/lit/ - Literature

"the Einsteinian constant is not a constant, is not a center. It is the very concept of variability -- it is, finally, the concept of the game. In other words, it is not the concept of something -- of a center starting from which an observer could master the field -- but the very concept of the game"

what did derrida mean by this?

>>11561780
>if you read, for instance, the Grammatology less as a symptomatic reading of a massive archive of texts weaved together under the heading "metaphysics," and instead as a commentary on the practice of a discipline of philosophy in France on the eve of neoliberal privatization, you come away with a more useful text that can historically document a period, rather than autistic meandering through his and Rousseau's shared anxieties. Derrida himself will say somewhere deconstruction is not the psychoanalysis of philosophy, which I agree with only to the extent that it is rather the fever-dream, itself in need of psychoanalysis. multiculturalism, "the collapse of metanarratives," and of course Peterson's idiotic transcription of these—all these well-worn themes have to be treated with the same irony, historicized with the same disinterested penetration.

this is one of the more flattering interpretations of derrida i have read, although it still doesn't make me any more inclined to read him. the 'same irony, historicized with the same disinterested penetration...' i understand this, and yet isn't this precisely why derrida was himself the pharmakon of globalization? *economics was never a matter of disinterest.* there were things that *couldn't* be historicized with disinterested penetration: today, these are race and gender. where would derrida be today on this?

i'm not blaming derrida for would-be disciples who take him too literally (or for those who want to deliberately take him out of context and misread him...or for my own unique spin: doing of *both* of these, at the same time, which is kind of amazing, when i think about it...). certainly i am saying more about myself than i am about him: maybe a fetishistic obsession with capitalism suggests the very need for deconstructive analysis of that subject, rather than a violent rejection of deconstruction. this is entirely possible (and probably true!). but this is my bone to pick with derridean stuff. deconstruction, irony and historical disinterest, imho, cut the rug out from everything that historically stood as a brake on capitalist development and growth. the 1990s and 2000s were a booming period like no other for capital, and it's a field day for deconstruction. it's not derrida's *fault*...but...you see what i'm getting at.

you are right, though. we do have to look at these things in a kind of disinterested way. capital (and culture?) both *is* and *is not* what people want - that's ideology and desire for you. it's wrong to blame the critics or shoot the messengers. but i think land's view, for all of its terrible darkness, is the one that *actually* gets one thinking about the nature of history, capital and so on. so you can and should read this post as equal parts frustrated shitposting and confession more than detached analysis, obviously. derrida triggers me (and what the fuck, if there is *anything* i should have learned from /lit/ by now, it's Don't Get Trigged!).

Stop calling things by their names

>>5393724

Maybe the only tool is the shelf itself.

Do you think Derrida's collective work is meant to be taken as one huge Zen koan under the guise of philosophical/linguistic writing? I mean, just read the first sentence of "Violence and Metaphysics":

http://www.scribd.com/doc/12890744/Derrida-Violence-and-Metaphysics

My favorite is 1980s Derrida. You know, the one with the white, Rod Stewart-y, petit flat-top hairdo.

Fo realz. D&E maybe a bit on the hyperbolic side of things but what can I say other than:
>Jeez* plebz.
Dissect something worthwhile
*All that is holy in Archimedes I should eliminate the use of slang-in up a Jesus.

>>1994817

WANT TO TALK RESENTMENT?
THAT'S A FUNNY SENTIMENT
COMING FROM AN ELITIST, PHALLOCENTRIC MALCONTENT
BRACE YOURSELF, BLOOM, I'M DECONSTRUCTING YOUR ASS
DID YOU REALLY THINK DERRIDA WOULD GIVE YOU A PASS?

SO STOP YOUR BITCH-ASS PREENING
ABOUT LITERARY AESTHETICS
yOU THINK TEXTS HAVE MEANING?
NIGGA, THAT'S PATHETIC!
SIGNIFIERS SLIDE
AND THAT'S ALL THEY EVER DO
NO ABSOLUTES ABIDE
NOTHING IS TRUE

OFF TO THE DUSTBIN
WITH RATIONALISM AND STRUCTURE
PRIVILEGING LOGIC IS LIKE RAPE -- IT'S NO WONDER NAOMI SAYS YOU FUCKED HER
SO I HOPE YOU DON'T MIND
IF I FUCK YOUR CANON
DECONTEXTUALIZING EVERYTHING WITH RADICAL ABANDON

OH -- WHAT'S THAT, I HEAR?
YOU THINK THERE'S A DISTINCTION
BETWEEN GREAT WORKS OF LIT, AND SHITTY COMMERCIAL FICTION?
BETWEEN STEPHANIE MEYER, AND HOMER CAST IN BRONZE?
YOU MAY KNOW THE DIFFERENCE, BLOOM
BUT YOU NEGLECT LE DIFFERANCE