Jacques Derrida

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)

I think that this thread is being too kind to him, as "these threads" usually are. I think that this may be a reaction against scattergun dislike and distrust of him. I don't find the JD-fest appealing or unpredictable.

but pf is korrekt that i find the following line a bit lame
"derrida says you can never read a text too carefully but i refute that THUS: by not reading derrida CLOSELY AT ALL! hahaha!!"

The Pinefox, are you trying to claim that being good at philosophy is no more useful a guide to the value of the person's political opinions than, say, being good at singing (we all know that musicians are constantly asked for political views)? In its theoretical sense at least, surely politics is a branch of philosophy? (Also, The Pinefox, what do you think of JD on Joyce?)

Maybe the difficulty or obfuscation in his work is a deliberate strategy and part of his meanings - I think taking a meaning from this that when you think you understand something you are probably wrong and it's all more complex than you realise is not to misrepresent some of what he is saying. Also I think he regards the attempts at some pure, rational language for philosophy as inherently impossible. But I think there a whole bunch of philosophical and literary ideas feeding into the way he writes, not just what he writes. Ooh (I found this after writing the above), he says (of metaphysical terms like 'presence') "My intention is to make enigmatic what one thinks one understands by these words."

Some of the debate here about whether his writing is inaccessible, bullshit or just banal reminds me a bit of a good account of the four stages scientific theories can go through, in a transition to being accepted:
1. Nonsense
2. This may be true, but it is of no interest
3. This is true, but unimportant
4. This is obvious

I'm not sure (again responding to The Pinefox) that he thinks we should change our basic assumptions. I think he thinks it's worth teasing them out, and showing where they might not be solid. I haven't come across anything that I recall to suggest that he thinks there are clear and solid foundations we should use instead, just that we should be aware of the limitations or weaknesses of what we have.

A quote from JD re what I was arguing with Momus before logging off: "Undecidables are threatening. They poison the comforting sense that we inhabit a world governed by decidable categories." That's why I thought he was suggesting that the binaries don't always work. I think he very much likes these undecidables, and I do too. (I was thinking at leangth just yesterday about the line from Lola where Ray sings "I'm glad I'm a man, so's my Lola," which I realise is a different kind of thing from what Derrida enthuses about in 'Plato's Pharmacy', say, but it has some things ambiguous and playful and indeterminate in common with JD's most famous neologism, differance (sorry, don't know how to do the accent here).)

There is some truth in a jokey suggestion upthread that summarising any of his views is to misrepresent them. He said that all sentences of the type 'Deconstruction is/is not [X]' "a priori miss the point", so this thread is in trouble! (haha, xposting at its finest)

One other point about his talking about political matters: as a thinker with a huge international reputation (named in a Knowing Me Knowing You episode as the world's top living philosopher, if that isn't Peter Ustinov) his statements carry authority. Since most of what he has chosen to throw that weight behind has been things I believe in (he's spoken for nuclear disarmament and against apartheid, for instance) I am happy with this. I don't think he claims that his ideas or those of deconstruction prove much about these positions (though he has deconstructed the logic of deterrence - again, better at taking apart ideas than building new ones). (I'm less comfy with his stance on feminism, though I think I'd need to do more reading to get just where he is on this - the few statements I've read pull in differing directions.) I've seen interesting suggestions that his long silence on Marxism (until the fall of communism in Europe) was because although his deconstructionist approach could undermine that as well as any other ideology, he wanted not to be on the opposite side.

Enough. As you can tell, he is a thinker who interests me, so I'm keen to poke the thread along a bit, if I can.

but what is the point of making that term 'enigmatic'? Its fine to suggest other meanings (maybe that's what you're saying).

''I'm not sure (again responding to The Pinefox) that he thinks we should change our basic assumptions. I think he thinks it's worth teasing them out, and showing where they might not be solid. I haven't come across anything that I recall to suggest that he thinks there are clear and solid foundations we should use instead, just that we should be aware of the limitations or weaknesses of what we have.''

OK but haven't ppl always tried to re-evaluate assumptions that are thought to be solid? what does 'deconstruction' do that is new here (maybe it might take too long to explain)?

but if you treat it as something to THINK about rather than just throw about it has other implications which are somewhat useful. for example it can mean -- "this thing you hold to be true, treat it as a text, treat your understanding of it as a text, treat other's descriptions and statements about it as text, and now ask how it came to be." which is cool, but assumes you have a good idea of various useful ways to treat texts besides saying "oh look! they're made up!" about them.

He is a critic of philosophy and philosophers and philosophical texts rather than someone making new meanings and ways we should live. With these metaphysical terms, it seems an entirely valid thing to say that the way they are used doesn't properly or completely or unambiguously work.

i suppose by implication treat things a paintings if you are GOOD AT LOOKING.

or like fruit if you LIKE TO EAT!?