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'An aphorism, properly stamped and molded, has not been "deciphered" when it has simply been read; rather one has then to begin its interpretation, for which is required an art of interpretation.' -- Nietzsche, 'On the Genealogy of Morals'

Andrew Benjamin: philosophical traditions « Previous | |Next »
May 13, 2007

Andrew Benjamin, in this interview with Stuart Barnett in the Connecticut Review (Spring 1997), responds to a question about the role of deconstruction in British philosophy as follows:

The difficulty with the role of deconstruction within the British scene is that it's viewed as suspiciously by the establishment as it is by the so-called anti-establishment. The establishment of the right and the establishment of the left are both equally suspicious of this form of philosophical activity. Even journals such as Radical Philosophy are just as dismissive of French philosophy--say, Lyotard and Derrida--as the analytic journals. Thus one is squeezed by the two prongs of the establishment. Now I say that as an Australian living in Britain. I'm sure the British themselves don't see it that way. They see it in ways that have to do with the role which a conception of national identity--even though it's not announced as such--assumes within the philosophical.

A similar situation exists in Australia. The philosophy of the left and the philosophy of the right in Britain and Australia are residual national forms of philosophy and what one is working against are these residual national forms of philosophy. Hence there is both a marginalization of this "deconstructive" mode of philosophical activity and a residual hardening of attitudes on both sides against whatever is meant by deconstruction.

Benjamin says that the marginalized takes place through a nationalist discourse:

a discourse of the nation that is not recognized as such. And so there is this residual move back to Britishness on both the left and right. Though they don't realize that's what they're doing. They drive it out by labeling it as French, or labeling it as something else. And then they have nothing to do with it because it's other. What that means also is--again, in the British context--that it's very difficult to do original philosophical work that has its basis in deconstruction or the European orientation. Because both ends of the tradition the two prongs of that tradition remain uninterested in that. They remain interested in their own traditions.

It's no longer possible to distinguish between the left-wing and the right-wing establishment in terms of the way they denounce what they call French philosophy. That linkage of nation and philosophy is what comes out of the establishment(s).

So the reception and practice deconstruction in Britain and Australia has not transformed the British or Australian philosophical tradition. To avoid becoming ghettozed it must become international.

| Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 11:46 PM |