Introducing Derrida

VE REALIZED ITS VALUE BY RECOGNIZING ITS LIMITS – BY NOT ASKING IT TO DO EVERYTHING FOR ME… I HAVE VERY LITTLE PATIENCE WITH PEOPLE WHO ARE SO DEEPLY INTO DECONSTRUCTION THAT THEY HAVE NOTHING ELSE SUBSTANTIVE TO THINK ABOUT.

De Man’s article had been printed alongside other, notably “vulgar” anti-semitic articles. [Derrida]: ‘These coincide, in their vocabulary and logic, with the very thing that de Man accuses, as if his article were denouncing the neighbouring articles.’
It’s a reading of considerable subtlety. Derrida adds to it a further concern. Wasn’t the villification of de Man reminiscent of the excluding, eradicating mentalities of fascism?

TO CALL FOR CLOSING HIS BOOKS – THAT IS TO SAY, AT LEAST FIGURATIVELY, FOR CENSURING OR BURNING THEM – IS TO REPRODUCE THE EXTERMINATING GESTURE WHICH ONE ACCUSES DE MAN OF NOT HAVING ARMED HIMSELF AGAINST SOONER.
Derrida’s most ardent critics objected to this logic.
Terry Eagleton: “It makes de Man into the victim, rather than Belgian Jews. And it displaces the whole issue onto the malice of de Man’s critics: they are the true totalitarians. That’s shabby sophistry.”
But there’s more to deconstructive politics than this suggests…
Deconstruction and Feminism

How might deconstruction relate to practical, contemporary political struggles?
In the interview “Choreographies” (1982), Derrida suggests some possibilities. The politics in question are feminist, and deconstruction has no simple alliance with them…
To some (“difference”) feminists, deconstruction has seemed useful. To put it simply, it works to dislocate categories like male/female or masculine/feminine: the foundations of patriarchal sexuality.

Other feminists (e.g. “equality” feminists) have seen it as a deflection or appropriation of feminism. Refusing clear political allegiances, deconstruction offers no grounds for feminist political action. It’s the latest weapon in the male philosophers’ armoury…

At first look, some of Derrida’s arguments support the latter view. He has at times insisted on the estrangement of deconstruction from feminism.

FEMINISM: IT IS THE OPERATION THROUGH WHICH A WOMAN DESIRES TO BE LIKE A MAN, LIKE A DOGMATIC PHILOSOPHER, DEMANDING TRUTH, SCIENCE, OBJECTIVITY; THAT IS TO SAY, WITH ALL MASCULINE ILLUSIONS. DECONSTRUCTION IS CERTAINLY NOT FEMINIST… IF THERE IS ONE THING IT MUST NOT COME TO, IT’S FEMINISM.

But there’s more to this. Derrida doesn’t simply deny the necessity of feminist political struggles. They have their places. Feminism is to be deconstructed, but it’s also “a necessary form at a certain moment.”
Choreographies

In the interview “Choriographies”, Derrida’s interviewer invoked the figure of Emma Goldman (1869–1940), a “maverick feminist from the 19th century”:

IF I CAN’T DANCE I DON’T WANT TO BE PART OF YOUR REVOLUTION.

t first look, some of Derrida’s arguments support the latter view. He has at times insisted on the estrangement of deconstruction from feminism.