I remember when Jacques Derrida died. I didn’t particularly mourn his passing. I resented the fact that I’d only drilled down on the post-modern claptrap after it was passe and had been replaced by corporate surrealism, it’s logical extension. This ill-marked passage in intellectual history happened I think in the early eighties, when the global corporate culture was locking down nationalism once and for all.
Today I was reminded of old Jake by a post at wood s lot. It was a David Wills translation of Derrida’s “The Animal That Therefore I Am,” including a cute French pun (having nothing to do with seasickness actually, but very much like that): he wanted to substitute a singular word “animot” for the plural “animaux” as well as the singular “l’animal.” Reading of this failure to grasp the thing itself, the animals, the philosopher’s failure to apprehend, to comprehend, and to accurately reflect the physical world and the wonderful various language of animals I flashed on the root cause. I flashed on what must have been true and will be well worth further examination. It seemed to me that Derrida, for all the difference he wanted to make, must have been locked in conflict with the keepers of the mother tongue, l’Academie française. I’m sure this is old hat to the pomo crowd, but it gave me a deeper understanding of perhaps why such intensity attaches to his work.
[gresham's law of philosophy... or, whatever happened to the marxist disquisition?]
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Many public intellectuals want to make unique and new contributions to the fields of thought. This presents them with something of a problem. One could explicate the Golden Rule, for example, in an infinite number of ways, but there’s a limit to how many of them are going to be worth producing, reading or discussing. Some of the philosophes wind up straining for bon mots or trying to devise ways to make the relatively simple obscure — newness through incomprehensibility. Some are up against a canon or institution and combatting it can harm their judgement.
At other times, they achieve a remarkable, passionate and laudable clarity. The danger of PoMo is parsing to the near perfect into mush. There’s “plenty of career” to be had in that
Ever the curse for professors, the obligation to publish, publish. And philosophers aren’t much different from most hard scientists, digging poking around for gold (or whatever passes for attention-currency in gresham’s world). All that glitters and wot rot.
So, what are we saying, that the French aren’t for turns of terms? Animot would be an invention, not a twisting of an already agreed upon definition, yes? It’s not like it’s some frenglish mongrel (egads!).
Au contraire, Alva, does pomo not run the risk of parsing everyfing into discrete one-quark universes, into non-relevance?
Just babblin here. Mebbe I should read up on this guy y’all love so much.
A slurry of monads, I think, in which no one particle has any adhering contact with any other, but nevertheless forms a puddle by virtue of rejecting and being rejected by everything else. Brain porn for recreational nihilists, who know each other only by their raincoats.
I have no especial fondness for Derrida, though that quote is pretty good stuff. I find all the philosophy I can handle in the comfort of the blogs, where Frank can let me know which intellectuals bite monkey ass.
Blind and senseless monads, necessarily nihilistic in their wanton ignoreance of ole timey wold wisdoms. Me, I creep in generic beige burburrey wrap and grey biltmore fedora, but the wiper whirr from my ejo sunglasses give me away every time. Damnable spooge. Watch where you aim that thing, eh, frank?