Re: Before the Law

Everyone,

Very quickly, because I think this is getting repetitive.

Robbie writes regarding "deconstruction,"

"no other idea I know of is difficult to get a simple, perfunctory,
simplified conception of."

Fine, I would ask him to give me a simple, perfunctory, simplified conception
of phenomenology, then. And see of what use it is. See if it will enable
anyone to recognize all the different moments of reading and writing that
might be accompanied by that term. Then there are a bunch of others we can
do.

In fact, I think Robbie's over-statement is horribly wrong. I think there are
a great many "ideas" that are quite "difficult to get a simple, perfunctory,
simplified conception of." And I think that the fact that he does not
reveals something about his appreciation of the nature of those ideas and his
respect for them.

He then goes on to insist that:

"Most loosely, literature refers to anything written."

I am completely unconvinced that what he and I are writing here is, in any
sense of the word, "literature." Anyone think it is?

Then he returns to the dictionary. And I repeat my warnings about such a
naive and misleading method of scholarship and of learning. I do believe,
that in cases like this, it does more harm than good. And, again, why the
need for such a quick and simple answer anyway? What does this say about the
real interest of those asking the question?

I remind you that at this point I have now offered three separate definitions
of the term -- a page and half one I posted long ago, a paragraph I posted a
few days ago, and a sentence I posted yesterday. And still I get more
excuses why people are likely to be unwilling to read, to research, to
actually investigate the texts to which the term refers. I refuse to offer
philosophy for t-shirts or slogans to replace thought. And I insist that the
desire to do so not only leads inevitably to sloppy thinking and
misinformation, but reveals an attitude about the way complex ideas should be
treated that frankly, I want no part of, and not only because I think it has
long been politically and historically dangerous.

I stand in favor of bothering to read. I stand in favor of bothering to sit
down with someone who has read and, over a long period of time, discussing
texts. I stand in favor of respecting the heterogeneity of essays and
moments of reading and philosophical arguments. "Deconstruction," insofar as
it names any "thing," names a series of texts over a number of years. It is
not a school. It is not a method. It is not a technique. Those texts are
diverse. I will not reduce them to a misleading sentence, paragraph, or page
(beyond the sentence, paragraph, and page I have already offered). If you
truly want to know to what the term refers, I am happy to point you to the
texts and even read them with you. But I am not going to pretend to be able
to put it all in a convenient catch-phrase for those unwilling to do the work
that it deserves or to spend the time that it demands. I am frankly not
interested in how many people might or might not be willing to read the texts
and learn how the term has been used and as a part of what various readings
it has appeared. I am frankly not interested in those who want simple and
simplistic answers to complex questions. I am frankly tired of the
bumper-sticker approach to ideas that uses some rhetoric of efficiency and
the ringing certainty of Hegel's dreamt-of Aufklarung to reduce a
heterogeneous set of readings and a layered collection of specific texts to a
programmatic and traceable set of ingredients. In fact, I think that what is
at work here is the worst of part of the general-education/survey approach to
ideas. And, as I have already said, I think it is simply bad scholarship and
an unwillingness to do the work necessary for genuine understanding. I see
no reason why it should be indulged or encouraged.

For those who truly want to know about "deconstruction" -- I am happy to
offer you the relevant texts. I am happy to read them with you. I am happy
to work, in a careful and responsible way, through any problems they might
pose for you. I am even happy to offer you a few general comments, as I
already have, as part of (and a gesture towards) reading them. But I will
not give in to the "make it safe and just tell us what to look for so we can
say we recognize it" approach to such issues and to such ideas. I see no way
in which that can be anything but misleading and counter-productive.

What Robbie calls "reluctance," I call respect.

I will remain reluctant towards those who remain unwilling to read.

And this is true not only of "deconstruction," but of all such terms and of
all such texts and of all such moments in the history of thought.

I would no more want to answer Robbie's question about Derrida's large and
diverse body of work in a single sentence than I would want to answer it
about Salinger's much more limited corpus. And I think the desire for the
easy definition and the quick, recognizable answer to these sorts of
questions reveals a good deal about the scholarship and the intellectual
habits of those who possess it.

All the best,

--John

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Received on Sat Mar 8 23:07:55 2003