Lord, we are the people that long to see your face

The Jewish philosopher Emmanuel Levinas argues that our primary sense of ethical responsibility is awakened by the face of the other. Prior to any sense of individual subjectivity, it is the irreducibility of difference and the vulnerability that I recognise in the face of the other that evokes a response in me, allowing me to position myself in the world in relation to the other's need.

This is an ethical vision with the ability to help us refocus our gaze away from an aesthetic dictated by the advertising and entertainment industries, and instead recognise beauty in the ordinary claims that the human face in its desire and pathos put upon us, in encounters of mutual vulnerability and trust.

"Face Values" - Tina Beattie,
Feature Article,
4 November 2006
The Tablet