Derrida on the Death Penalty

Responding to Derrida’s Death Penalty Seminar of 1999/2000 and its interpretation by Michael Naas, the paper argues that Derrida’s deconstruction of the theological-political concept of the sovereign right over life and death in view of abolishing capital punishment should be understood in terms of the unconditional renunciation of sovereignty as called for in Derrida’s later political writings, Rogues in particular. This reading takes seriously what is here called the functional need for a ‘theological’ moment in sovereignty beyond a merely historicist or genealogical interpretation of the European monotheistic heritage. Further, this reading asks how Derrida may follow through on his goal of developing the allegedly first principled philosophical stance against capital punishment. To this end, the paper assembles some ingredients of this complex but ‘unconditional’ abolitionism, one that doubts our comprehension of and active relation to death to the point of questioning the common sense distinctions among murder, suicide, and legal putting to death. The paper concludes that for Derrida, letting another die of hunger or AIDS may be understood as a form of death sentence, so that a deconstructive abolitionism puts into question the good conscience of sovereign agency

Temporality and the paradoxes of democracy

Published without an abstract. Article Outline: Provocative reading Making time for difference Reference

Deconstructing radical democracy: articulation, representation and being-with-others

This paper addresses the contribution of deconstruction to democratic theory. It critically considers the usefulness of the conceptual distinction between “politics” and “the political” as a means of interpreting deconstruction’s relation to political questions. In particular, it critically engages with the inflection of deconstructive themes in the theory of radical democracy (RD) developed by Laclau and Mouffe. It is argued that this approach ontologizes the politics/political distinction, and elides together two distinct senses of otherness. This is registered in the prevalence of spatial tropes in this approach. The spatialization of key issues in political theory leads to a diminished sensitivity to the variegated temporalities through which solidarity and conflict, unity and multiplicity are negotiated. This is discussed with reference to the concept of articulation. By reducing temporality to a metaphysics of contingency, RD converges with a voluntaristic decisionism in its account of hegemony and political authority. The paper proceeds to a critical consideration of the interpretation of “undecidability” in RD, and of the elective affinity between this approach and the fascist critique of liberal democracy associated with Carl Schmitt. This discussion sets the scene for an alternative reading of the political significance of the theme of undecidability in Derrida’s thought. This reading focuses on the problem of negotiating two equally compelling forms of responsibility, the urgent responsibility to act in the world, and the patient responsibility to acknowledge otherness. By discussing the complex temporising associated with the theme of undecidability in deconstruction, the paper argues for a reassessment of the normative value of the concept of representation as it has developed in modern democratic theory. It develops an understanding of undecidability that points beyond the undeconstructed decisionism shared by both Schmitt and RD towards an account of the opening of public spaces of deliberation, deferral, and decision. More broadly, the paper is concerned with the moral limits of a prevalent spatialized interpretation of key themes in the poststructuralist canon, including difference, alterity, and otherness

Equal consideration of all – an aporetic project?

The article considers the relationships among three arguments that purport to establish the intrinsically contradictory or paradoxical nature of the modern project aiming at the equal consideration of all. The claim that the inevitable historical insertion of universal-egalitarian norms leads to always particular and untransparent interpretations of grammatically universal norms may be combined with the claim that the logic of determination of political communities tends to generate exclusions. The combination of these two claims lends specific force to the third argument according to which equal consideration perpetually requires the non-egalitarian project of understanding (excluded) individuals on their own terms. Hence, taking off from a recent debate between Christoph Menke and Jürgen Habermas, I argue that the former is right to diagnose an aporetic self-reflection in egalitarian universalism, while agreeing with the latter about the indispensability of deliberative democratic frameworks for the defence of both egalitarian and non-egalitarian norms

Derrida's 'The Purveyor of Truth' and constitutional reading

In this article the author explores Jacques Derrida’s reading in ‘The Purveyor of Truth’ of Edgar Allan Poe’s ‘The Purloined Letter’. In his essay, Derrida proposes a reading which differs markedly from the interpretation proposed by Lacan in his Seminar on ‘The Purloined Letter’. To appreciate Derrida’s reading, which is not hermeneutic-semantic in nature like that of Lacan, it is necessary to look at the relation of Derrida’s essay to his other texts on psychoanalysis, more specifically insofar as the Freudian death drive is concerned. The present article explores this ‘notion’ as elaborated on by Freud in Beyond the Pleasure Principle as well as Derrida’s reading of this text. It also investigates the importance of the ‘notion’ of the death drive as well as the significance of Derrida’s reading of The Purloined Letter for constitutional interpretation

Taking Turns: Democracy to Come and Intergenerational Justice

In the face of the ever-growing effect the actions of the present may have upon future people, most conspicuously around climate change, democracy has been accused, with good justification, of a presentist bias: of systemically favouring the presently living. By contrast, this paper will argue that the intimate relation, both quasi-ontological and normative, that Derrida’s work establishes between temporality and justice insists upon another, more future-regarding aspect of democracy. We can get at this aspect by arguing for two consequences of the deconstructive affirmation of sur-vivre, of the alterity of death in life. Firstly, justice is not first of all justice for the living, but intergenerational from the start. This is so because no generation coincides with itself; rather, it dies and is reborn at every moment, and so – and this is the second consequence – consists in taking turns. Affirming life as living-on means affirming that it involves exchanging life’s stations, as the young become the old, and the unborn become the dead. In this sense, the justice of living-on, I will argue, shares an essential feature with democracy, whose principle of exchanging the rulers with the ruled led Derrida to characterize it in terms of the wheel. Democracy consists in the principled assent to power changing hands, a switchover life demands of every generation at every turn. This assent further requires an acceptance of the gift of inheritance without which no life can survive. But as the gift can also never be fully acknowledged or appropriated, it must be passed on to the indefinite, unknown future, in a turning that is the time of life

Derrida and the Heidegger controversy: Global friendship against racism

This essay explores the ethical import of deconstruction through a reading of Derrida on Heidegger. In Of Spirit, Derrida traces through Heidegger’s writings the interplay of “spirit” and spirit. Spirit denotes an involvement with the question of Being, and in thus pointing towards a positive content, it embodies a metaphysical gesture in which a spiritual mission becomes the human essence. In Heidegger’s entanglement with National Socialism, he tied this spiritual mission to German self-assertion. “Spirit” is a concept under erasure that calls our attention to the absent Other. It reminds us of an ethical responsibility that is prior to ontology; it sets up a “cosmopolitanism” that precedes all particular identifications and so avoids spiritual racism. Derridean “cosmopolitanism” differs importantly from liberal universalism. From a Derridean perspective, liberal universalism remains insufficiently attune to the Other; it retains a metaphysical gesture, and so imperialistic and exclusionary tendency, akin to that found in Heidegger

For an inclusive school: The gender frontiers

Una de las metas que se plantean quienes abogan por la igualdad social en el sistema educativo es la escuela inclusiva. Reconocido el derecho a la educación de todas las personas, siguen siendo numerosas las voces que reclaman la necesidad de pensar, estudiar, proponer y comprometerse con nuevas formas de entender y enfocar la educación de la diversidad del alumnado. Así, surge la idea de una escuela inclusiva. Esta corriente tiene como objetivo ir más allá de la idea de integración, imperante en la legislación española, implicando una reestructuración de las escuelas para lograr responder a las necesidades de todo el alumnado. Es importante reparar en que la necesidad de identidad, y por extensión de representación –política–, se entiende como una necesidad básica y que debe tener, por tanto, su consideración en el ámbito educativo, con objeto de evitar cualquier forma de segregación dentro del aula. Defiendo la necesidad de atender, igualmente, a las diferentes formas de ser, de definirnos e identificarnos, como parte esencial de estas diversidades. A través del análisis de la paradoja de la identidad femenina, las fronteras del género y sus consecuencias sobre la agencia en el seno del feminismo, propongo una ampliación del concepto de educación inclusiva con el objetivo de dar un paso más a la hora de hablar de una educación realmente equitativa, crítica y democráticaOne of the goals of those who advocate social equality in the education system is inclusive schooling. Recognized the right to education of all people, there are still many voices who claim the need to think, study, propose and commit to new ways of understanding and focus the education of the diversity of students. Thus, the idea of an inclusive school arises. These current aims to go beyond the idea of integration, prevailing in Spanish legislation, involving a restructuring of schools to meet the needs of all students. It is important to note that the need for identity, and by extension of representation –policy–, is understood as a basic necessity and should therefore have its consideration in the educational field, in order to avoid any form of segregation within the classroom. I defend the need to attend equally to the different ways of being, to define and identify ourselves, as an essential part of these diversities. Through the analysis of the paradox of feminine identity, gender boundaries and their consequences on the agency within feminism, I propose an extension of the concept of inclusive education with the objective of taking a step further in speaking about a truly equitable, critical and democratic educatio

Revolution and the end of history: Caryl Churchill's Mad Forest

Caryl Churchill’s Mad Forest, written and performed very soon after the Romanian revolution in 1990 and performed both in London and Bucharest, is a dynamic, inter-cultural play that represents a variety of perspectives on the revolutionary events, as well as oscillating between English and Romanian cultural and language coordinates. It has a peculiar topicality in its detailed and specific usages of different aspects of the revolutionary narrative, its sketches of family life before and after the revolution, and the inclusion of the revolution as reported in quasi-documentary-style testimony. The perspective in this article is one that places the play within a framework that thinks through Mad Forest’s relationship to the triumphant, neoliberalist heralding of “the end of history,” most famously argued by Francis Fukuyama in his 1989 article of that name. This discourse gained further confidence from the collapse of Eastern Europe, a collapse that was viewed by proponents of the end-of-history argument as signalling the permanent disintegration of communism and a victory for capitalism. However, Mad Forest is considered here as a play that reflects multiple perspectives on the revolutionary period and, while declining to provide political solutions as such, simultaneously refuses to accede to the implications of the end-of-history argument

Dialectics and difference: against Harvey's dialectical post-Marxism

David Harvey`s recent book, Justice, nature and the geography of difference (JNGD), engages with a central philosophical debate that continues to dominate human geography: the tension between the radical Marxist project of recent decades and the apparently disempowering relativism and `play of difference' of postmodern thought. In this book, Harvey continues to argue for a revised `post-Marxist' approach in human geography which remains based on Hegelian-Marxian principles of dialectical thought. This article develops a critique of that stance, drawing on the work of Jacques Derrida, Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari. I argue that dialectical thinking, as well as Harvey's version of `post-Marxism', has been undermined by the wide-ranging `post-' critique. I suggest that Harvey has failed to appreciate the full force of this critique and the implications it has for `post-Marxist' ontology and epistemology. I argue that `post-Marxism', along with much contemporary human geography, is constrained by an inflexible ontology which excessively prioritizes space in the theory produced, and which implements inflexible concepts. Instead, using the insights of several `post-' writers, I contend there is a need to develop an ontology of `context' leading to the production of `contextual theories'. Such theories utilize flexible concepts in a multilayered understanding of ontology and epistemology. I compare how an approach which produces a `contextual theory' might lead to more politically empowering theory than `post-Marxism' with reference to one of Harvey's case studies in JNGD