Nice little biography of Derrida, this. A more manageable size than many of the man’s own books, it does a neat job of relating the philosopher and the philosophy, without being a hagiography in the case of the former, nor a full-bore “reading” in the case of the latter. Which makes it perhaps the ideal introduction to Derrida’s thought for someone (such as myself) who has read fragments here and there, and has a vague idea of where ideas like deconstruction sit (both philosophically and pop-culturally), but who has yet to actually tuck in to the texts themselves. Core ideas and themes are situated in the context of Derrida’s life and times, and of twentieth century philosophy in general; that these are simplifications is inevitable, particularly with a thinker as gordian and self-referential as Derrida. But that seems a fair price for what might stand as a rough map to prepare oneself for the exploration of a vast continent of ideas whose originality (and threat) are still manifest in the fear and loathing associated with his name—despite, as Salmon patiently explains, the complete absence of the relativist nihilism which is supposedly sourced in his work. This particular passage provides a succinct rebuttal to such accusations:

Of all the accusations, what seemed to sting most of all was the notion that his thinking was relativist, anything goes, and thus nihilistic. ‘Deconstruction’, he had reiterated in Memoires: For Paul de Man, ‘is anything but a nihilism or a scepticism. Why can one still read this claim despite so many texts that, explicitly, thematically and for more than twenty years have been demonstrating the opposite?’ Nihilism is an ontological claim that there is no truth. Deconstruction has no opinion on this. Nor does it on, say, pink elephants. What it does say is that we cannot know whether there is truth or not, which is an epistemological claim. So any assertion that there is truth is unprovable, and therefore whatever truth is offered should be analysed for the reasons why it is being offered.

Chapter 9, “Before the Law”

That these accusations were established by small groups of conservative academics in rival schools of philosophy and scholarship is a reminder that, for all their arguably increased intensity, the monstering of challenging ideas so prevalent in the present is not new, and nor are the methods thereof. One is tempted to suggest that the hazard to rationalist and analytical hegemony presented by Derrida’s ideas offers an explanation for their repeated misrepresentation—though as Salmon notes, and as my limited experience in the academy also suggests, misparsings based upon shallow readings, or indeed upon no readings at all, may be a significant part of the problem, too: to paraphrase Salmon, dismissing Derrida as a prolix relativist charlatan saves one the challenge of actually trying to read him.

I was particularly intrigued by the thread of Derrida’s work which aimed to demonstrate that “philosophy” is to some extent a generic form of writing—which is not at all to dismiss or denigrate it, nor to elevate, say, literature to a higher plane, but rather to argue that style and rhetoric are inextricable, and that metaphor is the root of all discourse. The parallels between analytical philosophy’s insistence on a very limited notion of truth in language and the “academic style” of writing (which, to belabour a point, is not a style which is taught, but rather a culture that is inculcated through osmosis, and just as opaque and frustrating as Derrida’s to anyone who has not normalised and internalised it) are notable; a doctrinaire positivism masquerading as a principled refusal to dirty one’s hands with “theory” or epistemology. While I plan to go to the source for the full experience, Salmon’s exploration of this theme has served to validate my prior attempts to push against (if not actually avoid) the “academic style”, and encourage me to bring more literary techniques to bear in my work to come. That’s unlikely to make things easy for me, of course… but hey, nothing worth doing is ever easy. Salmon’s story of Derrida—which, as he points out in Derrida’s own terms, is partial, in both senses of that term—doesn’t gloss over the difficulties and missteps (such as the De Man defence), but that serves to underline a consistency and fidelity which I find admirable, and worthy of some effort to emulate.

(I’d like to imagine I could emulate his terrifying levels of productivity, too, but, well, yeah, no. I wonder if that would even be possible now, to develop that sort of utter immersion in one’s work while being caught between on the one hand the relentlessness of the attention economy, and on the other the neoliberalisation of the academy? The sheer privilege of having the time to study deeply, without interruption from the demands of self-documentation and bureaucratic hoop-jumping, from the ubiquitous business ontology of modern scholarship… well, things are what they are, and one ends up where—and when—one is, and I’d do well to remember that in many respects I’ve rocked up to the plate with plenty more privilege than Derrida had when he started. The attitude is the thing to emulate, I guess, rather than the results.)