Dom and Robin, I find this discussion interesting and useful, so don't let me
divert you too much with my diversion, since I know little of
Classical Greek Philosophy and Derrida's complete ouvre.
When I had a go at deconstruction, earlier, I was more leaning towards the
way it was (and perhaps still is) taught in the literature and writing
departments to undergrads. I get the feeling that what is happening here
(using primers like Norris) has become something else to what is in the texts
written by Derrida, based on my reading of _Of Grammatology_ (The only
Derrida book I have read.) Dom gives me this clue, also, when he refers back
to the texts. This raises a more general pedagogical question, to my way of
thinking.
Robin used the phrase:
> in this line of filiation
By this I am assuming that this could be a line of postmodernist filiation.
Who gets included or excluded from this line is probably symptomatic of the
uncertainty and disputes around the term postmodern. Filiation, as I
understand, is a line of the Father (which God begins, if I understand what
Spinoza was saying) and an imaginative invention with real concrete affects.
Screwing this some more, postmodernism now appears as some type of
ideological line, perhaps a line of state ideology, which returns to state
sponsored pedagogy. When deconstruction gets included on this line with
Derrida named as the Father I get the feeling parts of Derrida's text are
conveniently forgotten. For example, _Of Grammatology_ contains some
brilliant sections which connect structuralist thought to Hegelian dialectics
and a rigorous reading would have to admire the philosophical reversals of
this sort of Hegelian idealism in structuralist thought which Derrida
presents. Do I detect an elision here? My instincts tell me this may be so
when it comes to what is called deconstruction. Deconstruction becomes a
slippery slide away from making rigorous claims on these insights offered by
Derrida. (Something which Derrida appears in later writings to become quite
happily complicit in, also.) This elusive filial line is a line to Oedipus
and blindness. In blindness is is our greatest insight, I believe the Yale
Deconstructionist, Paul deMann wrote. Yale University had HIV safe sex
posters aimed at providing safe sex education to gay men taken down claiming
they were pornographic while deconstruction was practiced in the literature
department. I have here a link, a connection between deconstruction in Yale,
and homophobia. Yale deconstruction, as it is properly recognised, was
complicit in continuing the spread of the HIV pandemic within populations of
young gay men, perhaps. Yale is a homophobe? (Sorry about the leaps, trying
to be brief.)
If anyone is wondering why I put this forward, I am attempting to understand
symptoms which make this world a place where everyone is sick, to steal from
Nietzsche. (What do you you think? What do you you think about England, this
country of ours where nobody is well? WH Auden _The Orators_., Faber, 2nd
edition, p 12.) My approach in filial scholarly terms would be called
eclecticism. Like a magpie, pecking at this and that and choosing what is
useful. I have joined the animal kingdom of the mind, as Hegel would put it,
being in the business of writing. Kant would say I have joined the demons of
thought. So, if my eclecticism can be said to be a sign of my postmodern
inclinations, as is claimed, how come Hegel and Kant also indicated the
eclectic nature of poetry writing? More postmodern ideological elision,
perhaps? (What, a gay male poet writing on HIV/AIDS: that must be postmodern!)
Dom and Robin, thanks heaps for your contributions to the list. Any further
comments, most welcome, that should go without saying, as I really do get
something useful, for and against and you most certainly do not have to agree
with my presented political position. Hope my eccentric reading isn't too off
the planet (although that could be considered a nice thing to say in this
cosmic age where the universe in this cosmic scheme of things is a finite
universal and an infinite singularity.)
Chris Jones.
ps. . . I have heard postmodernist say that being anti-romantic is a defining
feature of their thinking. Could I say; scratch a postmodernist and you find
a romantic?
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