Re: Restored

Luke,

D'Souza's book is not scholarship. And if you think it is, you'll have to
demonstrate to me why, since I was personally involved, during the time it
appeared, in the very moments and issues and debates he wrote about and knew first
hand that much of what he said was in fact cheap gossip, broad, almost comic
caricature, shallow misreading, and careless thinking. He does almost no
serious reading of any specific texts anywhere in the book and replaces detailed
analysis with anecdote. The reputation of the book in the academic community
nowadays in well-deserved. It's treated largely as an unfortunate joke.

In any case, citing a section of it which discusses a course by Alice Jardine
as a response to a point of about the importance of order, coherence, meaning
and structure in the writings of Derrida is irrelevant. I'm not sure why you
can't understand that simple point. One thing has absolutely nothing to do
with the other.

And what I objected to in your comment about Alice's course is that she used
chaos "designed to obfuscate." You then describe what she was doing as
"allowing truths to emerge simply through power struggles." I'm not sure exactly
what this means. It sounds like more of D'Souza's vagaries. But I do know this
much, Luke:

You can't accuse someone of obfuscation one moment and then accuse her of
"allowing truths to emerge" the next.

Why, you might ask? Well, because "obfuscation" means to deliberately confuse
or bewilder. That would be the opposite of "allowing truths to emerge."

If you want to be taken seriously as a thinker, you'll have to construct your
arguments and accusations a little more carefully.

You then ask me a question about Derrida's work and answer it yourself,
incorrectly (again).

"Is the possibility of one external Order, Coherence, Structure, Meaning, and
Clarity rejected for the rubbish of an order, coherence, structure, meaning,
and clarity to be imposed internally with 'rhetoric' and 'force?' I think so."

The answer to the question is no.

Why?

Because nowhere in anything Derrida writes, does he "reject" any such
possibility. He interrogates this legacy in Western thought, yes. He reads moments
of its appearance in the history or philosophy, yes. He analyzes its effect
throughout writing and within systems of signification, yes. But he does not
reject it, anywhere. In fact he speaks tirelessly about not rejecting it, about
the dangers of simple reversal, about the crucial importance of affirming it
as one possibility, about always respecting its legacy and the tradition which
it has produced.

And you have yet to show me even a single moment anywhere in Derrida where he
actually rejects any of this. And you won't.

You then suggest that my critique of Daniel's nonsense has something to do
with Rorty and his conclusion, which you cite. It doesn't. Nor, in fact, does
it have anything to do with Derrida. And the Rorty is simply irrelevant,
since he is espousing a theory which neither I nor Derrida would support.

Finally, as if you really intended all along that you were in fact just
blowing smoke and had no real philosophical argument beyond just wishing things
were so, you demonstrate the shallowness and completely undeveloped level of your
own thought.

I asked you how one would "clearly demarcate the difference between
internally and externally imposed truths?"

And you said: "Absolute truth is external, and attempts to interpret it are
internal." But this misses the point of the question is a delightfully naive
way. I already know you believe that one sort of truth is internal and the
other external, the question asked specifically for an account of how one could
demarcate the difference in practice, and you failed to answer it (because, I
suspect, there would be no way, practically speaking).

Then, when I asked you how you would separate internal from external truths,
you were reduced to merely restating your definition of the difference and
failed to describe any method for actually separating the two concepts from one
another in discourse. Why? Because you have no real way to separate them, as
I suspected, and therefore have to simply hope that they are different and
that no one will notice that they remain always conjoined.

And then, to my delight, you do nothing in responding to my third question
but restate your own desire, thereby disproving your own assertion. You say "A
statement of fact is external." But of course, what you call "a statement of
fact" is what you want to be external, and even in your little attempt to
separate and define it, you have been forced to use a rhetoric of power and desire
and therefore are no longer operating exclusively externally. I couldn't
have demonstrated the impossibility of your assertion any better if I had tried
to do it myself. Thanks.

Then you say "I do not plan to back down." Really? What would "backing
down" be, in any case? And why would you? Especially since your truth is external
(whatever the hell that means). This is a strange reassurance.

But your last assertion is certainly correct.

"Any truth we might arrive at following a fight like this is an internally
imposed one."

No doubt about it.

That's inevitable.

And I couldn't have said it any better myself.

All the best,

--John

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Received on Wed Jul 16 07:17:42 2003