眾聲喧嘩時的「非常」與「日常」莎娣•史密斯的《白牙》與倫理的偶然與必然

Everyday Miracles in the Multicultural Carnival Zadie Smith's White Teeth and the Contingency and Exigency of the Ethical Act

自從千禧年出版至今，學者莫不由移民與離散的觀點，來解讀莎娣•史密斯（Sadie Smith）的《白牙》（White Teeth）所彰顯的「嘉年華式」認同政治。這種一面倒的閱讀趨勢，顯然反映出當前移民與離散研究對於身份認同議題的關注。認同議題雖是《白牙》探討的重要課題，但是這本厚達四百多頁的力作，不僅關切文化認同的問題，也探討在現代強調差異的離散情境下，主體性的重塑（由絕對性的差異導向相對性的差異）與「倫理生活」的可能（何謂真正的倫理行動或抉擇）。本篇論文擬由史密斯的《白牙》談起，援引艾瑞克•桑特勒（Eric Santner）的「日常生活的精神神學觀」（the psychotheology of the everyday）、斯拉維•紀傑克（Slavoj Žižek）的「倫理行動」說（the ethical act），試圖跳出認同議題，切入離散情境下日常生活的斷裂與不安，藉此路徑筆者試以論述離散與倫理的交集，並檢視在多元民主社會與日常生活的脈絡下，「倫理行動」的可能。本文認為：日常生活的「非常」與「偶然」，不僅如紀傑克所言，展現出主體反思性的極限，更重要的是，在「非常」與「偶然」交錯出現的情境之下，「奇蹟」似乎也伴隨而至，以一種看似「沒有什麼理由或道理」的方式，靈光乍現的短暫浮現，體現「一直未來卻該來到的救贖」。這剎那充滿了宗教啟示的意涵，也呼應了艾瑞克•桑特勒在《日常生活的精神神學》對於「日常生活」的「非常」時刻所觀察到的倫理意涵。

Ever since its publication in 2001, Zadie Smith's White Teeth has earned critical acclaim and widespread media attention. Critics hail the novel for its negotiation with multiculturalism, rewriting of Englishness, and celebration of heterogeneous identities that are both hybridized and carnivalesque. That most critics have ”seen” nothing else in the novel but identity politics reflects, on the one hand, that such ”identity talk” continues to cast its spell on the critical community today. On the other hand, this collective identitarianism also suggests theoretical fixation and aporia, as critics were blackmailed into a conceptual deadlock framed either by the logic of specificity or by that of the community. Whereas it is undeniable that Smith's novel does underscore ethnic differences, it is a novel that also poses questions about the reconfiguration of subjectivity and probes into the possibilities of conducting a life style that is ethical as well as non-indifferent. This paper proposes to respond to the ethical possibilities entertained by Smith's White Teeth by reading it alongside and with Eric Santner's formulation of the ”psychotheology of the everyday” and Slavoj Žižek's proposition of the ”ethical act. ” I argue that heightened identity conflicts in a multi-ethnic context figure as excesses that cut into the fabrics of the subject's everyday life, with the cuts and disruptions signifying not only subversions and resistances but also calls that demand the subject both to confront the contingency of everyday life, and to act under the ethical imperative to go beyond ”the uncanny interpellation of ideological interpellations.” The ruptures of the everyday life, so understood, mark the arrival of miracles, for these everyday ruptures not only ”reveal” the stakes of the subject's reliance upon excessive reflexivity but also show the utter contingency of events that change the very course of life as it is lived. The path to redemption is a course of love that opens the subject to moments of surprises and traumatic intimacy with the Neighbor-as-Stranger-as-Foreigner-as-Brother. It is an ethics of the everyday that goes beyond the confines of the everyday.