La Mort du Derrida, cont.

[jolly]

         Neither rational or empirical, analytic or synthetic, Derrida's slithery little ideas are really a sort of a low grade pantheism, and he is the hierophant for the lit.crit. initiates who somehow crawl into academia and tenure without ever having mastered basic cognitive skills--quantitative and analytical-- that most of us have to work at for years. It is questionable whether Derrida even had the qualifications to teach in contemporary philosophy or literature departments (the French BAC for the most part still churning out 12th century clerics). Methinks Frere Jacques would not have fared too well on the GREs. But then neither would Showalter or Kristeva or Bloom or a typical UC feminist hack such as Judith Butler ( a total venting stooge, really) or any of the other literary papists now spewing their drivel at the US public's expense.  

         Another amazingly predictable trait among po-mo types is an instinct for the jugular, the inability to address any argument, and the resorting to ad hom or some lightweight bitch aestheticism when confronted with the mere appearance of rationality. And though these po-mo academic types like to put on the nova boy (or grrl) pose, it is unlikely any of them have ever been in a real street fight, a war, a tragedy, or know anything about actual honor; most are petty espresso-swilling leather freaks who operate on a sentimental pop-punk outlook a little less authentic than, say, Billy Idol...

       If you know anything about say CS Peirce, and then read a few sections of "Of Grammatology" you realize quickly that JD was having a bit of fun with Peirce's corpse and pretty much misreads Peirce's system of signs and his postivism (which was influenced by Peirce's knowledge of classical physics and Kant). JD misconstrued and mocked lots of other philosophers as well, such as Nietzsche. 

If one wants to understand how poorly philosophy--whether continental or analytical--fares when confronted with modern cognitive science (which operates on positivist and empirical foundations) read Dr. Changeux's debate a few years back with the French philosopher-clown Ricoeur, who was completely humiliated. It will cause you to toss all of your Plato, Kant, Derrida and even Wittgenstein into the garbage can, along with the literary theory..

 

 






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