/lit/ - Literature

>>12002519
what i find most interesting about Derrida is just how his thought dovetails in with the system we are setting up now, but my issues with him never made sense until i discovered Land. the thing that drove me insane about Derrida was, of course, irony: the idea that there was nothing outside the text. because when i got into this stuff the first time, *i wanted the Real.* i was gripped with a keen sense that something was very very fucked up about the trajectory things were on, and that if Derrida was right, then

a) what gave him the right to say this, or claim deconstruction as a final principle, and
b) why the fuck are we laughing about this? isn't it going to lead to
c) unironic Return to Signifier?

JBP solved a) - in brief, social construction is itself a social construct. that much seems simple, but it took JBP's anarcho-masochism to spell it out (and reap the consequences). b) i realized was largely a nervous laugh of desperation, and c) is now.

the thing that i think you can connect between Derrida and Land is cybernetics: that is, a *code* in place of a *text.* Hegel is the first great cybernetic thinker, and for more on the technical aspects of Derrida, read Stiegler. but the thing is, even what we are saying now about Land/Cosmotech doesn't BTFO Derrida, it tells me that *he was right* about a lot of stuff, which to me is actually a *good* sign rather than a bad one. when i doubt i look for people who can *agree* with each other and not Utterly Destroy &c, as you see on YouTube. the genuinely scary (or hyperstitial) implication of this isn't even all that remarkable: the code is for realsies, and ultimately grammar has a technological aspect to it. whether or not accelerating turbo-capitalism is the answer for it is up to you (i don't think it is), but it 100% *does* square with what seems to be an increasingly formalized society, a world which places Form over Content. and, in addition, one which continually explains the diminishing power of Irony, as well as the relation of Irony to Fuck You Respect Mah Metanarrative Aaaaaaaahhhh.

right? this makes sense, yes? because that is the point. we wind up stuck in a giant simulation, together, by virtue of reproduction and automation. for Land, this is all driven by capital; culturally i think that thesis has some legs on it, politically i'm absolutely certain.

the 90s/2000s were Derrida's time, but they were also planting the seeds for a massive technological re-alignment, which is what i think we're seeing happening today. and where it's all heading, nobody knows. but Derrida is in the rear-view now along with Foucault, to my mind, and as such a gentler retrospective is in order, along with an assessment of their role in getting us to where we are now.