Re: Playing, yes; nice? (and more silliness)

Luke writes, I hope out of simple ignorance: "A rejection of logocentrism leaves no basis by which one can conclude that racism is wrong, absolutely."

Establishing a contradiction between apartheid rhetoric and the realities of its implementation requires reason, to distinguish the two as unlike. The basis for establishing the contradiction is logos. Derrida can associate apartheid laws with Western ideology in the "signifier" category all he wants, but this does not make it so. There is a huge difference between, for example, the philosophy of consent of the governed and the obedience that apartheid demands from South Africans (Derrida points out this subjugation).

In a purely logocentric world, the failure to intervene could be considered a betrayal of values; perhaps once a general principle of the wrongness of racism, as manifested in South Africa under apartheid, is ignored, then the political and economic considerations that could explain failure to intervene enter into the scenario. Political self-interest and economic self-interest may be Truth themselves, in that people do behave in a certain way and it's acknowledged, but the rhetoric used to disguise those two things cannot be Truth.

I read "Racism's Last Word" when you first recommended it over the list. I wonder how many other readers, skeptical of deconstructionist criticism, would consider this essay a devastating contradiction of my earlier statements... probably not many. It's kind of one of those things where once you see that the emperor is naked, no number of proclamations from you will clothe him again.

Hey, dude -- exams coming up, and mine is open-book, so what better way to kill time before work than suffering through another headache-inducing text avec mon ami Jacques?

Know thy enemy.

luke

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