Jacques Derrida

jd can generally take an awful long time to say stuff - but there's more to what he's saying as a whole (on that link) than my redux: he's saying it that way to get you in a mood to be attentive to what's not being said

(ie like elmer fudd: "be vewwy vewy quiet, i'm hunting wabbits)

jonathan z. i take yr point, i'm just not sure if the best way to get ppl to think for themselves abt the shadow side of eloquence and rhetorical power is by being ALWAYS snappy and zippy and grabby

(on the other hand JD is *never* any of those things, though in some ways his problem is that he is too compressed haha)

this phrase is one of both Derrida and DeMan's favorite red herrings

What he says about philosophy has not always been banal, or has not always been obvious.

(haha "like nations on a map with no names" -- WHERE the fuck did i just read that!?)

im not sure what that means but it seemed very funny.

they're like monads except they throb

is this like saying that naming something necessarily means "we do not know what we are talking about"? (and therefore means that we never know what we are talking about - we just talk about words) or does this only apply to metonyms?

crown -- > king
shake your ass -- > shake your entire body
9/11 -- > ?

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?)