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/lit/ - Literature

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3007299 No.3007299[DELETED]  [Reply] [Original]

Anyone read any Derrida? I was contemplating reading either Rogues or The Politics of Friendship. I'm a politics and philosophy student and I've noticed his influence in both disciplines. Any advice would be appreciated.

>> No.3007307

Don't read Derrida.

>> No.3007313

>>3007307
And why?

>> No.3007314

don't read derrida.
His influence is negligeable beyond some name dropping in journal articles.

He's one of those intelectuals who you hear people talk about a lot (especially students), who could fill out a large amphitheatre if he came back to life and did a public lecture...but in actual fact his influence is entirely over-estimated.

>> No.3007322

>>3007313
He is horrible and appears to have more or less nothing to say. His example of the dictionary for 'différance' is pants-on-head retarded because a dictionary necessarily is made up of signifiers explained through other signifiers, but that is related to the fact that if you open your skull, there is a brain inside, not a dictionary. Using the dictionary as an example for how meaning supposedly works in a system based on Saussure is thus a hilariously shitty move. The entire idea that meaning is deferred to other signifiers comes from the lack of a referrential function in Saussure (which is also the reason why structuralist accounts of language are so implausible both phylo- and ontogenetically). He is just a once-fashionable textualist amongst others.

>> No.3007339

Post modernism and post structuralism are only good for essay references, otherwise they are shit.

>> No.3007347

I'd stay away as the others would.

In fact, I do think his influence is great, and with time will be even greater, but he is a sort of philosophical troll. His point is basically that meaning is unstable. You can make anything mean anything as long as you know where you want to go.

For instance, he would say (though in much less reader friendly language), that a gift is impossible because the giver will always feel good about themselves if they give something away to someone. His entire ouvre is him proving this concept over and over again, on different things. Everything from the definition of poetry, to marxism.

If you can live with the headache, it has a certain poetic quality, but there's really no use spending your time on this otherwise.

>> No.3007350

>>3007347

I would like to add that I think he will be seen as very influential in time because future thinkers will have to relate to the paradox he is so fascinated with.

>> No.3007516

OP, read this first.

>hydra.humanities.uci.edu/derrida/sign-play.html

>> No.3007620

>>3007339
This.

Read Borges' Pierre Menard or something.

Rorty was right when he called Derrida a troll who just dicked around to be able to smugly avoid doing work. In this way, he's a pretty cool guy. But the fact that he had any influence at all is a shame.

>> No.3007629

>>3007339

You know what? 10 years ago, I'd have raged about that statement, but now I agree with you.

It's fun to read, and it makes you feel clever for a bit. To be honest it's like intellectual coke. And you should give it up after you leave university, or you're going to end up in bother.