[lbo-talk] Re: Butler on Derrida

jimi ayler jimi_ayler at yahoo.com
Tue Oct 26 07:32:12 PDT 2004


as a card-carrying member of praxis international (see my foucault diss last week), i find myself in the unenviable position of having to defend judith butler -- and, correspondingly, the storied j.d. himself -- from listserved, off-the-cuff backhands. the, ahem, "derridean project" deserves plenty of ridicule and critical engagement. however, it's far from worthless (much less historically irrelevant), and ms. butler's heartfelt reflection on the impact m. jacques had on her life and belles lettres generally is far less obtuse than much "postmodern discourse," and considerably less so than these lazy, witless diatribes. to wit:

michael dawson "writes":


>Amen, Joanna. And what does Butler herself say,
>other than that she
>really
>likes Derrida? We owe our friends and mentors a
>debt? How utterly new
>and
>thrilling!

i'm sorry, are you really suggesting we should resurrect the ne plus ultra of modernism -- ezra pound's "make it new" -- and apply it, thrillingly, to eulogies? her discussion of "debt" is merely a trope, and an apposite one for a man generally considered to have no use for western intellectual history, except as a straw man. i'm sure your quite the toastmaster, mike, and i'm also sure you'll have plenty of opportunities to exercise so very many new thrills at someone else's wake...

m. dawson always already incorporates joanna bujes:


>Oh, Jesus. Yup, you got me with this one.


>1. D had an absolute genius for turning the obvious
>into some kind of
>esoteric and obscure plum

you mean, like grammatology? his reflections on heidegger? benjamin? the battle for algiers? the, uh, "jewish question"? or, do you mean something else? let's not be in such a hurry to tar another's presumed obscurity...


>2. Reflecting on his life and his works makes me
>understand why the
>Chinese commies sent intellectuals to pick potatoes.

tres charmer, joanna -- that cultural revolution sure was hilarious!


>3. His ability to turn himself and his work in a
>fetish is quite
>amazing. On a par with Madonna.

yeah, you know, all the dungeons i frequent in nyc are all about the evaporation of meaning into the immateriality of the text. that, of course, and fisting....

festishes are in the eyes of the fetishizers...do you honestly believe derrida engaged in a will-to-celebrity, a la ms. ciccone? he may have enjoyed his cult status -- and, arguably, his cult -- but you'd have a hard time convincing me that he went a long way out of his way to cultivate said cult.


>4. God these fucking assholes loved themselves....

...as opposed to the considered, nuanced self-loathing comming off of this litany. see above in re: "let's not be in a big hurry..."


>5. Gag, gag, gag.....

what a coincidence! i have the same reflex towards facile, gratuitous disdain that presumes much and advances no justification for such presumption. ladle in some jargon, and this post would enshrine all the wrong lessons from derrida, and postmodernism, you are ostensibly railing against. author! author!

===== ________________________________james keepnews

American generals in Iraq triumphantly announced at the weekend that they had successfully taken over Samarra and killed 125 insurgents. They failed to mention that this is the third time they have captured this particular city on the Tigris river north of Baghdad in the past 18 months...The situation on the ground in Iraq is far worse than what is portrayed by the media. Ironically, this is because it is now so dangerous for journalists and television crews to leave their heavily guarded hotels in Baghdad that they cannot refute claims by the American and British governments that much of Iraq is safe.

-- Patrick Cockburn, 7 October 2004

____music+writing+webart+multimedia performance

__________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Address AutoComplete - You start. We finish. http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list