A precarious ecstasy: beyond temporality in self and other

This article explores Levinas’s [1961/1969. Totality and infinity. (A. Lingis, Trans.). Pittsburgh, PA: Duquesne University Press; 1981/1997. Otherwise than being or beyond essence. (A. Lingis, Trans.). Pittsburgh, PA: Duquesne University Press] ideas on relational proximity in the face of the Other and, through meeting, the potential for intimate experiencing of being-with, on occasion seeming as if to transcend the co-sensed temporal ‘now’. This potential is considered alongside Butler’s [2004. Precarious life. In J. Butler (Ed.), Precarious life: The powers of mourning and violence (Chap. 5, pp. 128–151). New York, NY: Verso] reflections on Levinas’s ethical relation in the context of ‘post 9-11’ conflicts, where she offers perspectives on the act of killing ‘self’ in suicide and living-with self in the act, and aftermath, of killing an ‘other’ – the act of killing ‘other’ would entail killing one’s own human meaning, destroying ‘self’ and the consequent capacity for empathy towards others. There is a paradoxical link between these notions of killing ‘other’, living-with/killing self, and Levinas’s notion of the sensed fear of annihilating ‘other’ and/or annihilation of self when in ethical relational with the face of the intimate Other (Autrui). At its most spiritual this is described by Levinas (1961/1969) as if touching ‘totality’ within and either side of now; in mutual intimacy through the ‘saying’ in the ethical relation that is beyond self and Other, stretching towards timeless ‘infinity’, the Universe and/or God who is (in) the Other.