What should I do? Reader Response-Ability and Obligations of Proximity

Last night I was reminded of my favourite Judith Butler video which is a lecture she gave at the Nobel Museum on "Precarious life: the obligations of proximity" (skip the white guy at the start - he says nothing).  This is a beautiful video on a lot of levels.  Visually the juxstaposition of Butler (just a head) to the headless statue of a man (just a body) is sublime.  I also love her speech patterns.  It is like a loving mother to me so calm and clever.   Joel hates her style of speaking so I understand if it does not give you chills as well.

In this lecture she is trying to explore how we get brought into relationship with the "other" especially when the other is not obviously in relationship with us - ie we are watching the other on tv.  Through what mechanisms are we inscribed into a relationship with this other and required to act in response to the needs of the other? She describes this as "Ethical solicitation".  While she is using the example of Palistine, I think there are many examples here in our country.  What is my responsibility to the brother or sister I see on the street?  To the residential school survivor?  To indiginaity as a whole in the diologue of future?  How do we protect from despair, when there may be many of these calls in our lives, but not accept inaction as a reasonable response?

Butler argues that by the act of being born we are drawn into a relationship with the larger community, a relationship which we cannot dismiss and must find ways of navigating throughout our lives.  This strikes me now as not really that different thant an indigenous world view of our relationships to one another and the requirements that those place upon us to care for each other.

Kim Anderson, in her book "A Recognition of Being"  has a section where she speaks to reader response-ability, a concept that she says is from Kimberly Blaser (Ojibway poet and proffessor) who speaks to the reader's responsibility to respond to the text and that the way a text is read is dependent on the ability of the reader to respond to it.  This is the equivalent of the traditional oral practices in natives cultures where it is assumed that "the listners has as much a part in the creation of the story as the teller.  In this way, the listner also carriers responsability for the knowledge that is transmitted."

So I am a person in relationship and responsible upon hearing stories of need and suffering.  What is my response?  What are my lessons to my children?  We live a block from the homeless mission and our backyard neighbours are an appartment full of recovering male alcholics.  Have I done my duty by proximity?  I know there is more I need to do.  There is more I need to teach my children.  I don't even have the anwers yet.  I hate that.  Living with the questions is hard.  Good, but hard.