Jacques Derrida

then once he's actually GOT himself started, where he gets to (which comes after this little section), is the important bit

it isn't arbitrary (the name of the event is the DATE the event happened on); it *is* unusual (holidays often get metonymised this specific way - 4th of july - but what else does? off the top of my head can't think of any other political-military events)

(black friday? bloody sunday? that's the best i can do...)

it could almost suggest that 9/11 was instantly commemorated, which is kind of creepy.

is there a difference between "1066" and "the Norman Conquest"?

Didn't people immediately start using 9/11 because of those numbers specifically? People would not use 9/10 or 9/12, would they, if it happened on these dates instead?

it's still a fairly minor throat-clearing of an idea in itself: just the route JD comes at stuff

x-post re battle of boyne

oh right: but even so, it's the holiday celebration that's created the metonymy, surely?

'In this regard, when compared to the possibilities for destruction and chaotic disorder that are in reserve, for the future, in the computerized networks of the world, "September 11" is still part of the archaic theater of violence aimed at striking the imagination. One will be able to do even worse tomorrow, invisibly, in silence, more quickly and without any bloodshed, by attacking the computer and informational networks on which the entire life (social, economic, military, and so on) of a "great nation," of the greatest power on earth, depends. One day it might be said: "September 11"—those were the ("good") old days of the last war. Things were still of the order of the gigantic: visible and enormous! What size, what height! There has been worse since. Nanotechnologies of all sorts are so much more powerful and invisible, uncontrollable, capable of creeping in everywhere. They are the micrological rivals of microbes and bacteria. Yet our unconscious is already aware of this; it already knows it, and that's what's scary.'

Possible argument: the problem lies with the people who keep asking people like JD about things like 9/11, when there is no very good reason to think that he will have anything more brilliant to say about it than the rest of us.

Perhaps his banal replies signify commendable politeness, in their refusal to say 'Why are you asking me?'.

I can understand him: he is banal!

Sometimes Derrida says banal things - or at least, obvious things, which lots of other people could easily have come out with.

Sometimes his obfuscatory words may be saying something banal.

Sometimes he may not be banal.

Sometimes perhaps he does not obfuscate.

I find the JD fandom and perhaps the JD critique brigade typecast. There is perhaps too much nervy reactive anger, if that word is not too strong, and a sense that battle must be joined. I doubt that it need be.

Possibly we are all typecast.

I feel as though I am repeating something I have long ago said.

Read the interview: I'd love to have a conversation with jacques derrida bcz i suspect it would never be straightforward (he'd take 2 mins to ans one question and maybe an hour to ans the next so I'd have to interrupt him a lot).

x-post: I'm 'out of my depth' too. I'm not sure i'm sorry tho'.

I think that a desire from other people to know what JD thinks about eg. political issues has sometimes prompted him to say things that are fairly banal - as might you or I if we felt forced to offer opinions on such things.

I am being too easy on him here, as some of the banality has come in his own books rather than interviews.

I do not claim that his 'philosophical' work is banal.

I think that we should not assume that 'philosophers' have a privileged take on 'politics'. They are 'members of the public' like others; and they are presumably good at... 'philosophy'.

(i tend to agree w.pinefox that a lot of stuff on politics is not particularly startling as political commentary goes, though personally i do find his language a nice change of pace and rhythm from most of the godawful boilerplate garbage that politics seems to generate...) (why? it didn't used to...) (but i think his work on questions about what constitutes the sovereignty of states - and how we solve disputes here - is at least nibbling away at the right area of the issue)

(q: ponge - does he lose in translation possibly?)

The first time my brother met Derrida was after a conference where JD had been savaged by some Marxists (no doubt for 'obfuscation'). My brother offered some words of support, but Derrida turned and, without a word, walked away. My brother was mortified. The second meeting, however, was much better. Derrida had actually read some of my brother's stuff and congratulated him.

Even if the discussion isn't lead by "professional" philosophers but by practitioners, I think every field would do well to consider the basic assumptions of its theories and its practice. Aren't legal systems based (even if in name only) upon political theories? The problem is that all the societies covered by international law don't have the same tradition in political philosophy and, as far as I know, the Western tradition doesn't cover relations between states. So new work needs to be done in political philosophy, maybe in terms of both coverage and "acuteness."

pf- I didn't say you were being controversial but just pointing out that, while some of it wasn't really saying much that i hadn't heard before I did like the bit where JD talks abt the date.

I did like Jonathan's edit. made it easier to digest the actual interview.

I did... edit... it easier to... interview. (Apologies to Jonathan and Dan Perry.)

ok so it wasn't an edit, just trimming some bits.

I am doubtful as to whether 9/11 necessitated a radical rethink of basic assumptions. Most of us have 'responded' to it, or thought about it, via the same old bunch of assumptions that we had before.

Possibly that is a 'Eurocentric', ie. non-American, perception.

Rick Poynor, the design critic, recently pointed out that the No Logo movement suddenly looked 'anti-American' in the aftermath of 9/11, because the whole context of our thoughts about the world changed. 'The same bunch of assumptions that we had before' maybe, but in a new context with new meanings which none of us could ignore. Suddenly everything was much more ideological. We were forced to extremes. 'With / Against'. There was no neutral ground. You couldn't be Conciliatory Ned any more, and just say 'there's truth on both sides'. I probably had to shift ground less than most, because I've always worked on the assumption that everything is ideological anyway.

Possibly it is mistaken to assume that most or many people were.

My view of the anti-capitalist movement has not changed due to 9/11. Has that of anyone on this thread?

I don't think I have ever met anyone who has changed any major 'beliefs' (a difficult word, perhaps) due to 9/11.

The one thing that the aftermath (if it is that), ie. Iraq, has changed my mind about is: it has made me less sympathetic to T Blair.

I might give this a bit of thought and come back later, but I do like Derrida, and I do think he is of onsiderable value on political events and ideas.

show where there are binaries that don't necessarily work

I think it's the way that binaries do work that concerns Derrida. He's not a mechanic fixing broken ones. He's showing how, although they're necessary, binaries necessarily create all sorts of ghosts which 'haunt' our thinking, semi-visible. Which makes him not so much a 'ghost buster' as a spiritualist, teasing words from his ouija board.

'All sentences of the type "deconstruction is X" or "deconstruction is not X" a priori miss the point.' (Derrida, 1983)