Deconstruction

>>7790591
Derrida= Bluepill Jew Heidegger

>>7790599
>this meme again

>>7790591
There's nothing she says that I wildly disagree with.

>>7790639
Such as?

And this why, kids, you should study formal semantics, philosophy of language and the intersection of the two, rather than deconstruction

Inauthentic charlatan.
>>7790599

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Deconstruction is shit. It's also rayzid.

Deconstructionism only has value if the mind that engages in it has a vision for what they will construct in it's place, and whatever this vision is must also genuinely be a superior system to the old one and worth the radical changes

>>7790591


For example, Derrida mentions on how the word "Pharmakon" (which is mentioned in Plato's Phaedrus) is a word that can mean both "remedy/cure" as well as "poison" (two different definitions, which completely conflict with one another in regards to meaning). Simply put, for Derrida, words in themselves are "ambivalent" (a term later to be used by Homi K. Bhabha). As such, Derrida coins the term "differance" as a means to explain how words can have different meanings (or definitions) and how people can defer meaning between the multiple definitions of the words themselves (difference-deferring between differences.)


Also, Derrida doesn't make sense because of he valued McLuhan's "Medium is the Message" quote. This means that “how” you convey something is just as important as “what” it is you are actually trying to convey. Derrida shows us (not by telling us) that words are ambivalent by nature through his cross-out methods and his use of parenthesis marks. This explains why Derrida was fond of putting words in parentheses, and crossing out words instead of deleting or erasing them outright. Because, when you do that, you do (not) know how the text should be interpreted.

Think of words as yin-yang symbols. Some see the yin while others see the yang. But, in reality, both sides exist in one word. Being such, words (like matter and anti-matter) nullify each other out. They start working against each other in a way. Because of this, for Derrida, the text is alive and open to interpretation, regardless of what meaning the author may have initially intended (hence the "Death of the Author" as Barthes proposed).


I suppose it's a "See the forest and not the trees" type of mentality. The substance of his work is in his style (he conveys his ideas more like an artist than an academic). This is why I always advise people understand existential nihilism before they even attempt to tackle postmodernism since he doesn’t explain anything outright.

>>7790667
Note: these are not my words. They're fragments I pieced together when other people were talking about the topic on previous threads. Sorry about the disjointedness of the piece itself.

>>7790658
I don't see anything wrong with the logic of this.

>>7790663
Could you explain to an uninformed STEM nerd how that isn't intentional confirmation bias?

>>7790658
No, for real though there was a legitimate effort by Western ethnocentric scholars to edit non white people out of their conception of the genesis of civilization and culture. The hegemony of Rome and the Catholic church did the same thing in regards to women throughout history as well. I actually agree with whoever wrote that post in principle.

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>>7790694
I got your back bro.

>>7790690
No. It's something entirely in the realm of intuition and can't be quantified. It's the experience of an individual simply knowing that what they are doing is what they are meant to due from their very nature as a person. It's not of the realm of logical systems and empirical evidence

>>7790658
>DotA is racist

Then why is my team always full of spics who feed their asses off and rage in Portuguese on voice chat?

>>7790690
scientific method is just confirmation bias.

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Have fun learning mystical bullshit, kiddies.

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>>7790705

>>7790658
I hope this blog is a parody, but it's only a matter of time before "PoMo is racist because muh feelz" becomes a thing.

>>7790667
This is a good explanation. Thank you.

>>7790730
if it feels racist it is, you're not allowed to question a non-white's feelings

>>7790736
Who counts as "white" though?

Are Arabs allowed to question Jews when they claim criticisms of Israel are "antisemitic"?

>>7790730
it definitely is. no way that description isn't satire

Derrida is great. I even like the shitty movie about him with the mark z. danielewski soundtrack. The Gift of Death is my favorite.

>>7790789
>>7790730
>you’re a total sh*tlorde
the person who runs it definitely goes on [s4s]

>>7790746
Whites are jews and people from europe, with the possible exception of roma/gypsies. Plus islamophilia is more progressive so antisemitism is a-okay.

>>7790746
"White people" as conceived by the Aryan ideology of racial supremacy, only a select few ethnicities from central Europe were white. Everyone else was miscegenated and understood as a lesser race. There actually were many races that were made honorary Aryans, as the ideology of racial supremacy can be actualized by any race as long as their blood is pure and they maintain the traditions and identity of their people's culture. The Japanese were made honorary Aryans, along with certain Sikhs in India, Italians and the Vietnamese empire,and some other nations I can't remember.

As far as the antisemitic thing, yes both Arabs and Jews are semitic people.

>>7790591
>Is she right /lit/? Is deconstructionism a pile of bullshit?
>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfRgvfruhPo
Her tirade goes like this:
>"we were all sucking de Man and Derrida's dicks at Yale"
>"deconstruction sez all human existence no real b/c language but language idk"
>"all texts epic fail"
>"blah blah blah muh great works"
>"multiculturalism is bad mmmkay"
>"blah blah blah muh dead white males"
>"blah blah blah muh western canon"
>"deconstructionism BTFO by linguistics and Searle"
Yeah, literally nothing new.

>>7790591
they sound like they are talking from atop said pile of bullshit

>>7790833
I always assumed the Nazis made Brahmins in India honoraries too.

>>7790881
Forgot to mention:
>"black kid stole my bike"
>"muh white guilt"

deconstructionism is not a pile of bullshit. nothing makes reading more enjoyable than pitting an author's ideas against one another, coming up with a wild interpretation based on wordplay, and then saying that the author was right/wrong about something he never said.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8fvCwN063Y

>>7791025
>Zizek
>not a fraud

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>>7791027
mein gott

>>7790705
>>7790709
>da jooooos

>>7791030
Zizek is trash.

>>7790591
Yes

Derrida was an obscurantist who just said a bunch of bullshit to sound smart

The majority of people influenced by him were also frauds

>>7790599
pretty accurate, i'd say

>>7790591
This is difficult to watch.

>>7790667
>"Pharmakon" (which is mentioned in Plato's Phaedrus) is a word that can mean both "remedy/cure" as well as "poison" (two different definitions, which completely conflict with one another in regards to meaning)
Is it really such a conflict? It's the same substance which can sometimes cause or prevent harm depending on the dose and application.

>>7792468
>>7792468
why exactly? are you undereducated on the subject?

>>7790684
>>7790694
Faggots.

>>7792575
No, her voice is fucking unbearable, and she seems to think deconstruction is the root of the infantile Left.

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Obligatory Boutang post because deconstruction has been refuted.
Get fucked non-francophones.

I agree with her. The state of academia and how fucking lefty its got is a fucking DISGRACE.

IT'S POLITICAL CORRECTNESS GONE MAD.

>>7792717
See:
>>7790705
>>7790709
Deconstruction = literally mysticism

>>7792725
i hear you brother tell it like it is

>>7792508
Of course it is, since you need outside-text information to determine which of the two meanings are being used, and said information can point you to the origin of pharmakon - ritual human sacrifices for the purging of vices - which add another layer of meaning to the word and so on and so on

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>>7790591
The problem doesn't lie with Derrida or with Deconstructionism, but rather with the odious misrepresentations and misuse of his thought and works.

That's not to say that I'm asserting some kind of definitive interpretation of his oeuvre, just that Deconstructionism, by virtue of dealing explicitly with semiotics and meaning from a phenomenological perspective, usually lends itself to the worst kind of sophistry that rebuffs any criticism with appeals to subjectivity and an epistemological nihilism born of a largely secular academia bereft of any sort of foundation (be it ethical or ontological).

tl;dr Derrida isn't a hack, many of his disciples are

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>>7791025
>post-irony as the recognition of the power of sincerity and thus the ultimate realization of sincerity qua language

That just fucked my shit up

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I was googling for younger (20s~) pictures of Heather Mac Donald so I could imagine her ordering me to eat her box while she was still young and spunky, and I got this image instead, and now I'm freaked out because I can't figure this woman's head.

What's wrong with her head?

>>7792924
Heather Mac Donald seems like she was hot back when she was giving Paul De Man (proverbial) blowjobs at Yale.

>>7792717
Elaborate? Where to start with this guy?

>>7792782
Truth. Americans destroy everything they touch.

>>7792815
>>7791025
good video, good posts

>>7790658
There is real debate about this in the academy though. For example, should white professors be allowed to teach courses on black literature if they have their own biases?

>>7793898
No. That would be discriminatory. White people should be allowed to teacher about black literature. Black people should also be allowed to talk about white literature. In short, everyone should be able to talks about anything. We just need to make sure, issues are getting talked about from multiple perspectives, not just one.

Go to 29:50 of the video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=676fB7ExZys

>>7793924
Goddamn, I need to look over my sentences before I post. My bad about the typos.

>>7793924
The argument is, white people can't be trusted with PoC cultural artifacts. It's the same reason why hipsters shouldn't be allowed to prance around Williamsburg in Native headdresses.

>>7793986
>white people can't be trusted with PoC cultural artifacts
Nowhere in the video said Said endorse such a perspective. In fact, saying white people can't be trusted with PoC artifacts in and of itself is rather racist. It's the equivalent of saying black people can't be trusted with white artifacts.
Racial identity is a symbolic illusion that we all need to starting seeing past.

>>7794012
said=does

>>7794012
Black people don't have institutional power over whites, so it's impossible for them to appropriate "white artifacts".

>>7794012
France's art world of the 30s, how the modernist turned cultural artifacts from ethnographic to high art pieces, had a huge influence on contemporary aesthetics.

This being said, I completely agree with your sentiment.

>>7794090
This rings true also.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkptuaH3EW8

>>7790881
>>"deconstructionism BTFO by linguistics and Searle"
How true is this?

>>7793924
>everyone should be able to talk about anything.
This so much.
I fucking hate this PC gone wild mentality that's taking space from real topics of conversation.

>>7794423
Speech has consequences.

>>7794466
So does looking at people.

Doesn't mean we have to give a shit about it or pretend we can actually create a criteria or analytic on these "consequences"

>>7794466
Unlike your post.

>>7794479
We should think of the oppressed and respect their agency. If black students don't approve of white people teaching and potentially butchering black literature, then their feelings should be respected, or at least considered.

>>7794596
>"the oppressed"

can this meme fuck off and die already

>>7794090
how does one influence the other? are you saying you can only absorb/appropriate "racial artifacts" if you have "systemic power"?

>>7794596
if you don't believe in oppression, then you couldn't possibly agree with your statement. no one has the right to infringe upon others' freedoms. if someone who is white wants to teach black literature, then they have every right to do so.

>>7794625
absorb, no.

appropriate, by definition, yes.

>>7793898
no one's stopping black professors from teaching white literature or even black literature. What exactly is the problem here? Should the Chinese abandon Shakespeare because they might have racial and cultural biases against Englishmen? Utter nonsense

>>7794633
the centuries of Chinese hegemony didn't stop neighbouring cultures from "borrowing" Chinese culture. what does appropriation even mean?

>>7794596
>If black students don't approve of white people teaching and potentially butchering black literature
It's fucking literature. The person who wrote it put it out there to be criticized by everyone, not just black people.
I wish people stopped defining themselves over their skin color, gender or sexuality. They're so much more.

>>7794650
>implying far left co opting of essentialism can ever be stopped

>>7794650
Whites criticizing black literature or music has social implications.

People from a dominant group are only exercising their power whenever they tell members of a marginalized group what they "are" or should be.

>>7794665
why are you people such pseuds?

>>7794665
>presupposing a power dynamic then using that as a base for your "theory"

>>7793924
HAS NOBODY WATCHED THIS?
Go to 29:50
Edward Said (the guy who basically started the idea of post-colonialism in his book Orientalism) lays it out for you.

>>7794665
>Whites criticizing black literature or music has social implications.
It's just insecure people seeing something that necessarily isn't there and claiming victim status.
>People from a dominant group are only exercising their power whenever they tell members of a marginalized group what they "are" or should be.
That kind of thinking is the problem and as long as you keep thinking like that there will be no resolution or equality.

>>7794745
>he believes in equality

>>7794757
how are we not all equal?

>>7794763
is ought

human beings have no natural rights and the expectation of such has led to the idea that people are being derived of what they're rightfully owed or entitled.

>>7794765
*deprived

>>7794765
you're not a fan of human rights then?

>>7794770
loaded question, but I'll answer it the best way I can. "Human rights" are useful, to an extent.

>>7794774
Well in what scenario they're not "useful"?

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>>7794770

Human Rights are a completely fictional, ad-hoc concept. 'Internet Access' is an official Human Right, nowadays.

Also, the whole of 'War Crimes' is a farce.

>>7794791
application of pragmatic bureaucracy.

>>7794792
>'Internet Access' is an official Human Right, nowadays.
that's just a meme t b h

>>7794090
>institutional power
kill yourself and take this meme with you

>>7794792
>completely fictional
like your sex life

>>7794859
he lives to give people sex

>>7790658
Based SJWs. I'm pro-segregation as well.

>>7795025
I just don't get American blacks. Maybe it's because I'm Asian but if I was taken from my homeland, away from my people I think I would endeavour to return to my own people. Why didn't the blacks leave when they were freed?

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>>7795036
Some of them did, see Liberia aka the worst country in Africa. Or Haiti, the only nation to have a black slave revolution that has been a little piece of Africa in the new world ever since.

Most of them know they're useless dumb pieces of shit and would regress into the dark ages without whitey though, but they still like to milk his sense of guilt for what it's worth for as long as they can.

>>7795047
>white guilt

do they have no sense of honour or shame? Why would they remind everyone of their humiliation? I don't understand this. Why wouldn't they make use of their freedom to learn from their mistakes that led to their enslavement and act great vengeance upon their enemies?

>>7795059
Some might say they suffer from learned helplessness and lack of a proper culture as the result from slavery and such.

I think a lot of it can be attributed to plain and simple stupidity though. Blacks in America have an average IQ of about 85 and they have white admixture. 'Pure blacks' from Africa have an average IQ of 70, an entire continent of literal retards. I think at some point you just have to let go of your expectations that Europeans and Asians have of fellow humans, as mean and racist as that may sound, and accept that what we call mental disability is the norm for some peoples.

>>7795097
but that's my point exactly. Slavery is a great dishonour upon your people. Your people were weak and the wolves came to feed upon them. Now you're free, should you not work to bring terrible vengeance upon your oppressors?

Or am I to really believe that the Africans were so helpless and like children?

>>7795036

They did, the founded a country called Liberia and immediately began enslaving their neighbours.

Isn't human nature great?

>>7795106
Not all of them left, evidently.

>>7795104
>Or am I to really believe that the Africans were so helpless and like children?
Well, by European standards, someone with the mental faculties of the average African would be diagnosed as mentally retarded and given disability benefits because they would be deemed unfit to care for themselves.

I'd say that is pretty telling.

>>7790591

Before Derrida:

A text has a fixed and certain meaning.

After Derrida: Total meaning is impossible something is always lost as 'differance'.

Heather MacDonald premise: Derrida is a total fraud.......

.......although she STILL follows his core thesis that there are multiple versions of truth.

Calling someone a fraud whilst following their central ideas and using them in a court of law.

Read more on Heather MacDonald. Conservative 'thinker'. That explains that then.

opiniondiscarded.jpg

>>7795149
what an awful post.

>>7795162

Your post is pretty much the quintessential Heather MacDonald defence: 'it's rubbish, but I don't need to explain any more'

Well done. It is correct though so that is unfortunate for you.

>>7795191
>It is correct though
I don't even

I'd need to explain if it wasn't for most likely ~90% of people here instantly seeing how you're being idiotic with this criticism.

>>7795196

Well you keep imagining the 90% of people agreeing with you and we'll leave my post, which uses things she's said to demonstrate her contradicting herself, as a counterpoint.

>>7795201
Re-read your post. Her subscription to one of the beliefs that Derrida also had subscribed to is hardly a ''''contradiction''''. Your post is of no real meritorical content.

>>7795209
>>7795209

>Her subscription to one of the beliefs that Derrida also had subscribed to is hardly a ''''contradiction''''

Except that it's the central point of his system of philosophy from which all the other points flow. She calls him a total fraud yet accepts his central idea.

Or are you saying (as you have) it's his 'belief'? It's a premise to an argument which he then uses examples to attempt to expiate. Quite different to what you are suggesting.

>>7795217
>>7795217
>>7795221
It's a general post-structuralist thesis which leads to the purely-Derridean fraudulent rant about human experience and text's selfconsciousness.

Not to mention
>implying you're more of a 'thinker' than she is

>>7795238

It is general, in one form or other, but it is specific in Derrida in the formula she repeats, which is his formulation of the argument and is the one she specifically seeks to rebuff.

> purely-Derridean fraudulent rant about human experience and text's selfconsciousness

After accepting his central thesis the burden is on her to demonstrate this. She doesn't. She makes a vague reference (a name check and nothing more) to other thinkers, implying that they are factually correct on the subject, as if that is at all possible.

As to the last point, I'd conceded happily that she's the better thinker. That doesn't mean what she says here is correct though. Especially when what she says is a direct contradiction with no substance.

>>7795263
>direct contradiction with no substance.
don't you sort of find it funny that Derrida himself does this all the time?

Derrida stole money from state-funded colleges.

It's amazing to see a movement that declares there is no 100% truth have followers who are 100% dogmatic.

Everyone understands it perfectly.

Zizek was right. Return to Hegel.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p36NeCAucRI

>>7795284

I find it more ironic that your take-down of an important intellectual on the grounds that he has no substance is unsubstantiated.

>>7795311
>your
I smirked

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>>7795310
deconstructionist on suicide watch

>>7795149
>.......although she STILL follows his core thesis that there are multiple versions of truth.

That's not his core thesis, fuck, you are retarded.

You haven't read Heidegger, you haven't read Saussure. Go back to Gawker. You know nothing.

>>7795312

Thanks.

>>7790658
>it's racist for whites to teach about non-white culture
Is it also racist for blacks to teach about Asians? Or North Koreans to teach about South Koreans? What if you're of mixed ethnicity, can you teach about either ethnicity or neither, or can you only teach about people with the same ratio of ethnicities as you? Where do you draw the line?

>>7790658
SJWs literally cannibalizing itself.

2. Deconstructive Strategy

Derrida, like many other contemporary European theorists, is preoccupied with undermining the oppositional tendencies that have befallen much of the Western philosophical tradition. In fact, dualisms are the staple diet of deconstruction, for without these hierarchies and orders of subordination it would be left with nowhere to intervene. Deconstruction is parasitic in that rather than espousing yet another grand narrative, or theory about the nature of the world in which we partake, it restricts itself to distorting already existing narratives, and to revealing the dualistic hierarchies they conceal. While Derrida's claims to being someone who speaks solely in the margins of philosophy can be contested, it is important to take these claims into account. Deconstruction is, somewhat infamously, the philosophy that says nothing. To the extent that it can be suggested that Derrida's concerns are often philosophical, they are clearly not phenomenological (he assures us that his work is to be read specifically against Husserl, Sartre and Merleau-Ponty) and nor are they ontological.

Deconstruction, and particularly early deconstruction, functions by engaging in sustained analyses of particular texts. It is committed to the rigorous analysis of the literal meaning of a text, and yet also to finding within that meaning, perhaps in the neglected corners of the text (including the footnotes), internal problems that actually point towards alternative meanings. Deconstruction must hence establish a methodology that pays close attention to these apparently contradictory imperatives (sameness and difference) and a reading of any Derridean text can only reaffirm this dual aspect. Derrida speaks of the first aspect of this deconstructive strategy as being akin to a fidelity and a "desire to be faithful to the themes and audacities of a thinking" (WD 84). At the same time, however, deconstruction also famously borrows from Martin Heidegger's conception of a 'destructive retrieve' and seeks to open texts up to alternative and usually repressed meanings that reside at least partly outside of the metaphysical tradition (although always also partly betrothed to it). This more violent and transgressive aspect of deconstruction is illustrated by Derrida's consistent exhortation to "invent in your own language if you can or want to hear mine; invent if you can or want to give my language to be understood" (MO 57). In suggesting that a faithful interpretation of him is one that goes beyond him, Derrida installs invention as a vitally important aspect of any deconstructive reading.

>>7795356
He is prone to making enigmatic suggestions like "go there where you cannot go, to the impossible, it is indeed the only way of coming or going" (ON 75), and ultimately, the merit of a deconstructive reading consists in this creative contact with another text that cannot be characterised as either mere fidelity or as an absolute transgression, but rather which oscillates between these dual demands. The intriguing thing about deconstruction, however, is that despite the fact that Derrida's own interpretations of specific texts are quite radical, it is often difficult to pinpoint where the explanatory exegesis of a text ends and where the more violent aspect of deconstruction begins. Derrida is always reluctant to impose 'my text', ‘your text’ designations too conspicuously in his texts. This is partly because it is even problematic to speak of a 'work' of deconstruction, since deconstruction only highlights what was already revealed in the text itself. All of the elements of a deconstructive intervention reside in the "neglected cornerstones" of an already existing system (MDM 72), and this equation is not altered in any significant way whether that 'system' be conceived of as metaphysics generally, which must contain its non-metaphysical track, or the writings of a specific thinker, which must also always testify to that which they are attempting to exclude (MDM 73).

These are, of course, themes reflected upon at length by Derrida, and they have an immediate consequence on the meta-theoretical level. To the minimal extent that we can refer to Derrida's own arguments, it must be recognised that they are always intertwined with the arguments of whomever, or whatever, he seeks to deconstruct. For example, Derrida argues that his critique of the Husserlian 'now' moment is actually based upon resources within Husserl’s own text which elide the self-presence that he was attempting to secure (SP 64-66). If Derrida's point is simply that Husserl’s phenomenology holds within itself conclusions that Husserl failed to recognise, Derrida seems to be able to disavow any transcendental or ontological position. This is why he argues that his work occupies a place in the margins of philosophy, rather than simply being philosophy per se.

Deconstruction contends that in any text, there are inevitably points of equivocation and 'undecidability' that betray any stable meaning that an author might seek to impose upon his or her text. The process of writing always reveals that which has been suppressed, covers over that which has been disclosed, and more generally breaches the very oppositions that are thought to sustain it. This is why Derrida's 'philosophy’ is so textually based and it is also why his key terms are always changing, because depending upon who or what he is seeking to deconstruct, that point of equivocation will always be located in a different place.

>>7790667
The stuff about the Pharmakon is right, the stuff about McLuhan isn't relevant.

Barthes' death of the author was more a cultural/historic difference from what the author intended, not a linguistic nihilism.

>>7795325

I didn't claim to have read them. I also didn't claim it's his core idea, he did. He interprets the movement of 'truth' in terms of différance which he did coin;

Derrida first uses the term différance in his 1963 paper "Cogito et histoire de la folie"

Which I do know about. I'm also aware of the relationships you describe, as seen

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Np72VPguqeI

If you are now trying to say that there is a fundamental post-structuralist position that they all subscribe to that is incorrect. Derrida works in terms of différance.

>>7795363

This also ensures that any attempt to describe what deconstruction is, must be careful. Nothing would be more antithetical to deconstruction's stated intent than this attempt at defining it through the decidedly metaphysical question "what is deconstruction?" There is a paradoxicality involved in trying to restrict deconstruction to one particular and overarching purpose (OG 19) when it is predicated upon the desire to expose us to that which is wholly other (tout autre) and to open us up to alternative possibilities. At times, this exegesis will run the risk of ignoring the many meanings of Derridean deconstruction, and the widely acknowledged difference between Derrida's early and late work is merely the most obvious example of the difficulties involved in suggesting "deconstruction says this", or “deconstruction prohibits that”.

That said, certain defining features of deconstruction can be noticed. For example, Derrida's entire enterprise is predicated upon the conviction that dualisms are irrevocably present in the various philosophers and artisans that he considers. While some philosophers argue that he is a little reductive when he talks about the Western philosophical tradition, it is his understanding of this tradition that informs and provides the tools for a deconstructive response. Because of this, it is worth briefly considering the target of Derridean deconstruction - the metaphysics of presence, or somewhat synonymously, logocentrism.

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Victor Farias is the best reader of Heidegger.

Derrida was being dishonest when he dismissed him, because he needed to cling to his industry that he had created.

If Derrida were to concede the Nazism inherent in Heidegger, Derrida would have to radically alter his own theory. And to alter Deconstruction is to dismiss it wholesale.

Keep the money flowing and call the others idiots.

a. Speech/Writing

The most prominent opposition with which Derrida's earlier work is concerned is that between speech and writing. According to Derrida, thinkers as different as Plato, Rousseau, Saussure, and Levi-Strauss, have all denigrated the written word and valorised speech, by contrast, as some type of pure conduit of meaning. Their argument is that while spoken words are the symbols of mental experience, written words are the symbols of that already existing symbol. As representations of speech, they are doubly derivative and doubly far from a unity with one's own thought. Without going into detail regarding the ways in which these thinkers have set about justifying this type of hierarchical opposition, it is important to remember that the first strategy of deconstruction is to reverse existing oppositions. In Of Grammatology (perhaps his most famous work), Derrida hence attempts to illustrate that the structure of writing and grammatology are more important and even 'older' than the supposedly pure structure of presence-to-self that is characterised as typical of speech.

For example, in an entire chapter of his Course in General Linguistics, Ferdinand de Saussure tries to restrict the science of linguistics to the phonetic and audible word only (24). In the course of his inquiry, Saussure goes as far as to argue that "language and writing are two distinct systems of signs: the second exists for the sole purpose of representing the first". Language, Saussure insists, has an oral tradition that is independent of writing, and it is this independence that makes a pure science of speech possible. Derrida vehemently disagrees with this hierarchy and instead argues that all that can be claimed of writing - eg. that it is derivative and merely refers to other signs - is equally true of speech. But as well as criticising such a position for certain unjustifiable presuppositions, including the idea that we are self-identical with ourselves in 'hearing' ourselves think, Derrida also makes explicit the manner in which such a hierarchy is rendered untenable from within Saussure's own text. Most famously, Saussure is the proponent of the thesis that is commonly referred to as "the arbitrariness of the sign", and this asserts, to simplify matters considerably, that the signifier bears no necessary relationship to that which is signified. Saussure derives numerous consequences from this position, but as Derrida points out, this notion of arbitrariness and of "unmotivated institutions" of signs, would seem to deny the possibility of any natural attachment (OG 44). After all, if the sign is arbitrary and eschews any foundational reference to reality, it would seem that a certain type of sign (ie. the spoken) could not be more natural than another (ie. the written).

>>7795383
However, it is precisely this idea of a natural attachment that Saussure relies upon to argue for our "natural bond" with sound (25), and his suggestion that sounds are more intimately related to our thoughts than the written word hence runs counter to his fundamental principle regarding the arbitrariness of the sign.

>>7795366

By the way, I'm not here to say Derrida is correct, I replied to OP to suggest that Heather MacDonald's criticism does not therefore mean that the entire notion of deconstruction is bullshit. That seems an extremely reasonable premise which seems to be getting ignored in the pro/anti flame war that's going on here.

>>7795366
Derrida never claimed his core thesis was multiple truths. And he would never phrase like that because he's not a dumb ass from Gawker, even though he is wrong.

b. Arche-writing

In Of Grammatology and elsewhere, Derrida argues that signification, broadly conceived, always refers to other signs, and that one can never reach a sign that refers only to itself. He suggests that "writing is not a sign of a sign, except if one says it of all signs, which would be more profoundly true" (OG 43), and this process of infinite referral, of never arriving at meaning itself, is the notion of 'writing' that he wants to emphasise. This is not writing narrowly conceived, as in a literal inscription upon a page, but what he terms 'arche-writing'. Arche-writing refers to a more generalised notion of writing that insists that the breach that the written introduces between what is intended to be conveyed and what is actually conveyed, is typical of an originary breach that afflicts everything one might wish to keep sacrosanct, including the notion of self-presence.

This originary breach that arche-writing refers to can be separated out to reveal two claims regarding spatial differing and temporal deferring. To explicate the first of these claims, Derrida's emphasis upon how writing differs from itself is simply to suggest that writing, and by extension all repetition, is split (differed) by the absence that makes it necessary. One example of this might be that we write something down because we may soon forget it, or to communicate something to someone who is not with us. According to Derrida, all writing, in order to be what it is, must be able to function in the absence of every empirically determined addressee (M 375). Derrida also considers deferral to be typical of the written and this is to reinforce that the meaning of a certain text is never present, never entirely captured by a critic's attempt to pin it down. The meaning of a text is constantly subject to the whims of the future, but when that so-called future is itself 'present' (if we try and circumscribe the future by reference to a specific date or event) its meaning is equally not realised, but subject to yet another future that can also never be present. The key to a text is never even present to the author themselves, for the written always defers its meaning. As a consequence we cannot simply ask Derrida to explain exactly what he meant by propounding that enigmatic sentiment that has been translated as "there is nothing outside of the text" (OG 158). Any explanatory words that Derrida may offer would themselves require further explanation. [That said, it needs to be emphasised that Derrida's point is not so much that everything is simply semiotic or linguistic - as this is something that he explicitly denies - but that the processes of differing and deferring found within linguistic representation are symptomatic of a more general situation that afflicts everything, including the body and the perceptual].

>>7795394
So, Derrida's more generalised notion of writing, arche-writing, refers to the way in which the written is possible only on account of this 'originary' deferral of meaning that ensures that meaning can never be definitively present. In conjunction with the differing aspect that we have already seen him associate with, and then extend beyond the traditional confines of writing, he will come to describe these two overlapping processes via that most famous of neologisms: différance.

>>7795383
tl;dr Saussure was already a deconstructionist and didn't know it. The system always contains the seeds of its own destruction. Blah blah blah I'm 100% dogmatically Heideggerian, even though that should be a contradiction and Heidegger's emphasis on the language and the tenses of German and ancient Greek should nullify any attempt at an unconcealment of Truth in the french language.

c. Différance

Différance is an attempt to conjoin the differing and deferring aspects involved in arche-writing in a term that itself plays upon the distinction between the audible and the written. After all, what differentiates différance and différence is inaudible, and this means that distinguishing between them actually requires the written. This problematises efforts like Saussure's, which as well as attempting to keep speech and writing apart, also suggest that writing is an almost unnecessary addition to speech. In response to such a claim, Derrida can simply point out that there is often, and perhaps even always, this type of ambiguity in the spoken word - différence as compared to différance - that demands reference to the written. If the spoken word requires the written to function properly, then the spoken is itself always at a distance from any supposed clarity of consciousness. It is this originary breach that Derrida associates with the terms arche-writing and différance.

Of course, différance cannot be exhaustively defined, and this is largely because of Derrida's insistence that it is "neither a word, nor a concept", as well as the fact that the meaning of the term changes depending upon the particular context in which it is being employed. For the moment, however, it suffices to suggest that according to Derrida, différance is typical of what is involved in arche-writing and this generalised notion of writing that breaks down the entire logic of the sign (OG 7). The widespread conviction that the sign literally represents something, which even if not actually present, could be potentially present, is rendered impossible by arche-writing, which insists that signs always refer to yet more signs ad infinitum, and that there is no ultimate referent or foundation. This reversal of the subordinated term of an opposition accomplishes the first of deconstruction's dual strategic intents. Rather than being criticised for being derivative or secondary, for Derrida, writing, or at least the processes that characterise writing (ie. différance and arche-writing), are ubiquitous. Just as a piece of writing has no self-present subject to explain what every particular word means (and this ensures that what is written must partly elude any individual's attempt to control it), this is equally typical of the spoken. Utilising the same structure of repetition, nothing guarantees that another person will endow the words I use with the particular meaning that I attribute to them. Even the conception of an internal monologue and the idea that we can intimately 'hear' our own thoughts in a non-contingent way is misguided, as it ignores the way that arche-writing privileges difference and a non-coincidence with oneself (SP 60-70).

>>7795398
literally Heraclitus

>>7795394
>>7795405
pretty clever way to try to derail the thread and get people to forget that Derrida was a hack who endorsed an a-moral philosophy that genocided 6 million of his own

>>7795413
there is nothing to derail though


d. Trace

In this respect, it needs to be pointed out that all of deconstruction's reversals (arche-writing included) are partly captured by the edifice that they seek to overthrow. For Derrida, "one always inhabits, and all the more when one does not suspect it" (OG 24), and it is important to recognise that the mere reversal of an existing metaphysical opposition might not also challenge the governing framework and presuppositions that are attempting to be reversed (WD 280). Deconstruction hence cannot rest content with merely prioritising writing over speech, but must also accomplish the second major aspect of deconstruction's dual strategies, that being to corrupt and contaminate the opposition itself.

Derrida must highlight that the categories that sustain and safeguard any dualism are always already disrupted and displaced. To effect this second aspect of deconstruction's strategic intents, Derrida usually coins a new term, or reworks an old one, to permanently disrupt the structure into which he has intervened - examples of this include his discussion of the pharmakon in Plato (drug or tincture, salutary or maleficent), and the supplement in Rousseau, which will be considered towards the end of this section. To phrase the problem in slightly different terms, Derrida's argument is that in examining a binary opposition, deconstruction manages to expose a trace. This is not a trace of the oppositions that have since been deconstructed - on the contrary, the trace is a rupture within metaphysics, a pattern of incongruities where the metaphysical rubs up against the non-metaphysical, that it is deconstruction's job to juxtapose as best as it can. The trace does not appear as such (OG 65), but the logic of its path in a text can be mimed by a deconstructive intervention and hence brought to the fore.

>>7795381
Except Heidegger never bought into Nazi blood and soil ideology. A radical conservative, and could even be labled fascist sure but the sensationalist title pretty much exemplifies Farias unashamed liberalism

>>7795391

I could well be a dumb ass from Gawker but that would have no baring on the substance of what's being discussed.

I didn't say he did phrase the notion of multiple truths like that. It was an oversimplification that was being used, and understood, in the thread so it seemed reasonable to continue using it.

In terms of concrete examples, his notion of truth as différance is discussed at length in the article mentioned above. In that article he coins the term différance to refer to the process of truth in flux. He also uses the notion to discuss the nature of truth, discusses whether there can be such a thing as 'the truth' and in fact refers to multiple positions of meaning.

4. Time and Phenomenology

Derrida has had a long and complicated association with phenomenology for his entire career, including ambiguous relationships with Husserl and Heidegger, and something closer to a sustained allegiance with Lévinas. Despite this complexity, two main aspects of Derrida's thinking regarding phenomenology remain clear. Firstly, he thinks that the phenomenological emphasis upon the immediacy of experience is the new transcendental illusion, and secondly, he argues that despite its best intents, phenomenology cannot be anything other than a metaphysics (SP 75, 104). In this context, Derrida defines metaphysics as the science of presence, as for him (as for Heidegger), all metaphysics privileges presence, or that which is. While they are presented schematically here, these inter-related claims constitute Derrida's major arguments against phenomenology.

According to Derrida, phenomenology is a metaphysics of presence because it unwittingly relies upon the notion of an indivisible self-presence, or in the case of Husserl, the possibility of an exact internal adequation with oneself (SP 66-8). In various texts, Derrida contests this valorisation of an undivided subjectivity, as well as the primacy that such a position accords to the 'now', or to some other kind of temporal immediacy. For instance, in Speech and Phenomena, Derrida argues that if a 'now' moment is conceived of as exhausting itself in that experience, it could not actually be experienced, for there would be nothing to juxtapose itself against in order to illuminate that very 'now'. Instead, Derrida wants to reveal that every so-called ‘present’, or ‘now’ point, is always already compromised by a trace, or a residue of a previous experience, that precludes us ever being in a self-contained 'now' moment (SP 68). Phenomenology is hence envisaged as nostalgically seeking the impossible: that is, coinciding with oneself in an immediate and pre-reflective spontaneity. Following this refutation of Husserlian temporality, Derrida remarks that "in the last analysis, what is at stake is... the privilege of the actual present, the now" (SP 62-3). Instead of emphasising the presence of a subject to themselves (ie. the so-called living-present), Derrida strategically utilises a conception of time that emphasises deferral. John Caputo expresses Derrida's point succinctly when he claims that Derrida's criticisms of Husserlian temporality in Speech and Phenomena involve an attempt to convey that: "What is really going on in things, what is really happening, is always “to come". Every time you try to stabilise the meaning of a thing, try to fix it in its missionary position, the thing itself, if there is anything at all to it, slips away" (cf. SP 104, Caputo DN 31).

>>7795431
To put Derrida's point simplistically, it might be suggested that the meaning of a particular object, or a particular word, is never stable, but always in the process of change (eg. the dissemination of meaning for which deconstruction has become notorious). Moreover, the significance of that past change can only be appreciated from the future and, of course, that 'future' is itself implicated in a similar process of transformation were it ever to be capable of becoming 'present'. The future that Derrida is referring to is hence not just a future that will become present, but the future that makes all 'presence' possible and also impossible. For Derrida, there can be no presence-to-self, or self-contained identity, because the 'nature' of our temporal existence is for this type of experience to elude us. Our predominant mode of being is what he will eventually term the messianic (see Section 6), in that experience is about the wait, or more aptly, experience is only when it is deferred. Derrida's work offers many important temporal contributions of this quasi-transcendental variety.

>>7795421
He didn't have a material conception of race, sure.

But read what he says about the German worker and compare it what the Nazis thought of Jews who never worked. It's entirely compatible with "Arbeit Macht Frei."

It's the German peasant, in his day-to-day work and harmony with the German landscape that truly reveals Being.

>>7795430
>I didn't say he did phrase the notion of multiple truths like that. It was an oversimplification that was being used, and understood, in the thread so it seemed reasonable to continue using it.

That's not how philosophy works. You're simplification contains big errors that are misleading. With philosophy we have to be very careful of how we use language.

It's not like writing about Hulk Hogan at Gawker.

You can leave now.

>>7795438
Just a regurgitation of Heidegger.

Like when Heidegger claims he and the Nazis are retrieving ancient Greek morality and greatness and bringing it to the future. It's the necessity of war found in Homer applied to WWII.

And this is all in Derrida, who never makes a serious and profound critique of Heidegger.

>>7795462
>Like when Heidegger claims he and the Nazis are retrieving ancient Greek morality and greatness and bringing it to the future. It's the necessity of war found in Homer applied to WWII.


perhaps, but it is your choice to instantiate the idea of flux like this.

>>7795452

I can leave whenever I like, or choose not to.

It's not my simplification, if you read what I said it has been used as shorthand and understood throughout the thread.

If one doesn't understand that I can understand how that would lead one into 'big errors of understanding'.

>With philosophy we have to be very careful of how we use language

I'm guessing this is supposed to be some deep-non gawker reading-thought, except it's just an empty tautology.

To be fair i'm going to have to remind myself what Gawker is because the last time that site came to my attention was in the Ryan Holiday book.

>>7795413
Why do people keep calling him a jew? Is there a mention of him being jewish ANYWHERE?

also
>holohoax
>real

>>7795480
>>7795483
>>7795484
lol gawkerites are THIS desperate

read a fucking book or leave

>>7795488
I can't even tell who is jewing who anymore

>>7795492
back to gawker

>>7795496
>the fucking gawker meme
It's funny because you were the one aware of what that site even is before we came to this thread

>>7795488

It's the guy who keeps on about Gawker. I made a point he took it another way, backed into a corner then changed subject onto hulk hogan and Gawker.

Although, to be fair, I am writing Gawker over and over again because of him.

>>7795499
>>7795500
time for damage control

>>7795508

That you think someone else would resort to posting from two different sources in order to 'damage control' a debate that got derailed, says more about you.

>>7795500
>Gawker apologist

Fuck off Sam Biddle

>>7795512
>>7795516
you can start sliding the thread now, so no one sees your shitty arguments

here's a tip: in the bottom right corner it lists the number of posters there are, so I can see you pretend to be different people "DUDE IM TOTES NOT A DUMB GAWKER WRITER"

go write an article about someone's instagram post

>>7795516

Actually, I didn't go to Gawker to check it out as I've no interest. If I did would I know who Sam Biddle is?

>>7794388

I would say deconstruction and linguistics tend to deal with different issues. Deconstruction is more akin to metaphysics in that it attempts to point out the ultimate futility of any search for a definite meaning or truth, while linguistics asks the question of how people actually use language, and then roughly subdivides it depending on the particular aspect being studied (the classic phonology -> pragmatics).

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>>7795523

I don't know why you think it bothers me whether you believe that or not?

>>7794596
"Potentially" is the keyword here; you cannot know in advance how someone will teach a certain literary work. What you're advocating here is support for thoughtcrime.

>>7792748
When's the next klan meeting?

>>7796011
It's comments like these that are driving people away from liberalism, you know.

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>>7795325
>You haven't read Heidegger, you haven't read Saussure. Go back to Gawker. You know nothing.

>>7795344
PoC can't be racist towards other PoC, shitlord.

>>7790591
>is she right?
>she
>right

No.

>>7790705
>>7790709
Does this mean Palestinian students can opt out of learning deconstruction, given that it's a "Jewish technique" and force-feeding it to them would be an exercise of Zionist colonialism in Palestinian minds and bodies?

>>7790591
No.

>>7790599
No.

>>7795462
Fascism is merely a return to Rome.

>>7794791
the current resolution of the Syrian War, for a very direct practical example.

>>7795104
>Or am I to really believe that the Africans were so helpless and like children?
https://bekolopress.wordpress.com/2012/12/14/the-whites-must-come-back-to-africa/

The history of Post-Colonial Africa is the history of the loss of a paternal figure.

>>7795310
this is ridiculous to think, and zizek cant be taken as seriously as you imply.nobody is worshiping derrida without being critical. one of zizek's main arguments is that we need to be more dogmatic (he's a post-postmodernist for lack of a better word). Philosophers dont really classify themselves as deconstructionists, that would be ridiculous anyways and show that they really don't understand it. there isn't anything too radical about derrida, he's not inventing anything new he's just giving it more emphasis and importance, ie setting the task or agenda for philosophy.

>>7790658
Posts like this demonstrate everything that's wrong with postcolonial theory.

>>7796194
So Asians can't be racist towards blacks? Wheee

>>7796194
>"PoC can't be racist towards other PoC"
>"Deconstructionism is racist"
But Benjamin, Barthes, and Derrida weren't "white" by French standards.

My god you people don't know anything.

>>7797449
Pretty sure it's a memer, bro

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>>7790667
>you do (not) know how the text should be interpreted.

>>7797514
i was waiting for someone to bring up the titles of the evangelion rebuilds. DERRIDA'S IN YOUR ANIME, BITCHES!

>>7797306
>.nobody is worshiping derrida without being critical

go right back to gawker

>>7798718
>gawker
>implying that site is good for anything

>>7795149
>.......although she STILL follows his core thesis that there are multiple versions of truth.
This is not unique to Derrida or postmodernism...

>>7790658
wow how are these actual retards even in uni

>>7800104
The sad thing is, this shit is actually being debated for real in modern unis.

>mfw this entire thread has been about Derrida
>literally nothing about de Man

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>see people memeing that derrida stole deconstruction from heidegger
>don't know what they're talking about
>do 20 minutes of research
>mfw he literally stole the whole fucking idea from heidegger and just dressed it up in pretentious french fraud bullshit

>>7801135
no one talks about de man cuz he was a nazi while derrida is one of god's chosen ppl

>>7800104
because uni needs retards

retards spend

>>7801151
>>see people memeing that derrida stole deconstruction from heidegger
not sure if true

>>7801151
Meaning: deconstruction literally comes from Nietzsche.

>>7801153
>>7801151
Remember when there were like four Heidegger threads a day on this board?

>>7795366
>>7795366
He came up with the term but he didn't come up with the theory that a text has more than one reading. I don't know why you are trying to defend an error when you only read a wikipedia article.

>>7790591
>"de Man used passages in Proust to demonstrate the failure of language"
Wut?