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Alice took up the fan and gloves, and, as the hall was very hot, she kept fanning herself all the time she went on talking: `Dear, dear! How queer everything is to-day! And yesterday things went on just as usual. I wonder if I've been changed in the night? Let me think: was I the same when I got up this morning? I almost think I can remember feeling a little different. But if I'm not the same, the next question is, Who in the world am I? Ah, THAT'S the great puzzle!' -- Lewis Carroll
Yesterday, we thought we knew how things were. The Republican president urged a constitutional amendment to protect Adam and Eve from Adam and Steve; and Republican senatorial candidates in Illinois and Oklahoma warned of the dangers posed by gay people's"selfish hedonism" and of two girls getting caught in the same restroom at the same time. It was the Democrats who were stuck with the queer albatross."I wonder if I've been changed in the night?" Today, principledmetero-sexual Republicans streamed out of their closets like cockroaches at 3:00 a.m. What a differencea debate makes!
Anthony Smith's post at The Weblog,"Pontifical Standing Committee for Continental Philosophy in the Liturgy: The Death of a Young Jewish Saint," transports me from the ridiculous to the sublime."I wonder if I've been changed in the night?" I am neither Jewish nor Catholic, but I know enough to know that it risks offense to both. Nor have I been a great admirer of Jacques Derrida's work, but I know enough to add my quiet"Amen."
There is a wicked poetic roast of the late philosopher posted to the "Colloquy" on line feature of the _Chronicle of Higher Education_. It is, of course, even funnier if you recognize who the author is. Norman Levitt is a professor of mathematics at Rutgers University. He is also the author or co-author of several well-reasoned books that I would encourage my fellow historians to read, if they have not done so already.
Charles V. Mutschler
Ralph E. Luker -
10/18/2004
Were it sincere, Richard, the invitation might more properly be posed at Adam's site, since the admirers of Derrida are more likely to be encountered over there.
Richard Henry Morgan -
10/18/2004
Point taken. I will derogate Derrida no more. I will simply quote him from now on -- that will do the trick.
The only connection I see between Cramer and Derrida is that you hold Cramer to a standard of clarity and, more of then not (based on your criticisms of him), he achieves that standard to a workable degree (to the degree that you seem able to criticize the content of his thought). Derrida, on the other hand -- no, I'll say nothing, nor even quote him.
I was fascinated, when reading Kotso's blog, to hear Adam say that Derrida had left hardly a subject within philosophy untouched. Here's an invitation to anyone who would like to elaborate on that.
Ralph E. Luker -
10/18/2004
Sorry, Richard, but I cannot fathom your leaping to attack every time Derrida's name is mentioned and your even thinking of Clayton Cramer in the same moment. Go over to Cramer's site. He hasn't got the elements of English grammar in place in his head yet.
Richard Henry Morgan -
10/17/2004
Strauss seemed to have picked this up from Machiavelli -- or read his own taste for it into Machiavelli. Obscurantism doesn't play political favorites.
Richard Henry Morgan -
10/17/2004
That part, I thought, was clear. As is your determination to dump on Cramer more than Derrida, though Cramer has, at the least, the virtue that more times than not one can criticize him for something other than lack of clarity (criticisms which seem to depend on clarity).
Ralph E. Luker -
10/17/2004
Point taken, Dr. Kilford. My intent was to dump on Morgan even more than on Cramer.
Lloyd Kilford -
10/17/2004
I think that that was a little unfair on Cramer. I thought his sins were to over-generalise from small amounts of data, for partisan reasons, rather than intellectual failure. Those sins he commits are, of course, grave.
And I think that you may have accidentally fallen into one of the postmodernist traps - just because some people won't be able to understand a text doesn't mean that a "reasonable person" wouldn't be able to understand it. There is a muddy middle ground between complete clarity (the Plain English campaign?) and something generated by the Postmodernism Generator. Even if Cr*m*r doesn't (or won't) understand something, the rest of the world may be able to.
Ralph E. Luker -
10/17/2004
I think you make a good point, Jonathan, and particularly in making the comparison with Leo Strauss (rather than Clayton Cramer!). I understand your reservations, but I suppose I don't fully agree with them because there really are a lot of lunkheads who are unlikely to understand a text no matter how many times they might read it. Richard's guru, Cramer, is one of them.
Jonathan Dresner -
10/17/2004
And that is one of the reasons why post-modernism, while it has my thanks for some of the intellectual tools it has given us, will never have my respect as a 'school' or 'mode' or whatever it is they are calling themselves. The fetishization of impenetrability is a sign, to me, of moral, if not intellectual, failing.
Interestingly, whats-his-name, Strauss, the godfather of neoconservativism, had a similar approach, believing that only a select few would be able to understand fully the authorial intent deliberately obscured by his writing style.
Ralph E. Luker -
10/17/2004
Richard, I won't hold you responsible for the implicit equation of Jacques Derrida with Clayton Cramer (what were you thinking???!!!), but it is now a part of the public record.
Richard Henry Morgan -
10/17/2004
Reading, via the link to Smith's post at Weblog, one of Derrida's Aporias, I was reminded of something I once read: "...Cramer's responsible for saying what he means in unambiguous terms."
This echoed an interesting article by Ronald Hepburn on the ethics of professional practice of philosophy, where he points out that a moral respect for the reader demands that the philosopher strive for a clarity and simplicity of style, so as to encourage criticism rather than impede it (you'll find the article, or entry, in the Oxford Companion to Philosophy).
There would seem to be a potential for a clash of principles, between the ethics described above, and the embrace of philosophical diversity. I guess each of us resolves that tension in an individual manner, allowing one to trump the other, or to co-exist in uneasy tension.
