There is a difference - you can decide for yourself whether it makes all the
difference, I am only insisting on the differences - between difference as
in the difference between terms in a system of hierarchical oppositions and
difference as in the difference between one term and the next in a series or
network of terms.
That is, there's a difference between the difference between red and green
and the difference between black and white.
Possibly this distinction is lost in an egalitarian rhetoric that moves too
quickly to establish identities at the cost of a reduction of difference;
although I think this is more often a reactionary reading of egalitarian
politics, one which introduces the confusion between hierarchical
subordination and plain human diversity for its own purposes ("damned
emancipationists want to make us all the *same*! Can't they see that having
slave-owners *and* slaves is part of life's rich tapestry?"). All the same,
I can't pretend that egalitarians don't sometimes make this mistake all by
themselves. It's why I want Dworkin *and* Derrida. I still think they can
learn from each other.
- Dom
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