Theory & Event

Preface

We live in a political age, that is, an age in which the political shape into which the economy and society are to be fashioned is uncertain. We live in an age of the world, that is, an age in which, for the first time in history, most activity is related to the world as a whole, whether it be an action for the world, a reaction against it or an act lying between either action or reaction. We live in a political age of the world in the sense that the political challenge before us is to shape the world as a world contra national and transnational forces of economic, political and cultural self-interest that are in the process of (re-)forming the world according to fractional difference. Our challenge — those of us that believe that one world is possible, however distant the reality of such a thought presently seems — is, in the short and medium term, twofold: top-down, to promote the institution and force of international law and radical reform of the present institutions of the world order (the UN and its bodies, the IMF, the World Bank, the WTO); and, bottom up, continually to learn from, and sustain, the increasingly interconnected social movements of the world that will provide the force whereby radical change for world social justice becomes possible. In this age, for this age — let me be blunt — has the critical thought of Jacques Derrida something to tell us?

As someone who wrote at length on the relationship between Derrida’s philosophy and the political in the mid-1990s, I feel able to give a response. But I am aware that I only feel able to give a response to this question from out of the terms of Derrida’s philosophy. In other words, the relation of Derrida’s thought to the political is so decisive and specific about what it understands by the political and the limits of the political that it is impossible, at least for me, to conceive that thought otherwise in relation to the future of political philosophy. This means that my own disagreements with Derrida regarding our age cannot be placed within the horizon of his work, but must be made in relation to the way in which he formulates the limits of the political. Should such disagreement have a place in an act of homage? Once one has responded to how Derrida’s critical thought does have something — important — to say to political thought and political actuality, disagreement is not, I think, misplaced. All the more so because such disagreement concerns the way in which critical philosophy should address itself to its own age. Since this age has changed from the one in which Derrida began to philosophize, since the critical priorities have changed from those of the age when Derrida began to assume such an important position in Anglo-American intellectual culture, since, more essentially, this change of priorities reveals something deeply problematic about the way in which French thought circumscribes the power of reason, it is important to work out the essential strength and problems of Derrida’s corpus of work regarding the political as clearly as possible. This will help us to understand where Derrida will remain strong for us and where other forms of philosophical determination are now needed. In preparation of this work, and in memory of Jacques Derrida, I would therefore like this essay to look at:

1. 1). Jacques Derrida’s decisive contribution to political thought, first, generally speaking, and, second, in the specific context of contemporary globalization;

2. 2). where I disagree with his formulation of the powers of reason, and how this disagreement has political consequences regarding the relation between reason and power;

3. 3). why I believe the terms of this disagreement are important today regarding the relation between critical philosophy and the political challenge of our age.

I have not spoken of Jacques Derrida’s death. I consider mourning a personal act, especially in the context of philosophy. The best homage that I can give to Derrida’s memory is therefore, within the public context of our...