Why Derrida Sucks. Guattari, too.
Today’s one-liner: “The existence of French Philosophers forms a buttress of proof in the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis”
Today’s one-liner: “The existence of French Philosophers forms a buttress of proof in the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis”
July 27th, 2008 at 4:28 pm
I’ve tried reading Derrida’s “Specters of Marx” for the past month. I’ve re-read the first chapter about eight times, and I’m beginning to wonder if I’ll ever understand it. After the fourth re-read, I thought I had a breakthrough only to later doubt myself because my comprehension seemed too basic. It’s not just the diction or grammar that gets to me, but it’s specifically his style of writing. After several days in my graduate linguistics class, I began questioning whether even my professor understood it. Everything she said seemed superficial and something I could have easily read off wikipedia in five minutes instead of attending three weeks of classes. I remember Chomsky once called Derrida’s writing “pretentious rhetoric”. Chomsky also admits he doesn’t understand Derrida’s writing. I don’t feel so bad about it except I have a paper due in two weeks.