Per un messianismo dell’umano: la prospettiva di Emmanuel Levinas

The aim of this text is to join Emmanuel Levinas in considering, or reconsidering, the concept of messianism – an extremely old and controversial concept, but equally “timely” at the present time. Indeed, for both Levinas and his commentator, the messianism that must be envisaged is one that has ceased to save through devotion or procuration, and instead – for God yet without God – leads “toward a new humanity”. In an unprecedented manner, this messianism does not appeal to a Messiah who is yet to come, whether from the ranks of kings or beggars. Instead, it calls on every person to be “otherwise” human, perhaps “utopically” human; to be one who bears the entire weight of humanity at all times through a compulsion to take up the burden of responsibility for a single other person until their death, the death of the other. This is the hyperbole of a messianism of the human.