The other. Solution. (rethink ig)

Given this, it would seem like the solution to Othering would be, as David Hume suggests, to focus on what we have in common rather than what sets us apart. But this isn’t a perfect solution either, because the process of distinguishing who we are from who we’re not is part of the way we develop our identity.

By focusing only on what is similar between us and other people, we lose an important tool in discovering our personal identity. Oftentimes it’s our differences that make us unique.

When we look at people as being ‘like us’, it can help us to relate but it can also be a little bit narcissistic. Instead of looking on the Other as someone unique, complicated and different, we treat them like a mirror. We try to find ourselves in other people instead of trying to find what defines them as them.

The philosopher Emmanuel Levinas thought process of engaging with the Other and acknowledging the differences between us and them was the basis of ethics. All our theories, concepts and ideas about what to do and how to live start by acknowledging that we must engage with other people who are different from us. Levinas believed that this otherness – which he called alterity – was something to celebrate. Rather than looking for commonality to ground our moral concern, we should recognise that another person is a universe of mystery to us. Something to fill us with awe, care and concern.

Encountering the Other is difficult. The Other challenges our way of doing things, demands our attention and holds us responsible for our actions. Their presence forces us to rethink our understanding of the way the world works. It’s much easier to overlook that difference by looking for similarities or make those differences seem evil than it is to genuinely engage with them. Yet this is exactly what Levinas wanted us to do.

In fact, Levinas wanted us to look the Other in the face. In doing so, we look upon the face of someone completely different from us. We also start to recognise our ethical responsibility toward them, which is a really simply one: don’t kill them.

Think of all the films and stories where someone is about to commit an act of murder until at the last minute they see the eyes of the person they’re going to kill. Suddenly, they can’t do it. One explanation for these changes of heart is that in looking into the Other’s face, these people realise their ethical responsibilities.

This philosophy of the Other is powerful because it encourages us to rethink our attitude toward difference. It acknowledges there are real and sometimes insurmountable differences between us but tells us that’s OK. Instead of getting caught up searching for what we have in common or stigmatising the things that set us apart, we should be open to learning from every individual we come across – no matter how much or how little of ourselves we see in them.