And now, my dear Malthus, I have done. Like other disputants, after much discussion we each retain our own opinions. These discussions, however, never influence our friendship; I should not like you more than I do if you agreed in opinion with me. – Letter from David Ricardo to Thomas Malthus, August 31, 1823

Nikhil Padgaonkar and Jacques Derrida Interview

Nikhil Padgaonkar: Let me begin this interview by asking you what has been retained today from the word “philosophy” as the Greeks understood it nearly three thousand years ago – that is, as love of wisdom. Are either “love” or “wisdom” issues today?

Jacques Derrida: Well, when we teach philosophy in France, at the beginning of every academic year, we recall this etymology. We remember that philosophia in Greek means the love or friendship towards Sophia which is wisdom but also cleverness or skill or knowledge. So then we ask what is Philia – what is love or friendship or desire? In this way, we begin defining philosophy on the basis of this etymology. And there are a number of texts today concerned with love and friendship. I myself wrote a book on the politics of friendship. Deleuze was interested in friendship, and so was Foucault. I would agree that in fact we often lose this etymological definition of philosophy: every philosopher has his own definition of philosophy, and this is one of the typical features of discussions among philosophers about the essence of philosophy – when and where does it start? What is the origin of philosophy? And you can’t of course rely simply on the word to define the concept of philosophy. The word by itself is not enough. And when one agrees that philosophy is a Greek noun and that philosophy as such was born in Greece, then there are so many interpretations of what happened then – when did it occur and why, and is every thinking a philosophy? As you know, Heidegger claimed that there was a Greek thinking before philosophy, that philosophy was putting an end to something, to some thought by Parmenides or Heraclitus. So philosophy was, in a way, the beginning of an end to thinking…

Nikhil Padgaonkar: Over the years, you have repeatedly defended the view that deconstruction is not an inherently negative term, that it is not to be understood as criticism or destruction. And indeed in an interview you gave in 1982 and which was subsequently published in Le Monde, you even said that deconstruction is always accompanied by love. Could you comment on this “love”. Is it the same love as in “philia“?

Jacques Derrida: This love means an affirmative desire towards the Other – to respect the Other, to pay attention to the Other, not to destroy the otherness of the Other – and this is the preliminary affirmation, even if afterwards because of this love, you ask questions. There is some negativity in deconstruction. I wouldn’t deny this. You have to criticise, to ask questions, to challenge and sometimes to oppose. What I have said is that in the final instance, deconstruction is not negative although negativity is no doubt at work. Now, in order to criticise, to negate, to deny, you have first to say “yes”. When you address the Other, even if it is to oppose the Other, you make a sort of promise – that is, to address the Other as Other, not to reduce the otherness of the Other, and to take into account the singularity of the Other. That’s an irreducible affirmation, its the original ethics if you want. So from that point of view, there is an ethics of deconstruction. Not in the usual sense, but there is an affirmation. You know, I often use a quote from Rosensweig or even from Levinas which says that the “yes” is not a word like others, that even if you do not pronounce the word, there is a “yes” implicit in every language, even if you multiply the “no”, there is a “yes”. And this is even the case with Heidegger. You know Heidegger, for a long time, for years and years kept saying that thinking started with questioning, that questioning (fragen) is the dignity of thinking. And then one day, without contradicting this statement, he said “yes, but there is something even more originary than questioning, than this piety of thinking,” and it is what he called zusage which means to acquiesce, to accept, to say “yes”, to affirm. So this zusage is not only prior to questioning, but it is supposed by any questioning. To ask a question, you must first tell the Other that I am speaking to you. Even to oppose or challenge the Other, you must say “at least I speak to you”, “I say yes to our being in common together”. So this is what I meant by love, this reaffirmation of the affirmation.

Nikhil Padgaonkar: To many of your readers, one of the important consequences of reading your works is the realization that criticism from an “outside” position is no longer possible, that one is always working with inherited language, and because one inherits language, one inevitably works within a shared framework. Now, if one seeks to question or to displace without seeking recourse to an outside position, does one not run the risk of conservatism?

Jacques Derrida: Well you see, everything depends on this concept of inherited. When you inherit a language, it does not mean you are totally in it or you are passively programmed by it. To inherit means to be able to, of course, appropriate this language, to transform it, to select something. Heritage is not something you are given as a whole. It is something that calls for interpretations, selections, reactions, response and responsibility. When you take your responsibility as an heir, you are not simply subjected to the heritage, you are not called to simply conserve or keep this heritage as it is, intact. You have to make it live and survive, and that is a process – a selective and interpretive process. So no doubt, there is a temptation simply to repeat and to take up conservative positions. But it is not absolutely necessary, and I would even say that in order to make something new happen, you have to inherit, you have to be inside the language, inside the tradition. You would not be able to transform or displace anything without in some way being inside the tradition, without understanding the language.

Nikhil Padgaonkar.: There is no difference without repetition…

Jacques Derrida: Of course, of course, some repetition, some kind of repetition. But the choice is not between repetition and innovation, but between two forms of repetition and two forms of invention. So I think there are inventive forms of respecting the tradition, and there are reactive or non-inventive forms. But I would not say that in order to invent something new, or to make something new happen, you have to betray the tradition or to forget the tradition. If I may say something about the way I try to work within the French tradition, I have the feeling that the more I understand from within a poet or a writer, the more I am able to, let us say reproduce what he is doing, the more I am able to write something else, or to counter-sign. That is, to sign another text which encounters the generic text. When I write on authors such as Genet, I don’t write like them, I try to incorporate what they give me in order to perform something else which bears my own signature -which is not simply mine but which is another signature. And this happens not only in philosophy or literary theory; it happens all the time. To speak with someone else, you have to understand what the Other says, you have to be able to repeat it – thats what understanding means – and to be able to answer, to respond, and your response will be different, it will be something else, and the response includes the possibility of understanding what you’re responding to. So I would put all this in terms of response – and responsibility -towards your heritage.

Nikhil Padgaonkar.: You have argued that language is subject to a generalized “iterability” – that is, it can be grafted into new and unforeseen contexts…

Jacques Derrida: I have a vague idea of the Sanskrit etymology of “itera” which means again, the same, repetition, and something else, some alteration…

Nikhil Padgaonkar: …so language reproduces itself in new contexts, in new frames, and it becomes impossible therefore to limit the range of possible meanings it thus produces. Significantly enough, iterability suggests that one cannot attempt to delineate the meaning of a text by referring to the intentions of its author. This much said, is there any possibility of holding an author responsible for the fate of his or her book? I am of course thinking of your discussion of Nietzsche, but more generally, can a writer be held to account for the way his or her writings are interpreted or could possibly be interpreted? Is there any way for an author to regulate, in advance, the range of possible interpretations?

Jacques Derrida: If you expect an answer in the form of a “yes or no”, I would say no. But if you give me more time, I would be more hesitant. I would say that a philosopher or writer should try of course, to be responsible for what he writes as far as possible. For instance, one must be very careful politically, and try, not so much to control, but to foresee all possible consequences some people might draw from what you write. Thats an obligation – to try to analyse and foresee everything. But it’s absolutely impossible. You can’t control everything because once a certain work, or a certain sentence, or a certain set of discourses are published, when the trace is traced, it goes beyond your reach, beyond your control, and in a different context, it can be exploited, displaced, used beyond what you meant. And this is the question I asked about Nietzsche since you mention him. Of course, there was an abusive interpretation of Nietzsche by the Nazis. No doubt, Nietzsche didn’t want that, it is sure. But, nevertheless, how can we account for the fact that the only philosopher or thinker that was referred to as a predecessor by the Nazis was Nietzsche? So there must be in Nietzsches discourse, something which was in affinity with the Nazis, and you can say this and try to analyse this possibility without of course, concluding that Nietzsche himself was a Nazi, or that everything in Nietzsche was in affinity with the Nazis. But we have to account for the fact that there was a lineage, there was some genealogy. So, we are all exposed to this – I am sure that some people could draw reactive or reactionary or right-wing conservative positions from what I say. I struggle, I do my best to prevent this, but I know that I can’t control it. People could take a sentence and use it…let us take the example of what I was telling you this afternoon: of course, I am in favour of, let us say, the development of idioms, the differences in language so as to resist the hegemony or the monopoly of language. But I immediately added to this statement that I was also opposed to nationalism. That is, to the nationalistic re-appropriation of this desire for difference. Now, maybe someone can say, “well, you’re in favour of divisions against a universal language, then we would use your discourse in favour of nationalism or reactionary linguistic violence” and so on and so forth. So, I can’t control this. I can only do my best, just adding a sentence to my first sentence, and to go on speaking trying to neutralize the misunderstandings. But you can’t control everything, and the fact that you cannot control everything doesn’t mean simply that you’re a finite being and a limited person. It has to do with the structure of language, the structure of the trace. As soon as you trace something, the trace becomes independent of its source – thats the structure of the trace. The trace becomes independent of its origin, and as soon as the trace is traced, it escapes. You cannot control the fate of the book totally. I can’t control the future of this interview (laughter)…You record it, but then you’ll re-write it, re-frame it, build a new context, and perhaps, my sentence will sound different. So, I trust you but I know that it is impossible to control the publication of everything I say.

Nikhil Padgaonkar: But there is an implicit faith, an implicit relationship…

Jacques Derrida: It’s a matter of faith, of good faith, but it’s faith, it’s faith…

Calvin and Hobbes, The Raccoon

Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science, Book 1, Section 14 (The Things People Call Love)

Greed and love: such different feelings these terms evoke! And yet it could be the same instinct, named twice: once disparaged by those who already have, in whom the instinct has somewhat calmed down and who now fear for what they “have”; the other time seen from the standpoint of the unsatisfied. the thirsty, and therefore glorified as “good”. Our love of our neighbors – is it not a craving for new property? And likewise our love of knowledge, of truth, and altogether any craving for what is new? We slowly grow tired of the old, of what we safely possess, and we stretch out our hands again; even the most beautiful landscape is no longer sure of our love after we have lived in it for three months, and some more distant coast excites our greed: possession usually diminishes the possession. The pleasure we take in ourselves tries to preserve itself by time and again changing something new into ourselves – that is simply what possession means. To grow tired of a possession is to grow tired of ourselves. (One can also suffer from an excess – even the desire to throw away, to dole out, can take on the honorary name “love”.) When we see someone suffering, we like to use this opportunity to take possession of him; that is for example what those who become his benefactors and those who have compassion for him do, and they call the lust for new possessions that is awakened in them “love”; and their delight is like that aroused by the prospect of a new conquest. Sexual love, however, is what most dearly reveals itself as a craving for new property: the lover wants unconditional and sole possession of the longed-for person; he wants a power over her soul as unconditional as his power over her body; he wants to be the only beloved, to live and to rule in the other soul as that which is supreme and most desirable. If one considers that this means excluding the whole world from a precious good, from joy and enjoyment; if one considers that the lover aims at the impoverishment and deprivation of all the competitors and would like to become the dragon guarding his golden hoard as the most inconsiderate and selfish of all ‘conquerors’ and exploiters; if one considers, finally, that to the lover himself the rest of the world appears indifferent, pale, and worthless and that he is prepared to make any sacrifice, upset any order, subordinate any other interest; then one is indeed amazed that this wild greed and injustice of sexual love has been as glorified and deified as it has in all ages – yes, that this love has furnished the concept of love as the opposite of egoism when it may in fact be the most candid expression of egoism. Here is it evidently the have-nots and the yearning ones who have formed linguistic usage – there have probably always been too many of them.

Those who were granted much possession and satiety in this area must occasionally have made some casual remark about “the raging demon”, as did that most charming and beloved of all Athenians, Sophocles. But Eros always laughed at such blasphemers; they were always precisely his greatest darlings. Here and there on earth there is probably a kind of continuation of love in which this greedy desire of two people for each other gives way to a new desire and greed, a shared higher thirst for an ideal above them. But who knows such love? Who has experienced it? Its true name is friendship.

Henry David Thoreau, Journals, January 25, 1856 (Locked-up Chest)

A closed [pitch] pine cone gathered Jan 22nd opened last night in my chamber. If you would be convinced how differently armed the squirrel is naturally for dealing with [pitch] pine cones, just try to get one off with your teeth. He who extracts the seeds from a single closed cone with the aid of a knife will be constrained to confess that the squirrel earns his dinner. It is a rugged customer, and will make your fingers bleed. But the squirrel has the key to this conical and spiny chest of many apartments. He sits on a post, vibrating his tail, and twirls it as a plaything.

But so is a man commonly a locked-up chest to us, to open whom, unless we have the key of sympathy, will make our hearts bleed.

Full text: http://thoreau.library.ucsb.edu/writings_journals_pdfs/J10f3-f4.pdf

Martha Nussbaum Interview by Bill Moyers

Bill Moyers: The common perception of philosophy is of a thinker of abstract thoughts. But stories and myths are very important to you as a philosopher, are they not? 

Martha Nussbaum: Very important, because I think that the language of philosophy has to come back from the abstract heights on which it so often lives to the richness of everyday discourse and everyday humanity, and it has to listen to the ways that people talk about themselves, talk about what matters to them… and one very good way to do this is to listen to… stories.

Moyers: Is there, out of all this vast array of stories is there one that you find most gripping, that you think speaks most to us today?

Nussbaum: …I wake up at night thinking about Euripides’ Hecuba. That, to me, is a story that says so much about what it is to be a human being in the middle of a world of unreliable things and people. Do you know the story?

Moyers: Well, from a long time ago, but she was the queen of Troy whose country was destroyed by war and her whole life was changed…

Nussbaum: Right, right… She’s lost her husband, she’s lost most of her children, she’s lost her political power, she’s been made a slave, but up to that point she remains absolutely firm morally, and she even says she believes that human good character is something extremely stable in adversity and can’t be shaken. But then, her one, deepest hope, is pulled away from her. She left her youngest child with her best friend who was supposed to watch over him and watch his money too and then bring him back when the war was over. And when she gets to the shore of Thrace she sees a naked body that’s been washed up on the beach and… she notices that it’s the body of her child. And she realizes right away that what this friend has… murder[ed] the child for his money, and to do it in a callous and heedless way without even taking thought for burying the child, just tossed it out into the waves, and all of a sudden the roots of her moral life are undone. She looks around and she says everything is untrustworthy… because her moral life had been based on the ability to trust things and people that were not under her own control and if this deepest and best friendship proves untrustworthy then it seems to her that nothing can be trusted and she has to turn to a life of solitary revenge… We see her in the play… putting out the eyes of this former best friend and turning herself into what the Chorus says is in effect a dog, I mean, they predict that she will literally turn into a dog but we know that the story of metamorphosis from the human to something less than human has really taken place before our very eyes.

Now I think it’s pretty clear that this comes about not because she’s a bad person, but in a sense because she’s a good person, because she has had deep friendships in which she staked her moral life. And so what this play says is so disturbing – that the condition of being good is that it should always be possible for you to be morally destroyed by something that you couldn’t prevent. To be a good human being is to have a kind of openness to the world, an ability to trust uncertain things beyond your own control, that can lead you to be shattered in very extreme circumstances… for which you were… not to blame. And I think that says something very important about the condition of the ethical life: that it is based on a trust in the uncertain, a willingness to be exposed; it’s based on being more like a plant than like a jewel, something rather fragile, but whose very particular beauty is inseparable from that fragility.

Moyers: But the other side of it… expressed by Victor Frankl, who survived the death camps… says, “I’m not responsible for my circumstances. I’m only responsible for my attitude toward those circumstances. That I may live in the degradation of the camps, I may be put upon by the beasts who are human, but I will not let them turn me into a beast.”

Nussbaum: Well, I think if you can maintain that separation, that’s a very fortunate thing. And actually here the tragedians do see that character itself, if the circumstances are crushing enough…can … be polluted, as Euripides puts it, by something that you yourself don’t control because however much she tried to live well in a world of uncertain things, she had to be able to trust something, and when by a rare chance… this very best friend, the one who is in a sense the basis of her connectedness to the world, proved untrustworthy, then it wasn’t her fault that she could not sustain the moral life.

Moyers: Is this what you meant when you wrote once that tragedy is trying to live well?

Nussbaum: Tragedy happens only when you are trying to live well, because for a heedless person who doesn’t have deep commitments to others, Agamemnon’s conflict isn’t a tragedy. Somebody who’s a bad person would go in and slaughter that child…or could desert all the men, let them die. But it’s when you are trying to live well and you deeply care about the things you’re trying to do that the world enters in a particularly painful way. And it’s in that struggle with recalcitrant circumstances that a lot of the value of the moral life comes in.

Moyers: You’re not trying to suggest to your students… that the lesson is not to try to live well? If you do that you should certainly avoid the pain of choice and of frustration and of denial.

Nussbaum: No, the lesson certainly is not to try to maximize conflict or to romanticize struggle and suffering, but it’s rather… that you should care about things in a way that makes it a possibility that tragedy will happen to you. If you never trust any people or if you don’t trust the political setting, which is certainly something I see very often in my students, then it doesn’t hurt you when things go badly, but you want to tell them to live their lives with such a seriousness of commitment that they’re not adjusting their desires to the way the world actually goes but they’re trying to wrest from the world a good life, the good life that they desire, and sometimes that does lead them into tragedy.

Full Interview: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWfK1E4L–c

Jiddu Krishnamurti, Dissolution of the Order of the Star in the East, August 3, 1929

“You may remember the story of how the devil and a friend of his were walking down the street, when they saw ahead of them a man stoop down and pick up something from the ground, look at it, and put it away in his pocket. The friend said to the devil, “What did that man pick up?” “He picked up a piece of Truth,” said the devil. “That is a very bad business for you, then,” said his friend. “Oh, not at all,” the devil replied, “I am going to let him organize it.”

I maintain that Truth is a pathless land, and you cannot approach it by any path whatsoever, by any religion, by any sect. That is my point of view, and I adhere to that absolutely and unconditionally. Truth, being limitless, unconditioned, unapproachable by any path whatsoever, cannot be organized; nor should any organization be formed to lead or to coerce people along any particular path. If you first understand that, then you will see how impossible it is to organize a belief. A belief is purely an individual matter, and you cannot and must not organize it. If you do, it becomes dead, crystallized; it becomes a creed, a sect, a religion, to be imposed on others. This is what everyone throughout the world is attempting to do. Truth is narrowed down and made a plaything for those who are weak, for those who are only momentarily discontented. Truth cannot be brought down, rather the individual must make the effort to ascend to it. You cannot bring the mountain-top to the valley. If you would attain to the mountaintop you must pass through the valley, climb the steeps, unafraid of the dangerous precipices.

…If an organization be created… it becomes a crutch, a weakness, a bondage, and must cripple the individual, and prevent him from growing, from establishing his uniqueness, which lies in the discovery for himself of that absolute, unconditioned Truth. So that is another reason why I have decided, as I happen to be the Head of the Order, to dissolve it. No one has persuaded me to this decision. This is no magnificent deed, because I do not want followers, and I mean this. The moment you follow someone you cease to follow Truth. I am not concerned whether you pay attention to what I say or not. I want to do a certain thing in the world and I am going to do it with unwavering concentration. I am concerning myself with only one essential thing: to set man free. I desire to free him from all cages, from all fears, and not to found religions, new sects, nor to establish new theories and new philosophies. Then you will naturally ask me why I go the world over, continually speaking. I will tell you for what reason I do this: not because I desire a following, not because I desire a special group of special disciples. (How men love to be different from their fellow-men, however ridiculous, absurd and trivial their distinctions may be! I do not want to encourage that absurdity.) I have no disciples, no apostles, either on earth or in the realm of spirituality. Nor is it the lure of money, nor the desire to live a comfortable life, which attracts me. If I wanted to lead a comfortable life I would not come to a Camp or live in a damp country!…

…One newspaper reporter, who interviewed me, considered it a magnificent act to dissolve an organization in which there were thousands and thousands of members. To him it was a great act because, he said: “What will you do afterwards, how will you live? You will have no following, people will no longer listen to you.” If there are only five people who will listen, who will live, who have their faces turned towards eternity, it will be sufficient. Of what use is it to have thousands who do not understand, who are fully embalmed in prejudice, who do not want the new, but would rather translate the new to suit their own sterile, stagnant selves? If I speak strongly, please do not misunderstand me, it is not through lack of compassion. If you go to a surgeon for an operation, is it not kindness on his part to operate even if he cause you pain?

So, in like manner, if I speak straightly, it is not through lack of real affection – on the contrary. As I have said, I have only one purpose: to make man free, to urge him towards freedom, to help him to break away from all limitations, for that alone will give him eternal happiness, will give him the unconditioned realization of the self.

Because I am free, unconditioned, whole – not the part, not the relative, but the whole Truth that is eternal – I desire those, who seek to understand me to be free; not to follow me, not to make out of me a cage which will become a religion, a sect. Rather should they be free from all fears – from the fear of religion, from the fear of salvation, from the fear of spirituality, from the fear of love, from the fear of death, from the fear of life itself. As an artist paints a picture because he takes delight in that painting, because it is his self-expression, his glory, his well-being, so I do this and not because I want anything from anyone. You are accustomed to authority, or to the atmosphere of authority, which you think will lead you to spirituality. You think and hope that another can, by his extraordinary powers – a miracle – transport you to this realm of eternal freedom which is Happiness. Your whole outlook on life is based on that authority.

You have listened to me for three years now, without any change taking place except in the few. Now analyze what I am saying, be critical, so that you may understand thoroughly, fundamentally. When you look for an authority to lead you to spirituality, you are bound automatically to build an organization around that authority. By the very creation of that organization, which, you think, will help this authority to lead you to spirituality, you are held in a cage.

…You have been preparing for eighteen years [for the Coming of the World Teacher], and look how many difficulties there are in the way of your understanding, how many complications, how many trivial things. Your prejudices, your fears, your authorities, your churches new and old–all these, I maintain, are a barrier to understanding. I cannot make myself clearer than this. I do not want you to agree with me, I do not want you to follow me, I want you to understand what I am saying. This understanding is necessary because your belief has not transformed you but only complicated you, and because you are not willing to face things as they are. You want to have your own gods – new gods instead of the old, new religions instead of the old, new forms instead of the old–all equally valueless, all barriers, all limitations, all crutches. Instead of old spiritual distinctions you have new spiritual distinctions, instead of old worships you have new worships. You are all depending for your spirituality on someone else, for your happiness on someone else, for your enlightenment on someone else; and although you have been preparing for me for eighteen years, when I say all these things are unnecessary, when I say that you must put them all away and look within yourselves for the enlightenment, for the glory, for the purification, and for the incorruptibility of the self, not one of you is willing to do it. There may be a few, but very, very few. So why have an organization?

…Organizations cannot make you free. No man from outside can make you free; nor can organized worship, nor the immolation of yourselves for a cause, make you free; nor can forming yourselves into an organization, nor throwing yourselves into works, make you free. You use a typewriter to write letters, but you do not put it on an altar and worship it. But that is what you are doing when organizations become your chief concern.

Again, you have the idea that only certain people hold the key to the Kingdom of Happiness. No one holds it. No one has the authority to hold that key. That key is your own self, and in the development and the purification and in the incorruptibility of that self alone is the Kingdom of Eternity.

…You are accustomed to being told how far you have advanced, what is your spiritual status. How childish! Who but yourself can tell you if you are beautiful or ugly within? Who but yourself can tell you if you are incorruptible? You are not serious in these things.

But those who really desire to understand, who are looking to find that which is eternal, without beginning and without an end, will walk together with a greater intensity, will be a danger to everything that is unessential, to unrealities, to shadows. And they will concentrate, they will become the flame, because they understand. Such a body we must create, and that is my purpose. Because of that real understanding there will be true friendship. Because of that true friendship – which you do not seem to know – there will be real cooperation on the part of each one. And this not because of authority, not because of salvation, not because of immolation for a cause, but because you really understand, and hence are capable of living in the eternal. This is a greater thing than all pleasure, than all sacrifice.”

Full Speech: http://www.jkrishnamurti.org/about-krishnamurti/dissolution-speech.php