[lbo-talk] Conversation with Derrida

[Chris Doss]

Anyway, James' real target here is not Heidegger. The target is ideas he doesn't like (and doesn't actually understand), specifically those held by the dirty, filthy poststructuralists. Because he doesn't actually understand the ideas, he, in typical Trot style (see, I can make crude generalizations about intellectual traditions too), tries to discredit the people themselves. This is done by "showing" that the ideas of these dirty, filthy poststructuralists are infected by Heideggerian cooties and theredore their ideas must be wrong. 

The same reason why he's obsessed with the Nazi interest in environmentalism. Not knowing anything about ecology or climatology or any of that actual science stuff, he has to attack the dirty, filthy environmentalists, which is done by "showing" that the Nazis were environmentalists, so therefore the dirty, filthy environmentalists and their foul heresy must be wrong.