THE ENCOUNTER WITH THE “STRANGER” AS “SCANDAL”: W. BENJAMIN’S EXPERIENCE

Abstract

Th e basic theme of article is “the stranger in another’s house”. Th e “guest” should be capable of entering the “other world” by distinguishing its diff erence from his own world and feeling the sacral-symbolical clench connecting his “world” and the world of the others. However if at the stranger has not either forces, or resources for an identifi cation and a recognition of the “Other”, he will be simply rejected from the “world” that is so attractive for him on some grounds. Actually the research interest also represents the coming of the “stranger”, his experience of the “Alien” extraneity which can turn both in the hospitality and rejection. Some kind of ideal explications just such experience is the “Moscow diary” and the essay “Moscow” of Walter Benjamin, — his texts which show impossibility for the new European type of the man to enter into the “other worlds” as the “guest”. Th ere is something in the “other worlds”, that the stranger can accept, but more oft en in situations of the encounter with the “Alien” the feeling of the anxiety transforming into covers this type of the man by the fact of existence of the “Other” in his otherness. Refs 6.

Keywords:

stranger, visitor, hospitality, gift, the sacral-symbolical, disenchantment of the world, dialogue as scandal