On Nov 5, 2009, at 4:13 AM, James Heartfield wrote:
> He reiterates the point in an attack on anti-fascism (just as bad as
> fascism, apparently): 'opposition to racism, totalitarianism, to
> Nazism, to fascism' that is undertaken 'in the name of the spirit,
> and even of the freedom of (the) spirit, in the name of an axiomatic
> - for example, that of democracy or "human rights" - which directly
> or not comes back to this metaphysics of Subjectivity.' The meaning
> of this passage is that facism and democracy are as bad as each
> other, because both [sic] elevate the Subject. But fascism does not
> elevate the subject, it suppresses the collective subject of
> democracy under the fuhrer-worship - it is bad faith to elide them;
> and indicative of Derrida's project that he isolates just that
> component, subjectivity, as problematic that the fascists, too
> wished to suppress in the name of order and discipline. (Of Spirit:
> Heidegger and the Question, Chicago: University Press, 1991, p40).
Look, it's been ages since I've read Derrida. But your account of him doesn't match my memory, and these quotelets do nothing to make your case. E.g., opposition to racism, totalitarianism, etc., in the name of *spirit* or universal human rights or some other axiom (i.e., something taken as self-evidently true, or assumed from the outset), isn't founded on anything substantial because these abstract universals don't exist. They're creatures of imagination, of social convention. I would have thought that a Marxist would find this point obvious. What you quote certainly doesn't prove that fascism and democracy are as bad as each other in Derrida's eyes. If you can come up with a quote to prove that, I might reconsider, but you can't, because such doesn't exist.
Doug