The dominant Totalit from Dussel as a source of identity alienation

Abstract

The world-system constructed since Modernity is governed by the scheme of ‘Totality’, a category that, understood from Dussel as the imposed universalization, it supposes the alienation of the non-Being, the annihilation of other possible worlds. This article starts from the aforesaid Totality, in which the privileged (post)modern Subject becomes the ultimate criterion of Truth and turns the Others into his enemies (qualifying them as ‘barbarians’, ‘infidels’ or ‘savages’, an updated terminology under labels such as ‘illegals’, ‘refugees’ or ‘terrorists’). The identity that is at stake is ontological, the one that admits only the equal. It is the identity reduced to the essence, the one considered by authors such as Hegel, Nietzsche and Habermas. But, as these paragraphs defend from Lèvinas and Dussel, the finitude of human being as human causes that Totality is never perfectly closed. The key lies in the alterative experience that enables positive identity.