The most important advance in philosophical knowledge during the last third of the twentieth century was Jacques Derrida’s development of the philosophy of difference via the critique of metaphysics. Derrida’s deconstruction of logocentrism as phonocentrism, and its unmasking as the ground of metaphysics, revolutionized Western philosophy. His discovery of the productivity of writing as an authorless, non-phonocentric, non-logocentric, non-metaphysical possibility of constituting meaning not only opened up the possibility of new readings of our texts, but also a new understanding of creativity and renewal in the various areas of human action. The deconstructive gaze uncovers foundations, grounds, authorities, securities and certainties as constructs. In doing so, however, it also shows us the possibility of other constructs that are no less legitimate than the old, deconstructed ones.
The strength of these constructs, which emerged from deconstruction, is that they cannot be absolutized without revealing their origins in a deconstructive act. Therefore, they offer a certain protection against absolutizations, and thus against political totalitarianism, as Jacques Derrida argued in one of his relatively rare political writings. In the field of the political and for our psyche, this strength is at once a weakness. Because deconstruction relativizes everything absolute, or purportedly absolute, and sets it in motion, it takes away the security of an absolute certainty and thus makes us afraid. When one leaves the realm of philosophy, literature and the arts, one is immediately confronted with totalitarian demands that cannot be relativized, and which the deconstructive mode of thinking cannot counter with absolutizations without calling its own approach into question and betraying its basic intention.
Although Derrida expounded the political relevance of deconstruction in the Paul de Man affair, there is still no concept of a deconstructive politics with any prospect of establishing itself in the political space. Rather, every encounter with the sphere of politics seems to endanger the reserved approach of difference-philosophical thought. Thus, it is surely a lacuna in the deconstructive method that most authors associated with it concentrated on dismantling identities, but then failed to put together what they had taken apart. In this way, the deconstructive paradigm took on the appearance of an esoteric and clearly unworldly mode of thought.
We can understand this one-sidedness if we think of how aggressively and vehemently Derrida’s thought, and the philosophies that followed on from it, were attacked. Because it was so new and untested, it first required the presentation of studies that would reinforce and defend it before it could proceed further. Today we have hopefully reached a point where we can explore the constructive possibilities of deconstruction more courageously.
In my view, the most important author for this further development of deconstruction is my conversational partner in the present book, Jean-Luc Nancy, whose efforts to develop this constructive, socially, culturally and politically relevant side of difference-philosophical thought already began in the 1980s. For some time, the concept of community, heavily burdened by its frequent totalitarian application, has been the main focus of his reflections. Nancy attempts to free this concept from its totalitarian overdetermination, and to rethink it in the deconstructive tradition in such a way that it can become available to us and serve as a starting point for new reflections on democracy.
The concept of democracy is also highly fraught after the social crises resulting from the crisis in the financial industry. After all, democracy is the social form which not only failed to prevent the excesses of financial capitalism but, on the contrary, created the political conditions for it to function in the first place. Without the material and ideological structures, the power apparatuses and dumbing-down industries of our democracy, this development would not have been possible without enormous resistance.
I do not consider totalitarian armament with historically refuted concepts, as found in the work of such thinkers as Alain Badiou and Slavoj Žižek, an alternative to this. The reflections of Colin Crouch on a new equilibrium between the market and politics can probably be functionally integrated too easily, without effecting any fundamental change. But we need reflections that attempt to lead us out of the present cul-de-sac of our economic and social order. That is why Jean-Luc Nancy’s approach of thinking the concept of a radical democracy from a community that is neither posited absolutely nor distorted in totalitarian fashion is so important for our time. His philosophical reflections, like those of Alain Badiou, Slavoj Žižek or Colin Crouch, are of great social relevance.
The obscene socialization of private losses through the financial industry calls into question the legitimacy of our social organization and our political system, which was caught completely unawares by such lootings, which were evidently able to develop unhindered in a system-immanent fashion. Hence the question of political legitimacy and social order today is not a matter of social minorities and marginalized groups, but rather a question from the centre of our society: what can we use to combat the destruction of our social order and our political system of Western democracy, this destruction of our society from within?
In this volume of conversations, I have attempted to explore with Jean-Luc Nancy the possibilities for a new social legitimacy, proceeding from his category of community and his reflections on a radical democracy.
The conversation with Jean-Luc Nancy took place in Paris during two days in May 2014.
This book is the result of a joint effort. In addition to Jean-Luc Nancy, I would like to thank Alexandra Reininghaus for accompanying these conversations, and Boris Kränzel and Eva Luise Kühn for the difficult work of editing and proofreading the material.
Peter Engelmann