Dissecting The Everyday

This is a truly loaded quote. I hardly know where to begin.

First and foremost, I think it would behoove me to give a nutshell assessment of the quoted text:

Based on the historical and philosophical context of this writing, I believe what is at the heart of this passage is a deeply intellectual commentary on the paradoxical nature of existence, and how we humans manifest its middle ground: ambiguity.

Second, I'll give a short paraphrase and/or interpretation of each of the selected sentences within this quoted passage (which starts on the upper-middle of page 35):

"Every individual carries in himself a set of reflections, of intentions, that is to say reticences, that commit him to an oblique existence."

[Every person has inner thoughts and motives that bound him to an uncertain existence.] -Actually, "an existence of suspicion" would be a more appropriate paraphrase, as Blanchot makes a correlative statement on "the suspect" and "the oblique" later on in the text.

"To be suspect is more serious than to be guilty (hence the seeking of confession)."

[People being suspicious is a far worse thing than people knowing without a doubt, because when there is no doubt regarding guilt or innocence, the suspected (and therefore the accused) have, at the very least, the instant gratification of closure, which through confession, automatically releases them from the constant torture of others' silent accusations - their suspicions - as these do not allow for definiteness of any kind.]

"The guilty party relates to the law to the extent that he manifestly does everything he must in order to be judged, that is, in order to be suppressed, brought back to the void of the empty point his self conceals."

[The guilty are bound to the law so long as their actions can be judged according to the law, and their consequences - or in this context, punishments - implemented for the purpose of deterring further offenses.]

"The suspect is that fleeting presence that does not allow recognition, and, through the part always held back that he figures forth, tends not only to interfere with, but to bring into accusation, the workings of the State."

A paradox exemplified, [the suspect is that person who does not encourage acknowledgment or accessibility due to his unreadable airs, yet displays a simultaneous desire to be open to judgment, which actively/ultimately brings into doubt both the function and application of the law].

In referring back to my nutshell assessment of the quoted text, it becomes clear that the "paradoxical nature of existence" is best reflected in Blanchot's closing statements regarding "the everyday":

"Hence the everyday must be thought of as the suspect (and the oblique) that always escapes the clear decision of the law, even when the law seeks, by suspicion, to track down every indeterminate manner of being: everyday indifference. (The suspect: any and everyone, guilty of not being able to be guilty.)"

Here - and only here - "the suspect" and "the guilty" are finally brought together as one embodiment of the stated "indeterminate manner of being," which, given the rest of the text, becomes superimposed against Blanchot's backdrop of suspicion as a personification of "the everyday".