The messianic is a call to the other. This call is a demand inscribed in language by the differing and deferring of differance. This call to the other who is not a divine happens in a different order of time. One that we call messianic time . The call to the other is not done in the future but can be done only now, today, this instant. Blanchot reminds us that there are conditions of this messianic. One is that we repent, and there are others that we are not aware of as differance which happen below our consciousness and our unconsciousness. This call to the other who is not the same as us has problems of responsibility and ethics and justice. This call is demanded now by the messianic and demands a response on our part. The other must be shown hospitality. The question is how do we do this and still keep our house. It is not a question of equality, although this is important, but more than this it is a matter of putting the other in a place of eminence. This also requires a certain discretion on our part, because the other can be our racism, our xenophobia or our sexism. To welcome this other would not be conducive to a democracy to come. This democracy to come that threatens unity, community and identity by reason of their oppression, marginalization and exclusion of the other, who is wholly other. A democracy to come that offers hospitality and justice to the other. The possibility of this impossibility of a democracy to come is what deconstruction is all about.

Raymond Willans