Second, if others keep their distance from me, they will not get their sticky fingers into my life. Better I be unknown. If they know me, they may spot things even I prefer to ignore. (Many of us have more of a fear of being understood than of being misunderstood.) The other (Latin: alter) is a threat precisely because if he knows me I might have to alter myself. (Gannon 196-197)
In "Strangers To Ourselves," Julia Kristeva discusses Freud's similar idea that "the Other" dredges up aspects of ourselves that we have suppressed, and that in response we either avoid "the Other," or else we try to get rid of him (e.g., by killing him, by "civilizing" him in our image, etc.).
Kristeva's discussion resonated with me because in my experience (which is the only experience I can speak for), it is precisely a fear of personal change that drives the fear of "the Other." When I see a homeless man on the street, I do not feel particularly moved by his physical condition. Sure, I feel sorry for him. But that is not what gnaws deep down at my soul. What bothers me is not so much that I am unable (or unwilling) to feed him, but that I am not him. I feel the sorrow of the Rich Young Man in the Gospel, whom Christ invites not merely to feed the poor, but to become the poor. The homeless man whom I pass on the street reminds me not so much of what I have (food, home, family), but of what I am not: a Saint. The homeless remind me that I do not have the courage of a St. Francis, of a Dorothy Day, etc. Looking at the homeless is, for me, like looking in a mirror, except that the reflection I see is a reflection of what I should be rather than what I am.
Sometimes when I am walking home on a cold night, I dread the approach to my house. I know that inside the house I have precisely what the homeless lack: warmth, food, family, a soft pillow. Yet stepping into the house, I have a strange feeling of being a stranger. It is, perhaps, what Kristeva discusses as Freud's idea of "uncanny strangeness." I have nothing against having a warm house. But I know that my place is not in the house, it is out in the cold air on the deserted streets.
I had a similar experience at a beach in Honduras last summer. I was enjoying the day with family and friends. Nearby sat a man who was obviously drunk, barely conscious of his surroundings, in need of a shower, and slurping Chinese food. Eventually an employee from a nearby restaurant asked him to leave (which he did, only after stumbling over himself). What bothered me was not that I was there and able to enjoy a day at the beach with family and friends, nor that the man probably did not have family and friends. I could not change the circumstances of my life or his. But at that moment, without changing the circumstances of our lives, I could have transcended them. I could have simply invited the man to sit and enjoy the day with us. It was not my place to invite him over, being a guest myself, but I could no longer feel connected to the group I was with, even though they were friends and family. If my place was not to bring the homeless man to our group, then was it not my place to form a new group where he is at the head of the table? But, of course, I just watched him until he stumbled away, and I felt as much a stranger there among friends and family as I do on cold winter nights.
I'm not sure what to make of Freud's idea of "uncanny strangeness," except to say that it resonates with my own experience. I think that Kristeva and Freud are getting at something very important about our relationship to "the Other."
As Gannon points out, "the alter" forces us to alter ourselves. Christ says to "love your neighbor as yourself" (Matthew 22:39). If "the Other" changes our "self" by forcing us to undergo an alteration, then every time we encounter "the Other," we are able, in a sense, to become a new person. In this light, "love your neighbor as yourself" takes on even more significance than we might realize, because our "self" is always being remade in the encounter with "the Other," and so in loving ourselves we are in fact loving "the Other" who has given us a new "self" in that encounter. In other words, the love does not extend in a linear fashion from us to "the Other." Rather, the love is generated in a reciprocal manner, because we must first receive a new "self" from the other in order to love that "self," and in loving that new "self" we can love "the Other" who gave it to us. This, perhaps, helps us better understand St. Paul's injunction to become all things to all men:
For though I am free from all men, I have made myself a slave to all, that I might win the more. To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews; to those under the law I became as one under the law — though not being myself under the law — that I might win those under the law. To those outside the law I became as one outside the law — not being without law toward God but under the law of Christ — that I might win those outside the law. To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all men, that I might by all means save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings. (1Corinthians 9:19-23)
If "the Other" gives us a new "self," then in a certain sense each encounter with "the Other" is a dying to self. We can never exhaust this dying to self, and so for Christians, encountering "the Other" becomes a means of deepening our participation in the mystery of Christ's death and resurrection. The reason why Christians can die to self and become all things to all men, being "remade" in the image of each "Other," is because it is not our personal identity that remains constant in us, but rather it is Christ who remains constant in us. As St. Paul writes, "I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me" (Galatians 2:20). In each encounter with "the Other," are are remade in their image; and of course, Christ identifies as "the Other," so that in each encounter with "the Other," we are really being remade in the image of Christ. When we resist "the Other," we harden our hearts to that possibility of alteration, of becoming more and more like Christ.
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