>>So you found Derrida obscure, self-indulgent, and not to accord with your
>>sense of how meaning is conveyed in language.
>>I fail to see this as much of a dismissal
>
>If someone says they find someone else's style almost inpenetrable and if
>they say they disagree with what content they can discern, and if that
>someone gives reasons for their position with which noone on these lists
>has ever taken issue, I'd think that constitutes a pretty good dismissal.
>What else can that someone do?
acknowledge that there is more than one way in which people learn and think?
>>given that it's just as easy to
>>say that other people have found him inspiring and challenging and that he
>>allowed them to test and uncover important assumptions and question
>>significant naturalisations.
>
>*Mein Kampf* had this effect, too (and that's the only criterion of
>comparison I intend, I assure you).
then why choose it -- seems a ridiculous comparison, and i do not at all see that your justification holds up. exactly how did _Mein Kampf_ enable people to test and uncover important assumptions and question significant naturalisations?
>Same with *The Road to Serfdom*. Both
>identify real issues that were contemporarily widely under-recognised,
that is a very different thing and i wouldn't agree that _Mein Kampf_ does this anyway. i think citing this text as a comparison is kneejerk defensiveness.
>and
>a lot of people clearly found one or the other very inspiring. Both are
>relatively easy to read, of course, so the outrageous associations,
>implications and prescriptions can quite easily be decoupled from the
>premise questions (which is harder to do with *Of Grammatology*), but both
>have done hideous damage to our world. I actually suspect that Derrida has
>done more harm than good - not intentionally, of course, but effectively -
what harm? precisely what *harm* has Derrida done? or, ok, even loosely, what *harm*?
>and often through those he unconsciously inspired. There are a lot of such
>folks sprinkled through the history of 'the left', of course (Derrida's
>intellectual grand-dad Althusser, for one). And I'm sure ol' Jacques is a
>much nicer bloke than some of 'em, too.
>
>>I have never found Derrida all that useful, but as it has enabled others to
>>try and act productively and think critically in and about the world it
>>still seems like a good thing to me. In fact, while I have never found
>>*Derrida* useful, I have found writers influenced and even shaped by Derrida
>>very helpful in thinking about how we receive and how we rely on founding
>>structures of our cultures as given and unavoidable.
>
>Well, that's you. The menu of critical enablers is not a short one, but
>each time prodeuces its own pathology, and hence its own menu-choices
>(Eagleton's line, I think). Me, I like *The German Ideology* and I like EP
>Thompson and I like Raymond Williams and I like Erich Fromm and I like
>Antonio Gramsci and I tend to go with a fair bit of the younger Jurgen
>Habermas, too. Perhaps I just couldn't help dislike the French
>Nietzschians after all that - I dunno.
that's a ridiculous shortcut, collapsing the range of writers i gather you are addressing here as French Nietzscheans. and yes a very _Quadrant_ take on 'the postmodern threat'. reminds me of all the 'pomo panic' drivel published there in/after the 'Demidenko affair'. if the best way you can criticise something is by dismissive generalisations then yes i figure you're not making much of a criticism at all.
>>I found the work around _Of Grammatology_ hideous to read, but some of his
>>points at that time about, for example, the ways in which 'speech' is
>>prioritised over 'writing', and about the effects of that prioritisation,
>>have continued to hang around in useful ways. There are many ways to be
>>productive in the world, but I think that if you can write something which a
>>range of people find even a bit useful in thinking about how their world
>>works then you've done more than most people ever do.
>
>Yeah, but I reckon the fact that I'm not up to being particularly useful in
>these ways does not mean I'm wrong, and it also doesn't mean it's not my
>business to say what I reckon and why I reckon it. I know you don't
>exactly argue what I'm arguing against here, but I am trying to suggest
>it's a good idea not to rely too much on the argument as you've expressed
>it here.
of course i am not saying you don't have the right to disagree with derrida, and yes you even have the *right* to dismiss him. but that doesn't mean what you're doing is justice to derrida. or very useful.
catherine