TITLE:
The Ethical Turn: Communication as a Manifestation of the Ethical
AUTHORS:
Bilyana Martinovski
KEYWORDS:
Ethics; Communication Theory; Genocide; Theodic
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Social Sciences,
Vol.2 No.1,
January
13,
2014
ABSTRACT: This paper calls for an ethical turn in communication. It offers a
re-evaluation of Weaver’s metaphor on communication as
exchanges of information and develops Buber’s and Peters’
ideas on communication as manifestation of the ethical, where the ethical is
described as openness to otherness and communication is viewed as a tension
between reproduction of Self and reconciliation with alterity. It argues that mutuality is not a necessary
condition for the ethical because it involves intimacy that can only be discrete, and that end of theodicy is not the end of the ethical because the
ethical is a space of profound intimacy, beyond preachment. Extreme cases of
annihilation of otherness such as genocides in all
their stages and variations, can’t be described as rational in some cases than others and have deeper roots than modernity.
The ethical turn within socio-political conflicts and genocidal process meets
challenges such as the patriarchal order, implantations and involvement of the third, dehumanization, isolation for
larger contexts, traumatic disorders, and states of denial. However, the
potential of communication as reconciliation is enhanced by insights in intercultural communication, nurturing of hybrid
cultures, and distance taking techniques such as time distance, attention/topic shift, emotions such as feelings of awe and art.