One of my favorite things we have talked about this semester is Levinas’ theory about totality and infinity. It’s not exactly Latin Americanesque on the surface, but you can see it everywhere and anywhere. It’s amazing how many times I have thought of this theory as we have been reading different works in this class or watching the different films. It’s also been interesting to realize how many times I’ve thought about it outside of class.

Just a little reminder about what the theory is: There is yourself, and everyone else that’s not you is an “other.” In understanding these “others” there are two ways to approach them. One way is through totality where you look at them as this kind of pie chart and if you can fill in all the pieces then you will know exactly who they are; you can label them. The other way is through the infinity approach where no matter how much you learn there is always more to find out; you will never be able to label them as something specific. Another way of describing this is that totality is more harsh and grasping while infinity is more gentle and caressing.

When I first learned about this it made me analyze what kind of a person I am, do I just try to figure things out and label them or do I accept things as they are and slowly try to unfold some of the mysteries? I feel like when you first meet someone it’s only natural to want to “understand” them and instantly label them into a category. Since learning this theory though, I’ve been trying harder to just realize that labels don’t explain what someone really is. People are too complex to fit inside narrow, undefined assumptions. So why do we keep putting labels on people?