allows itself to be disturbed by those whom it has nevertheless explic-
itly rejected. The State defends independence without and autonomy
within. Is not civilization in the reception ofaliensa fairly precise way
of retaining from the old State the essence of its vocation, once it has
been liberated from its pretensions to becoming the sole rational agent
of history, the only totalizer?
The Exercise of Diplomacy
The collective advances blindly; it gropes; it records the presence of
new entities and at first it cannot tell whether they are friends or ene-
mies, whether they aspire to share the same world or whether they
will escape it forever. Unable to foresee, to master,it must govern.Its
white cane in hand, it slowly takes the measure of the furnishings of
the universe that surrounds or threatens it. If it does not know how
many obstacles it has to reckon with, it does not know either how
many helpful objects it can rely on. Like little Tom Thumb, it can only
keep track of where it has traveled; it expects no salvation except the
recording of the protocols that accumulate behind it. Wander if you
like, but always hew to the strictest, most obsessive traceability. The
state of law depends on this fragile inscription of successive trials. No
other light will come to help you. Fortunately, those whose difference
you are discovering little by little are plunged into the same obscurity
as you. They do not know for sure whether they belong to the same
world or not. They too grope their way forward. They do not yet have
essences with fixed boundaries, nor do they have definitive identities,
but only habits and properties. Take heart: they are as frightened as
you are! Once the question of the number of collectives is reopened,
the Other is going to change form. As historicity did just now, and
exteriority before it, alterity is going to change: it too has become
altered.
As long as the collective succeeds in drawing lessons from what it
rejects and excludes, it can be defined as civilized: it may change ene-
mies, but it does not have the right to multiply them at each iteration.
As soon as it believes it is surrounded by insignificant entities that
threaten it with destruction, it will become barbarian again. It will be-
come, for instance, a society surrounded by a nature to be dominated,
a society that believes it is free from everything that it does not take
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