One last thought.

Daniel,

It is precisely because words cannot "mean whatever you want them to mean"
that the differences are so clearly marked and re-marked between Hegel and
Genet in *Glas*, between the tidy desire for resolution without excess, for
communion without crumbs, for the disappearance of the voice in Hegel's work
(especially in his *Phenomenology of Spirit*), and the messy and passionate
insistence on excess, on uncertain lineage and parentage, on the need for the
voice and the name, on spillage and joy in Genet, even as these two columns
intertwine to pose further original, interesting, and complex challenges for
readers and for the history of Western thought.

Please read *Glas* to see a demonstration of this.

Also, if you ever thought Derrida's might have suggested, even remotely, that
words can "mean whatever you want them to mean," you should read his work on
Algeria, including "Taking a Stand on Algeria," published in *Acts of
Religion* (Routledge, 2002). Or his work on the law in "Force of Law" in the
same volume.

Even his reading of Kafka's *Before the Law* which does read, carefully and
with painstaking patience, that divine little parable's problems of meaning,
restricts its "general economy" of interpretation in many ways and with
great, almost obsessive care for the specific language of the text.

Reading, for Derrida, is always an act of respect and attention. Reading
Derrida should be too.

Thanks,

--John

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Received on Wed Dec 11 19:07:18 2002