[lbo-talk] Derrida dead

[B.]

This Guardian article makes the amazing claim that
Foucault, unlike Derrida, "spouted nonsense"? Not even
Chomsky believes that. If anything, it's the reverse:
Foucault is much more applicable to social problems
[and leftist concerns in general] than Derrida's work
was. Chomsky's verdict was that Foucault was useful,
but "you have to dig" to find the usefulness in it.
Foucault's analysis of prisons, power relations, how
power relations determine what is considered
"knowledge," etc., I have always found quite
fascinating. ["Clausewitz said war was politics by
other means, but actually politics is war by other
means," etc.] I don't see why one needs to deride
Foucault to make Derrida seem important.

B

Eubelides wrote:


> Our debt to Derrida
> 
> Leader
> Monday October 11, 2004
> The Guardian
> 
> Jacques Derrida, the French scholar who died on
Friday, had a dramatic
> impact on the study of literature in the postwar
period. His theory of
> deconstruction has influenced - consciously or
unconsciously - a great
> deal of modern scholarship and seeped inexorably
into other arenas and
> media, from George Bush's election advertising to
architectural criticism.
> Yet his theories remain controversial. For many,
Derrida personified the
> worst type of "French fraud", in the manner of
Jean-François Lyotard and
> Michel Foucault, impenetrable theorists who spouted
nonsense. 

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"I'm not too worried by hegemony / I know the cadre will look after me" - Magazine, "Model Worker," 1978