[lbo-talk] How radical was Derrida? (was 'does anyone read poststructuralism anymore?')

[Chris Doss]

If you're going to attack Derrida for being heavily influenced by Heidegger, you're going to have to do the same for Arendt, Marcuse, Sartre, Adorno, Horkheimer, Levinas, Merleau-Ponty, Gadamer, Celan, and practically any thinker post-Heidegger worth anything. There is a reason for that, i.e., Heidegger is the most important philosopher of the 20th century alongside Wittgenstein (more important, in my opinion).

Anyway the whole idea that a thinker's work should be assessed based on "what it means for politics" is bass ackwards. You're in full Trotskyist "burn the heretic" mode here.

----- Original Message ----
From: James Heartfield <Heartfield at blueyonder.co.uk>
To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
Sent: Tue, November 3, 2009 11:16:01 AM
Subject: [lbo-talk] How radical was Derrida? (was 'does anyone read poststructuralism anymore?')

The intellectual milieu Derrida moved in at the Ecole Normale Superieur and as a contributor to the journal Tel Quel, was heavily influenced by an increasingly radical outlook, that moved from official Communism to posturing Maoism. Politically, though, Derrida's instincts were more much conservative.