Looking into the Eyes of Others

In his book Totality and Infinity Emanuell Levinas makes a distinction between rhetoric and conversation (or dialogue). Rhetoric resists dialogue and corrupts the freedom of the Other not to become the Same. For that reason it is violence par excellence and thus injustice. Levinas talks about violence as interrupting humans' continuity. It is tempting to see our lives as lived narrative in that connection. For Levinas the face of the other speaks to us and its manifestation is already conversation or dialogue. The face opens for the original conversation. We do not fuse with the other or become like her, but interact. The ethical is for Levinas then taking consideration for the irreducibility of the Other. The way the face of the Other presents itself to me is, he writes, non-violence par excellence because it does not violate my freedom but instead calls my freedom to responsibility. As nonviolence it maintains the plurality of the Same and the Other.

Ref: Erik Cleven, "Between Stories and Faces: Facilitating Dialogue Through Narratives and Relationship Building"