ARISTOTLE laid out what he called "the categories" — substance — things that exist in themselves, and the nine kinds of "accident" — things that inhere in substances such as color, dimension, location, etc. This was consonant with his project of pursuing a "science of everything," an aspiration that persists till this day. So it is that we find books purporting to be "a history of everything," or "a theory of everything" — or, more sophisticatedly, a "unified theory." It is the procedure of the human mind to understand something by including it within a larger class of things. This is the essence of "explanation" — hence the usefulness of labels. Plants and animals are classified into genera and species — and this system is applied to everything else. Literature has its forms. Philosophy has its schools. Music has its structures. Historians periodize. Labels are convenient. They give us a handle on what would otherwise be confusingly myriad phenomena.
Labels, however, "totalize" — a term we owe to Levinas. It is not a bad word in his philosophy. It simply means the constant inclination of the self to grab a handle on things by the convenience of categories, labels, classifications. The danger, though, is immediately obvious, for with the sweep of totalization, the individual disappears into the amalgam of a totality. In argumentation, there is always sounded the cautionary note against hasty generalizations. But the habit is inscribed into the workings of thought that it takes studied effort to recognize the individual and to bring him to the foreground. It is the necessary maneuver of neutralizing the sweep of totalizing and the pretensions of generalization.
"Israel" and "Iran" are examples of totalities. News reports will recall that "it was Israel that launched the attack against Iran." Supporters of Israel will, for their part, remind us all that "Iran has always vowed the destruction of Israel." But there are Israelis who oppose Benjamin Netanyahu and who have inveighed against his drumbeating, just as there are Israelis who genuinely felt threatened by the Iranian leaderships' avowals of "Death to Israel." The "Iran" that is in the crosshairs of Donald Trump's aggression is the leadership of the late, departed Khamenei and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. But there are so many Iranians who took to the streets not too long ago to protest against the "Iran" that maintained a chokehold on them. Saleh Mohammadi was one of them, and he paid for it with his 19-year-old life!
It is the same thing with "America." The "Americans" who are now blamed for starting what threatens to be a conflagration in the region are Donald Trump and his caboodle that will include Pete Hegseth and Marco Rubio. But even within Trump's circle — as the "defection" of Joe Kent dramatically illustrates — there are individuals with individual dissents, whose positions post qualifiers. Just as it would be stupid to blame the Filipinos for the fanaticism of "Dutertards," so should Americans, as a people, be spared the indictment of the charge of aggression.
"Islamophobe" is another increasingly popular label of reproof. But when one slams the execution of a young man, barely out of his teens, condemned principally for protesting against the regime, is one an "Islamophobe"? When one insists that public life be free of the strictures forced on it or taken over by some forms of Islam, is one thereby an "Islamophobe"? Of course, it is the same thing with "Antisemitism." What is clear is that condemnation of Netanyahu should not translate into condemnation of Jews or Israelis. And what is equally clear is that characterizing Netanyahu's decision to wage war on Iran as the international crime of "aggression" is not anti-semitism. It is the language of the law, a category, to be sure, but one necessary to preserve what the world recognizes to be a value: global peace and the sovereign equality of States.
With this Sunday, the Church enters into that segment of the liturgical year called "Passiontide." One of the most moving normative professions comes from the Letter to the Galatians that breaks with the language of totalization — Christ died for "us." He suffered to redeem "mankind." Its author, commonly identified as the Apostle Paul, writes:
"I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me."
rannie_aquino@csu.edu.ph
Rannie_aquino@sanbeda.edu.ph