TZVETAN TODOROV
377
look for the look that sees him: this is the event through which the child
enters into a distinctly human world.
Why is this? Because the child, through this action, identifies simul–
taneously a being beyond itself (the one who must observe him) as well
as the independent being that he himself is (the one observed by others).
This is no less than the birth of consciousness itself.
In
this light, we can
see that Kojeve's thesis is only partially satisfactory. From an anthropo–
logical perspective, one may say that a specifically human existence begins
with the recognition of what we receive from without, from another.
This was already affirmed by Rousseau, the likely inspiration for Hegel on
this point: at the dawn of humankind, "each began to observe others, and
to wish to be observed himself"
(Inequality).
But not all such recognition
necessarily implies a struggle to the death; here we must abandon Kojeve.
The individual's existence as a specifically human being begins not on a
battlefield but in the baby's attraction of his mother's gaze-a situation, it
must be said, that few had the opportunity to observe until fairly recent–
ly. True, this recogni tion contains no approval, no val ue judgment (as
Kojeve would have it); the mother merely affirms the existence of the
child and no more. Yet the significance of this is enormous, since up to
this moment the child, as it were, does no more than live; thereafter, he
also begins to exist.
There is no humanity without recognition, without society, without
intersubjectivity. But without love? We cannot say what its absence would
mean for the species as a whole, but we do know that certain individuals,
sadly, end up spencling their entire lives without knowing love. "Monsieur
Hamil, can one live without love?" asks little Momo in Roman Gary's
masterpiece
La vie devant soi.
'''Yes,' he said, and lowered his head as if in
shame. I began to cry." Yet those who do not know love are still obvious–
ly human. Love is not necessary to maintain either life or existence, which
is born of recognition rather than love.
Would Selma Lagerlof clisagree with this conclusion? I think not. She
had no desire to suggest that Jan was not a human being before the birth
of his little girl, but rather that, through his love for her, he realizes his
potential identity, the highest element of the human condition. The phrase
"true human being" must be understood not as a point of fact but as a
value judgment. The best human life (and not mere human life) is lived in
love, Lagerlof seems to say. Has this always been so?
It
is difficult, if not
impossible, to answer this question. We never encounter the feeling oflove
in itself, but always only its representations. That the latter are constantly
in
f1
ux does not mean that the same is necessarily true of love. Let us then
focus on what we can know through our own intuition: love in the here
and now, at the end of the second millennium.
