Stony Brook University - SUNY Digital Repository
Stony Brook University - SUNY Digital Repository Stony Brook University - SUNY Digital Repository
Derrida clearly knows what his text is going to say. He expects no surprises (though, no doubt, he expects us to be surprised) as he presents the controlled meaning that is everywhere present and under control in his own essay. […] Thus, Derrida's text, which he compares to a military campaign through Plato's territory […] claims throughout to manifest what Hartman calls totalization, the ability of the meaning a text carries to be everywhere present and under control in every part of the text. Yet Derrida uses this totalization to reveal the inability of all other writers to achieve such totalization. Derrida's belief that he can totalize and control in his text the ways other writers fail to totalize and control their texts operates as a sort of theology, almost a dogma. (194-5, emphasis mine) For Neel, the reader must concede to Derrida’s overwhelming claims of revelation - or not. It is utterly black or white. As Neel writes, “Derrida can no more prove this belief than Plato can present the truth. One must either accept it or reject it theologically” (196). Because of this, it allows for a situation that resurrects that “Word” of the Western world and its “we-right-good vs. other-wrong-bad” perspective, although here under the Post-Modern aegis of différance – of Uncertainty. By his own theories, Derrida’s différance would bring about the “subversion of every kingdom” and dethrone every “philosopherking,” undoing the epistemology of the West, its dichotomous perspective of “reality” and “truth,” in the process. However, according to this re-reading of Neel’s, Derrida’s différance simply remains an abstracted ideal because what he does through his analysis of the Phaedrus is to, again, counter-polarize that perspective, thus re-establishing Certainty. There is no 126
“subversion” and there is no “dethroning.” There is, yet again, the same old thing all over again. And because of that, Derrida stands over Plato’s Phaedrus as Plato’s own “philosopher-king,” which is, for me, an irony of ironies. But the question may arise, “What of it?” Some years ago now, someone introduced me to a proverb, attributed to ninth century Buddhist teacher Li Chin, that changed my life and very well saved it: “If you meet the Buddha in the road, kill him.” What it has meant to me is this: if you are confronted with the “Answer” or the “Truth,” it should be avoided because it is nothing but a lie. It is a lie because no such thing exists. Because of my admitted “love” for Certainty, I have to remind myself of this now and again. And as a teacher – in my circumstances, a teacher of writing - “Buddha” could be replaced with “philosopher-king.” As a teacher of writing or a scholar of writing or both, if you should come upon some philosopher of rhetoric or critical theorist or their theories or philosophies that are presented as the “Answer” or the “Truth,” it should be avoided. It should be “killed.” As a teacher of writing, a teacher of writing such as myself or Spellmeyer or Covino or Neel, who is stirred and inspired by a Post-Modern perspective of “reality” and “truth,” you have to avoid engendering this perspective in such a way that it verges upon the “fixed and immutable,” the “absolute” and “supreme,” that conceives of 127
- Page 83 and 84: Darkness. For Said, it was in the p
- Page 85 and 86: In its institutionalized form - fre
- Page 87 and 88: III. Before I continue any further,
- Page 89 and 90: It is an unavoidable fact of life.
- Page 91 and 92: Tarnas refers to those “contradic
- Page 93 and 94: news” of such pervasive and overw
- Page 95 and 96: when writers shrink from that uncer
- Page 97 and 98: Uncertainty and the prolonging of U
- Page 99 and 100: falling away to such a “shift”
- Page 101 and 102: Rhetoric. She would root that “sh
- Page 103 and 104: For my real purpose here then, it i
- Page 105 and 106: Although Hairston is writing about
- Page 107 and 108: of them, I was enlightened. I was p
- Page 109 and 110: All experiences, even the scientifi
- Page 111 and 112: the tendency of that reality to mak
- Page 113 and 114: asking the same question: What had
- Page 115 and 116: and “truth” simply ends where i
- Page 117 and 118: silence we have so often deplored [
- Page 119 and 120: attempting to make room for the exc
- Page 121 and 122: said, I would pose another question
- Page 123 and 124: From [a theoretical] point of view,
- Page 125 and 126: It was this “technical rhetoric
- Page 127 and 128: synonym for doing or making as in
- Page 129 and 130: former I will not really pay much a
- Page 131 and 132: avoid Certainty put forward as Unce
- Page 133: Derrida’s purpose for “deconstr
- Page 137 and 138: IV. As a teacher, how do you not be
- Page 139 and 140: urge to “write with Uncertainty,
- Page 141 and 142: his book Embracing Contraries, he e
- Page 143 and 144: iochemical workings of the human bo
- Page 145 and 146: with the densest, most unyielding o
- Page 147 and 148: are, as LuMing Mao explains in his
- Page 149 and 150: a compromise and a retreat, yet ano
- Page 151 and 152: more fully human is curtailed. Eros
- Page 153 and 154: “cooking”: “Between People,
- Page 155 and 156: palpable. To teachers of writing st
- Page 157 and 158: een greatly influenced by this conc
- Page 159 and 160: attribute that movement, that progr
- Page 161 and 162: But this is a somewhat vague answer
- Page 163 and 164: where students perceive “all know
- Page 165 and 166: with a graduation from college or u
- Page 167 and 168: call for thinking. In essence, it i
- Page 169 and 170: Difficulty or obstruction in the wa
- Page 171 and 172: education, but it ends with his con
- Page 173 and 174: is also the rise of the other. But,
- Page 175 and 176: processes? “Morals”? Deliberate
- Page 177 and 178: exactly is that teacher to evoke fo
- Page 179 and 180: The more remote supplies the stimul
- Page 181 and 182: would say a few things about my ped
- Page 183 and 184: to coin wholly new and different mo
“subversion” and there is no “dethroning.” There is, yet again,<br />
the same old thing all over again. And because of that, Derrida<br />
stands over Plato’s Phaedrus as Plato’s own “philosopher-king,”<br />
which is, for me, an irony of ironies.<br />
But the question may arise, “What of it?” Some years ago<br />
now, someone introduced me to a proverb, attributed to ninth<br />
century Buddhist teacher Li Chin, that changed my life and very<br />
well saved it: “If you meet the Buddha in the road, kill him.”<br />
What it has meant to me is this: if you are confronted with the<br />
“Answer” or the “Truth,” it should be avoided because it is<br />
nothing but a lie. It is a lie because no such thing exists.<br />
Because of my admitted “love” for Certainty, I have to remind<br />
myself of this now and again. And as a teacher – in my<br />
circumstances, a teacher of writing - “Buddha” could be replaced<br />
with “philosopher-king.” As a teacher of writing or a scholar<br />
of writing or both, if you should come upon some philosopher of<br />
rhetoric or critical theorist or their theories or philosophies<br />
that are presented as the “Answer” or the “Truth,” it should be<br />
avoided. It should be “killed.”<br />
As a teacher of writing, a<br />
teacher of writing such as myself or Spellmeyer or Covino or<br />
Neel, who is stirred and inspired by a Post-Modern perspective<br />
of “reality” and “truth,” you have to avoid engendering this<br />
perspective in such a way that it verges upon the “fixed and<br />
immutable,” the “absolute” and “supreme,” that conceives of<br />
127
Change language