The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Contributor: What Derrida Really Meant Page 1 of 3

October 14, 2004

OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR

What Derrida Really Meant

By MARK C. TAYLOR

long with Ludwig Wittgenstein and Martin Heidegger, Jacques Derrida, who died last week in
the age of 74, will be remembered as one of the three most important philosophers of the 20th c
No thinker in the last 100 years had a greater impact than he did on people in more fields and differen
disciplines. Philosophers, theologians, literary and art critics, psychologists, historians, writers, artists
scholars and even architects have found in his writings resources for insights that have led to an extra
revival of the arts and humanities during the past four decades. And no thinker has been more deeply
misunderstood.

To people addicted to sound bites and overnight polls, Mr. Derrida's works seem hopelessly obscure.
undeniable that they cannot be easily summarized or reduced to one-liners. The obscurity of his writi
however, does not conceal a code that can be cracked, but reflects the density and complexity charact
all great works of philosophy, literature and art. Like good French wine, his works age well. The mor
lingers with them, the more they reveal about our world and ourselves.

What makes Mr. Derrida's work so significant is the way he brought insights of major philosophers, w
artists and theologians to bear on problems of urgent contemporary interest. Most of his infamously d
texts consist of careful interpretations of canonical writers in the Western philosophical, literary and
traditions - from Plato to Joyce. By reading familiar works against the grain, he disclosed concealed m
that created new possibilities for imaginative expression.

Mr. Derrida's name is most closely associated with the often cited but rarely understood term "decons
Initially formulated to define a strategy for interpreting sophisticated written and visual works, decon
has entered everyday language. When responsibly understood, the implications of deconstruction are
different from the misleading clichés often used to describe a process of dismantling or taking things
guiding insight of deconstruction is that every structure - be it literary, psychological, social, econom
political or religious - that organizes our experience is constituted and maintained through acts of exc
the process of creating something, something else inevitably gets left out.

These exclusive structures can become repressive - and that repression comes with consequences. In
reminiscent of Freud, Mr. Derrida insists that what is repressed does not disappear but always returns
unsettle every construction, no matter how secure it seems. As an Algerian Jew writing in France dur
postwar years in the wake of totalitarianism on the right (fascism) as well as the left (Stalinism), Mr.
understood all too well the danger of beliefs and ideologies that divide the world into diametrical opp
right or left, red or blue, good or evil, for us or against us. He showed how these repressive structures
grew directly out of the Western intellectual and cultural tradition, threatened to return with devastati
consequences. By struggling to find ways to overcome patterns that exclude the differences that mak
worth living, he developed a vision that is consistently ethical.

And yet, supporters on the left and critics on the right have misunderstood this vision. Many of Mr. D
most influential followers appropriated his analyses of marginal writers, works and cultures as well a
emphasis on the importance of preserving differences and respecting others to forge an identity politi

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divides the world between the very oppositions that it was Mr. Derrida's mission to undo: black and
white, men and women, gay and straight. Betraying Mr. Derrida's insights by creating a culture of
political correctness, his self-styled supporters fueled the culture wars that have been raging for
more than two decades and continue to frame political debate.

To his critics, Mr. Derrida appeared to be a pernicious nihilist who threatened the very foundation of
Western society and culture. By insisting that truth and absolute value cannot be known with
certainty, his detractors argue, he undercut the very possibility of moral judgment. To follow Mr.
Derrida, they maintain, is to start down the slippery slope of skepticism and relativism that
inevitably leaves us powerless to act responsibly.

This is an important criticism that requires a careful response. Like Kant, Kierkegaard and
Nietzsche, Mr. Derrida does argue that transparent truth and absolute values elude our grasp. This
does not mean, however, that we must forsake the cognitive categories and moral principles without
which we cannot live: equality and justice, generosity and friendship. Rather, it is necessary to
recognize the unavoidable limitations and inherent contradictions in the ideas and norms that guide
our actions, and do so in a way that keeps them open to constant questioning and continual revision.
There can be no ethical action without critical reflection.

During the last decade of his life, Mr. Derrida became preoccupied with religion and it is in this area
that his contribution might well be most significant for our time. He understood that religion is
impossible without uncertainty. Whether conceived of as Yahweh, as the father of Jesus Christ, or
as Allah, God can never be fully known or adequately represented by imperfect human beings.

And yet, we live in an age when major conflicts are shaped by people who claim to know, for
certain, that God is on their side. Mr. Derrida reminded us that religion does not always give clear
meaning, purpose and certainty by providing secure foundations. To the contrary, the great religious
traditions are profoundly disturbing because they all call certainty and security into question. Belief
not tempered by doubt poses a mortal danger.

As the process of globalization draws us ever closer in networks of communication and exchange,
there is an understandable longing for simplicity, clarity and certainty. This desire is responsible, in
large measure, for the rise of cultural conservatism and religious fundamentalism - in this country
and around the world. True believers of every stripe - Muslim, Jewish and Christian - cling to
beliefs that, Mr. Derrida warns, threaten to tear apart our world.

Fortunately, he also taught us that the alternative to blind belief is not simply unbelief but a different
kind of belief - one that embraces uncertainty and enables us to respect others whom we do not
understand. In a complex world, wisdom is knowing what we don't know so that we can keep the
future open.

In the two decades I knew Mr. Derrida, we had many meetings and exchanges. In conversation, he
listened carefully and responded helpfully to questions whether posed by undergraduates or
colleagues. As a teacher, he gave freely of his time to several generations of students.

But small things are the measure of the man. In 1986, my family and I were in Paris and Mr. Derrida
invited us to dinner at his house in the suburbs 20 miles away. He insisted on picking us up at our
hotel, and when we arrived at his home he presented our children with carnival masks. At 2 a.m., he
drove us back to the city. In later years, when my son and daughter were writing college papers on
his work, he sent them letters and postcards of encouragement as well as signed copies of several of
his books. Jacques Derrida wrote eloquently about the gift of friendship but in these quiet gestures -
gestures that served to forge connections among individuals across their differences - we see
deconstruction in action.

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Mark C. Taylor, a professor of the humanities at Williams College and a visiting professor of
architecture and religion at Columbia, is the author, most recently, of "Confidence Games: Money
and Markets in a World Without Redemption."

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