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double “dispossession” in which he is trapped. As Butler goes on to
analyze such an experience of “aporetic dispossession” undergone
by many contemporaries, she proceeds to call for “a conception of
reflexivity in which the self acts upon the terms of its formation
precisely in order to open in some way to a sociality that exceeds
(and possibly precedes) social regulation. . . . So this form of
reflexivity seeks to resist the return to self in favor of a relocation of
the self as a relational term” (Butler & Athanasiou, 2014:
69-70).
The alternative kind of dispossession that Butler discusses
—
in which
one is dispossessed of himself or herself by virtue of being moved or
disconcerted by the encounter with the other
—
is a prelude to one’s
arriving at and opening up some “new modes of sociality and
freedom” that will once again bring one back into “being-together”
or “being-with” the other.
In a way, both Landsman and Mendel are exiles in their home
communities, and both have to apologize constantly for their pitiful
lives. Whereas Landsman is defined and then excluded by a statist
form of biopolitics, Mendel is delineated and exiled by a biopolitics
informed by religious fervor. Landsman, as a residential immigrant,
finds himself excepted by the US, whose American exceptionalism
collides with Jewish/Zionist exceptionalism. Mendel, on the other
hand, embodies the ultimate paradox inherent in any discourse of
exceptionalism. As a Messiah-to-be, one who is chosen by God to
speak for and inspire Diasporic Jews, Mendel has, and needs to
retain and maintain, his exceptional status, as he is divinely favored,
uniquely talented, and indescribably charismatic, to serve the needs
of Zionists in their efforts not only to forge a nationalism, but also
to actualize this nationalist aspiration by establishing a Jewish state
on earth. In other words, Mendel has been dispossessed and
rendered unintelligible by the discourse of Jewish exceptionalism.
The discourse itself is promoted by Zionist ideologues as it is infused
with nationalistic fervor. To those who promote exceptionalism,
Mendel is either a Messiah or a “husk” (140), a living corpse. There
simply isn’t any other option available for him. As a figure that