/lit/ - Literature

>read and understand Heidegger just fine
>understand Foucault
>mostly understand Deleuze
>for some reason never get around to Derrida
>every once in a while, try to read a primer or summary or entree into Derrida's basic positions and the method of deconstruction
>well-trained in navigating pomo word salad, intimately familiar with the phenomenological tradition
>follow the descriptions fine, up to a point
>can understand the context of derrida's approach, can guess where he's going
>suddenly, but inevitably, there's a humean moment where the author leaps from intelligible word salad to using terms he hasn't defined to explain other undefined terms in question
>jumps from explaining derrida with reference to heidegger, to explaining derrida with reference to derrida
>despite how ironically derridean this is, it doesn't exactly help
>it's like reading a description of a vehicle in a fantastical scifi setting that initially begins by using familiar real-world concepts, but then just becomes gobbledygook
>"You see, the sneed is a sort of CAR. But it's a car that FLIES. You can imagine a CAR that FLIES, right? Good. Well, instead of doors.. it has CURTAINS.. Okay, you following me so far? Now, the Sneed has a burblrb. And the burblb is punctuated by the negative polarity of its difference from itself. This difference is called differance, which the Sneed designers use because it symbolizes porlxpbl."
>wonder if i'm retarded
>wonder if it's all my fault somehow that i keep losing the plot at some moment, in any description of derrida
>finally end up reading rorty's description of derrida
>it's perfectly straightforward
>derrida isn't even that complicated if you already understand heidegger and someone writes three paragraphs breaking down derrida's departure from heidegger for you
>mfw i realize all those derrida things i had been reading were written by "literary critics," not philosophers
>mfw i spent HOURS being hoodwinked by retard lit theory faggots who don't even understand the philosophies they're pretending to appropriate
>mfw i read other people talking about derrida and can instantly recognise whether they are people with mid-level philosophical knowledge necessary to understand his architectonic, or literary theory faggots who just cast a lot of smokescreen spells by shouting !!!BINARY OPPOSITIONS!!! THE TEXT!!