spikenard

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I have reached that stage where everything I read infuriates me and I have no choice but to write myself so that I might either join myself to the din or abandon reading altogether. I have reached a point where I am so nauseated by everything that is said of Derrida – the philosopher of whom everything is said – that I must contradict certain descriptions that lack the neutrality of mere descriptions, or worse, are so disingenuously neutral that they embalm everything that was ever beautiful.

I cannot read the term post-structuralist one more time. I cannot read him described as the founder of deconstruction one more time. I hate all the pat little epitaphs ascribed by publishers on the dust covers of books. It is undeniable that these epitaphs are a kind of consensus and refined wisdom of many learned scholars – it is because this is undeniably the case. It is because these things are approximately true and have been repeated so often that they stink of a truism and hence stink of fallacy (for all truisms are necessarily false) that I must write a polemic.

What I write will not be the most true – at least it will not be cursed with that particular mundanity – it will perhaps be a little interesting and provide relief, like an overdue shit. This will not be another polemic against Derrida, that insipid cow path genre, nor will it be a polemic for Derrida or one that tracks a parralel to the trajectory of his gestures. It is rather a polemic with both a certain affinity for Derrida and against a certain idea of Derrida. A certain idea of Derrida with which Derrida overlaps. To the extent that the epitaphs I must disagree with have been somewhat intelligent and somewhat sensible descriptions of Derrida’s work, which is to say to the extent that these truisms are necessarily almost true, and that Derrida himself has given cause for them I must necessarily disagree with Derrida also. The task is infeasible and somewhat antithetical to the mode of a dutiful scholar so I shall instead be an undutiful one. I shall use scholarship at times but make no claim to scholarship myself. It will make far more sense to disagree with much of what I say than to agree with it but sometimes it is most strategic to say something that is not true as if it were true that has not been said in order to shake up the dust. This shall be my polemic somewhat involving Derrida.