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In thinking about pain I would like to take a less scientific approach and put forth some of the ideas about pain presented by Emmanuel Levinas. Levinas describes pain and suffering in terms of their effect on consciousness and being. Pain, Levinas describes, is something directly given to consciousness. Yet despite pain’s given nature to consciousness, it is also in-spite-of-consciousness; pain is a rejection of meaning. This requires elaboration.

According to Levinas, pain escapes out ability to interpret or conceptualize it. One may quickly here retort that societies have applied hundreds of meanings to pain (a punishment from some supernatural force, a right of passage, a function of the mind to overcome etc.), but Levinas would counter that such justification is only applied post-hoc. In the moment of suffering, one does not attribute meaning, but is instead consumed by one’s suffering. In sum, pain – as immediately experienced – appears to defy meaning by virtue of its ability to absorb consciousness. In Levinas’ language, pain refuses to be a meaning.

Not only does pain/suffering escape meaning, but it is also extreme/original passivity. Levinas describes this passivity as the “woe.” The woe is the combination of one’s pain, one’s consciousness of the pain (or pain’s absorption of consciousness), and one’s consciousness that pain was not freely assumed. In this sense, pain is a pure undergoing, during which the only consciousness available is consciousness of one’s passivity in suffering. Again, pain can be seen as a refusal of meaning since the only content of pain is the woe. Levinas’ point is to illustrate how in suffering, pain completely overwhelms consciousness. (Side note: remember that game show on fox where contestants had to answer questions while subjected to extreme cold or heat? This demonstrates the capacity of pain to limit consciousness.

While I may resist some of Levinas’ views, I believe it is important to recognize that pain/suffering is a suppressive force capable of shattering consciousness. Pain has the ability to isolate one to the world of one’s suffering; one’s world shrinks to the boundaries of immediate pain perception. Consequently, I am inclined to agree that suffering may be the greatest experience of passivity man can experience. With this in mind (and keeping with tomorrow’s discussion topic), I am inclined to consider the extent of suffering to the moral domain. As suffering can be described as extreme passivity with the consumption of consciousness, it seems that this by nature demands for the interpersonal. The one in extreme passivity is dependent on an Other to come pull him/her out of the bondage of suffering. So perhaps inherent to suffering is the foundation for a universal imperative?