Thread by @ZoharAtkins

It’s time for a @threadapalooza about Jacques Derrida, a polarizing and influential thinker, who popularized the word “deconstruction” & wrote in a style that is at once brilliant, annoying, charming, and cringe. I can’t tell if he is deep or shallow. Perhaps that’s the point.

Derrida is the Bitcoin of philosophers; wildly beloved by devotees and particularly reviled by skeptics. His polarizing status also divides his fans—between those who think him a genuine philosopher and those who think him more of a literary figure, a prankster with panache. 2

When Derrida was awarded an honorary degree by Cambridge, a handful of influential philosophers, including Quine, wrote a letter in protest. He's a sophist--not a philosopher--say critics. 3

To this day, Derrida is mostly taught in comparative literature departments, not philosophy departments; his great cultural influence is probably dependent as much on notoriety as anything else. Ironically, long before "cancel culture" many sought to "cancel him" Respect. 4

Derrida was an Algerian born Jew, who was versed in the classics, but whose legacy is to cast doubt on the concept of canon and great books--despite the fact that his oeuvre reads as a commentary on those same books. 5

He's written critical essays on Plato, Augustine, Rousseau, Hegel, Freud, Marx, Heidegger, Levinas. His first book was on Husserl and Geometry! The dude read widely and deeply in many languages and was prolific. 6

Before getting into the thought itself, we also have to mention that Derrida was handsome, photogenic, with a big silver mane. From what I understand, he was a philanderer. His visual presence and his name are part of his charisma, his eros. 7

Should it matter? Maybe not for the purists, but if you want to explain why he became a meme, you can't ignore it. The funny thing about it is that Derrida criticized (following Heidegger) what he called the "metaphysics of presence," yet the way his name and photo function...8

Derrida is an icon; for an iconoclast this is either hypocrisy (of willfully cultivated) or a dramatic irony. The cult of Derrida is contradicted by what Derrida is saying, or seems to be, about how we over-invest value in the wrong things. 9

If you want a tribute that makes this point well, read Marco Roth's memoir excerpt about going to Paris to learn with the Master, only to be disappointed: nplusonemag.com/online-only/on… 10

Derrida is important not only in terms of intellectual and cultural history, in my view, but because he is a worthy contender. I have basically grown out of and beyond him, but "experiencing" his work, especially the opaque stuff, can be fruitful stuff. 11

Occasionally, he produces wise gems. Like the idea that we aren't even fluent in our native language; or that forgiveness is only possible because the act it forgives is "unforgivable." His contradictions, at their best, have a Zen quality. 12

Derrida seems quite heady and disembodied, a bit of a neurotic mess, not a contemplative master. But in his madness there is a kind of enlightenment, particularly for those who are addicted to the word and find silence intolerable. 13

Derrida was friends with Harold Bloom, who often name drops him. (Derrida was a visiting professor at Yale) and influenced the Yale School of Deconstruction, which is basically the opposite approach as the reigning New Criticism. 14

New Criticism and Deconstruction both want us to approach a text on its own terms, independent of authorial intent or biography; but new criticism sees itself as literary-scientific. There's a method. There's also respect for the integrity of the work being commented on. 15

In deconstruction, the work is re-worked through a commentary that doesn't seek elucidation but seeks to problematize the language of the text, to show how the text can't but double-speaking, saying one thing, but also subverting it. 16

My main argument with deconstruction is not with Derrida, but his followers--it's boring: the formula is pat. Every text says X officially, but also suggests that X is not X. Note that this is a Hegelian move. It's sort of Straussian in that it promotes an alternative read. 17

But Strauss believed that philosophers were excellent and wrote excellent things for excellent readers. Deconstruction questions what excellence means, suggesting its not possible or incoherent. There is officially no esoteric way to read as a deconstructionist. 18

Unofficially and sociologically, deconstruction is as much an elite school as the next thing. Though gesturally leftist, it's basically just become Ivy League academic orthodoxy. No person in material need was saved by deconstruction. 19

This was, btw, Martha Nussbaum's critique of Judith Butler once upon a time. Deconstruction is like napalm--there's no reason it should help one side. Relativism (of which deconstruction is accused) helps oppressors possibly more than the oppressed, is on the side of power. 20

If you've read any of the recent articles by @bariweiss and @CaitlinPacific on wokeness at elite private schools, you'll grasp the ways in which Deconstruction functions more as a luxury status symbol than a genuine tool for "resistance," despite its own claims. 21

But the problems with the Church of Deconstruction should not distract us from finding what is genuinely meaningful, fun, and beautiful in Derrida's work (just as we shouldnt reduce Heidegger to Nazism, Marx to Communism, Strauss to neoconservatism, or any1 to their politics) 22

Derrida makes some bold claims--like the idea that we shouldn't privilege orality above writing, or being in person to being absent, or the word to other forms of representation, or the original to the representation. He thinks our tradition has, and w/ negative effect. 23

He calls this "logocentrism." And you can see how Derrida's sticking it to the man engenders all kinds of subsequent critiques of the system as privileging the wrong things, and putting center ahead of periphery. 24

In the name of saving the marginalized, Derrida's name has become a battle cry. I suppose, in theory, Derrida would have embraced remote work. His student, Avital Ronnell, wrote about the telephone. 25

Let's steel-man Derrida and talk about the meaningful aspect of his idea, namely, that when we are with people they can still be gone and when they are not with us they can still be present. This is a genuinely profound idea. 26

It's a way of talking about ambiguous loss, about all kinds of phenomena, from faith to love to hallucination and reading. From dementia to physical injury. From betrayal to surprise. And above all, about self knowledge--the way we are with and not with ourselves. 27

Consider the Mark Strand line, classically Derridean, "wherever I am, I am what is missing." 28

Derrida understood email, slack, sms, etc. were not modern—the difficulties we have in communicating are as old as communication itself. 29

His influence on modern poetry and art is both explicit and implicit, not just because of his ubiquity but because he makes the theoretical argument for all art being about its medium, all poetry being about poetry etc. 30

Such a focus on Reflexivity can be overdone, but it’s also useful and interesting. Applied in a religious context I see it as Kabbalistic—every verse in Scripture is also about what it means to reveal, to read, to understand. 31

Derrida offers a philosophical deconstruction of the self that finds a parallel in the Buddhist experience of no-self, the realization that the ego is an illusion. 32

But Derrida’s path is with thought, not meditation. 33

Can a deconstructed self have rights? There is some irony to a critique intended as an attempt to help the powerless that it basically says the self is an illusion. No-self is an anti-liberal concept insofar as it destroys individuality. 34

On the other hand, the idea of interdependence on which Buddhism and Derridean thought are big, should lead —if not to compassion—than self interested care for the whole, the collective. 35

I don’t see why one particular set of politics should be the answer to this existential recognition, though. Interdependence is a realization that might reasonably lead to contradictory conclusions. 36

Graham Harman notes that in theory there could be right wing Derrideans. Still, most are post colonialists. 37

Zizek claims that Zen Buddhist meditation was used followers of Pinochet and other dictators to help soldiers kill with less “attachment.” 38

I think of Derrida as a French Heidegger, an attempt to translate the German cultural reactionary into a culturally left context. His work is a tribute to a thinker he never overcame (not unlike his Jewish contemporary Levinas) 39

Heidegger already gave us the idea that tradition needs to be “destroyed”—meaning not eradicated, but re-interpreted critically. Deconstruction is a Frenchification of the German “Destruktion” of Being and Time. 40

Derrida wants the critical power of Heidegger, but without the inevitable fascism. He thinks Heidegger is guilty of the things Heidegger says others are guilty of. 41

Ie Heidegger wasn’t Heideggerian enough; his critique was good but he didn’t apply it to himself. He was too enamored of Being; but by his own light, Being isn’t a being! Why then does he anthropomorphize it?! 42

In Of Spirit, Derrida accuses Heidegger of being too lured in by the language of spirit and essence even as Heidegger’s own thought argues against taking these at Dave value. Heidegger’s fancy term is “ontotheology”; JD says MH is a fascist bc he’s ontotheological. 43

Like Arendt and others, JD is also an apologist and defender of Heidegger—their argument is that the thought stands and is not ruined by the politics. It was too late in the 60s in Paris not to read Heidegger...all the cool kids had done it. 44

Another way that Derrida reworks Heidegger though is stylistic. Heidegger lacks a sense of humor and speaks in apocalyptic terms. Derrida is jocular and often witty. He fits the stereotype of the Jewish “sad clown.” 45

Derrida's work is full of asides, tangents, parenthetical--he gets lost in and intoxicated by language as it is happening. 46

I, to the extent that I can say I, shall parody Derrida, shall sing a song beside itself with reason, a song of derision, a risible derivation, a name whose future is found only where its referent has become vanquishable. 47

In Heidegger, you get wordplay, but its usually less free-flying and more somber, contained. There is a system, even if its a poetic one. For Heidegger there's a fourfold: earth, heaven, gods and mortals. 48

In Derrida, there's no limit to the joke except the author's own point of exhaustion. The text must end only because it can go on forever, must break expectation because surprise is conformity. 49

Are you lost? That's the point of the exhibitionism. The wandering is the point. Though like John Cage's 4'33, there may be a there there even when it seems like there isn't one. 50

Derrida should, in theory, be the first to accept the critique of "no there there" since he questions why we should privilege "there" over "not there"; is he a champion of juvenile meaningless or an advocate for its expansiveness? Both? 51

A big theme in Derrida, but not only him, is "indeterminacy." Another byword of the French school is "aporia," a Greek (Socratic) term that means without way. I love indeterminacy and aporia; aesthetically, great films use them in both plot and camera lighting. 52

But if everything is aporetic nothing is; and if you know each book is going to expose an aporia why read it unless you're a devotee looking to conquer the world (of ideas) with your hegemonic intellectual tool box. 53

Derrideans are officially against hegemony, but of course, must inevitably set up their own. Many would have to accept this charge as legit, and so will respond that to keep guard against this tendency they must constantly be self critical, reflexive, jocular, ironic. 54

My response to that is that they simply make idols out of those ideals, too. There is simply no way to live without ideals; "you gotta serve somebody," as Bob Dylan says. 55

Umberto Eco popularized the idea that laughter and jokes are a shield against reactionary psychology and conservative politics in his "The Name of the Rose." The villainous monk wants to keep buried Aristotle's Treatise on Laughter. 56

To laugh is to mock and to make light of; it can't be tolerated, so the argument goes. Humor is a kind of distancing. 57

But the other side of the debate knows that laughter is a defense mechanism against being vulnerable and can be its own dogmatic holding pattern, a retreat from the possibility of being moved. 58

If I were to tell the Derrida Heidegger story as a soap opera, I'd tell at a story of a jilted lover. JD thinks that all seriousness leads to violence and so retreats from the world to become an academic hero, but an inwardly sullen bachelor. 59

I love a good paradox--and Derrida found many--but we should distinguish between paradox as a way into reverence and paradox as an inoculation against it. It's unclear which Derrida espoused. That indeterminacy is part o this brand. 60

But I'd venture that on the whole Derrida thought paradoxes were a vaccine against naive belief, not a portal to transcendent experience. His own mode is avowedly secular, even if inspires some theologians and seekers. 61

Unlike new atheists such as @SamHarrisOrg Derrida thought religious tradition was worth grappling with. Derrida speaks of "Messianism without messianicty," which means he wants to keep the structure of messianic thought alive while rejecting the content. 62

Dislike what Derrida does w/ religion, but appreciate that he doesn't dismiss it outright. Deconstruction is about saving all manner of texts, reading them against themselves, not labelling them "good" or "bad." 63

In theory, Derridean thought is anti-Manichiean even if its popularizers fall into the trap of saying "deconstructionists good, everyone else bad." 64

You can see that the Derridean approach is theoretically much more conservative than contemporary practitioners of cancel culture; no text (or very few) should be cancelled, since the best way to respond is to read them according to a radical strategy. Why banish them? 65

To banish a text is to let the text and its orthodox readers have the exclusive say on what it means. Who died and made them its sole custodians. 66

Deconstruction, when it's good, makes a familiar text unfamiliar and an unfamiliar one familiar. Morally, it means texts that seem outdated can appear ahead of their times, and texts that seem progressive or enlightened are shown to be limited. 67

Of course, the problem with deconstruction is that it's not interested in authorial intent. But for pragmatists (like Stanley Fish and Richard Rorty), such a grail is a conceit anyways. Even some on today's right (@Vermeullarmine ) are anti-originalist. 68

Two blog posts I've written about deconstruction vs. originalism here: whatiscalledthinking.substack.com/p/why-i-am-not…

whatiscalledthinking.substack.com/p/whats-wrong-… 69

Let's back up to the charge that Derrida is a sophist--this is the cliched criticism of any philosopher one doesn't like. Recall that Socrates is effectively put to death on charges of sophistry (corrupting the youth). 70

In Plato's Sophist dialogue, no definitive argument is able to settle what a sophist is as compared to a philosopher. It seems that all philosophy is at risk of sophistry, all sophistry a close cousin (false friend?) of philosophy. 71

I take sophistry to be the focus on winning arguments, rather than caring about whether the arguments are good, true, sustainable. 72

Sophistry is the weaponization of logic to unvirtous ends. 72

But who gets to decide what makes for the right end of philosophy? And who can judge a person's inner motivation, assuming motivation isn't always multi-variable, a bit pure, a bit impure? 73

I suppose that if philosophy has no end, but is just a reveling in the joy of philosophy some might see it as decadent, while others might see it as the only way to ensure philosophy is saved from worldly concern. 74

What is the end of deconstruction? Why be a philosopher? 75

There is a gestural social justice component to Derrida and his followers, but I'm unpersuaded that's the goal, otherwise close reading texts seems an odd choice of tactic. 76

Is the end "wisdom"? but wisdom has been deconstructed. Hmm. So why do it? Is there no purpose to it? There must be, and yet there cannot be a single definitive end or it's not deconstruction, it's just Aristotle 3.0 ("all things aim at flourishing.") 77

The trad Derrida is basically just "well, this is the good life--reading texts critically and enjoying language and paradox." 78

The activist intellectual Derrida (which takes its cues from the example of Bertrand Russell and Sartre) sees deconstruction as a technique we can apply to showing how institutions are corrupt, crypto-authoritarian. It's the high octane version of Bourne Identity or Snowden. 79

A third option is to see Derrida as a cultural critic, but not a solution to the problems he identifies. The problem is that we are too dogmatically attached to our institutions, we should be more loose; more skeptical; more mix-and-match irreverent. 80

A part of me likes the idea that we shouldn't fence off high and low culture; I see that idea in Walter Benjamin. I see it in Roberto Bolano's work. But I'm also not sold on the idea that all objects of contemplation are equally worthy of thought and engagement. 81

The mystic in me thinks we should be less discriminate about what we see as valuable and wise. The pragmatist in me worries that with an inability to discriminate comes a loss; I'm sort of old school, we need a classical foundation to appreciate middle brow TV as wise. 82

If u start with Cultural Studies you won't gain the freedom that comes from being informed by a tradition. Derrida could play, because he knew the scales. It's misleading to think u can skip past thinkers and just be a deconstructionist just by watching the Wire. 83

Derrida's "moat," to use the VC idiom, isn't his theory of deconstruction, but his literary style. Here's a sentence nobody else could have written: 84

“I would like to write you so simply, so simply, so simply. Without having anything ever catch the eye, excepting yours alone, ... so that above all the language remains self-evidently secret, as if it were being invented at every step, and as if it were burning immediately” 85

Derrida writes about his inability to write simply, simply. It’s beautiful. And also suggests a reason why he often can’t—simplicity for him means intelligible to one person, but there always others; language is social, therefore intimacy in language is never quite possible. 86

It’s true theoretically even if practically a bit Hamlet-esque to obsess about. (We can still say “I love you” even if it’s not rigorous to do so) 87

The part of Derrida that focuses on the inadequacy of language as it is mired in it is romantic. The 19th c. thinker Schlegel writes “words know themselves better than we who use them.” 88

Derrida would agree with the sentiment; he was all too aware that words don’t mean what we want them to, because they carry an excess of meaning, the history of their long and varied use. 89

Thus, for Derrida, a pen is also a syringe; a drug is both poison and remedy; and we can add, a bottle is also a battle, a ghost a gesture, a hand a handle, etc. 90

Derrida says, “I often pass for an atheist.” So much depends upon that word “pass” which means to dissimulate, but also not to fail at being. He was coy like that; a bit too coy, but I glimpse a soul beneath the gag, or as he would say, rejecting my dualism, above the gag. 91

Has Derrida aged? Will he be interesting in 500 years? I think it’s possible that he will be a minor but still enduring figure. His realization that the tradition needs to be confronted creatively and critically places him in diverse but good company. 92

I don’t think his approach scales beyond academic English departments, but it is, when done well, a source of joy and —despite itself—meaning. Derrida made thinking fun and showed it can be. 93

He was one of the best terrible writers we have, a scandalously terrible academician bursting forth with oracular maxims. 94

I’d rather visit Heidegger in the Black Forest, but I’m glad that Derrida helped make Heidegger kosher for his French and American acolytes. His work is magnanimous even as it is self involved, another paradox. 95

Derrida joins the company of those who use reason to question reason; he is post-rational. If not quite religious, his work makes room for it (pitfalls and all.) But the room he makes is theoretical and hesitant not warm or grand. 96

Save the bombastics for modernism. Derrida is a herald of postmodernism, the aesthetic whereby tradition is not even dead, but simply vestigial. 97

Derrida offers a trace of religion (he likes the word “trace”)—he would say a “trace of a trace”—but only a faint one; it’s the religious echo, “a still small voice.” 98

If all presence is already absent, and absence a kind of presence, we can’t be so bold as to posit or deny God—we must sustain the ambivalence of a God who is both here and not. 99

Perhaps this God goes by a different sign; perhaps our myths don’t say what we think or want them to, but they are what remains in our time, which will already have been “out of joint.” (fin)

Post-script: whatiscalledthinking.substack.com/p/is-post-stru…