A clever blog by Graham Harman prompted discussion on our blog. The appearance of Harman's post coincided with ten year anniversary of (the event) 9/11; this is not an insignificant fact when Harman's blog takes Derrida to task for his "compulsive unwillingness to stand anywhere" and sets up a philosophical opposition (and temporal succession) between Derrida and Žižek, who is said to be "such a perfect post-Derrida leading actor, I believe, is the compelling force of his dogmatic assertions and his willingness to take responsibility for the thing he says." Force, action, dogmatism, responsibility...are sometimes historically necessary (Tahrir Square) and sometimes historic blunders (GWB). But philosophy is not only a historical-theatrical morality play...
I am no expert on Harman at all, but his blog is not about Derrida. It is (rhetorically--and I mean this as a compliment) about promoting a certain philosophical-political agenda (Force, action, dogmatism, responsibility, etc). This lack of honest engagement with Derrida becomes clear by a momentary reflection on the quote that is exhibit A in Harman's (and Cogburn's) prosecution: “In what you call my books, what is first of all put into question is the unity of the book and the unity ‘book’ considered as a perfect totality, with all the implications of such a concept. And you know that these implications concern the totality of our culture, directly or indirectly. At the moment when such a closure demarcates itself, dare one maintain that one is the author of books, be they one, two, or three?”
First, the quote does not deny that one can take a stand. In fact, to my untrained eyes the surface meaning of Derrida is all about the courage/daring of taking a stand. (Echoes of Will to Power, no?) So, second, it is completely silly to use this as evidence for Derrida's unwillingness a) either to take a stand or b) to be held responsible for one's texts. Third, the quote is from AN INTERVIEW! (So, some allowance, if it were necessary, would have to be made for that; better think carefully or explore hesitantly before one asserts with over-confidence something that ought to be denied.) Fourth, in context the interview is discussing to what degree Derrida's books form a "system" (and "strange geometry") and how each individual book is organized. And Derrida goes on to assert all kinds of things about his system and individual books. In doing so, Derrida's language is demanding and technical, but (even to an outsider like myself) not un-intelligible.
So, Exhibit A is terrible evidence for the content of Harman's point. (This is why I call it rhetorical.) What about Cogburn's moments of irritation? Cogburn writes, "On the other hand, trying to read Derrida never, ever, ever ends well for me. One memorable evening I actually got hives. It's as bad as how Martin Amis describes the effects of the novels of Richard Tull, the protagonist of The Information. No one can finish his last modernist experiment before getting ill. At one point a case of the books almost causes a plane crash. That's exactly how Derrida's prose effects me." Wow! How awesome! Derrida is capable of causing powerful somatic effects -- of the sort that promote the start of inquiry -- in Cogburn's world. I prefer to treat Cogburn's attraction to Harman's proposed anesthetic as a momentary lapse in a philosophically fearless mind.
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