Re-Reading Saramago on Community –Blindness

Drawing on the thought of Jean-Luc Nancy, Roberto Esposito, Judith Butler and others, the article looks back at José Saramago’s Blindness to explore his experiment in thinking the foundation of human community. Positing a fundamental precarity of human co-existence, Saramago subtly develops a set of basic moral values, including trust, dignity, and a sensus communis, to show what binds us together as meaningful communities in the absence of a shared ethico-religious tradition. Paying close attention to the details of Saramago’s famous and gripping thought experiment, the article shows how the novel, with help from some recent theoretical work in moral and political philosophy, can continue to teach us important lessons in community today.