Making Light (or "La-Dee-Derrida")

Warning: relatively longish and somewhat wandering thoughts on Jacques Derrida*

There are cultures or individuals who believe that via various means of magic other people can capture/control/immobilize one's soul or at least one's subconscious. We've all heard of the "primitive" tribe that won't allow themselves to be photographed or the way a lock of one's hair in the hands of a certain Neapolitan potion maker can be used to direct one's affections. Less famous perhaps, but just as outrageous, is the story of how Jean-Paul Sartre supposedly sapped the French writer Jean Genet's ability to write novels via his brutal psychoanalysis of Genet in what's now billed a "biography": Saint Genet. The legend goes that upon reading the manuscript in Sartre’s apartment, Genet was so outraged he threw the pages into the fireplace. The text was still eventually published (and makes for riveting reading if you're into that kind of thing), but forever afterward Genet (who never wrote another novel) blamed Sartre for stealing his novelist soul, for revealing his secret literary device and thereby neutering him.

I was obsessed with this story in my younger days. Was it possible? Could someone peer so deeply into another's mind that they could find the "off" switch and shut them down? As an individualist, this struck me as the most horrifying of powers, and I spent years reading Freud and others to try and find a defense against it. I've since calmed down quite a bit, none the least because Edmund White, who later wrote the definitive biography on Genet, told me that there was more myth than truth to the legend. According to White's research, Genet had already exhausted what he was able/interested in doing in the novel format (though he went on to write many plays and poetry) and used the Sartre book as an excuse. Genet was not at all allergic to a touch of melodrama, you see. Further, adding to my comfort is the fact that much of psychoanalysis, as it existed in Sartre's day, has been debunked.

This all came rushing back to me when I read the New York Times' obituary on the Algerian-French "father of deconstruction," Jacques Derrida. He was 74.

Derrida was infamous for his nebulous writings, but he was nearly as enigmatic at times when he spoke in public.

As a lecturer, Mr. Derrida cultivated charisma and mystery. For many years, he declined to be photographed for publication. He cut a dashing, handsome figure at the lectern, with his thick thatch of prematurely white hair, tanned complexion, and well-tailored suits. He peppered his lectures with puns, rhymes and enigmatic pronouncements, like, "Thinking is what we already know that we have not yet begun," or, "Oh my friends, there is no friend..."

Now it's difficult to understand, let alone critique the complexity of, many of Derrida's writings, so I generally cull what I can from them and give him the benefit of doubt on the rest (I first read his two-columned comparison/contrast extravaganza on Hegel and Genet---Glas---as part of my research on the "neutered" writer). But why he would be so "nuanced" when speaking in public (yes, there's a potential political tie in here if you look for it...but I'm a bit too lazy today) struck me as gratuitous.

Unless---was this perhaps what I had been looking for? Was this enigmatic shell, this levity, this lightness, if you will, actually a defense against the neutralizing power of a mindf&%ker like Sartre? By reserving a corner of your serious self...hiding it from the world (much the way the Jim Carrey character hides the memory of his girlfriend in "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind"), could one deflect an all out assault on one's will? We all know of folks who use humor as a defense mechanism. If someone were to try and psychoanalyze Derrida, what could they do with a statement like "Oh my friends, there is no friend...." It deflects any serious analysis. It provides a shelter, a shield, behind which the subject can wait out an attack.

OK...what the hell is he smoking, you're likely thinking by this point. (Biographical note: I lived in D.C., world capital of mindf&%kers, when I did most of this thinking, so it felt important then.)

Seriously though, if there was anyone the older, more established academic types wanted to shut down in the 20th century, it was Jacques Derrida. He had given ambitious young intellectuals the ultimate weapon in the traditional "kill the father, to supplant the son" method of making careers and sealing fates. By "deconstructing" the works of those studied by the academics standing between them and their desired positions, these youthful rebels didn't have to do the hard work of actually disproving their theories...they could merely mock them into irrelevance. With this magical new method, these Derrida Davids slayed the giants in their fields. Clearly the giants and their supporters weren't too happy about it either, especially those who studied literature...

[C]ritics found it disturbing that obscure academics could presume to denigrate a Sophocles, Voltaire or Tolstoy by seeking out cultural biases and inexact language in their masterpieces. "Literature, the deconstructionists frequently proved, had been written by entirely the wrong people for entirely the wrong reasons," wrote Malcolm Bradbury, a British novelist and professor, in a 1991 article for The New York Times Book Review.

So Derrida had a few detractors, to put it lightly; a few folks who wouldn't have minded if someone had neutralized him.

I've looked for evidence that Derrida feared or even credited the Genet claim that he had been paralyzed through analysis. In Glas, Derrida does note that Sartre avoided the term "psychoanalysis" in Saint Genet in a turn of phrase that suggests he thought that Sartre was screwing with Genet's mind, but that could be me reading too much into it (hey, give me a break...it all but demands you bring your own experience to it...there's not exactly a clearly marked path through all that stuff, you know). Still, human intuition nearly always trumps theory in my experience, so I'm still convinced that Derrida's enigmatic levity was a defense against his critics.

Overall, I'd say Derrida held off his attackers quite well. But, alas, as with all mortals, the final word will not be his. A lightweight little squirt like myself, for example, gets to offer this as a eulogy (ah, the superiority of live dogs to a dead lion, as Sartre would say):

Deconstruction has led to a dead end of sorts (no pun intended). Applied as it was to the "kill the father to supplant the son" tradition, it had an unfortunate(?) side effect...it also sterilized the sons/daughters. We've lost the linear narrative within many of the major humanities. Without any advancements in the narrative (with, rather, only looks back to deconstruct the pre-existing narratives), newcomers found themselves with no "fathers," per se, to kill.

This may yet prove to be a good thing (too many 20th Century "fathers" had been killed before their time, in my opinion, and that ever-accelerating method always stank of a nonproductive egoism). But in the visual arts, for example, it's resulted in a widespread disconnect. There are no movements, no manifestos, no narratives. Each artist must develop their own individual rules and rationales from the scattered pieces left everywhere by the deconstructionists. They must each build a new narrative from scratch.

This has led to a few "problems." There's so much information available now, scattered across the landscape and available with a few keystrokes, that the idea of being a Renaissance man/woman who can grasp it all (in terms of visual art, that means perhaps being able to create an all-encompassing alternative universe) seems defeatingly impossible for so many artists. Many visual artists I know are focusing on cataloging: developing systems for simply storing or processing information, never actually getting to the meat of the information itself. The daunting aspect of trying to pick up this or that fragment and build a new, defendable universe out of it strikes many of them as overwhelming, so they don't even try. Others recycle happily in their corners. Others turn to science or mathematics...places where absolutes supposedly lurk. Others say screw it and turn towards a more simple approach: Forget the narrative, I'm gonna limit myself to building again within this manageable sphere and say "accept this as I present it to you or forget you." (OK, so perhaps there is a way to tie this in politically.)

I've blathered enough here. There are no conclusions really...Jacques, we hardly knew ye...r.i.p., mon frere.

*Like he should complain that someone else was a bit hard to follow.

Comments

[fafnir]

I miss him too. He was always quick with a joke or an inverted duality.

[Moe Lane]

I feel that I should have an opinion of Derrida, being an English lit major and all - but my college's English department hunted down deconstructionalists and put their heads up on pikes as a warning to the next ten generations that some theories are promulgated at too high a price, so I apparently missed out on all the fun.

[Navy Davy]

Whaddya get when you cross a deconstructionist with a mafioso?

A tough guy making an offer you cain't understand.

Sorry, I stole this from a dude I don't like, so blame him if it ain't funny:)

[SomeRandomDork]

By "deconstructing" the works of those studied by the academics standing between them and their desired positions, these youthful rebels didn't have to do the hard work of actually disproving their theories...they could merely mock them into irrelevance.

Something about this seems awfully familiar...

[Slartibartfast]

Maybe I should just automatically use that name when posting something silly and/or irrelevant. But then I would never get to use this one.

[Edward]

my college's English department hunted down deconstructionalists and put their heads up on pikes as a warning to the next ten generations that some theories are promulgated at too high a price

that's an awesome visual...somethings really are best handled with brute force, I guess.

[Slartibartfast]

My favorite imagery was derived from something you said, Edward. Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth series (which I'm currently re-reading) has a character attempting to use magic to accomplish the permanent end to all magic. Not being any more familiar with Derrida's work than I absolutely have to be, it looks like he's attempted a the same sort of thing with rhetoric.

But for all I know, all he's done is forged out a sort of Gödelean impasse.

[Edward]

Not being any more familiar with Derrida's work than I absolutely have to be, it looks like he's attempted a the same sort of thing with rhetoric.

But for all I know, all he's done is forged out a sort of Gödelean impasse.

An impasse of some sort, surely. I can't blame him really...it was inevitable, deconstruction, and if he saw it, why not say it?

So much of the response is criticizable as merely pulling back into one's shell. It's understandable, but that doesn't make it admirable.

The application of the method, though, that's ripe for attack in most cases, I'd say. But to what end?

It's so confusing...Giblets?? Help us!

[hilzoy]

Moe: it wasn't fun at all. I am sorry he died, and for his the loss to his friends and relations, but very little of that has much to do with deconstruction. Though he personally was funnier than many of his followers, who managed to write all sorts of utterly humorless discourses on irony.

My sense always was that reading Derrida could be immensely liberating at a particular stage in one's life -- the one where the weight of all those intellectual fathers was getting to be too great -- but that the people who then decided to make a career out of developing those ideas were almost invariably making a big, big mistake. It has had damaging effects in a lot of humanities disciplines -- effects that are now fading. And I know less about the arts than Edward, of course, but my sense is that there the reception of Derrida and the other 'theorists' has been a full-blown catastrophe.

[sidereal]

The problem with deconstructionists in general is that they had some inkling of Zen, but were hung up on the western academic notion of trying to make a career out of it.

[Moe Lane]

"The problem with deconstructionists in general is that they had some inkling of Zen, but were hung up on the western academic notion of trying to make a career out of it."

Nice one. Your own, I presume?

[Edward]

And I know less about the arts than Edward, of course, but my sense is that there the reception of Derrida and the other 'theorists' has been a full-blown catastrophe.

I think they're recovering as well, although, because it's a "visual" discipline, the best artists are not always so quick with textual explanations or defenses. Deconstruction was like a virus from another planet...their immune systems were not at all prepared for it is my guess.

[sidereal]

Yes, but no rights reserved.

Dogen would have found phallogocentrism hilarious.

[hilzoy]

Edward: For a while back in the late 80s, which I suspect was during the catastrophe, I was regularly reading art magazines, and my sense was that visual artists were particularly vulnerable to it in part because they are not necessarily verbal people. (I mean, some are, of course, but they don't need to be.) I remember an installation involving TVs set in trees, which was supposed to deconstruct the duality between technology and nature; a canvas with some words about the direction we read which was painted backwards, and which was supposed to be an interesting deconstruction of its meaning, and in general an awful lot of stuff about which I thought: this could just as well have been written down in prose, for all its visual power; but in prose its inanity would have been obvious. And then all that stuff involving the appropriation or misappropriation of works of art from previous eras (the moment when, as far as I was concerned, Cindy Sherman's career imploded). I hope it's getting better.

[hilzoy]

correction -- didn't mean her career as in 'is she a big deal in the art world?', about which I know nothing, but: is she doing good work?

[Edward]

I remember an installation involving TVs set in trees

Ooooo....painful.

That's a good summary hilzoy and dead on in my opinion with regards to why it was so disastrous among visual artists. Cindy's doing quite well, still, unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it [i.e., commercially vs. conceptually]).

Moreover, there's a sense returning to the art world that if your work requires accompanying text, it's a failure as visual art, and I see that the nail in deconstruction coffin wrt visual art. I also subscribe wholly to that notion.

From the gallery POV, however, what we're seeing among collectors is a somewhat disappointing, obvious relief that they can once again collect accesible representational work (which now has attractive non-ironic, but not too difficult, "concepts" excusing the fact it looks just like representational work that was supposedly killed by modernism...again, it's all so confusing these days).

[Jonas Cord]

Moreover, there's a sense returning to the art world that if your work requires accompanying text, it's a failure as visual art, and I see that the nail in deconstruction coffin wrt visual art. I also subscribe wholly to that notion.

This is the best news I've read all day.

[sidereal]

" representational work that was supposedly killed by modernism"

Don't tell my favorite living artist, Mark Ryden!

Or is he not representational because the figures are caricatures? I'm not up on The Rules these days.

[Edward]

Or is he not representational because the figures are caricatures? I'm not up on The Rules these days.

Definitely representational, although more than a little twisted...fun work.

Your favorite artist is safe from the critque wrt to modernism, but not wrt to illustration vs. "fine art" I'm afraid. The lines are blurring there, as well, but purists are still holding the fort on keeping the Norman Rockwell types at bay....Mark Ryden unfortunately has more in common with Rockwell than, say, John Currin to most NYC art world types, I'd venture...although, I can't imagine anyone who wouldn't want one of those...they're delightful

awful snobbery in all that, I realize...but that's where the dialog rests right now.

[sidereal]

Ah, every context has its Whigs and Tories.

S'alright. To quote that fine lyricist Zach de la Rocha of Rage Against the Machine, Ryden doesn't need a key. He'll break in.

[hilzoy]

So Edward: which interesting yet insufficiently well-known artists should I be checking out? (General features of my taste: never saw the point of getting away from representational art, since the idea that it had somehow been "exhausted" always struck me as ludicrous, but don't demand that art be representational either (how could anyone not love Rothko?); like things that are genuinely powerful, but things that are just trying for depth or power merely annoy me (particularly allergic to pseudo-mythic things and irksome deconstruction stuff as in the examples above); tend to like color (paintings that are e.g. all brown, black and white tend to bore me unless they're by Rembrandt) (engravings etc. are fine, though); on inspection, unfortunately, don't like Ryden (sorry, sidereal); artists trying to be cute, or for that matter trying too visibly to be anything, bug me (I would rather think: of course, it has to be that way); don't mind being unsettled as long as it's worth it and the artist isn't just doing it for its own sake.) Any suggestions?

[Edward]

which interesting yet insufficiently well-known artists should I be checking out?

two sure bets (won't be affordable at all in 5 years) and I'm being generous, neither is one of my artists.

representational:
Dana Shutz

abstract:
Dan Zeller

This list of up and coming galleries offers a good starting place to try and hedge your bets if you're hoping to discover someone before they're too big (and, shamefully, yes, my gallery is somewhere in that list...I won't go so far into self-promotion to tell you which one though):

[Jackmormon]

Edward, big props for recommending Zeller!
and just one word in favor of Derrida--although I could go on--the oh-so-clever-aside school of lecturing is much more common and acceptable in France than is has ever been in the Anglo-Saxon "plain style" model. That's one of the reasons it sounds particularly evasive when it comes from an American admirer of Continental philosophy.

[hilzoy]

You know, as I was typing my last post, I thought: why on earth didn't I think of asking that question sooner? I love art. I really, really love art. That's why I was reading all those art magazines in the late 80s. That's also why I stopped bothering at a certain point: wading through all the horrible art was much worse than wading through bad anything else (although bad metaphysics is right up there.) And there was so much of it. And the entire world of art seemed to have been possessed by an evil spirit who hated art. It was so awful. At a certain point I thought: surely they must have recovered by now; but I had no idea where to start looking around.

All this by way of saying, thanks.

Although I'm not sure about Schutz. I think it's really good work painted for someone who isn't me, if you see what I mean. I really like Zeller, though. -- Does stuff like this sell for zillions of dollars?

[Edward]

Although I'm not sure about Schutz. I think it's really good work painted for someone who isn't me, if you see what I mean.

Totally understand. She is arguably the very "hottest" young artist around though (whatever that's worth). Her work probably goes for $20,000 to $50,000 a canvas now...or soon will.

I really like Zeller, though. -- Does stuff like this sell for zillions of dollars?

Dan's work is more affordable (I got mine for a steal a few years ago...advantage of doing lots of studio visits), but I believe there's a waiting list. He too will be about $20,000 in 3 to 4 years, I'd imagine, if not sooner.

About art in general...most of it totally sucks...no question. A century can only promote so many "geniuses" though, so you should always, always, always only buy work you like. If it appreciates, that's gravy...but regardless you'll have works you want around.

[Sebastian Holsclaw]

"And the entire world of art seemed to have been possessed by an evil spirit who hated art. It was so awful."

I feel that way about much of 'fine' modern music in the late 20th century. Things are getting interesting again from a music-listeners perspective again (finally).

[hilzoy]

Edward: there's a large group of things about which I think: I won't bother trying to purchase an X as an investment; it would take too much time to learn enough. And then a much smaller subset about which I think: it's true that really learning about X would take too much time, but that's not really the issue, since time spent looking at various Xs is fun. It's that buying Xs as investments would be sort of like choosing a lover on the grounds that he will over time appreciate in value: maybe so, but it sort of misses the point. Houses and art are the two main items in this latter group.

[Anarch]

I feel that way about much of 'fine' modern music in the late 20th century. Things are getting interesting again from a music-listeners perspective again (finally).

There's actually a huge body of really cool choral literature that's been completely overlooked in that genre that my conductor's been putting us through. Leighton, Menotti, Lauridsen, DeBlasio, Baksa, Dinerstein, Badings, Warlock... there's a *ton* of great stuff that no-one ever hears, which is a righteous shame because it is wonderful.

[I assume the same is probably true of orchestral music, but I'm not nearly as up on that.]

[The42ndGuy]

I want a choir singing Lauridsen at my wedding. That stuff'll melt your heart like butter on a griddle, and with results just as tasty.

[Anarch]

Fun fact: Lauridsen's nickname is apparently "Skip".