Assorted Rants:Politics, Derrida,
Sharon October 23rd, 2004
Did you see the hideous obit of Jacques Derrida in the NY Times? Check it out here: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F10B11FB385F0C738DDDA90994DC404482
What idiot wrote this? (I don’t expect anyone to actually pay them for this crap, and indeed, I discourage you from doing so!) I discovered deconstruction late, and it never resonated for me as I suspect it must have for those who found it as it was developing, but Derrida is not the caricature that he has been reduced to, nor is his thought the dim account that we get. You’d think that you could count on one single popular media to get Derrida, at least enough to write a half-decent bio. Further proof that the world is going to hell. (Did I mention that ponchos are back in fashion? If I were a Christian I’d say it was a sign of the end times. Instead, I’m guessing it means that
God, if real, has gotten bored with making fun of the upright monkeys and departed for warmer (or smarter) climes )
All of this is simply a deferral of the thing that is making me craziest of all - the election. I still believe we are going to lose, although Pat Robinson (someone who has not been notable for bringing me joy in the past) did please me. But I don’t dare allow the flare of hope - because I know we’re going to lose, and lose for the simple reason that people want their president to speak the language of right and wrong, moral and amoral. We on the left used to know how to do that, now we don’t seem to. And so we allow the deeply amoral to take the language of faith, and right and truth away from us, and without a fight. There is no reason for that - in fact, there is every reason to believe that we have the right to the language of principle. But that battle is lost, and I think it would take a more eloquent man than Kerry (tell me there aren’t more eloquent men, for cripes sake - the only duller guy is Holy Joe) to take it back now. We’ll see.
Final proof that God may have taken a little break from us? My cousin is joining the army, so that he can go to college. Is it not possible in this world that one could get a decent education without having a limb blown off in Iraq? Can you imagine a more bleak trade off?