To believe in the other. Thanatos, eros and anamnesis in The Giver

Abstract

Based on the novel and the film The Giver, this papers shows the paradox and contradictions born out of the attempt of an egalitarian and pacifist position – the classical answer to those discriminations that originate suffering and violence – to eliminate everything that is a source of distinction and therefore of anguish. In the second place, we argue that in the name of an equality achieved by means of eliminating the violence born out of difference, a worse violence is originated. And that the social elimination of death and desire, as signals of that memory and fundamental events of human experience, did not contribute to heal that division but instead it set a damage beyond limits. The argument shows that a production of neutral human beings, without past guilt nor future anguish, withouth meaningful individual differences, does not bring about a life that is more free, fraternal and egalitarian, but an intrinsic and boundless sort of violence. Finally we will explore the memory of differenciation and of the law as role of the other and as starting point for a more complete subjective appropriation.