카트린 말라부와의 대담

* 공개 발행이 안 되어서 예전 것을 지우고 다시 업로드함. 테스트 중일 뿐. 

카트린 말라부와의 대담
A CONVERSATION WITH CATHERINE MALABOU

CATHERINE MALABOU(University of Paris X-Nanterre)
NOËLLE VAHANIAN(Lebanon Valley College)

* 인터뷰 원문 PDF 파일
http://d.hatena.ne.jp/pilate/20130121/1358745706


The questions of the following interview are aimed at introducing Catherine Malabou's work and philosophical perspective to an audience who may have never heard of her, or who knows only that she was a student of Derrida. What I hope that this interview reveals, however, is that Malabou "follows" deconstruction in a timely, and also useful way. For one of the common charges levied against deconstruction, at least by American critics, is that by opening texts to infinite interpretations, deconstruction unfortunately does away with more than the master narratives; it mires political agency in identity politics and offers no way out the socio-historical and political constructs of textuality other than the hope anchored in faith at best, but otherwise simply in the will to believe that the stance of openness to the other will let the other become part of the major discourses without thereby marginalizing or homogenizing them.
아래에 수록한 인터뷰의 질문은 카트린 말라부의 작업과 철학적 관점을 그녀에 대해 들어본 적이 없거나 그녀가 데리다의 학생이었다는 것만 알고 있을 뿐인 독자들에게 소개하는 것을 목표로 합니다. 하지만 제가 이 인터뷰로 드러내고 싶은 것은 말라부가 탈구축을 어떻게 시의적절하게, 또한 유용한 방식으로 “따라가는가[추종하는가]”입니다. 왜냐하면 [다른 곳은 어찌됐든] 적어도 미국의 비평가들이 탈구축에 대해 이구동성으로 부과하는 혐의 중 하나는 탈구축이 텍스트를 무한한 해석에 열어버림으로써 안타깝게도 주인 서사들을 없애는 것 이상의 짓을 저질렀다는 것입니다. 즉, 탈구축은 정치적 행위[political agency]를 정체성 정치의 진창에 빠뜨렸으며, 텍스트성의 사회-역사적이고 정치적인 구축물에서[사회, 역사, 정치가 텍스트에 의해 만들어진 구축물이라고 보는 길에서] 빠져나올 길을 제공하지 않는다는 것입니다. 그리하여 잘해 봤자 믿음에 닻을 내린 희망 말고는[믿음 말고는 아무 것에도 기댈 수 없는 희망 외에는] 아무것도 없다는 것입니다. 그것도 아니라면, 타자에 대한 개방성의 자세가 주요[다수자적] 담론들을 주변화하거나 동종화하지 않고서 타자를 이런 담론들의 일부가 되게 할 것이라고 믿으려는 의지 말고는 아무것도 없다는 거죠. 


How does Malabou "follow" deconstruction? Indeed, she does not disavow her affiliation with Derrida; she, too, readily acknowledges that there is nothing outside the text. But, by the same token, she also affirms Hegel's deep influence on her philosophy. From Hegel, she borrows the central concept of her philosophy, namely, the concept of plasticity; the subject is plastic ― not elastic, it never springs back into its original form ― it is malleable, but it can explode and create itself anew. In this way, there is nothing outside the text, but the text is no less natural than it is cultural, it is no less biological than it is spiritual (or mental), it is no less material than it is historical. That is, the subject is not merely and ineluctably the social-historical-economic construct of an age (at the peak of modernity, a rational autonomous subject; in a post-industrial and global world, a highly adaptable, flexible, and disciplined subject). Instead, the subject can resist hopeless determinism by virtue of a dialectic inscribed at the heart of her own origination. So Malabou is a "follower" of deconstruction in that she affirms inventionalism, and in so doing, she is able to transcend the limit of deconstruction ― différance ― with “plasticity.” 
말라부는 어떻게 탈구축을 '따라가고' 있을까요? 실제로 그녀는 데리다와의 연계[affiliation]를 부정하는 것이 아닙니다. 즉, 그녀 또한 텍스트의 바깥에는 아무것도 없다[텍스트의 외부는 존재하지 않는다]는 것을 흔쾌히 인정합니다. 그러나 똑같은 징표에 의해, 그녀는 자신의 철학에 헤겔이 심대한 영향을 미쳤다는 것을 긍정[확언]합니다. 그녀는 헤겔에게서 자신의 철학의 중심이 되는 개념인 가소성[plasticity, 可塑性] 개념을 차용하고 있습니다. 즉, 주체는 가소적인 것이며(신축 등이 자유자재라는 의미가 아니라 주체의 원래 형태로 되돌아갈 수 없다는 미), 주체는 주변으로 떠내려가기 쉬운 것이기는 하지만, 주체로부터 바깥으로 뛰쳐나오거나, 스스로를 새로 만들고 바꿀 수 있는 것입니다. 이런 흐름에서, 텍스트의 외부는 존재하지 않으며, 텍스트는 자연의 것이라기보다는 문화의 것, 생물학적인 것이라기보다 정신적인 것(혹은 심적인 것), 물질적인 것이라기보다 역사적인 것이게 됩니다. 즉, 주체는, 피할 수 없게, 어떤 시대의 사회-역사-경제적인 구축물(모더니티의 절정에서는 이성적이고 자율적인 주체, 포스트산업화・전지구적 세계화에서는 고도로 순응적이고, 유순하고 규율 잡힌 주체)이라는 것이 아닙니다. 오히려 주체는 꼼짝할 수 없는 결정론에 대해, 그녀의 독창성의 중심에 명기銘記된 어떤 변증법 덕분에 저항할 수 있는 것입니다. 그래서 말라부가 탈구축의 "추종자"인 것은, 그녀가 ≪창발주의≫를 긍정하고, 그 위에서 그 긍정에 의해 탈구축(≪차연≫)의 한계를 ‘가소성’과 함께 극복할 수 있다는 점에 있어서입니다. 

But even this oxymoronic characterization of Malabou as a "follower" of Derrida and Hegel is improper; to be fair, one could add that she is also a "follower" of neurobiology and neuroscience. She will claim that the subject is a neuronal subject, and, in agreement with recent neuroscientific research, that such a subject is plastic; she will claim that capitalistic society mirrors the neuronal organization of the brain, and that the brain mirrors capitalistic society in that both are de-centralized and highly adaptable and flexible; she will anchor the origin of the self in a biologically determined brain. At the same time, however, she will also be aware of the reductionistic tendencies of scientific discourse to deny its own ideological paradigm and to bracket out the genius of plasticity: the neuronal subject is docile, pliable, and adaptable, but, she emphasizes, it is also capable of resistance and rebellion. And so the program of Malabou's philosophy, unlike that of much of typical philosophy of mind and neuroscience, is not about promoting a capitalistic ideological paradigm by seeking ways to enhance the docile and disciplined neuronal subject; instead, it is about inciting us to take charge of our own brain, of our own subjectivity, and thereby, of our society. We can do this, not by denying that there is continuity between our brain and our thoughts, between the neuronal and the mental, between the natural and the cultural, but by recognizing that this continuity is not without contradiction, by recognizing that the passage from the neuronal to the mental is the site of contestation whereby freedom is established precisely because the brain is naturally plastic.
 그러나 말라부를 데리다와 헤겔의 '추종자'라고 보는 이런 모순어법[자가당착]적인 규정도 부적합합니다. 공평을 기한다면, 그녀가 신경생물학과 신경과학의 '추종자'이기도 하다고 덧붙일 수 있을 테죠. 그녀는 주체가 뉴런적 주체라고, 그리고 최근의 신경과학연구에 보조를 맞추면서 그런 주체가 가소적이라고 주장할 겁니다. 또 그녀는 자본주의 사회가 뇌의 뉴런적 조직화를 [거울처럼 그대로] 베낀 것이라고, 뇌와 자본주의 사회 둘 다 탈-중심화되어 있고 고도로 적응적이며 유연(flexible)하다는 점에서 뇌가 자본주의 사회를 베꼈다고 주장할 겁니다. 그녀는 자기(the self)의 기원을 생물학적으로 결정된 뇌에 정박시킬 겁니다. 하지만 이와 동시에, 그녀는 과학적 담론이 자신의 이데올로기적 패러다임을 부정하고 하는, 그리고 가소성의 진수(genius)를 괄호치려고 하는 과학적 담론의 환원주의적 경향들을 잘 알고 있을 겁니다. 즉, 뉴런적 주체는 유순하고 고분고분하고 적응적이지만, 그러나 그녀는 뉴런적 주체가 또한 저항과 반역을 할 수 있다는 점을 강조합니다. 그래서 말라부 철학의 프로그램은, 마음과 신경과학의 전형적인[틀에 박힌] 철학의 대다수의 프로그램과는 달리, 유순하고 규율 잡힌 뉴런적 주체를 증강시키는 길을 찾아냄으로써 자본주의적 이데올로기적 패러다임을 홍보하는 것과는 관련이 없습니다. 오히려 말라부 철학의 프로그램은 우리 자신의 뇌를, 우리 자신의 주체성을, 그에 따라 우리 사회를 떠맡아 책임지도록 우리에게 호소하는 것과 관련되어 있습니다. 우리는 이렇게 할 수 있습니다. 우리의 뇌와 사고, 뉴런적인 것과 심적인(mental) 것, 자연적인 것과 문화적인 것 사이에 연속성이 있다는 것을 부정함으로써가 아니라, 이런 연속성이 모순이 없지 않다는 것을 인정함으로써, 뉴런적인 것에서 심적인 것으로의 이행이 논박의 장소라는 것을, 따라서 뇌가 본디 가소적이기 때문에 자유가 수립된다는 것을 인정함으로써 이렇게 할 수 있는 겁니다. 


The interview was conducted at Professor Malabou’s apartment in Paris in July 2007. I would like to express my gratitude to Professor Malabou for her hospitality and to Carissa Devine for her assistance with the transcription.
이 인터뷰는 2007년 7월, 파리에 있는 말라부 교수의 아파트에서 이뤄졌습니다. 말라부 교수의 환대에 대해, 그리고 대담을 글로 옮기는 것을 거들어준 카리사 데빈느에게 감사의 뜻을 표하고 싶습니다. 


Noëlle Vahanian : You are a philosopher, professor of philosophy, author of the Future of Hegel, Counterpath, Le Change Heidegger, Que faire de notre cerveau?. You were a close student of the late Jacques Derrida. But you’re not a follower of deconstruction; for that, of course, would go against deconstruction itself. How did you come to be a philosopher, and how did you come to work with Derrida?
노엘 바하니안 : 당신은 철학자이며 철학교수이고, 『헤겔의 미래』, 『샛길』, 『하이데거 변화(Le Change Heidegger)』, 『우리의 뇌를 어찌할까(Que faire de notre cerveau?)』의 저서도 있죠? 당신은 후기 자크 데리다의 가까운 학생이었습니다. 그러나 당신은 탈구축의 추종자가 아닙니다. 그 때문에 물론 탈구축 자체에 반대하고 계실지도 모르겠어요. 당신은 어떻게 철학자가 됐고 어떻게 데리다와 작업하게 됐습니까?

Catherine Malabou : I think the way I became a philosopher and the way I happened to work with Derrida are about the same thing. I would say that I wasn’t a philosopher before I met him. I used to be just a student in philosophy, and things really started when I met him. At the same time, you’re right, I wouldn’t define myself as a follower of deconstruction; unless we define the word to follow, what “to follow” means. The issue of “following” constitutes one of the leading threads of Derrida’s book The Post Card. 1 In this book, Derrida undermines the classical order of filiation: first comes the father, then the son or the daughter. He undermines this order and shows that “to follow” may sometimes (or perhaps always) means “to precede.” Let us think of this extraordinary postcard showing Socrates writing under Plato’s dictation: “I have not yet recovered from this revelatory catastrophe: Plato behind Socrates. Me, I always knew it, and they did too, those two I mean. What a couple. Socrates turns his back to Plato, who has made him write whatever he wanted while pretending to receive it from him” (12).
카트린 말라부 : 저는 제가 철학자가 된 방식도, 데리다와 우연히 작업을 하게 된 방식도 똑같은 것에 관해서[똑같은 것]라고 생각합니다. 데리다와 만나기 전에 저는 철학자가 아니었다고 말할 수 있을 겁니다. 저는 그저 철학을 하는 한 명의 학생일 뿐이었고, 제가 그와 만났을 때 모든 것이 실제로 시작됐습니다. 이와 동시에 저는 제 자신을 탈구축의 추종자라고 정의하고 싶어 하지 않는다는 점에서 당신 말이 옳습니다. 우리가 추종하다라는 단어를, '따라간다'가 무엇을 뜻하는지를 정의하지 않는 한에서는 말입니다. '따라가기[추종하기]'라는 쟁점은 데리다의 책인 『우편엽서 : 소크라테스에서 프로이트와 그 너머로(The Post Card: From Socrates to Freud and Beyond)』의 안내실 중 하나를 구성합니다. 이 책에서 데리다는 부자관계[filiation]라는 고전적 질서를 무너뜨립니다. 처음에는 아버지가 오고, 그 다음에는 아들이나 딸이 오죠. 그는 이 질서를 허물어뜨리고, '따라간다[추종하기]'가 때로 (혹은 아마 항상) '앞선다'를 의미하기도 한다는 것을 보여주고 있습니다. 플라톤이 구술하고 있는 것을 소크라테스가 받아 적고 있음을 보여주는 이 비범한 우편엽서에 대해 생각해봅시다. "나는 아직 소크라테스의 뒤에 플라톤이 있다는 계시적인 파국으로부터 회복되지 못했다. 나는 말하자면, 그것을 항상 알았고, 그들도 알았습니다, 네, 두 사람 모두가 말이죠. 커플인거죠. ≪소크라테스≫가 플라톤에게 ≪등≫을 돌리고[플라톤의 배웅을 받고] 있는 것입니다. 플라톤이 자신이 원한 것은 무엇이든 소크라테스더러 적게 만들면서도 마치 소크라테스에게서 받아 적고 있는 척하고 있는 겁니다."(12)

Then if to follow does not always mean to come after, or to imitate or to copy, if following implies a certain dimension of anticipation, then in this case, I would accept to define myself as a follower of deconstruction.
그렇다면 따라간다[추종한다]라는 것이 반드시 뒤에서 따라간다는 것, 모방하거나 복제한다는 것이 아니라면, 따라간다는 것이 뭔지 모르게 선취[anticipation]의 차원을 포함하는 것이라면, 그것이 조건이라면, 제 자신을 탈구축의 추종자라고 정의하는 것을 저는 받아들일 겁니다.
      

 

NV: Derrida once said in a film interview something to the effect that no philosopher could be his mother. I am paraphrasing here. He hoped that deconstruction would change or disrupt the patriarchal alignment of philosophy, reason, and thought. And this being the case, a philosopher could, if I am remembering correctly, perhaps be his daughter. So what would the philosopher look like, think like, write like who could be your mother as opposed to you father?
NV : 데리다는 언젠가 영화 인터뷰에서 그 어떤 철학자도 자신의 어머니일 수 없을 것이라는 취지의 말을 했습니다. 저는 지금 데리다의 말을 쉽고 고쳐 말하고 있습니다. 그는 탈구축이 철학, 이성, 그리고 사유의 부권적인 동맹관계를 바꾸기를, 혹은 파열시키기를 바랐습니다. 그리고 이런 사정이기에, 제가 정확하게 기억하고 있다면, 한 철학자는 아마 철학자의 딸일 수도 있겠죠. 그렇다면 철학자는 어떤 인물일까요? 어떤 것을 생각할까요? 어떤 것을 쓸까요? 그 철학자는 당신의 아버지와 대립하는 어머니일 수 있을까요?

CM: A mother-like philosopher would of course be a figure of exclusion. As you know, I’ve always worked on major philosophers, who occupy a central position in history of metaphysics (as well as in its deconstruction). A mother philosopher would on the contrary come from a secluded site, a repressed locus. Such a maternity, if there is one, implies that exists a mode of transmission, of inheritance, of genealogy which exceeds the traditional definitions of these terms within the history of philosophy. Which exceeds also, by the same token, the traditional understanding of the mother. The woman philosopher who says the most accurate things on this point is no doubt Luce Irigaray when she shows that the mother is traditionally seen as “matter” or “materiality” as opposed to “form”.
CM : 물론 어머니 같은 철학자는 배제의 한 형상[a figure]일 테죠. 아시다시피 저는 항상 중요한 철학자들에 관해 작업했습니다. 그들은 형이상학의 역사에서(뿐만 아니라 그 탈구축에서) 중심적인 위치를 차지하고 있습니다. 이와 반대로 어머니인 철학자는 차단된[남들과 거의 접촉을 하지 않은] 장소, 억압된 현장[locus]에서 유래했을 겁니다. 그런 모성은, 만일 이런 게 있다면 하는 얘깁니다만, 전달[전승]의 양식, 상속의 양식, 계보[유전]의 양식이 존재한다는 것을 내포합니다. 이런 양식은 철학사 내부에서 [이뤄진] 이런 용어들에 관한 전통적 정의를 초과합니다. 또한, 똑같은 징표에 의해, 어머니에 대한 전통적 이해도 초과합니다. 이 점에 관해 가장 날카로운 것을 말한 여성 철학자는 틀림없이 뤼스 이리가레입니다. 그녀는 전통적으로 어머니가 '형상'과 대립되는 '질료', 혹은 '물질성'으로 간주된다고 보여주니까요. 
She in fact thinks the feminine as what is excluded by this binary opposition itself, as what also exceeds such an opposition. In Bodies that Matter, Judith Butler writes: “Irigaray’s task is to reconcile neither the form/matter distinction nor the distinctions between bodies and souls (…). Rather, her effort is to show that these binary oppositions are formulated through the exclusion of a field of disruptive possibilities. (…) Irigaray’s intervention in the history of the form/matter distinction underscores ‘matter’ as the site at which the feminine is excluded from philosophical binaries” (35). 2
 사실 그녀는 여성적인 것이 이런 이항대립 그 자체에 의해 배제된다고, 또한 이런 대립관계를 초과한다고 생각합니다. 『문제/질료인 신체』(Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of Sex (Routledge Classics))에서 주디스 버틀러는 이렇게 씁니다. "이리가레의 과제는 형상/질료의 구별을 화해시키는 것도, 신체와 혼의 구별을 화해시키는 것도 아니다. ... 오히려 그녀가 공을 들이고 있는 것은, 이런 이항대립이 파열적 가능성들의 장의 배제를[방해가 될 가능성들이 있는 분야를 배제하는 것을] 통해 형성된다는 것을 보여주는 데 있다. 형상/질료의 구별의 역사에 대한 이리가레의 개입은, 여성적인 것이 철학적 이항성으로부터 배제되는 장소로서의 '질료'를 강조한다"(35). 
My mother philosopher would then certainly belong to this “constitutive outside” or to this excessive materiality.
 그래서 저의 어머니 철학자는 이런 "구성적 외부", 혹은 초과적 물질성에 확실히 속할 겁니다.  

NV: With that in mind, does your philosophy envision a kind of subjectivity that allows a legitimate philosophical voice to a woman?
ＮＶ：그것을 염두에 둔다면, 당신의 철학은 여성에게 정당성 있는 철학적 목소리를 허용하는 일종의 주체성을 마음속에 그리고 있는 것인가요?

CM: The problem is that there is no “essence” of feminity. This statement is something on which most women philosophers or writers agree (Beauvoir, Kristeva, Wittig, Butler…). The excessive materiality I just mentioned cannot be said to be something, otherwise it wouldn’t be able to transgress the limits of ontology. It is then somehow impossible to create or imagine what a “femininephilosophical” subjectivity might be…
　ＣＭ：문제는 여성성의 '본질'이라는 게 없다는 것입니다. 이 진술은 대부분의 여성 철학자나 저술가들(보봐르, 크리스테바, 위티그, 버틀러 ...)이 동의하는 바입니다. 제가 방금 언급한 초과적 물질성은 어떤 것이라고[무엇인가로서 ≪존재한다≫고] 말해질 수 없는 것입니다. 그렇지 않다면 이것이 존재론의 한계를 위반할 수는 없을 겁니다. 그러니까 아무튼 "여성적-철학적" 주체성일 수도 있을 것을 창조하거나 상상하는 것은 다소 불가능합니다.  

NV: Why not?
NV : 왜 불가능할까요?

CM: Again, an ontology of the feminine would no doubt bear all the symptoms of the traditional ontology — that is, an exclusion of the feminine itself. As we know, the discourse of and on property, propriety or subjectivity is precisely the discourse which has excluded women from the domain of Being (and perhaps even of beings). I will refer to Irigaray again on this point : “Woman neither is nor has an essence.”
CM : 다시 한 번 말하지만, 여성적인 것의 존재론은 전통적인 존재론의 모든 징후를 틀림없이 담지할 것입니다. 즉, 여성적인 것 그 자체의 배제입니다. 알다시피, 재산, 예절, 주체성의 담론 및 이것들에 대한 담론은, <존재>의 (아마 심지어 존재자들의) 영역으로부터 여성들을 배제한 담론 바로 그것입니다. 이 지점에서 저는 또 다시 이리가레를 언급할 것입니다. "여성은 본질도 아니고 본질을 가진 것도 아니다."
At the same time, Heidegger’s definition of the subject as Da-sein, that is, an instance which is neither man nor woman, but Da-sein, or Es, as in the German neutral gender, is not quite satisfactory either. It would still be too ontologically rigid to characterize the feminine. Woman has no essence, but that doesn’t mean that woman is neutral either. I refer to Derrida’s decisive analysis concerning the motif of gender in Heidegger (Geschlecht, in Psyché).3
 이와 동시에, 주체를 ≪현-존재[거기-있음]≫라고 한 하이데거의 정의, 즉 여성도 남성도 아닌 심급이 있는데요, 독일어의 중성어인 ≪현-존재≫든 ≪에스[이드]≫이든, 꽤 만족스럽지는 않습니다. ≪현존재≫는 여전히 존재론적으로 너무 경직된 것이기에, 여성적인 것을 특징지을 수 없습니다. 여성에게는 본질은 없습니다. 그러나 그렇다고 해서 여성이 중성적이라는 것도 아닙니다. 저는 하이데거에게서의 젠더의 모티프에 관한 데리다의 결정적인 분석을 가리키고 있습니다.

NV : When you write philosophically though, especially about what it means to be a subject or an individual, do you think that this is representative of what you understand is a feminine voice, or a feminine philosophical voice? Or is it representative of what some men might say is a feminine philosophical voice?
NV：당신이 철학적으로 글을 쓸 때, 특히 주체나 개인이라는 것이 무엇을 의미하는가에 관해 쓸 때, 당신은 당신이 이해한 것이 여성의 목소리, 혹은 철학적인[철학에 있어서의] 여성의 목소리를 대표하고 있다고 생각하시나요? 아니면 몇몇 남자들이 말할 수도 있을 것이 철학적인[철학에 있어서의] 여성의 목소리를 대표한다고 생각하시나요?    

CM: I wish to say a word about my own conception of the matter/form problem in relation to the feminine. If we consider, as I do too, that the feminine is a kind of materiality which is produced as the outside of the matter/form opposition, then a feminine philosophical voice may be heard either from within this opposition (as what has always been repressed in it), or from a total exteriority. As we know, Irigaray made up her mind to mime the philosophical tone as well as the philosophical rationality in her writings. This mimicry was supposed to be a way of subverting the metaphysical discourse. I myself chose to settle my thinking at the very heart of this discourse, to dwell within it. This a very classical way of doing, and there is nothing original in this gesture.
CM : 여성적인 것과 관련된 질료/형상 문제에 관한 제 자신의 개념화[이해]에 관해 조금 말하고 싶네요. 만일 우리가, 아니 저도 또한 그렇게 생각합니다만, 여성적인 것이 질료/형상이라는 [이항] 대립의 바깥에 있는 것으로서 산출되는 일종의 물질성이라고 생각한다면, 철학적인[철학에 있어서의] 여성의 목소리는 이런 대립 내부로부터 (이런 대립 안에서 항상 억압되어 있던 것으로서) 들리거나, 아니면 전적인 외부성[전혀 관계가 없는 외부성]으로부터 들리게 될지도 모릅니다. 알다시피, 이리가레는 철학의 어조[기저]를, 철학적 합리성을 자신의 저술에서 ≪몸짓으로 흉내 내기로≫(mime) 마음을 먹었습니다[굳게 각오를 다졌습니다]. 이런 흉내 내기[의태, 擬態]는 형이상학적 담론을 전복하는 하나의 방식으로 꼽히는 것이었습니다. 제 자신은 제 사고를 바로 이 담론의 핵심부 자체에 정착시키자고, 그 내부에 거주하자[자리 잡고 살자]고 선택했습니다. 이것은 매우 고전적인 행동 방식으로, 이런 몸짓에는 독창적이라곤 아무것도 없습니다. 
That said, I am investing the concept of plasticity which, in Hegel, means less the  interplay between matter and form than the interplay between form and itself, that is, the relationship between form and form. In the Phenomenology of Spirit, Hegel show that the subject is plastic in the sense that she or he is able to receive form (passivity) and to give form (activity). I certainly do not intend to show that these modes of being of the subject represent the masculine/feminine relationship. I am interested in showing that this relationship between form and itself is not founded on a difference. The two modes of being of the subject are not different from one another, but each of them transforms itself into the other. With plasticity, we are not facing a pre-given difference, but a process of metamorphosis. In other words, the Hegelian subjects trans-subjects itself constantly. Its form is its matter.
 제가 가소성 개념에 내기를 걸고 있다고 말씀드린 것, 그것은 헤겔에게서는 질료와 형상의 상호작용이라기보다도 형상과 형상 그 자체의 상호작용, 즉 형상과 형상의 관계입니다. 『정신현상학』에서 헤겔이 증명한 것은, 주체는 가소적이라는 것입니다만, 그것이 가소적인 것은 그/녀가 형상을 받아들일(수동성) 수 있고 또한 형상을 줄(능동성) 수 있다는 의미에서입니다. 이런 주체의 존재양식이 남성/여성 사이의 관계를 표상하고 있다는 것을 증명할 생각은 전혀 없습니다. 제가 흥미를 갖고 증명하려고 하는 것은 이 형상과 형상 자체 사이의 관계가 어떤 ≪차이≫에 정초되어 있는 것이 아니라는 겁니다. 두 개의 주체의 존재양식은 서로 상이한 것이 아닙니다만, 한 쪽은 자신의 형상을 다른 쪽의 형상으로 바꾸는 것입니다. 가소성에 의해, 우리는 주어진 차이에 마주대하는 것이 아니라, 형태 변성의 과정에 마주대하는 것입니다. 즉, 헤겔의 주체는 끊임없이 그 자체로 ≪관-주체들≫입니다. 주체의 형상은 그 질료입니다. 
We know that Deleuze’s very strong critique of Hegel lays a foundation on the fact that dialectics is a logic which supersedes difference. According to Deleuze, the sublation of difference by contradiction amounts to an erasure of nondialectical differential relationships. Working on plasticity allows me to present an other version of the superseding of difference. To give up difference may mean that “difference” is not the right word to characterize the relationship between the two modes of being of the subject.
 아시다시피, 헤겔에 대한 들뢰즈의 통렬한 비판이 전제하고 있는 것은, 변증법이 차이를 없애는 논리라는 것이었습니다. 들뢰즈가 생각한 바에 따르면, 모순에 의해 차이가 없어지게 되면, 변증법과는 무관한 차이에 의한 관계를 말소해버리게 됩니다. 가소성에 매달리고 있는 저라면, 차이를 대신하는 다른 안을 제시할 겁니다. 차이를 포기한다는 것은 곧 두 개의 주체의 존재양식 사이의 관계를 특징짓는 데 '차이'는 적절한 말이 아니라는 것일지도 모릅니다. 
If we relate this inadequacy of difference to the gender binary problem, then we may state that the concept of “sexual difference” is not accurate. I would like to turn towards Foucault on this point. In The Hermeneutics of the subject,4 he insists upon what he calls the process of transsubjectivation (214), which consists in a trajectory within the self. This transsubjectivation doesn’t mean that you become different from what you used to be, nor that you are able to absorb the other’s difference, but that you open a space within yourself between two forms of yourself. That you oppose two forms of yourself within yourself.
 이런 차이의 부적절함을 젠더를 둘러싼 이원론적 문제로 끌어들인다면, '성적 차이'의 개념은 엄밀함이 결여되어 있다고 말할 수 있겠죠. 여기서는 푸코로 화제를 바꾸고 싶습니다. 『주체의 해석학 : 콜레주드프랑스 강의 1981-1982』에서, 푸코는 이른바 '관주체화[초월론적 주체화, transsubjectivation]'의 과정을 강조하고 있습니다(214). 그것은 자기의 ≪내부에 있는≫ [주체화의] 궤적에 그 본질이 있습니다. 이 관주체화는 전과는 ≪다른≫ 사람이 된다고 하는 것이 아닙니다. 타인의 ≪차이≫를 흡수할 수 있다는 것도 아닙니다. 오히려 관주체화란 자기의 내부에서 두 개의 자기의 형태 사이에 [차이가 아니라] 여백(a space)을 여는 것입니다. 즉, 당신이 ≪대립하고 있는≫ 것은 당신의 내부에서 당신의[당신이 취하는] 두 가지 형태입니다. 
Foucault writes: “Clear a space around the self and do not let yourself be carried away and distracted by all the sounds, faces, and people around you. (…) All your attention should be concentrated on this trajectory from self to self. Presence of self to self, precisely on account of the distance still remaining between self and self (…)” (222-223). This transsubjectivation, conceived as a journey within oneself, is the product of a transformation. Foucault underscores the Greek word ethopoiein: “Ethopoiein means making ethos, producing ethos, changing, transforming ethos, the individual’s way of being, his mode of existence” (237).
 푸코는 이렇게 씁니다. "자기의 주위에 여백을 열고, 주위를 둘러싼 모든 소리들, 얼굴들, 당신을 에워싼 사람들에 휩쓸려가 정신이 산만해지지 않도록 하라. 자기에게서 자기에 이르는 이러한 궤적에 온통 집중해야 한다. 자기에 대한 자기의 현전(presence)에. 다름 아닌 자기와 자기 사이에 아직 남아 있을 거리에 기인하는 현전에."(222-23) 자기 내부에서의 여행으로 인식되는 이러한 관주체화는 변형의 산물입니다. 푸코는 그리스어 에토포이에인(ethopoiein)을 강조합니다. "Ethopoien은 에토스를 만들기, 에토스를 생산하기, 에토스를 바꾸기, 변형하기, 개인의 존재 방식, 개인의 실존 양식을 바꾸고 변형하는 것이다."(237)
There would then be a kind of transformation which would sublate the difference between the self and itself, which would create, produce a new self as a result of the opposition between two forms at work in the self.
 그렇다면 자기와 자기 사이에 있는 [심적] 차이를 지양할지도 모르는 일종의 변형, 즉 자기의 내부에서 작동하고 있는 두 가지 형식들 사이의 대립의 결과로서 새로운 자기를 창출하거나 생산하는 일종의 변형도 있을 수 있죠. 
Plasticity might be the name of this transsubjectivation. We would find in Hegel the possibility of understanding dialectics as a process of “ethopoiein.” A plastic subject would be able to transform its way of being. This plastic ontology implies of course a plasticity of gender itself.
 가소성이란 이 관주체화의 이름일 수도 있습니다. 우리는 헤겔에게서 변증법을 'ethopoiein'의 과정으로 이해할 수 있는 가능성을 발견할 수도 있을 겁니다. 가소적인 주체는 그 존재방식을 변형할 수도 있을 겁니다. 이런 가소적인 존재론은 당연히 젠더 자체의 가소성을 내포합니다. 
Such is my interpretation of the relationship matter/form in Hegel.
이런 게 헤겔에게서의 질료/형상 관계에 대한 제 해석입니다. 

NV: Did you ever run into prejudice? 
NV : 지금까지 편견에 맞닥뜨린 적이 있습니까?

CM: Yes. It started very early when I was a student in what we call in France “les classes préparatoires,” and I was preparing for the Ecole Normale Supérieure. My teacher said, you will never succeed because you’re a woman. I have been told that philosophy was a masculine domain or field. And, ever since, I am always introduced in reference to deconstruction, even today, even if it is at a distance with deconstruction or by the question of my being a student of Derrida. People associate my name to a man’s name all the time, I am thought of as a specialist of Hegel or as a specialist of Derrida; I’m never myself.
CM : 있습니다. 아주 일찍이 시작됐는데요, 제가 프랑스에서 말하는 '입시준비반' 학생이었을 때입니다. 저는 고등사범학교 입시를 준비하고 있었습니다. 제 담임교사가 얘기하더군요, 너는 결코 성공하지 못할 거야, 네가 여자니까. 저는 철학이 남성의 영역이나 장이라는 얘기를 계속 들었죠. 그 이후에도 저는 탈구축을 참조할 때 항상 소개되고 있습니다. 지금도 그래요. 설령 제가 얘기하는 것이 탈구축과 거리를 두고 있는 것이라 하더라도 말이죠. 혹은 제가 데리다의 학생이었다는 것에 대해 질문받을 때도 그래요. 사람들은 제 이름을 언제나 한 남자의 이름에 연결시켜 버립니다. 저는 헤겔 전문가나 데리다 전문가로 생각되는 거예요. 저는 결코 제 자신이 아닌 거죠. 
I would like to add that I suffer greatly from social exclusion. I am still a Maître de conférences in Paris (and not a full professor even if I have written much more than all my colleagues). I do not find any support in the United States either and I discovered that the so called “feminine” or “feminist community” was a myth.
덧붙이고 싶은데요, 저는 사회적 배제 때문에 몹시 괴롭습니다. 저는 파리에서 아직도 조교수를 하고 있어요(다른 동료들보다 훨씬 많은 것을 썼을 썼다고 해도 정교수가 아닌 겁니다). 저는 미국에서 전혀 지지를 찾지[도움을 얻지] 못했고, 이른바 '여성적' 혹은 '여성주의적 공동체'는 신화였다는 것을 발견했습니다. 

NV: Let’s move on to that concept of plasticity, if you will, because it does have a prominent place in your work. Can you explain what it entails, what is its origin?
NV : 괜찮으시다면 가소성[plasticity] 개념으로 옮겨갈까요? 이 개념이 당신의 작업에서 두드러진 장소를 차지하고 있기 때문입니다. 이 개념이 무엇을 수반하는지, 그 기원은 무엇인지 설명해주시겠어요?

CM: I found it for the first time in Hegel. He uses it when he defines subjectivity in the preface to the Phenomenology of Spirit. The subject is not supple and soft, and it is not rigid either; it is something in between. The subject is “plastic.” Plastic, if you look in the dictionary, means the quality of a matter, which is at the same time fluid but also resisting. Once formed, it cannot go back to its previous state. For example, when the sculptor is working on the marble, the marble, once sculpted, cannot be brought back to its original state. So, plasticity is a very interesting concept because it means, at once, both openness to all kinds of influences, and resistance.
CM : 저는 이 개념을 헤겔에게서 처음 발견했습니다. 그는 『정신현상학』 서문에서 주체성을 정의할 때 이 개념을 사용합니다. 주체는 매끈하고 부드러운 것도 아니고, 딱딱한 것도 아니다, 주체는 이것들 사이에 있는 무엇인가이다. 주체는 '가소적'입니다. 가소적이라는 말을 사전에서 찾아보면, 물질(matter)의 질을 뜻합니다만, 어떤 질이냐면, 유동적(fluid)인 동시에 저항하는(resisting) 질입니다. 일단 형태를 얻으면[형성되면], 물질은 이전 상태로는 돌아갈 수 없습니다. 예를 들어 조각가가 대리석으로 작업을 하고 있다고 칩시다. 일단 조각되면 대리석은 원래 상태로는 돌아갈 수 없습니다. 그래서 가소성이 아주 흥미로운 개념입니다. 이 개념이 모든 종류의 영향에 열려 있다는 것과 그것에 대한 저항을 동시에 의미하기  때문입니다.

NV : The notion of plasticity has its origin in Hegel, but it is also a corruption of Hegel. And you achieve this corruption through the incorporation of neurobiology into your philosophy. Could you tell me why this interest in neurobiology, what does it offer?
NV : 가소성이라는 통념은 헤겔에게서 기원합니다만, 그것은 헤겔의 변형∙곡해(corruption)이기도 하죠. 그리고 당신은 신경생물학을 당신의 철학에 체내화함으로써 이 변형∙곡해를 얻습니다. 신경생물학에 관심을 가진 이유, 그리고 그것이 무엇을 제공했는지 말씀해주실 수 있나요?

CM: “Plasticity” is not a corruption of Hegel. It may be the locus for a thought of transsubjectivation, as I said previously, but it is not a corruption. Neurobiology and Hegelian philosophy may seem very remote at first sight. In fact, the concept of “plasticity,” which plays a major role within both of them, has the same meaning: it characterizes a certain kind of organization, the system’s one. Between the system of absolute knowledge or of absolute subjectivity in Hegel and the nervous system in neurobiology, the difference is not so dramatic. It is the same mode of being, the same functioning, the same economy. I allow myself to refer on that point to my book What Should We Do With Our Brains? (translation of Que faire de notre cerveau? (Paris: Bayard, 2004), by Sebastian Rand - Forthcoming from Fordham). In this book, I am insisting upon the community between different kinds of systematic plastic organizations.
CM: "가소성"은 헤겔의 변형∙곡해가 아닙니다. 전에 말씀 드렸듯이, 가소성은 관주체화를 사고하기 위한 자리일 수도 있지만, 이 개념은 곡해가 아닙니다. 신경생물학과 헤겔 철학은 언뜻 보기에 멀리 떨어진 것 같습니다. 그러나 사실상 "가소성" 개념은 이 두 연구 영역에서 주요 역할을 맡고 있으며, 똑같은 것을 의미합니다. 즉, 가소성 개념은 어떤 종류의 조직화를 특징짓습니다. ≪시스템의≫ 가소성인 것입니다. 헤겔에게서의 절대지나 절대적 주체성의 시스템과 신경생물학에서의 신경 시스템 사이의 차이는 그리 극적인[요란스러운] 것이 아닙니다. 그것은 똑같은 존재양식, 똑같은 기능, 똑같은 에코노미인 것입니다. 이 점에 관해서는 제 책인 『우리의 뇌를 어떻게 할까』를 참조해 주시겠습니까? 저는 이 책에서 상이한 종류의 시스템적인 가소적인 조직화들 사이에 공동성(community)이 있다고 주장하고 있습니다. 
It is also clear that neurobiology today offers a new perspective on subjectivity. Continental philosophers have always despised this field. They say: “No. It doesn’t concern us. It’s for analytical philosophers. It’s for Anglo-American philosophers.” Even Derrida has very harsh words against it. He says that the concept of “promise” is alien to neurobiology, which can only be concerned by the notion of “program.” This opposition between promise and program has to be deconstructed, because it marks the limits of deconstruction itself.
그리고 이것도 분명한데요, 오늘날의 신경생물학은 주체성에 관한 새로운 관점[전망]을 제공합니다. 대륙 철학자들은 항상 이 영역을 경멸했습니다. 이들은 이렇게 말하죠. "아니. 그것은 우리와 상관없다. 그것은 분석철학자들의 관심사이다. 앵글로-미국의 철학자들의 관심사이다." 데리다조차 이 영역에 대해 매우 가혹한 말을 쏟아 냈어요. 그가 말하기를 "약속" 개념[주]은 신경생물학에 생소한 것이다, 신경생물학은 "프로그램"이라는 통념에만 관심을 둘 뿐이라고요. 약속과 프로그램의 이런 대립은 탈구축되어야 합니다. 왜냐하면 이것이야말로 탈구축 자체의 한계점을 표시하는(mark) 것이니까.

NV: So you think that deconstruction would be resistant or closed to neurobiology or neuroscience?
NV : 그럼 탈구축은 신경생물학이나 신경과학에 저항하거나 닫혀 있을 것이라고 생각하세요?

CM: There was a time when continental philosophers or psychoanalysts were right to fight against a hard reductionist tendency which at work in neurosciences in general. Neurobiology was a field that was completely unto itself and refractory to continental theory, structuralism, and post-structuralism. But about fifty years ago, things totally changed. I would like to refer here to scientists like Mark Solms, Oliver Sacks, Antonio Damasio, Eric Kandel… In his preface to Mark Solms’ and Oliver Turnbull’s The Brain and the Inner World, An Introduction to the Neuroscience of Subjective Experience, Oliver Sacks reminds us that according to Solms, psychoanalysis would have been for Freud a “moment of transition” (Solms’s first book, coedited with Michael Saling, was entitled A Moment of Transition : Two Neuroscientific Articles by Sigmund Freud): “The reason for this was the very inadequate state of neurological (and physiological) at the time, not any turning against neurological explanation in principle. Freud knew that any attempt to bring together psychoanalysis and neurology would be premature (…). Neurology itself had to evolve, from a mechanical science that thought in terms of fixed ‘functions’ and centers, a sort of successor of phrenology, through much more sophisticated clinical approaches and deeper understandings, to a more dynamic analysis of neurological difficulties in terms of functional systems, often distributed widely through the brain and in constant interaction with each other.” (viii). Further, Neurology has now “entered the age of subtility.” Sacks adds that “Solm’s approach, then, is a double one: to make the most detailed neuropsychological examination of patients with brain damage and then to submit them to a model psychoanalysis, and, in so doing, hopefully, (…) to bring the mechanisms of the brain and the inner world of the patient together” (ix).
CM : 대륙 철학자들이나 정신분석가들이 신경과학 일반에 작동하는 견고한 환원주의적 경향과 싸우는 것이 옳았던 시대가 있었습니다. 신경생물학은 완전히 자폐적이었으며, 대륙철학의 이론, 구조주의, 포스트구조주의로도 다루기 힘든 분야였습니다. 하지만 50년 정도 전에 사태는 완전히 바뀌었어요. 여기서 Mark Solms, Oliver Sacks, Antonio Damasio, Eric Kandel 같은 과학자들을 언급하고 싶네요. Mark Solms과 Oliver Sacks의 『뇌와 내부 세계 : 주관적 경험의 신경과학 입문(The Brain and the Inner World, An Introduction to the Neuroscience of Subjective Experience)』의 서문에서 Oliver Sacks는 다음과 같은 것을 상기시킵니다. 즉, Solms에 따르면 정신분석은 프로이트에게 "이행의 순간"이었을지도 모른다는 겁니다(Solms의 첫 번째 책이자 Michael Saling과 공동 편집한 책의 제목은 『이행의 순간 : 지그문트 프로이트가 쓴 두 개의 신경과학 논문(A Moment of Transition:Two Neuroscientific Articles by Sigmund Freud)』이었습니다). "이것은 당시의 신경학적(그리고 생리학적) [설명에는] 매우 적합하지 않은 상태였기 때문이었다. [그러나] 원칙적으로 신경생물학적 설명에 등을 돌린 것은 아니었다. 프로이트는 정신분석과 신경학을 한데 묶으려는 여하한 시도도 시기상조임을 알았던 것이다. ... 신경학은 자력으로 기계론적 과학에서 벗어나고 진보해야 한다. '기능'과 중심 같은 틀에 박힌 말을 사용한 사상, 골상학의 후계 학문 같은 것에서 벗어나, 임상적 접근법을 더욱 더 세련되게 하고, 논리적 사고력을 더욱 깊게 하고, 종종 뇌에 널리 분포하며 항상 서로 작용을 가하는 기능들의 시스템에 비추어 보았을 경우에 신경학적인 아포리아가 되는 것을 더 역학적으로 분석하지 않으면 안 된다."(viii) 게다가 신경학은 이제 "미시(微視, subtility)의 시대로 접어들고" 있다는 것입니다. Sacks는 덧붙입니다. "그렇다면 Solms의 접근법은 두 가지를 동시에 이루는 접근법이라는 것이다. 즉, 뇌에 손상을 입은 환자를 더할 나위 없을 정도로 상세하게 신경 정신 과학적으로 분석하는 것, 그래서 그 성과를 모델이 되는 정신분석에 맡기는 것이다. 그렇게 해서 잘 되면, ... 뇌의 메커니즘들과 환자의 내면 세계를 통합할 수 있다."(ix)
 It is then very difficult to criticize such an open definition of neurology. Besides, many of the advocates of the “neuro-psychoanalytical” trend acknowledge a philosophical tradition in order to do what they’re doing. For example, Damasio’s famous books like Descartes’ Error or Looking For Spinoza very explicitly claim to belong somehow to the continental philosophical tradition. I think that Derrida didn’t have time to become really conscious of that.
그렇다면 신경학에 관한 이런 열린 정의를 비판하기란 매우 어렵습니다. 게다가 "신경-정신분석적" 조류의 주창자들 대부분은 자신들이 하고 있는 것을 하기 위해 철학적 전통을 승인합니다[받아들입니다]. 예를 들면 다마지오의 『데카르트의 오류(Descartes’ Error)』나 『스피노자의 뇌(Looking For Spinoza)』 같은 유명한 책들은, 아무튼 대륙철학의 전통에 얼마간 속해 있다고 아주 명확하게 주장합니다. 저는 데리다가 그런 것을 실제로 의식할 수 있게 될 시간이 없었다고 생각합니다. 

     

Once again, the difference Derrida used to make between the program and the promise is a distinction in which we can’t believe anymore. A machine—and I think that Pascal was the first to say this—can also promise. You remember this passage in Pascal’s Pensées when somebody says, “Yes, but what if I don’t believe in God?” And Pascal answers “You just have to kneel down and mechanically repeat your prayer, and God will come:” that’s the promise inside the machine. You can’t really draw a line between the mechanical and the messianic. This is also what is very interesting in the brain, and in the computer: somebody like Daniel Dennett now shows that a computer may be said to be plastic.
다시 한 번 말하는데, 데리다가 프로그램과 약속 사이에서 만든 차이는 우리가 더 이상 믿을 수 없는 구별입니다. 기계 ―― 이렇게 말한 것은 파스칼이 처음이었다고 저는 생각합니다 ―― 는 약속할 수 있습니다. 파스칼의 『팡세』의 이 구절을 기억하실 겁니다. 누군가 이렇게 말하죠. "그래요, 하지만 제가 신을 믿지 않는다면요?" 파스칼은 이렇게 대답합니다. "그저 무릎을 꿇고 기계적으로 기도의 말을 반복하라. 그러면 신이 찾아올 것이다." 이것이 기계 안에 있는[기계에 내장된] 약속입니다. 기계적인 것과 메시아적인 것 사이에 실제로 선을 그을 수는 없습니다. 이것은 또한 뇌에서의, 그리고 컴퓨터에서의 아주 흥미로운 것이기도 합니다. 요즘 대니얼 데닛(Daniel Dennett) 같은 이들은 컴퓨터가 가소적일 수도 있음을 보여줍니다.  

NV: For the sake of those who are not familiar with your recent work on the brain, when you distinguish the blind brain from the Freudian unconscious, why is this important? Doesn’t the notion of a biologically determined unconscious—the blind brain— as opposed to a Freudian, imaginary unconscious, threaten the subject’s freedom by foreshadowing a certain natural determinism?
NV : 뇌에 관한 당신의 최근 작업에 친숙하지 않은 사람들을 위해 [여쭙는데요], 맹목적인 뇌(the blind brain)를 프로이트적 무의식으로부터 구별한 것은 언제였습니까? 왜 이것이 중요할까요? 프로이트적인, 상상적인 무의식에 대립된 것으로서의 생물학적으로 결정된 무의식이라는 통념 ―― 맹목적인 뇌 ―― 은 어떤 자연적[본성적] 결정론을 예고함으로써[전조가 됨으로써] 주체의 자유를 위협하는 게 아닐까요? 

CM: This was a very important discovery that the brain wasn’t entirely determined. Some anatomic structures of the brain are, of course, genetically programmed, but a significant part of the neural organization is open to outside influences and develop itself consequently to these influences or interactions. It means an important part in the structure of your brain depends on the way you’re living and on your experience. History is inscribed within the biological. That is what “plastic” means when applied to the brain.
CM : 뇌가 전적으로 결정되지 않았다는 것은 매우 중요한 발견이었습니다. 뇌의 해부학적 구조들 중 몇몇은 물론 유전적으로 프로그램되어 있으나, 신경 조직[화]의 중요한 부분은 외부의 영향에 열려 있으며 이런 영향이나 상호작용으로 결과적으로 발전됩니다. 이것은 뇌의 구조에서 중요한 부분이 살아가는 방식에, 경험에 달려 있다는 것을 뜻합니다. 역사는 생물학적인 것의 내부에 기입되어 있습니다. 이것이 뇌에 응용됐을 때 '가소적'이 뜻하는 바입니다. 
NV: Please describe your latest work on Freud?
NV : 프로이트에 관한 당신의 최근 작업을 소개해주시겠습니까?

CM: The French title of my latest work is Les nouveaux blessés. I think it would need a little bit of translation. Perhaps “the new injuries,” or “new wounds” (rather than “the new wounded” or the Newly Wounded?). So let’s call it The New Wounds. It’s about the kind of injuries or wounds or brain damage that psychoanalysis never took into account. It’s a reflection on brain lesion or pathology (Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s disease) but also on trauma in general (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, all kinds of what I call “social-political” traumas). To what extent neurology today helps us to enlarge the Freudian conception of the trauma and of the psychic suffering: such is the issue. It seems that in Beyond the Pleasure Principle, Freud fails to define what might exceed the pleasure principle, what this “beyond” may exactly mean. Neurological traumas go beyond this principle, and discover something that has nothing to do with pleasure, but with every kind of serious trauma. This book is a reflection on those wounds that love and hatred or internal conflict simply cannot explain.
CM : 최근작의 프랑스어 제목은 Les nouveaux blessés입니다. 약간 번역을 해야겠네요. ("새로운 상처입은 자들"이나 "새로운 부상을 입은 자들"이라기보다는) "새로운 상처들", "새롭게 부상들"이랄까요? 그래서 『새로운 부상을 입은 자들』(The New Wounded : From Neurosis to Brain Damage(Forms of Living)이라고 부릅시다. 정신분석이 결코 설명하지 못한 것이 상처들이나 부상들, 뇌 손상 같은 것입니다. 그것[제 책]은 뇌 병변이나 뇌 병리학(알츠하이머 병이나 파킨슨 병)에 관한 성찰일 뿐 아니라 트라우마 일반(PTSD=Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, 제가 "사회-정치적" 트라우마라고 제가 부르는 모든 종류의 것)에 관한 성찰입니다. 어떤 한도에서 오늘날 신경학은 트라우마와 심적 고통에 관한 프로이트적 개념화를 우리가 확장하는 데 도움을 줄까요? 『쾌락원리를 넘어서』에서 프로이트는 쾌락원리를 넘어설 수도 있을 것, 이 '너머'가 정확하게 의미할 것을 정의하지 못한 것처럼 보입니다. 신경학적 트라우마는 이 원리를 넘어서며, 쾌락과는 아무런 관계도 없으나 중증 트라우마의 모든 종류와 관계가 있는 어떤 것을 발견합니다. 이 책은 사랑과 증오, 혹은 내적 갈등이 설명할 수 없는 상처입은 것에 관한 성찰입니다. 

NV: So, the wounds of trauma are material wounds rather than merely psychic?
NV : 그러면 트라우마의 상처는 단순히 심적인 상처라기보다는 물질적인 상처인가요?

CM: If we are able to admit that the difference between “material” and “psychic” is very thin and even perhaps non-existing, if we agree on the absurdity of regarding the brain and the psyche as too separate and distinct instances, then we will have moved forward a great deal…
CM : "물질적"과 "심적"의 차이가 매우 얕고 심지어 실존하지 않다고 인정할 수 있다면, 즉 뇌와 심적인 것을 너무 동떨어지고 너무 판명하게 나눠진 심급으로 보는 것이 부조리하다는 의견의 일치를 보면, 진전된 것이 될까요, 대단히....
We know today that every kind of serious shock--it may be a wound on the battlefield, a shell shock, but it also can be domestic trauma or moral abuse without any physical injury--we know that every kind of serious trauma causes destruction in what is now called the ‘emotional brain,’ which is located in the frontal cortex. This material destruction obviously and undoubtedly implies psychic alterations or modifications. It’s the end of the frontier, the borderline between psychic diseases as such and neurological diseases.
오늘날 우리가 알고 있듯이, 모든 종류의 중증 충격, 음, 전쟁터에서 입은 부상, 전쟁 신경증(shell shock)도 그렇지만, 신체적인 부상이 전혀 없는 가정 내의 트라우마나도덕적 학대[예의범절을 가르친다면 행해지는 학대, moral abuse]일 수도 있는데요, 그러한 모든 종류의 중증 트라우마는 전두엽에 위치한 "감정적인 뇌"라고 요새 부르는 것의 내부에 파괴를 야기하지요. 이 물질적인 파괴에 의해, 누가 봐도 분명할 정도로, 마음의 일부가 바뀌거나 혹은 마음이 돌변하게 됩니다. 마음의 병과 신경학적인 병 사이의 프런티어, 경계선의 끝이라는 것입니다. 

NV: Fascinating.
NV: 재미있네요. 

CM: Fascinating, true. I’ve read many interesting books on military psychiatry. It’s very interesting that what happens with Vietnam vets or people who go in Iraq today, or what happens on the battlefield, but also, when you’re a hostage, or you’re caught in a bomb attack, or when you’re quietly at home and suddenly there is a gas explosion, for example, that what happens in all kinds of apparently different situations has a common point, which is the shock as such, and the way it alters your psyche.
CM : 재미 있어요, 정말. 저는 군대의 정신요법에 관한 재미있는 책을 많이 읽었습니다. 매우 재미 있는데요, 베트남의 퇴역 군인에게 일어나는 것이나, 지금 이라크에 간 군인들, 즉 전쟁터에서 일어나는 것, 뿐만 아니라 인질이 됐을 때, 폭격을 받았을 때, 예를 들어 집에 있다가 갑자기 가스 폭발이 일어났을 때, 뭐 그런 모든 외관상 상이한 상황에서 일어나는 것에도 공통점이 있어요. 이것들은 다르게 보여도 똑같은 충격이며, 똑같이 사람의 마음을 바꾼다는 것입니다.

NV: Perhaps going back or linking this to the concept of plasticity again, or even going back to what you said about finding hope or promise in the program; how does neuroscience or this concept of plasticity, how do they help you to rethink the dynamics of subjectivity such that the singular individual isn’t always already under erasure, but is produced and affirmed instead; is made public without contradiction, without alienation, without being lost to the public realm. Or are this loss and conflict inevitable?
NV : 어쩌면 가소성 개념으로 얘기를 되돌리는 게 될지도 모르고, 그것은 뇌 손상 얘기와 연결될지도 모르고, 프로그램 속에 희망 또는 약속이 있다는 같은 이야기로 돌아가게 될지도 모릅니다. 신경과학, 가소성의 개념, 그런 일은 어떻게 주체성의 역학을 재고하는 데 기여할까요? 즉, 특이한[단독적인] 개인(the singular indivisual)은 항상 이미 말소 아래에[말소의 위협을 당하고] 있는 것이 아니라, 생산되고 확인되고 있는, 즉 모순되지 않고 소외되지 않고, 공적 영역에 운산 무소하지 않고 단독적 개인이 공적인 개인이 된다는 얘기죠. 그렇지 않다면 단독의 개인의 상실, 또는 그것과 공적인 개인의 갈등은 불가피할까요?

CM: Reading neurological or neurobiological books helped me to become aware of a certain change in the philosophical thought of death. A transformation of the Heideggerian notion of “being-toward-death” in particular. Heidegger says that death is at every moment possible. Neurobiologists make us conscious of the fact that my own metamorphosis after brain damage is at every moment possible; there is something like a break of the subject which is not death, which is another kind of possibility. To be destroyed as a subject when you suffer from a concussion, for example, means that you become someone else. The possibility of becoming someone else at every moment and for everybody equally--for even if we know that certain people are more likely to be the victims of such damage, we also know that everybody may undergo this kind of destruction at any moment--this possibility alters how we conceive of the subject. The fact of being mortal is one thing, and the fact of being plastic means being able to be totally transformed and become somebody else. For example, Damasio will say of one of his patients: “Elliot was no longer Elliot.” So, subjectivity must be confronted to the risk of the loss of itself at every moment, and this loss is not death; it is something different.
CM : 신경학, 신경생물학 책을 읽은 덕분에 죽음에 대한 철학적인 사고에 약간 변화가 있음을 자각하게 됐습니다. 특히 하이데거가 말하는 "죽음을-향한-존재"(being-toward-death)의 관념의 모양이 변했습니다(A transformation). 하이데거가 말하기를, 죽음은 모든 계기에 가능한(possible) 것입니다. 신경생물학이 우리에게 의식시키는 것은 뇌에 손상을 입고 나 자신의 형태변성(metamorphosis)이 모든 계기에 일어날 수 있다(possible)는 사실입니다. 즉 주체의 파손 같은 것이 존재한다는 것입니다. 그것은 죽음이 아니라 다른 식의 ≪가능성≫(possibility)입니다. 예를 들면 뇌에 충격을 입고 하나의 주체로서 손상을 겪는다는 것이 의미하는 것은, 딴사람이 된다는 것입니다. 모든 계기에 있어서 딴사람이 될 가능성, 그것도 모든 사람이 평등하게 그렇다는 거에요. 왜냐하면, 만약 어떤 종류의 사람들이 이러한 손상의 피해자가 되기 쉬운 사람들이라는 것을 안다고 한다면, 이것은 모든 사람이 어떤 계기에서도 이러한 손상을 남에게 가져올 가능성이 있다는 것을 우리가 안다는 것이기도 하죠. 그러면 이 가능성에 의해 우리의 주체의 사고방식도 달라집니다. 죽어야 할 존재라는 사실과 별도로, 가소적인 존재라는 사실이 의미하는 것은, 완전히 다른 형태를 한 존재가 되어 딴사람이 될 수 있다는 것입니다. 예를 들어 다마지오라면, 자신의 환자 중 한 사람에 대해 이렇게 말할 겁니다. "엘리엇은 더 이상 엘리엇이 아니었다." 그러니까 주체성이 모든 계기에 스스로를 상실할 리스크에 직면할 수밖에 없다는 것이며, 이 상실은 죽음이 아닙니다. 뭔가가 다릅니다. 

NV: Frightening.
NV : 끔찍하네요. 

CM: It is very frightening, yes. But at the same time, because we don’t want to get prepared for it, we’re always disarmed when someone we know suffers from Alzheimer’s or any kind of disease. We don’t know what to do, yet this is a constant existential possibility: Kafka’s Metamorphosis, it’s something like that when you become, when you wake up as somebody different. This, then, is according to me the great metaphysical teaching of neurobiology today: not to consider brain damage as an isolated possibility, rare things that happen in hospitals, but to consider them as a constant possibility.
CM : 네, 너무 끔찍합니다. 그러나 동시에 그것에 대비하고 싶어하지 않기 때문에, 누군가가 알츠하이머 등의 병을 앓을 것이라고 알 경우에도, 우리는 언제나 무방비한 거예요. 음, 뭘 해야 할지 모른다는 것, 그렇지만 이것은 부단한 실존적 가능성입니다. 카프카의 『변신』 등이 좋은 예입니다. 딴사람이 되는 것, 다른 누군가로서 아침에 깨어나는 거죠. 제가 보기에, 이것은 으늘날 신경생물학의 중대한 형이상학적 교훈입니다. 뇌 손상을 [자신과는 무관한] 고립된 가능성으로 생각하는 것이 아니라, 병원에서 일어나는 드문 일로 생각하는 것이 아니라 그런 사건을 언제든 일어날 수 있는 것(a constant possibility)으로 생각하는 것입니다.

NV: Since you broached the subject of this constant existential possibility, let me ask what is the self?
NV : 이 부단한 실존적 가능성을 지닌 주체 얘기가 나왔으니까, 자기란 무엇인지 알려주실 수 있습니까?

CM: The self? This is a very interesting question because there is a total redefinition of the self. Damasio, for example, says that the self is at the same time everything and nothing. It is the elementary process of self-dialogue: “How are you doing?” “I’m alright.” “How are you doing?” “I’m alright”--like the beating of the heart. It is the self-information of the vital processes, life itself, the very elementary dialogue between the body and the soul. And this very fragile instance may at every moment be modified or wounded. And while this is a selfdialogue, at the same time, as I said to start with, this self-dialogue doesn’t reflect itself. It is not a speculative instance, because there is no mirroring of it. You can’t see it really. It cannot see itself.
CM : 자기요? 매우 좋은 질문입니다. 왜냐하면 자기는 완전히 재정의되고 있기 때문입니다. 예를 들면 다마지오는 자기는 모든 것인 동시에 무라고 말합니다. 자기와 대화의 첫걸음이 되는 것이 "잘 있었나?" "잘 지냈어" "잘 있었나?" "잘 지냈어" 같은, 심장 박동 같은 거죠. 그런 것이 삶의 다양한 과정을, 자기의 형태를 통해서 아는 것(self-information), 즉 신체와 영혼의 사이의 극히 초보적인 대화입니다. 모든 계기에, 이 덧없는 대화의 심급은 변용하거나 상처를 받을 가능성이 있습니다. 그리고 이것이 자기-대화인 한편으로, 동시에 이 인터뷰의 첫머리에서 말씀드렸듯이,  자기-대화는 자기를 고스란히 반영하는 것이 아닙니다. 그것은 사변적 심급이 아닙니다[주: 실존적 심급이라는 의미]. 자기를 거울상으로서 비출 수는 없으니까요. 실제로는 자기를 볼 수는 없습니다. 자기는 자기를 볼 수 없는 것입니다. 

NV: And what do you make of this reading of the self offered by Damasio--is this a good thing?
NV : 그러면 다마지오가 제공한 이런 식의 자아 독해에서 무엇을 끌어냅니까? 이것은 좋은 건가요?

CM: Well, it’s deconstruction inscribed within us. It is the biological deconstruction of subjectivity. In this sense, it is what you call “a good thing”.
CM : 네, 즉 우리의 내부에 기입된 탈구축입니다. 주체성의 생물학적 탈구축입니다. 이런 의미에서 당신 말대로 "좋은 것"입니다.

NV: Say it again in other words maybe. What then constitutes the self? Is there a true singular identity or subjectivity? Or, is the self always a public phenomenon?
NV : 아마 달리 말하는 게 되겠지만, [다시 한번 부탁 드립니다.] 그럼 무엇이 자기를 구성하고 있나요? 참된 특이한 정체성이나 주체성이 있습니까? 아니면 자기란 언제든지 공개적으로 나타나는 현상일까요?

CM: Of course the general process of self-information is common to everybody, so in this sense it is a universal structure. But, if we take for granted that at the same time the way your brain builds itself it departs from this structure, on the ground of this structure, then auto-affection, the way we keep ourselves informed about ourselves, is always individual. It’s impossible to draw a line between universal and singular here, you know. There is a common structure, but at the same time the way it takes place in you and the way it takes place in me is not the same. The self is clearly not a substance.
CM : 물론 자기의 형태에 의해 자기를 아는(self-information) 일반적인 과정은 모든 사람에게 공통되어 있어요. 그러니까 그런 의미에서는 자기는 보편적인 구조라는 것입니다. 그러나 다른 한편, 뇌는 자기를 창조하면서 이 보편적인 구조를 빠져나간다는 것을 전제로 한다면, 그렇다면 보편적인 구조를 기초로 한 자기-변용(auto-affection), 즉 우리가 자기의 형태를 자기에 대해서 알리는(informed) 방식은 언제나 사람마다 다르다는 것이지요. 보편과 단독 사이에 선을 긋는 것은 이곳에서는 무리죠. 공통의 구조는 존재하지만, 동시에 그 구조가 발생하는 방법은 저와 당신에게 똑같지 않습니다. 자기는 실체가 전혀 없습니다.

NV: Can you say something about the relationship of the individual to the public realm?
NV : 개인적인 것과 공적인 영역과의 관계에 대해서 뭔가 하실 말씀이 있습니까?

CM: The most recent and current research in neurobiology reveals a new kind of brain organization that may work as a model to understand all kinds of organization today: society, for example. On this point, I’m very close to what Žizek tries to think when he says that he’s looking for a new materialism, which implies this concept of society as a whole, as a closed totality without any kind of transcendence. That is also something he develops in The Parallax View in particular.
CM : 신경생물학에서의 최신이자 주류의 연구가 드러내는 것은 새로운 종류의 뇌 구조인데요, 그것은 모든 오늘의 유기적 조직체, 음, 예를 들어 사회인데요, 그런 것을 이해하는 데 모델로서 작동하게 될지도 모르겠습니다. 이 점에서 저는 지젝이 생각하려고 하는 것에 매우 가깝네요. 그는 새로운 유물론을 모색하고 있다고 하는데, 그 유물론은 그 한 가지로, 어떤 초월도 아니며 폐쇄적인 전체성으로서의 사회의 개념을 내포하고 있습니다. 이는 특히 『시차적 관점』The Parallax View에서 그가 전개하고 있는 것이기도 하네요.
I don’t believe in transcendence at all. I don’t believe in something like the absolute Other, or in any kind of transcendence or openness to the other. So in this sense, as a Hegelian, I am quite convinced with Žizek that we’re living in some kind of closed organizational structure, and that society is the main closed structure. But at the same time, this structure is plastic. So it means that inside of it, we have all kinds of possibilities to wiggle and escape from the rigidity of the structure. What happens in the brain is the paradigm to figure out what happens in society as such. We are living in a neuronic social organization. And I’m not the only one to say it. The neuronic has become the paradigm to think what the social is, to think society and social relationships. So it is clearly a closed organization; if by closed we understand without transcendence, without any exit to the absolute Other. But, at the same time, this closed structure is not contrary to freedom or any kind of personal achievements or resistance. So I think that in such a structure, all individuals have their part to play.
나는 초월을 전혀 믿지 않습니다. 저는 절대적인 타자 같은 것, 어떤 초월, 타자에게 털어놓기 같은 것을 믿지 않습니다. 즉, 헤겔주의자로서의 제가 지젝과 함께 확신하고 있는 것은, 우리가 모종의, 폐쇄적인 유기조직체적 구조 속에 살고 있고, 사회는 주요한 폐쇄 구조라는 것입니다. 그러나 다른 한편으로 이 구조는 가소적이기도 합니다. 그렇다고 한다면, 이 구조의 내부에 있는 우리에게는 이 구조가 지닌 경직성에서 벗어나기 위한 온갖 가능성이 있다는 것이기도 합니다. 뇌에서 일어나는 것은 그런 사회에서 일어나는 것을 이해하기 위한 범형입니다. 우리는 뉴런처럼 조성된 사회에서 살고 있는 것입니다. 저만 이런 주장을 하고 있는 것이 아닙니다. 뉴런적인 것은 사회적인 것에 대해서 생각하는, 사회와 사회적 관계를 생각하는 범형이 되고 있는 것입니다. 그래서 의문의 여지없이, 사회라는 것은 닫힌 유기체입니다. 이 때, "닫힌"을 초월할 수 없는, 절대적인 타자에 이르는 출구는 어디에도 없다는 의미로 풀이하는 것입니다. 그러나 다른 한편으로 이 닫힌 구조가 자유, 모든 개인의 하는 것, 저항 같은 것에 대립하는 것이 아닙니다. 그래서 그런 구조 속에 있는 개개인 모두에게는 각각의 배역이 있다고 생각합니다.

NV: You speak of this neuronal structure; what if I said there is no hors-texte?
NV : 뉴런적 구조 얘기인데요, ≪텍스트의 외부≫(hors-texte)는 없다고 해도 괜찮나요?

CM: Yes and no. In Derrida, there is no hors-texte, and at the same time, there is something, in this very thought, like an outside. A totally open space. That of the “utterly other”, or of the “arrivant absolu”.
CM : 없는 동시에 있습니다. 데리다의 경우 ≪텍스트의 외부≫는 없습니다. 그러나 다른 한편으로 데리다의 사상에는 외부 같은 것이 있습니다. 전체로서 열린 공간이. 전적인 타자(utterly other), 혹은 "절대적인 도래자"(arrivant absolu)의 공간이.

NV: With this in mind, both this notion for you of neuronal structure and there is no hors-texte, how would you respond to those critics who see in deconstruction the end of political agency? Some people might ask how this sort of totality does not lead to quietism or relativism? Or what would you say to those for whom this closed structure must be opened up by way of a soteriological gesture of love and desire for a radical, unforseeable other? Or, how would you address those who might view this closed, albeit plastic, structure as a new kind of fundamentalism?
NV : 그러면 즉, 당신이 말하는 뉴런적 구조의 관념과 "텍스트의 외부"는 없다는 것, 이 두 가지를 모두 염두에 둔 경우, 탈구축에 정치적인 행위[자유](political agency)의 종언을 보는 비평가들에게 당신이라면 어떻게 답변합니까? 이런 종류의 전체성['텍스트의 외부는 없다', 뉴런적 폐쇄 구조를 가리킴]이 수수방관의 태도, 혹은 상대주의로는 이어지지 않을까, 의문을 품은 사람도 있겠죠? 근원적이고 예견할 수 없는 타자에 대한 사랑이나 욕망 같은 구원론적인 몸짓(a soteriological gesture)이 이러한 폐쇄 구조를 틀림없이 열 것이라고 하는 사람들에게 당신이라면 어떻게 말합니까? 혹은, 비록 가소적이긴 해도 닫힌 구조를 새로운 종류의 원리주의로 보는 듯한 사람에게, 당신이라면 어떻게 얘기하나요?

CM: Well, we have to admit that there is no alternative to capitalism; this is something that is, I think, inescapable today. So we clearly live in the absence of an alternative if we compare our situation with the one of our fathers fifty or sixty years ago. It’s very different because we can’t work out a different social or economical model. So it’s very likely that we have to stay inside capitalism. Does it imply fundamentalism? I don’t think so because although the general structure is given and unchangeable as such in that it cannot be transformed into another model, although we take for granted that the form is given, that the structure is given, once and for all--which seems to be true with capitalism--at the same time, all moves within this form are allowed. For example, if you consider today, capitalism in the USA and in Europe, and capitalism in the Far East, like in China, if you take into account that the most achieved form of capitalism occurs in a Marxist country, then you discover that capitalism is multiple. And I think that when people say that they’re afraid of China, what they’re afraid of is to see that a Marxist country is able to demonstrate what capitalism is to us. But this may help us to think how a single form is able to differentiate itself almost infinitely. I think that we can use the little gaps within the form--the way in which the same form is not always the same--to build resistance. I am very influenced by structuralism, here. What I mean is akin to what Lévi-Strauss says with respect to the various ways in which gods are represented; from country to country, you always find the same pattern, but inside of this general frame, you also find many little differences which forbid us to consider the structure as the same. So the sameness is the difference. I know this is very abstract, but from this general pattern we can evolve toward much more concrete social determinations.
CM : 글쎄요, 자본주의에 대한 그 어떤 대안도 없다는 것을 인정해야만 합니다. 이것이 제 생각에 오늘날 피할 수 없는 것입니다. 그러니까 우리는 분명히 대안의 부재 속에서 살고 있습니다. 50-60년 전 아버지들의 세대가 처한 상황과 지금을 비교하면 그렇다는 겁니다. 지금과 그 때는 아주 다릅니다. 우리가 상이한 사회적 혹은 경제적 모델을 산출할[가다듬어 구성할] 수 없기 때문이죠. 그래서 우리가 자본주의 내부에 머물러야 있어야만 할 개연성이 높습니다. 이것은 근본주의를 내포할까요? 저는 그렇게 생각하지 않습니다. 즉, 일반적 구조[자본주의]를 다른 모델로 바꿀 수 없다는 점에서 일반적 구조는 주어져 있고 바꿀 수 없는 것이기는 하지만, 이 형태가 주어진 것, 이 구조가 주어진 것임을 당연하다고 생각합니다만, 음, 그것은 자본주의의 경우에는 정말이겠죠, 그래도, 그래도 다른 한편으로는 이런 형태 내부에서 움직이는 모든 것은 허용된다는 것이기도 합니다. 예컨대 현대에 대해서 생각해 볼까요? 미국의 자본주의, 유럽의 자본주의, 극동의 자본주의, 글쎄요, 중국이 좋을까요, 맑스주의 국가에서 가장 성공한 자본주의의 형태가 나타나고 있는 것을 감안하면, 자본주의는 여럿이 있다는 것을 알게 되겠죠. 게다가 중국이 무섭다고 할 때, 그 사람들이 두려워하는 것은, 우리에게 자본주의가 어떤 것인지를 확실하게 하는 힘이 맑스주의 국가에 있다는 것을 이해하는 것이라고 저는 생각합니다. 그러나 이런 것은 단일한 형태가 그 자체를 무한이라고 말해도 될 만큼 차이화하는 방법을 사고하는 데 도움이 될지도 모르겠네요. 동일한 형태가 줄곧 동일한 형태가 아니라는 것에서 판단하면요, 우리는 형태의 내부에 있는 작은 간극을 이용해서 저항을 조립할 수 있다고 저는 생각합니다. 저는 여기 프랑스에서 구조주의로부터 상당히 영향을 받았습니다. 즉, 제 얘기는 신들이 다양한 방식으로 표상되는 것에 대해 레비-스트로스가 말한 것과 비슷하다는 것이죠. 국가는 달라도, 같은 패턴에 언제나 만나겠지만, 일반적인 수준에 있는 틀 내부에서는 구조와 구조가 동일하다고는 생각될 수 없을 정도로 많은 차이와도 만날 꺼에요. 그래서 동일성은 차이이기도 합니다. 너무 추상적인 이야기라는 것은 알고 있지만, 일반적인 수준의 패턴에서 시작하지 않으면, 더욱 더 구체적인 사회를 결정하는 사물로 향해 나아갈 수는 없습니다. 

NV: Can we establish a hierarchy of values? What does this do for ethics?
NV : 가치의 위계를 수립할 수 있을까요? 이 얘기는 윤리와 어떻게 관련될까요?

CM: Well, it’s true that it clearly opposes Lévinas’ vision of ethics as defined by some radical other. It seems that a genuine ethical vision of the social implies a kind of openness to change, and if we understand by change the way in which the other is susceptible to come at any moment. On the contrary, my definition of structure might seem very violent. And it’s true that it is very close to the Hegelian one, and we know that it implies fight and struggle and everything.
CM : 글쎄요, 제가 얘기하고 있는 것이 모종의 근본적 타자에 의해 정의된 레비나스의 윤리관과 대립하는 것은 틀림없겠죠. 사회적인 것의 진정으로 윤리적 비전은 변화에 대한 일종의 개방성을 내포하는 것 같습니다. 우리가 변화를 타자가 어떤 순간에든 도래하기 쉬울 수 있는[도래하는 것을 쉽게 허용하는] 방식으로 이해한다면 말입니다. 이와 반대로, 구조에 대한 제 정의는 매우 폭력적으로 비칠지도 모릅니다. 그리고 이 정의가 헤겔적 정의와 매우 가깝다는 것은 사실이며, 우리는 이것이 싸움, 투쟁, 그리고 모든 것을 내포한다는 것을 알고 있습니다. 
But, at the same time, it also implies that in this kind of structure, everybody is equal to everybody; and to be responsible for the other allows you to do something for him. If you read Lévinas closely, sometimes he seems to say, and Derrida says the same thing, that the other is so remote that it is impossible to act in his or her place. You can’t decide for him or her. For example if you have a child, or it is his or her decision, there’s nothing I can do for him and for her. This is the way in which this ethical vision is not so pure. The other is so remote that it creates a sort of loneliness of the other as such. My vision of things is much more based on reciprocal and mutual relationships. I think that you can do something for the other, and sometimes I’m not bothered to know that I can act in your place if you’re not able to do so yourself. You know, I don’t feel guilty because sometimes I’ll say my son will do this. So the difference between the two conceptions relies on a sort of horizontal schema. Lévinas was very much against the Heideggerian notion of Mitsein, the fact of being with the other. He says that’s not ethical. I’m not so sure. I like this idea of being with the other.
하지만 이와 동시에, 이것은 이런 종류의 구조에서 만인은 만인과 평등하다는 것도 내포합니다. 그리고 타자에 대해 책임을 가진다는 것은 여러분이 타자를 위해 뭔가를 할 수 있게 해줍니다. 당신이 레비나스를 매우 꼼꼼하게 읽으면, 때때로 그는 그가 말하는 것처럼 보이는 것과 데리다가 말하는 것이 똑같게 보이겠지만, 타자가 너무도 멀어져 있기에 타자[그 혹은 그녀]의 장소에서 행위하는 것은 불가능한 것처럼 보입니다. 당신은 타자[그 혹은 그녀]를 위해 결정할 수 없습니다. 예를 들어, 당신에게 아이가 있다면, 혹은 그것이 그 혹은 그녀의 결단이고, 제가 그와 그녀를 위해 해 줄 수 있는 것은 아무것도 업습니다[당신이 아이를 갖고 있다면, 아니 [아이를 갖겠다는 것이] 그 혹은 그녀의 결단이라면, 제가 그와 그녀를 위해 해줄 수 있는 것은 아무것도 없습니다]. 이런 식으로 이런 [레비나스와 데리다의] 윤리적 비판은 그렇게 순수하지는 않습니다. 타자는 너무 멀어져 있기에 그것은 일종의 타자의 외로움 자체를 창출합니다. 사물에 대한 제 비전은 호혜적이고 상호적인 관계에 훨씬 더 기초를 두고 있습니다. 저는 당신이 타자를 위해 뭔가를 할 수 있다고 생각하며, 당신이 당신 스스로 그렇게 할 수 없다면 제가 당신의 자리에서 [대신] 행동할 수 있다는 것을 안다고 하더라도 저는 그다지 신경쓰지 않습니다. 당신도 알다시피 저는 죄책감을 느끼지 않습니다. 때때로 제 아들이 이것을 할 것이라고 제가 말할 것이니까요. 그러므로 두 개의 [윤리] 개념화는 일종의 수평적인 도식(horizontal schema[수평적 관계를 규정하는 도식])에 달려 있습니다. 레비나스는 하이데거의 Mitsein이라는 통념, 타자와 함께 있음이라는 사실을 강하게 반박했습니다. 그는 그것이 윤리적이지 않다고 말합니다. [하지만] 저는 그렇게 확신하지는 않습니다. 저는 타자와 함께 있음이라는 관념을 좋아합니다. 

NV: There’s a notion of reciprocity there.
NV : 거기에는 호혜성의 통념이 있죠. 

CM: Yes, and also of course the old problem of recognition and of reciprocity in recognition. And I think that if there should be an ethical value, the notion of recognition would be the one for me, and, of course, this notion implies fight and struggle.
CM :  그렇습니다. 게다가 물론 인정과 인정에 있어서의 호혜성이라는 오래된 문제도 있죠. 그리고 생각건대, 윤리적 가치가 있어야만 한다면, 인정이라는 통념이 제게 윤리적인 것이 되겠죠. 물론 이 통념은 싸움과 투쟁을 포함합니다.

NV: Very good. So no radical Other?
NV : 그렇군요. 그러면 근원적인 <타자>는 없다?

CM: No, unless you admit that you can be readily other to yourself. As when I was talking about brain damage.
CM : 없어요. 당신이 당신 자신에게 쉽사리 타자일 수 있다는 것을 인정하지 않는 한에서라면 별개이지만. 제가 뇌 손상에 대해 말하고 있을 때처럼 말이죠.

NV: So this is frightening.
NV : 그래서 뇌의 손상은 무서운 것이죠.

CM: This is monstrous.
CM : 터무니 없는 거죠.

NV: This is monstrous, yes. Well, incidentally, in the United States, there are some theological moves toward claiming a radical other who’s not omnipotent but weak. I am thinking of Gianni Vattimo, John Caputo, Catherine Keller. This notion of the weakening of being or something like that could be frightening as well. Weak because the claim to power leads to visions of this world that are apocalyptic, for instance, or violent visions. Weak because, people say, this is the only world, and so, if this is the kingdom, we have here a realization of God, of the weakness of God. So, I think that in that notion you have an attempt to say that this is it; this world is it. It’s a notion that does away with transcendence. This is it. And yet that notion for some might hold a kind of promise, however impossible or unforeseeable.
NV : 네, 터무니 없죠. 그럼 얘기를 대충 바꿔서, 미국 얘기인데요, 전능이 아니라 약한 근원적 타자를 필요로 하는 방향으로 향하는 신학적 동향이 몇 가지 있죠. 잔니 바티모, 존 카푸토, 캐서린 켈러를 염두에 두고 있습니다. 이 관념, 존재가 약해져가고 있다는 것도 무서운 것인지도 모릅니다. 약하다는 것은, 힘(power)을 추구한다는 것이, 예를 들어 묵시록적이거나 폭력적으로 되는 현세의 비전(visions)으로 귀결되기 때문이죠. 약하다는 것은 듣기에는, 이것이 [대체 불가능한] 유일한 세계이기 때문에, 이것이 유일한 왕국이라면, 현세에서 신을, 신의 약함을 깨달았으니까(have a realization)라고 합니다. 그래서 그런 관념을 믿는 사람은 이것으로 충분하다, 이 세상에서 충분하다, 라고 어떻게든 타이르려 한다고 생각합니다. 그것은 초월을 멀리하는 관념입니다. 바로 이제 충분하다는 거죠. 하지만 그런 사고방식 덕분에 아무리 불가능한 혹은 예측할 수 없더라도, 모종의 약속을 지키는 사람도 있겠지요.

CM: And here we have messianism?
CM : 여기에 메시아주의가 있다는 겁니까?

NV: Yes, well something like that. So you’re more of a pragmatist.
NV : 네 그렇습니다, 그런 느낌입니다. 하지만 당신은 좀 더 실용주의적(pragmatist)예요.

CM: I think so, yes.
CM : 네, 실용주의적이라고 생각합니다.

NV: Which brings us back to the earlier discussion about determinism and materialism.
NV : 이것은 우리를 결정론과 [지젝이 제창하고 있는 새로운] 유물론의 논의로 되돌아가게 하는군요.

CM: I believe in determinism to a certain extent because I believe that the structure is given once and for all. And when you read Marx you know that determinism is inescapable. But, I believe in dialectics, and it’s true to me that Hegel was right to say that freedom was always a struggle between determinism and its opposite. There’s no pure freedom and no pure determinism; they’re always sort of a negative transformation of both of their mutual relations. And that’s what plasticity’s about.
CM : 나는 어떤 한도에서는[적당하게] 결정론을 믿어요 왜냐하면, 구조는 한번 주어지면 그만이라고 생각하니까요. 게다가 맑스를 읽으면 결정론은 피할 수 없다는 것을 알고 있습니다. 하지만 저는 변증법을 믿고 있으며, 자유는 줄곧 결정론과 그 대립물의 사이의 투쟁이라고 말한 헤겔은 옳았다는 것이 제 본심입니다. 순수한 자유도 순수한 결정론도 존재하지 않습니다. 자유도 결정론도 언제든지 양자의 상호 관계에 의해 어쩔 수 없이 형태를 바꾸어 갈 수밖에 없는 운동(a negative transformation) 같은 것입니다.그리고 가소성이라는 것은 대부분 그런 것입니다.

NV: To conclude our discussion then, tell me a bit about what you anticipate for the future.
NV : 그러면 논의를 마무리하기 위해 당신이 미래에 대해 예측하고 있는 것을 조금 말씀해 주세요. 

CM: I’m very curious to know what will happen in China. I’m very fascinated by this conjunction of Marxism and capitalism. So I’m sure that one day or the other we’ll know more about the kind of achievement of social freedom-- well, so called social freedom and individual achievement--in liberalism. This is the first organization in my vision of the future. What will happen? Second, I am very curious about what will happen in the neurological field. I’m sure that there will be many more discoveries that will change the vision we have of ourselves. And third, I think that philosophy will be totally transformed by these two: economical and political promise on the one hand, and on the other, this new way of defining subjectivity. So I’m not really optimistic, but at the same time I’m very excited by what happens today.
CM : 저는 중국에서 무슨 일이 일어날지를 무지무지 알고 싶습니다. 맑스주의와 자본주의의 조합에 매우 관심이 있어요. 그래서 저는, 그 속에서, 사회적 의미에서의 자유의 달성이 무엇인지를 잘 알게 될 것이라고 확신합니다. 글쎄요, 사회적 의미에서의 자유와 개인적 성취 같은 것일까요, 자유주의의 맥락에서 말한다면 말이죠. 이것은 미래에 대한 제 비전에 있는 첫 번째 조직화입니다. 무슨 일이 일어날까요? 둘째로, 신경생물학의 장에서 무엇이 일어날지 호기심을 갖고 있습니다. 더욱 많은 발견이 있어서 우리가 우리 자신에 대해서 품고 있는 [미래의] 비전도 바꿀 것입니다. 그리고 셋째로, 저는 철학이 앞의 두 가지에 의해 전적으로 변형될 것이라고 생각합니다. 한편으로는 경제적이고 정치적인  약속일 것이고, 다른 한편으로 주체성을 정의하는 새로운 방식일 것입니다. 그러므로 저는 실제로는 낙관주의적이지 않으나, 동시에 오늘날 일어나고 있는 일들 때문에 매우 설레고 있습니다. 

CATHERINE MALABOU is Maître de conférences at the University of Paris X-Nanterre. Her publications in English include The Future of Hegel (Routledge, 2004), Counterpath (with Jacques Derrida (Stanford University Press, 2004), What Should We Do With Our Brains? (forthcoming from Fordham University Press in 2008) and Plasticity at the Eve of Writing (forthcoming from Columbia University Press). Her latest book in French is Les nouveaux blessés: De Freud à la neurologie: penser les traumatismes contemporains (Bayard, 2007).
NOËLLE VAHANIAN is Assistant Professor of Religion and Philosophy at Lebanon Valley College. She is the author of Language, Desire, and Theology: A Geneology of the Will to Speak (Routledge,2003). She has been contributing to the JCRT since April 2000.