Abstract:
The unbearable lightness of différance is in reference to Milan Kundera’s famous book,
The unbearable lightness of being. Being is unbearably light, if interpreted as Heidegger did as
either the meaning of Being or the truth of Being, yet in Derrida’s response to Heidegger he
argues that différance is ‘older’ than the meaning of Being, even older than the truth of Being,
and thus one could argue that différance is even lighter than Being and thus even more
unbearable. What possibilities does such an unbearable lightness of différance offer to human
being-with (Mitsein) in a global village faced with so many socio-economic and environmental
challenges? The unbearable lightness could be absolute relativism and particularism as Rawls
has interpreted it or it could be the unbearable lightness of auto-deconstruction. The unbearable
lightness of différance opens a socio-political space with an ethos of deconstruction and thereby
response or ibility towards the other. This lightness of différance can be interpreted as a difficult
liberty (difficult liberty as Levinas interprets it) or even an unbearable liberty of infinite broken
chains of signifiers and yet a freedom that is held to account (that responds) to the other. This
liberty is an infinite responsibility towards the other and therefore infinite responsibility towards
justice (diké). Différance is liberty as all there is, is text, but this liberty is not licentiousness of
absolute disconnection, but the difficult liberty of being only responsible towards the other. The
question this article will grapple with is: what ethical implications can be gathered from this
state of being-with, this unbearable lightness of différance in the global village?
INTRADISCIPLINARY AND/OR INTERDISCIPLINARY IMPLICATIONS : Philosophy and philosophy of
religion. The article focusses on the conversation between Heidegger and Derrida, with
regards to différance and Austrag.
