy of the Other. In the Soviet and post-Soviet space, most people came through the «main entrance» — through Bakhtin and Buber.
LÉVINAS AND THE VATICAN
The Christian reception of Lévinas had a profound impact on both philosophy and theology. For instance, one of the most prominent members of Lévinas’s global «fan club» turned out to be Pope John Paul II. Lévinas became the first Jew in the history of the Roman Catholic Church to be invited to an audience with the Pope at the Vatican Palace. For the first time, kosher food was served at the papal table for a guest. After that, Lévinas’s visit was covered by Catholic institutions throughout Europe.
Though the thinker himself remained rather cautious toward Christianity, holding it partly responsible for the tragedies of the twentieth century. Of course, Lévinas was in many ways a Jewish philosopher — just like Buber or Derrida, for example. But this only further confirms the greatness of his thought, which became a vital component of Europe’s philosophical self-awareness.
Lévinas turned out to be one of the very few European philosophers who gave postmodernist themes a non-postmodernist dimension. For example, when it came to the plurality of the world and heterotopia, he interpreted them not in the postmodernist sense, but through the philosophy of the Other — while still preserving ethics, responsibility, and the relevance of political, economic, social, and cultural meaning. I have been engaged in the study of Lévinas’s philosophical legacy for over 30 years. It remains deeply interesting and important to me to understand how his ideas can shape our understanding of the contemporary world.