Maurice Merleau-Ponty: The World of Perception - Timothy R. Quigley

which makes us crave their assent or their criticism, the sparkwhich means we share a common fate. It is simply that thismodern form of humanism has lost the dogmatic tone of earliercenturies. We should no longer pride ourselves in being acommunity of pure spirits; let us look instead at the real relationshipsbetween people in our societies. For the most part,these are master–slave relationships. We should not find excusesfor ourselves in our good intentions; let us see what becomes ofthese once they have escaped from inside us. There is somethinghealthy about this unfamiliar gaze we are suggesting should bebrought to bear on our species. Voltaire once imagined, inMicromégas, that a giant from another planet was confrontedwith our customs. These could only seem derisory to an intelligencehigher than our own. Our era is destined to judge itselfnot from on high, which is mean and bitter, but in a certainsense from below. Kafka imagines a man who has metamorphosedinto a strange insect and who looks at his familythrough the eyes of such an insect. 2 Kafka also imagines a dogthat investigates the human world which it rubs up against. 3 Hedescribes societies trapped in the carapace of customs whichthey themselves have adopted. In our day, Maurice Blanchotdescribes a city held fast in the grip of its laws: everyone is socompliant that all lose the sense of their difference and that ofothers. 4 To look at human beings from the outside is what89