Urizen and Eros

[rojan josh]

Response to A Reply

> If criticism is limited by its own terms then it does rely upon a > theological basis,
> from which it cannot escape (since the idea of critique would be > always
> already unfulfilled by its own measure).  This theological basis 
> secures ideological closure if it doesn't even promise the actual 
> possibility of escaping the viscious
> hermeneutical circle.  

if you replaced theological with historical in the above passage i would
agree with you...
but as it stands...

de-con is not a gnosticism--in that, the closed structure (i am using
closure in the sense it seems to have in above passage and not in the
sense derrida gives it in "exergue" to Of Gramma; so too "escape" is not
what derrida is about: de-con promises a repetition of dead terminalogy
with a differance) it seeks to shake is not an archon-given order of
things but the historical excrement of the platonic machine and the
christian theological machine that appropriated it.
according to these linguistic machines there is a "beyond" (the realm of
the idea or of God)
critique reiterates this "beyond" structure when it assumes it can
assess things from an external place
but this is exactly what de-con does not do
there is no 'hors-texte' (a much abused phrase but let it stand for now)
it assesses 
(no scratch that) 
it reads 
(in contradistinction to hermeneutics) 
metaphysical terminology from within, de-limits terms that reiterate the
'absymal nothing' of a "beyond" ("life without differance") and thus
opens the im/possibility of de/re-articulating dead terms in an-other
way

(no holswege here)

hence derrida's recourse to benjamin's messianic trope
and in notes to lit. 1 there is definitely a determination of art as a
utopic moment which negatively shows the existent to be limited and
opens the empty possibility of a de/re-limited social field
        
is critique even possible if it is not infused by a utopic or atopic
strain?

> This is at the centre of Horkheimer and Adorno's idea of the
> enlightenment - to brush the ideals of the enlightenment against themselves.  This
> kind of opening, negatively determined, leaves the idea of critique open to a
> postmetaphysical position - a kind of reconciliation with metaphysics.
> On Derrida's
> terms this openness is foreclosed and locked in via his interpretation of language
> and grammar.

i am really at a loss to what "derrida" you are referring
structure sign and play?
the marx book delineates a messainic openness to other futures
also the "come" infrastructure, the "yes yes" infrastructure, the
"promise" infrastructure, the emphasis on a social responsibility
responding to the call of a re-configured future

i have no idea to whom you are referring
  
>  While deconstruction hopes to leave itself open to the other it
>  cannot do so as long as the tenets of the subjective objective construction are
> disintegrated (which is not to say they are beyond critique) - which is precisely why Derrida runs into praxis problems and Horkheimer and Adorno don't encounter them in the same way.

i wouldn't say they are disintegrated
that would be destruction and not deconstruction...

but this brings up a question that has been bothering me for a while and
that i throw open to anyone who deigns to respond
to what degree were post-WWII A and H 'engaged'
or
to what degree is negative dialectics purely a work of the negative
suspended between demarcating limitations and the spectral possibility
of a positivity 

in other words, do A and H leave place for a positive social practice
that is more than an empty place or utopia (which need not be external
in metaphy-sense)
as is suggested by the end of Dia of EnLight : "enlightenment which is
in possession of itself can break the bonds of enlightment" (208)
   
> I suspect this problem appears because of the latent
> anti-humanism institutionalised in too much of postmodern work.  

actually the french thinkers are not anti-humanists per se (this would
be too binary a position and thus trapped in the mirror play of
metaphysics)
the key phrase was au-dela de l'homme
beyond Man as the totalizing name which replaced the dead name of God

and habermas (a good old humanist, all would agree) would say A and H
are anti-humanist since they employ the "dark writers of the
bourgeoisie"--namely, sade and nietzsche (also big with the french by a
strange coincidence) in their destructive (to H's eyes) critique of the
bourgeois social order
but as the dia/enlight bit quoted above suggests they are not
destructuve but deCONSTRUCTive
 
i would suggest, as someone else suggested, that there are more
affinities between A/H and decon than differences
 
> Again - this is
> why I think that deconstruction affirms a mystical basis - since it begins and ends
> with metaphysics

ah but that is our historical situation
for metaphysics substrates, in derrida, ideological domination 
the problem is not a dead german professor's belief in totality
but totalizing discourses that subject the social field
 
> (a faith in hope infinitely postponed is no hope at all).
> 
and kafka? 
a "weak messianic" power perhaps?
but the mystical tag on de-con is very old hat
ie: habermas' quasi-racist claim that derrida is a "jewish mystic"
(though D. does not know hebrew!)
this is a containment strategy that prevents thinking through the
problems de-con raises

de-con affirms
pointe finale
or rather
ellipses
 
> I would argue that negative dialectics severs itself sharply from deconstruction
> precisely because of the humanist twist it lends itself to - something which, in my
> mind, should not be diminished in any way (which certainly does not place it above
> criticism).
> 

derrida remains commiteed to the kantian project of enlightment 
ie: "on an apocalyptic tone recently adopted in philosophy"
derrida of course is more complex than the jottings i have just indited

the other de-con seeks to un-de-limit and affirm is within the same
within the interstices of the viscera
it is what has been (speaking very broadly) repressed, dissembled,
excluded and is related to the derive (drive/treib) of desire

and the thrust of my post was not to engage in a well-worn "let's defend
derrida" discussion (torn and frayed as an old joke) but to suggest that
the problematic besetting the social horizon is not reason but desire

mis-firings of abstracted desire

"I hear the ruin of all space, shattered glass and toppling masonery,
and time one livid final flame. What's left us then?"

regards,

j.