Questioning
Tricky evasive rhetoric chapter 7863. A complaint about the New York Times’ obituary of Derrida. The obit was rather unfriendly, I noticed it at the time, but this article – well let’s have a look.
Derrida had advanced deconstruction as a challenge to unquestioned assumptions of the Western philosophical tradition.
Unquestioned assumptions? Really? Derrida single-handedly woke philosophy from its dogmatic slumbers? The ‘Western philosophical tradition’ was full of assumptions that no one had ever questioned until Derrida came along? Maybe that’s not what he means to say – but if it’s not, he’s a very bad writer, because that’s certainly what the article seems to be saying. And Derrida’s fans so often do seem to say things like that – the ones in literature departments at any rate, which would explain it. It’s highly unfair, in a way, because Derrida tends to be blamed for the absurd things his fans say.
Kandell’s obit provoked an uproar among Derrida’s American admirers. Professors at the University of California, Irvine, where Derrida had lectured for years, were indignant about what they viewed as an irresponsible assault on complex thought at a time when the manichean worldview emanating from the White House encouraged “black and white thinking.”
Um – what? An assault on complex thought? So complex thought=Derrida and Derrida=complex thought? Nobody else is doing any complex thought, so therefore Derrida has to be treated with, ahem, unquestioning reverence, for the sake of complex thought? He’s the only philosopher or intellectual who does complex thought therefore he is beyond criticism? Well, the thinking behind that idea seems pretty simple at least.
I read a good memorial essay about Derrida the other day, so I know they do exist. They’re not all silly. But this one is.
OB, OK – perhaps RB’s tad unnecessary hyperbole asks for it in para 2.
But to be fair, this is a useful critique, with a fair criticism of Derrida below. (It actually what irks me about what many on the ‘left’ have now inherited from him… the moral equivalence and so forth that ham-strings political will on issues such as international intervention).
“Ironically, the American left was often no more enamored of Derrida than the right. Although Derrida had always been a man of the left–a tireless critic of South African apartheid and the death penalty, an opponent of totalitarianism and racism–many American leftists faulted him for what they saw as an insufficiently firm commitment to truth. Some of their criticism was similar to what was coming from the right. They argued that deconstruction made it impossible to develop a principled political philosophy with its stress on constantly questioning the basis of ethical judgment.”
Yes but Benjamin is claiming that the left was wrong in that criticism. (Then, amusingly, toward the end of the article he makes an admission without seeming to notice he’s doing it – when he says Derrida tried hard to make his writing clearer in his later work. So if his earlier work was misread, maybe at least some of that is Derrida’s own doing…? Maybe the famous ‘difficulty’ and the much-vaunted literary quality have their drawbacks in writing philosophy…? Maybe there really is a reason he’s a hero to literary theorists but not to most philosophers? Maybe as a philosopher he’s a good poet?)
“Yes but Benjamin is claiming that the left was wrong in that criticism.”
Yup, got me there, although the tone is hardly what I’d call a spirited defence.
Also, I’m just curious to know if there is such a thing as a neocon equivalent to Derrida? (Don’t say ‘all of them ‘!)