Cosmopolitanism and Material Ethics 91This reading of the Magistrate’s actions once again dovetails with
the theoretical work of Foucault, who stresses that consciousness is
highly influenced by the structures of knowledge in a given socio-
cultural context.^38 These structures, which he calls “epistemes,”
constitute a “world view, a slice of history common to all branches
of knowledge” that impose on us “a certain structure of thought
that the men of a particular period cannot escape.”^39 Of course, in
the previous chapter I argue that there are moments in which the
individual can struggle against such sociohistorical circumstances,
thereby asserting subjectivity; and it should be acknowledged that the
Magistrate ultimately succeeds (albeit in a limited capacity) in doing
just that by freeing himself from the imperial episteme. However,
this assertion of subjectivity is achieved only long after we have seen
him fail to live up to his cosmopolitan principles. By depicting the
ethical failures that occur along the way, particularly those involv-
ing his treatment of the “barbarian girl,” Coetzee encourages us to
think with critical attentiveness about the nature of empathy, and
recognize that the sympathy of the Magistrate is constrained by the
sociopolitical environment in which he operates.
However, the narrative also promotes a strained empathic engage-
ment between the reader and the protagonist himself, with the eth-
ical “shortcomings” of the Magistrate (his exploitative relationship
with the “barbarian girl” being one) problematizing an immediate
sympathetic reading. This serves to add an additional layer of self-
reflexivity to an ethical reading of the text—one which resonates
with the ethical formulations of Levinas. To reiterate, Levinas argues
that a humanist ethics requires both a desire and a self-reflexive
attempt to “bridge” the perceived gap between self and the Other.
This necessitates what he calls “the surpassing of the subjective,” or
the act of transcending from the confines of selfhood.^40
Another more subtle, but perhaps more insidious, point of sem-
blance between the Magistrate and Joll is to be found in their pre-
dilection for perceiving and demanding a definitive and singular
notion of “truth.” For Joll, access to the truth is granted almost by
religious rite through the practice of torture, with pain allowing
him to transcend barriers of epistemic and cultural plurality and to
reduce all semantic possibilities to a singular significatory system.