Jacques Derrida, Abstruse Theorist, Dies at 74

Sure, the Times headline says that Deridda is dead. But what are they really telling me?

Comments

[jack risko]

http://www.dinocrat.com/archives/2004/10/10/jacques-derrida-is-dead-deconstruction-lives/

Jacques Derrida is ‘dead’ – deconstruction ‘lives’
Jack Risko @ 9:01 am on 10/10/2004

Jacques Derrida, who did more than any man in history to turn mediocrities into tenured mediocrities, died Friday at age 74. Derrida is known as the father of Deconstruction. Deconstruction is a critical method in which written assertions and statements contain their opposites and much more. His insight, while trivially valid, and often useful as an analytical tool, has been taken to absurd extremes, even by Derrida himself.

In some ways, Derrida is the Falco or Norman Greenbaum of the academic world: a one-hit-wonder whose signature song has been covered by charlatans throughout the academic world, and is current being played for your kids for a fee of $40,000 a year at college. From the New York Times obituary:

Mr. Derrida was known as the father of deconstruction, the method of inquiry that asserted that all writing was full of confusion and contradiction, and that the author’s intent could not overcome the inherent contradictions of language itself, robbing texts - whether literature, history or philosophy - of truthfulness, absolute meaning and permanence. The concept was eventually applied to the whole gamut of arts and social sciences, including linguistics, anthropology, political science, even architecture….

Literary critics broke texts into isolated passages and phrases to find hidden meanings. Advocates of feminism, gay rights, and third-world causes embraced the method as an instrument to reveal the prejudices and inconsistencies of Plato, Aristotle, Shakespeare, Freud and other “dead white male” icons of Western culture.

read the rest if you like. Thanks, Jack Risko

[The Kid]

Am I missing some self-referential humor here? By applying Derrida’s methods to jack risko’s extract above, I have arrived at the truth as follows:

Mr. Derrida was known as the father of … confusion and contradiction, and that … could not overcome the inherent … truthfulness, absolute meaning and permanence … of arts and social sciences, including linguistics, anthropology, political science, even architecture.

Or is that really a Modo?

[Attila]

To quote myself:

"Jacques Derrida Begins Deconstructing"

-- Attila

[TM]

Boy, talk about no respect. Someone needs to make the Dangerfield-Derrida connection, as soon as we figure out what it is.

[Birkel]

What is this 'dead' of which you speak?-- Jacques

[John Cole]

Or is he merely no longer living?

[steve poling]

It is only reasonable to apply Mr. Derrida's theories to themselves. If communication is impossible, we can't even know what Mr. Derrida said. This inconvenient line of reasoning cannot be allowed to stand. Thus reasoning is unreasonable, they reason.

No, it doesn't make any sense.

Thus the argument moves from truth and reason to power and politics. So, shut up with the inconvenient ideas of those dead white males, or you won't get tenure.

[G Hamid]

Really funny! Here is some other "eulogies" for M. Derrida.

http://www.samizdata.net/blog/archives/006772.html

http://themoteingodseye.blogspot.com/2004/10/obituary.html

[dick]

The only one I think is more widely quoted for fewer reasons is Chomsky. The two of them belong together in some Circle of Hell for their total abtruseness and their obscurity. They should both have been totally obscure.

[Mike]

Alas! The great deconstructionist is, himself, deconstructed.

[Neo]

I think this says it all ..

Father of Deconstructionism Dies, If 'Death' Means Anything