Re: babies in the bathwater

Luke,

First of all, you do rely on standards that are constantly evolving. You
might think you don't -- but if you look closely, you'll see that they have
indeed evolved over time, over the years, months, weeks, days -- and they have
evolved culturally and historically as well.

I'm not sure what details about Derrida you thought were "irrelevant" or why,
so I can't answer your opening question. Everything I wrote in my long post
about his work and his defense of his positions dealt with his writing, his
published philosophical essays, including his published autobiographical ones,
so I haven't offered any personal information that would be separate from that
discusion, as far as I can see.

I also don't remember calling you a "sociopathic dork," but I like the
phrase, and I'd be happy to call you one if you'd like the chance to say you're not.

Also, you should feel free to "psychoanalyze" away. You wouldn't be the
first, and even some professionals have had their crack at me. So don't hesitate
if it will make you feel any better.

Then you write this wonderful sentence:

"...you apply these accusations to mean that you don't agree with someone
else's own take on deconstructionism, even after he has been exposed extensively
to this technique of literary criticism..."

Well, if you mean you, it seems to have been a case of indecent exposure.
Why? Because if we are talking about Derrida, you should have known that 1.)
for him there is no such thing as "deconstructionism" nor has there ever been
and 2.) nothing that he has ever written anywhere about the term
"deconstruction" could ever be called a "technique of literary criticism." In fact, the
sentence "Deconstruction is not, must not ever be, a technique or method..."
appears too many times in his work to count. He insists repreatedly that it is not
a technique, and certainly not a technique of "literary criticism," something
he himself has never done, even when he has written about literature. And,
incidentally, he has written a whole essay on exactly why there can never be
anything like "deconstructionism." You can find that essay in a book edited by
David Carroll, called The States of Theory. Here is the bibliographic entry
for you.

'Some Statements and Truisms about Neologisms, Newisms, Postisms,
Parasitisms, and other small Seismisms.' The States of Theory. Ed. D. Carroll. New York:
Columbia University Press, 1989. 63-94.

You see, Luke, you simply say things about Derrida's work (like it's "a
technique of literary criticism") that Derrida himself has written over and over
again are not true.

This isn't personal. Either you just are not very well informed, you have
not been well-taught, or you are writing things that are simply mistakes.

And these things can only be an amusement for me because these ideas cannot
be discussed in any thorough or serious way in a forum such as this, in short
posts without the time or the space to properly read and cite texts in detail
or to discuss pages at length. To study this sort of material properly, one
would need time and the chance to read and discuss specific texts in great
detail and one would need a forum where such a close, patient detailed reading and
discussion would not tax the others in the forum to a cruel degree. This is a
listserv, Luke, and serious, thorough, and responsible discussion of complex
philosophical ideas and texts is not likely to take place here.

And I'm not sure why D'Souza has your admiration, since he has never said
anything about this topic that is even close to accurate, let alone meaningful.
At best his gossip is cocktail party chatter, even less serious than what we
have been doing here; at worst it's lies and the deliberate, self-important
denigration of others for cheap political effect. I know. I do it here all the
time, just for fun. But I sure as hell don't publish it in my serious work.
If my remarks about Ashcroft bothered you at all, you should despise Dinesh's
work. His book is embarrassing.

But all that's old news and we are now repeating ourselves to a disgusting
degree.

Believe me, Luke, what you have written here about Derrida's work reveals
that you are at best simply a novice, that you have a cartoonish sketch of what
his writings are and that you, at times, simply don't know what you are talking
about. That's OK. There is no crime in any of that. But if you are
genuinely curious, and not just satisfied in your shallow familiarity and poorly
formed conslusions about this large body of material, go to the web site I listed
for Daniel, go down the list of entries, find some of the serious titles that
interest you, and read a good deal more. Otherwise, you will continue to
write silly things about Derrida's work that are directly and demonstrably and
explicitly contradicted by page after page of his own writings and you will look
foolish.

But I'm done here. I have offered the relevant citations and even drawn a
sketch which demonstrates Derrida describing his own work in explicitly
different ways than it has been presented around this place. The work itself stands.
Read it. Don't read it. Stay ill-informed or learn more about the primary
material by actually exposing yourself to it to a greater degree. It's up to
you. I think we've done enough here to satisfy me that list-readers know
what's what or at least can find out on their own.

This is getting to be too much like what I do for a living, and I have to
start doing that soon enough.

All the best,

--John

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Received on Wed Aug 13 11:09:13 2003