Hospitality and Haiti

Haitian ImmigrationIt has been suggested, somewhat radically, that what Haiti needs more than aid is to leave Haiti. Not because Haiti is “hell on earth”, rather, because Haiti has been systematically oppressed: first from French colonial rule, then contemporary capitalism (IMF, et. al). As such, Haiti is as much a “man”-made disaster as it is tectonic. Derrida suggested, long ago, that the puzzles of ethics drive us from shear Otherness to hospitality. Haitians are Others, if for no other reason than Canadian and American racist immigration policies. By recognizing an ethics of hospitality we open the possibility of both accepting Haitian immigration as well as violence. Immigrating Haitians would assert a certain kind of dominion over their new land, and hospitality requires succumbing to this violent imposition. Even without the Derridean theory, immigration is, in the words of Corb Lund, “mighty neighbourly”.

Economics standing in for politics: China

I’ve often thought that mainstream economic study (neoliberalism) has a problematic relationship with ethics; this couldn’t have been put clearer than by a recent Nation article,
“In China, economics stands in for politics as the substance of public debate and conversation. You cannot call for elections or for a free Tibet, but you can publish heated polemics about the government’s decisions to continue to purchase US treasury bonds.”

I believe that there are historical contingencies for why neoliberalism is so divorced from discussion of ethics (these are now ontological features of neoliberalism, but at one point they were open questions). It’s interesting to hear a practical example of how seemingly innocuous study can shape other discourse and thus soiety.