Limits of self and Other xenosophic responsiveness: Including complex emotions, power differences and possible futures

Abstract

In a complementary commentary on Streib, we highlight complexities of self and Other responsiveness when researching and attempting to enact xenosophic alternatives to xenophobic relations with a wide range of others and including related problematic forms of personal and group ‘egocentricity’. Using our similar attempts to be reflexive in theory and practice about self and Other responsiveness in our own social, political, community and cultural psychology research (extending Streib’s focus on developmental psychology), we use the later philosophical approach of Ludwig Wittgenstein – rather than the phenomenological philosophy of Waldenfels – to explore instances of self and ‘extraordinary Other’ relations via examples of everyday and form-of-life disagreements. We then focus on complex emotions and investigations of affective and discursive patterned features of self and Other relations to highlight features of responsiveness and collective wisdom evident in a dynamic typology of group-based and collective pride, shame and guilt relations in contexts of celebration, competition, challenge and conflict. The need to explore the limits of self and extraordinary Other responsiveness is shown by considering how possible futures and power considerations might lead us to step back from potentially becoming other to ourselves.