Wednesday, April 9, 2008

kaymac derrida

Wow. Derrida is one thick fellow. How does a person come up with this kind of talk and not have his/her head explode? I guess we'll never know.

One of the things I understood was about language. "Within a language, within the system of language, there are only differences...These differences play a role in language, in speech as well, and in the exchange between language, in speech as well, an din the exchange between language and speech. On the other hand, these differences are themselves effects. " (127)

DeSaussure is definitely speaking through him on this, which is probably why I understood it. What we understand in language is because we understand what is missing. I think that concept goes into what Derrida is saying about differance. (Which makes sense because he did use this concept to explain it). He explains that differance is neither active nor passive, but in the middle. It's like a color. A color is neither active nor passive, it just is (at least in my opinion). But we also use colors to signify things but here we are using differance to signify the the process and theology behind signing, difference, and everything of that sort, so isn't Derrida kind of digging himself into a hole?

"Being/speaks/through every language,/every where and always/." (140). It took him so long to get to this point. I could have said this in a passing conversation. Everybody and everything speaks through everything and everybody all the time everywhere. However, it is the process of signification that has me interested.