Derrida – The Politics of Friendship - Theory Reading Group at UNM

260 POLITICS OF FRIENDSHIP
to time': 'the black swan!'. And it is the bond between two men, with the
minor but inevitable complication of the third man, and the supplementary
friend of whom we have just caught a glimpse. But there is also what Kant
calls pragmatic friendship: this one, out of love, burdens itself with the ends
of other men, this time of an indeterminate number. 'Pragmatic' friendship
could never achieve the purity or perfection desired, that is, 'requisite for a
precisely determinant maxim'. It remains, therefore, the 'ideal of a wish',
In the concept of reason it is infinite, in experience it is finite. In both
cases, there is the rare but real uprising of the 'black swan', a limited but'
effective experience of pragmatic friendship, the taking place of the
phenomenon of friendship. In history, in space and in time: yes, friendship
does happen. Hence sensibility is a part of the game. And this cannot
happen except against a backdrop of what unites mankind, this effective
and sensible sharing out fpaTtage] whose aesthetic dimension is thus required.
What happens must be able to happen. And the condition of possibility
must be universal. All this supposes, then, a general or generic possibility,
the possibility of what Kant calls here the friend of man.
The friend of man loves the whole human race. Whatever happens, he
shares in what happens to other men, through sensibility - 'aesthetically'.
says Kant. He rejoices with them when something good happens (the
'black swan', pragmatic and humanitarian solidarity, however insufficient it
may be), and will never disturb this joy without profound regret. This very
regret is the sign that he is the friend of the whole human race. But if the
'friend of man' concept entails sensibility and aesthetic community, it also
corresponds to an infinite rational rigour - that is, an Idea. This is what
distinguishes the friend of man from the 'philanthropist' who is content
with merely loving mankind, without being guided by this Idea.
Now what is this Idea? Having stressed that 'the expression "a friend of
man" is somewhat narrower in its meaning than "one who merely loves
man (als der des Philanthropen, die Menschen blojJ liebenden Menschen)' , Kant
establishes this Idea: it is not only an intellectual representation, a representation
of equality among men, but consideration for this representation of
equality, a 'just consideration' for such a representation. Equality is necessary.
There is no equality, but there must be. For it is obligation that the soundness
or justice of this consideration adds to the representation: 'the Idea that in
putting others under obligation by his beneficence he is himself under
obligation'. Consequently, equality is not only a representation, an intellectual
concept, a calculable measure, a statistical objectivity; it bears within
itself a feeling of obligation, hence the sensibility of duty, debt, gratitude.
This is inscribed in sensibility, but only in sensibility's relation to the purely
'IN HUMAN LANGUAGE, FRATERNITY .. .' 261
rational Idea of equality. This is the condition. for the existence of
mmething called 'the friend of man', 'the friend of the whole race'. It goes
without saying that cosmopolitanism, universal democracy, perpetual peace,
would not have the slightest chance of being announced and promised, if
not realized, without the presupposition of such a friend.
And it is a brother. The black swan is a brother, for he can appear,
however infrequently, from time to time, only providing he is already the
friend of man. He must belong to this race to which the friend of man
belongs, who is the friend of the whole race. He must be the brother of
these brothers. For just when Kant has defined in this way, in the 'strictest'
sense of the term, the friend of man, he tells us how the phenomenon of
this idea of obliging equality is to be represented: as a father and brothers.
Submissive and equal brothers. The men are brothers, and the father is not
a man: 'all men are represented here as if they were brothers under one
father who wills the happiness of all' .
This structure corresponds - with the curtness of a philosophical rigour
that would have to be reconstituted in Michelet, Quinet, or others - to the
secularization, in the style of the Enlightenment, of Christian friendship the
promise of which the friends of the French Revolution (and Kant must be
counted a member) said that it was the implementation, achieved in history
_ projected as such, in any case. This friendship is quite fraternal. It bi~ds
brothers together between themselves but not with the father, who wills
the happiness of all and to whom the sons submit. There is no friendship
for the father, one is not the friend of the one who makes friendship
possible. One can be grateful to him, since one is obliged to him. There ~s
even reciprocal love with the father, but this reciprocal love (non-equal) IS
not friendship. In friendship a respect that is not only reciprocal but
thoroughly equal is required. This is impossible with the father; it is possible
only with brothers, with what is represented as brothers. Friendship for the
one who makes friendship possible would be a temptation of pride. And
the father, who is not a brother, is not a man. Kant continues, and
concludes:
All men are here represented as brothers under one universal father who wills the happiness
of all. For the relation of a protector, as a benefactor, to the one he protects,
who owes him gratitude, is indeed a relation of mutual love, but not of friendship,
since the respect owed by each is not equal. The duty of being benevolent as a friend
of man (a necessary humbling of oneself) and the just consideration of this duty
serve to guard against the pride that usually comes over those fortunate enough
to have the means for beneficence.'·