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ralowe's review against another edition
5.0
from participating in a type of survivor-centered organizing at the boundaries of accountability, where accountability fails, this is a very engaging deconstructionist perspective on forgiveness in the 'abrahamic' tradition as it assumes hegemony in international law. there are two essays here-- one about forgiveness which is related to another concerned with the liberal idea of cosmopolitanism, exemplified by the notion of a 'city of refuge.' derrida's thought exists of a kind of exception which is kind of essential to the idea itself, and emphasizes this necessary maddening equivocation. this is particularly striking with his insistence on a hyperbolic definition for a forgiveness without either sovereignty or conditions. he argues that forgiveness must always be irreducible to either reconciliation or reparative government intervention. asylum for the stateless disenfranchised similarly places a tension on the definition of national borders; the extension of hospitality as a lively exception to regimes.
kewlpinguino's review against another edition
4.0
3.5. Before I say anything I have to admit two things:
1. I've always kind of dismissed Derrida as a pretentious incomprehensible language theorist, but after finding out about his late ethical period and reading this I really need to reconsider my stance; in other words, he's far from being Bataille.
2. I found this book through a Goodreads "people also liked" list and only initially hovered over it because of the cool looking cover, but the title and the concept grabbed me.
Now:
While I didn't grab everything here, I think if I reread it I'll get even more out of it. I do admire Derrida's effort and the concepts I grasped I think I mostly agreed with, especially in the Cosmopolitanism section, because the Forgiveness, while interesting, aren't applicable to a political system. Nonetheless I think I might read more of Derrida's ethics work.
1. I've always kind of dismissed Derrida as a pretentious incomprehensible language theorist, but after finding out about his late ethical period and reading this I really need to reconsider my stance; in other words, he's far from being Bataille.
2. I found this book through a Goodreads "people also liked" list and only initially hovered over it because of the cool looking cover, but the title and the concept grabbed me.
Now:
While I didn't grab everything here, I think if I reread it I'll get even more out of it. I do admire Derrida's effort and the concepts I grasped I think I mostly agreed with, especially in the Cosmopolitanism section, because the Forgiveness, while interesting, aren't applicable to a political system. Nonetheless I think I might read more of Derrida's ethics work.
atsundarsingh's review
4.0
I didn't want to like Derrida, because the other Derrida readings I have done say things like "the structurality of structure" and to be honest I find it annoying how difficulty those concepts are to parse. These essays on the other hand felt quite clear, and relevant to the current moment. Dealing in themes such as who can forgive, what rules of asylum a good city should have, and what to do with our old practices of hospitality in a world not built for them, Derrida posits some ideas worth mulling over. Maybe deconstruction is worth my time after all....
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