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"One ethnographic mode of writing that we could draw from Wittgenstein is to think of the scenic as capturing a particular way in which a mode of conversation or a course of action is dramatized so that various voices (that of the child, of the skeptic, of common sense, or the philosopher) are allowed expression" (378).

I am using a Scooby Doo analogy to help illustrate the differences and complexities (though vastly simplified in this analogy) between the individual and the other according to Veena Das in her work "Engaging the Life of the Other: Love and Everyday Life". For the sake of the analogy, the Velma, Daphne and Fred will represent the moral individual from its different perspectives as Das describes above (Fred the Masculine, Daphne the Feminine and Velma the Intellectual). The other is represented by the monsters whom they capture. Shaggy and Scooby will represent the adjacent selves, enabled by love to blur the lines between individual and other. While in the Das piece, the individual and other change based on the perspective (Muslims and Hindus can act as both individual and other, in antithesis to each other) however for the sake of this simplified analogy, I will not be interrogating the perspective of the monsters as the individual, though to them the Scooby gang acts as the other 'medaling kids' that thwart their plans.

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"Against the dominant understanding of morality as the capacity to form moral judgments in which the crucial requirement is that we should be able to take an abstract, non-subjective vantage position from which we can orient ourselves to the world, I argue that recourse to such an ideal position often results in evading the imperative to be attentive to the suffering of the other" (377).

The Individual is unsympathetic to the plight of the other.

For the masculine individual as Fred, there is no questioning whether or not the other is wrong. He captures the monsters because they are monsters, they are the  other and the other is scary; the motives are discussed after they have been captured, and there is rarely, if ever any acknowledgeable justification for their actions.

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"For others, everyday life provides the site through which the projects of state power or given scripts of normativity can be resisted" (376).

The other is unable to do what they want/ be what they want within the socially determined confines of normative behavior.

The monsters in the series are often trying to achieve some pre-defined nefarious goal such as theft or cheating. They are unable to reach these goals within their roles as individuals, and so use a mask of the other to reach their goals.

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"We are faced with a reunion of men divided into two groups who devalorize each other’s values and who are nevertheless associated" (398).

The Individual is not the other though their individuality relies on the other's otherness.

Daphne often disidentifies with others, being disgusted or disapproving of actions. Her identity is determined by what she does not associate herself with.

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"My view of moral life is deeply influenced by a notion of the everyday in which how I respond to the claims of the other, as well as how I allow myself to be claimed by the other, defines the work of self-formation" (377).

The appearance/perception of the other informs the actions and response of the individual. The other is recognized and determined by the individual in relationship to their everyday.

The monsters are monsters because of their disguise as such, because they scare the individual, wreak havoc on the innocent.

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"I argue that recourse to such an ideal position often results in evading the imperative to be attentive to the suffering of the other. I am arguing not that there is no room for moral judgments in our lives or that people do not apply abstract standards derived from, say, a rule of conduct found in what they consider to be authoritative traditions but rather that whole areas of moral life remain obscure if our picture of morality remains tied to some version of following rules... whole areas of moral life remain obscure if our picture of morality remains tied to some version of following rules" (377).

The other breaks the rules. The individual determines the rules.

Velma is usually the character that revels why the monster does what they do. She sets the narrative and determines the rules. The motives are never evidence of humanness or personhood, but further support for their identity as other, despite the reveal from behind the mask. These rules never enable the monster to fully become human, or individual, even when their disguise is taken off. Even when they look the same as the individuals, the rules that determine their perceived morality keep them in their otherness.

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"He analyzes the genres of insult and shows how they were written not so much to evade the British censor as to be recognized in the eyes of the colonial state as literatures of insult. How- ever, heaping insults and humiliation on the other is only part of the story—the other part is the theme of desire that crosses the normative boundaries of religion, which has fascinated poets, writers, and film- makers" (379).

The others actions/person is bad only and because the individual perceives it as such. These rules are steeped in a history of identifying against others that is very prevalent in Colonial states.

A lot of the monsters that the Scooby gang encounter are based on colonial fears of otherness and even specific cultures. Take this depiction of an Indigenous American as an example of racist othering. It is also important that the human members of the gang are white, as are most of the supporting characters in the show, demonstrating either the intended audience, or the supposed universality of whiteness in the role of the individual.

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"Bersani makes the extraordinary claim that the ‘‘beloved becomes the lover as re- sult of being loved’’ and thus defines the task of love as embracing the reality of the other as one’s own. In other words, what one has to over- come in love is, first, the inability to love oneself and hence the inability to love the other. Without going into the full development of his argument, what I take from Bersani’s remarkable essay is the idea that love provides us with the opportunity to realize our ‘‘virtual being,’’ which is not the idealized infantile self but rather, in my vocabulary, an adjacent self that is allowed to come into being" (397).

It is with a self identification with the other that the individual becomes the adjacent self.

It is both through Scooby's love for Shaggy and Shaggy's love for Scooby that enables Shaggy to take on some of the characteristics of his dog such as eating dog treats.

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"That course entails losses that we might even mourn—the most important loss being the security of anchor- age in a solid, given identity.
I have argued in recent years that our attachment to routines and habit is inflected by another affect—that of the experience of the everyday as also the site of trance, illusion, and danger (Das 2007). The mutual shadowing of the ordinary and skepticism in my view defines the character of the everyday, so that to secure the everyday, far from being something we might take for granted, might be thought of as an achievement" (376).

The everyday can be a space for an adjacent self to emerge, one that enables actions outside of the predetermined site of the individual. The adjacent self is neither the individual or the other.

Through Shaggy's love for Scooby he is able to talk, eat human food and exist, almost as an equal with the individuals. Though his identity as a dog puts him into the space of the other, Shaggy's love brings him into the space of the individual as an adjacent self. Scooby is this adjacent self in the everyday, so though his talking and eating might be seen as an achievement to someone outside of his everyday, to it is not recognized by the individuals as unusual.

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Das, Veena. "Engaging the life of the other: Love and everyday life." Ordinary ethics: Anthropology, language, and action (2010): 376-99.