Soyez réalistes, demandez l’impossible
(Be realistic, demand the impossible)
Censier 1968
The debate between Jacques Derrida and Jean-Louis Houdebine and Guy Scarpetta, both former collaborators of the Communist review La Nouvelle Critique, in 1971 is an important milestone in French intellectual history. In this debate, Derrida as one of the figureheads of the radical generation torpedoed the project of a materialist theory of society that was the dream of the leftist intelligentsia at the end of the 1960s and beginning of the 1970s (see Derrida 1972 for a full account). This theory would have permitted leftist intellectuals like Jean-Louis Houdebine, a future professor of linguistics at University Paris VII, and Guy Scarpetta, a future professor of modern literature and cinema at the University of Reims, both members of Tel Quel’s collaborative circles and disenchanted with Communism (Houdebine 2001: 53), to continue developing their theory independently of the tutelage of the French communist party. In this debate, the status of “materialism,” one of the power-ideas of “French theory,” was the bone of contention.
In the debate, Houdebine and Scarpetta attempted to identify the externality of materialism with its irreversibility, whereas Derrida—using his familiar strategy—claimed that the heterogeneity of materialism was an unsolvable dilemma. The basic problem was that Derrida was not a dialectician (see Derrida 1987) like Houdebine/Scarpetta. Derrida’s central theoretical goal was to develop a general strategy of deconstruction, one that would avoid the simple neutralization of metaphysical binary oppositions while staying within the closed field formed by these oppositions. First and foremost, Derrida was concerned that materialism would lead back to another intellectual register, a kind of Hegelian dialectics where one term would be maintained by the negation of the others, as Kristeva did in her semanalysis. Derrida noted about his theory:
In fact, I am trying to channel the critical operation to oppose this endless claiming that the simulacrum is one’s own in Hegelian dialectics (which goes so far as to idealize and “semanticize” the value of this work) (Derrida 1972: 59).
In contrast, Houdebine and Scarpetta attempted to uphold heterogeneity as the term uniting otherness and identity. The Marxist project with its historical materialism placed itself beyond both the history of meaning and linearity. In addition, the Marxist view of history as the history of class struggle was a history of “full” meaning in the most literal sense of the word. The point of Derrida’s critique was aimed precisely against this history of meaning and its correlative terms:
I have attempted to systematize deconstructive critique precisely to be the opposite of the authority of meaning (sens), as the transcendental signified or the work of an author, or, in other words, as a history of significance understood against history, as history in its logocentric, metaphysical and idealistic representation (Derrida 1972: 67).
According to Derrida, simply elevating the status of matter did not place materialistic philosophy in conflict with idealistic philosophy. Houdebine, however, was not satisfied with this explanation. As the debate between the two proceeded, Houdebine adopted a more active stance. He brought into the debate matter as something which was an irreversible, pure heterogeneity, and thus by definition something which could not be reversed back into the meaning of a subject (Derrida 1972: 82–3). Houdebine was especially concerned about the relationships between historical materialism and writing/text. Derrida answered that he had not yet found reading protocols (Derrida 1972: 86) that would fully satisfy him. At first, however, Derrida gave a subtle answer that could almost, but not quite, be read as a concession:
It goes without saying that if, and in so far as in this general order of things, matter expresses, as you said, radical otherness (more precisely: in relation to philosophical opposition) then what I write can be considered “materialistic” (Derrida 1972: 86).
And then, being faithful to his basic strategy of transcending dichotomies through a critique of their absoluteness, Derrida went on to make a reservation to his concession. He doubted whether a materialist text existed in the first place, and if it did, he said, it could not exist in a materialist text itself, if materialism was defined as absolute externality or radical heterogeneity. This is because when we speak about materialism and matter, we return to certain logocentric values such as presentness, for example observable presence, realism and empiricism. In Derrida’s vocabulary, materialism as a fundamental principle would, through theoretical regression, lead back to the transcendental signified. It would turn out to be a kind of metaphysical materialism. This same move would lead us back to the idealism of the text, which would be manifested as a new internality to itself (Derrida 1972: 89). Derrida’s seemingly harmless critique shipwrecked the project of a Marxist science of the text. Until now Houdebine remained relatively passive, but the prospect of a total catastrophe activated him.
To rescue materialism, Houdebine chose the concept of the text and asked what were the relationships between Derrida’s own work and literary textual work (Derrida 1972: 92). That Houdebine chose the text as his concept was naturally no coincidence, since it was, together with materialism, the cornerstone of Kristeva’s and Sollers’s theories. Houdebine did not mention the science of the text. This silence over the issue of scientificality was a sign of uncertainty, which Houdebine channeled into a discourse on materialism. Admitting that materialism was absolute, he thought, would guarantee its scientificality. In fact, Houdebine’s discourse was based on this link between materialism and science that was not explicitly brought up, but which both sides knew was directing the dialogue and was also, in fact, what was really at stake. With his question, Houdebine attempted to force Derrida to accept certain definitions of the text and of work, along with their clusters of connotations and semantic links, and thus in a way to begin the discourse anew while ignoring Derrida’s earlier reservations.
Derrida began by reviewing in a schoolmasterly fashion the significance of literary criticism for the concept of the text, as well as the general theoretical significance of writing. This was not, however, enough for Houdebine. Houdebine’s long question, which was shaped to anticipate its answer (see Derrida 1972: 96–9), attempted to bring the concepts of subconscious and contradiction closer to each other. Referring to Kristeva’s theoretical work on signifiers, Houdebine attempted—in repetitio veritas—to bring forth matter as radical heterogeneity and as the foundation of contradiction. Thus, via a detour to Kristeva and Freud, he reformulated his theoretical stance. In his response, Derrida presented what he had already stated earlier:
I do not believe that there exists a “fact” which enables us to say: in a Marxist text the contradiction, dialectics, escapes metaphysical control … You see, once more, I do not believe that we can, even from a Marxist perspective, speak of a homogenous Marxist text, which once and for all would liberate the concept of contradiction from its speculative, teleological and eschatological horizon (Derrida 1972: 100).
Here Derrida indirectly criticized Houdebine and Scarpetta for implicitly believing that without having first analyzed the texts of the Greek materialists metaphysical reflection repressed contradiction. Because of this oversight, Derrida was able to build a clumsy bridge to reconcile the contradiction between materialism and Freudism. According to him, the external was never wholly on the outside and the internal never wholly on the inside. Or, in other words, we did not have homogeneity on one side and heterogeneity on the other, perfectly separated from each other. Characteristically, however, Houdebine in his next question again took as given something that, in fact, was not:
It was precisely this (the dual motif of matter and contradiction) which led me then, but from a different perspective, to pose the question about the relationship between the logic emerging from the dual register “matter/contradiction” and the logic presupposed in the motive of “différance”: a relationship which has been necessitated by the fact that your work can be understood—as you yourself have emphasized—as a critique of idealism (Houdebine in Derrida 1972: 101).
In fact, at no point had Derrida said precisely this. Houdebine’s interpretation was based on an extrapolation he had made of Derrida’s discourse, which consisted chiefly of reservations, cautions, and ambiguous statements. For example, Derrida had noted “if we wished to schematize—but this is, however, not really a schema—what I am attempting can also be written as ‘critique of idealism’” (Derrida 1972: 85). Derrida’s most frequent textual strategy was to use an interplay of concessions and reservations to position himself in such a way that he could always-by further clarification-deny what he had said before without openly contradicting himself. This economy, in both meanings of the term, leaves an unusual mark on the entire discourse, where the reader easily loses direction in a jungle of interpretations. At the same time, the economy of the discourse leads those who might attempt to interpret it to experience a latent feeling of guilt and chronic impotence: commenting on it can only lead to endless exegetics of the master’s (Derrida’s) texts, as the “correct” reading protocol has never been explicitly laid out.
A couple of pages later Derrida moves to his other main topic, Lacanian psychoanalysis and a critique of its philosophical status. From Sollers’s and Kristeva’s point of view, this critique was crucial as it distanced Derrida from Lacan and by the same token from Tel Quel’s social networks. In his customary way, Derrida presents his critique in the margins, in the form of a long note (Derrida 1972: 112–9). Derrida’s critique of Lacan consists of four main points: Lacan remains ensnared by speech, which he sees as implicitly alive and full; by returning to Freud, he falls into using a massive Hegelian set of concepts; he relies on Saussure’s concept of the sign which is based on speech; and he fails to put into question the concept of writing. Derrida’s criticism reveals that he was slipping away from a strategy where he had literally attempted to place himself in the fold of discourse, in a position where both an answer and its opposite were possibilities, and was moving towards a strategy where he criticized another totemic emblem of “French theory” for not sharing his own premises. Derrida was ambivalent about the existence of two stages in the deconstructive project, making the reservation that a stage is more a structural than a chronological term (Derrida 1972: 57). According to Derrida, differentiating the stages in fact corresponds to two strategic moves: first the critique which was directed outwards from within materialism, and secondly the development of “anti-concepts” which took place within materialism itself. Derrida’s critique incessantly, almost imperceptibly, slid back and forth between the two, and its strength was precisely in this shift. An “anti-concept” could not be understood within the philosophical opposition (Derrida 1972: 58) nor within the earlier régime (Derrida 1972: 57). Derrida illuminated the strategic function of these “inconclusives” as follows:
What I have analogically called the inconclusive, in other words the units of simulacrum, the “false” verbal, nominal or semantic characteristics which no longer let themselves be understood in the philosophical (binary) opposition and which nevertheless reside in it, oppose it, unorganize it but which never form the third term, which never create a solution in the form of speculative dialectics (pharmacon is not a medicine nor a poison, good or evil, inside or outside, speech or writing) (Derrida 1972: 58–9).
Derrida puts the concept “false” in quotes, thus no longer meaning by false the usual sense of the word. Likewise, the concept “never” (jamais) attempts to provide absolute certainty that a third term will never be formed. In light of Derrida’s discursive economy, this is a questionable wish, however. In addition to this script of endless guerrilla warfare (and it is, of course, questionable to what extent we can even say it is endless), we can recognize Derrida’s other textual strategy: he plays on two boards, criticizing both from without and from within, creating terms which cannot be reduced to either register or to a synthesis of these. The first phase is critical for the very reason that it relies on some clear hierarchy that, in the familiar style, is simultaneously questioned. The critical function cannot, however, only be limited to the first phase. Derrida takes for granted the foundation of his critique, then he himself criticizes this foundation just as he criticized Houdebine’s materialism or Lacan’s phonocentrism (see, for instance, Derrida 1972: 60 note 6). However, a critique always needs a reference category and a target category. In other words, in order to elaborate his critique, Derrida must paradoxically resort to an implicit hierarchy dominated by “anti-concepts.”
The concept “anti-concept” also obviously needs to be placed in quotes, as strictly speaking there is no such thing as an “anti-concept.” The textual function of “anti-concepts” is dual: economical, as they condense several activities or processes; and strategic as they relate to ordinary concepts. The word “economy” here means that it is possible to condense without abstracting, in other words without stepping into the trap which separates the particular from the general. Strategic refers to the possibility of using “anti-concepts” to criticize something without returning to the pattern of original-derived, where “real” concepts operate. Thus Derrida notes, similarly to Lacan and Kristeva, that “the unconscious is insensitive to contradiction” (Derrida 1972: 60 note 7).
In Derrida’s textual strategy, the status of “anti-concepts” is not only dependent of their function but also of their very conceptuality. Derrida attempts to define them in such a way that they would evade certain philosophical traps. Derrida manages to assemble into his “anti-concept” the advantage of concepts, their function (even a dysfunction has a function in the system of language) and the advantage of the “anti-concept,” its role as the precursor and as something that says nothing. In actual fact, “anti-concepts” speak through the mouths of others, as the interview shows. In order to point out how he distances himself from concepts and conceptuality in his philosophical system, Derrida parenthesizes all the concepts he has invented. Strictly speaking, and Derrida is aware of this, he nevertheless always remains in the realm of meaning, and the work and the task of “anti-concepts” is colored by eternal (but even this cannot be said) rebellion. No one can escape metaphysics.
Derrida invents a new “concept” while simultaneously creating a discursive need for it, as his approach can no longer be explained without this “concept.” The lesson is that the “concept” can no longer be erased. “Différance is ‘the origin’, non-complete, non-simple, the structured and differing origin of differences” (Derrida 1972: note 22). An “inner reading” of Derrida’s text takes the reader back to a pre-determined script, the outcome of which is already known. Whether the original idea is truly original or only “original,” or a simulacrum, really does not matter, since the most important thing is that it only partially—but never fully—fulfills the tasks of the concept “original.”
Derrida’s basic textual strategy corresponds to a continuous change of perspective, whereby all questions are radically problematic. However, in contrast with the concept polysemy, Derrida maintains that dissemination penetrates the semantic horizon. It is an open chain (Derrida 1972: 61), which can only be temporarily halted through an example. Houdebine and Scarpetta attempt to retain the results of Derrida’s theoretical work (the critiques of logocentrism, speech, etc.) while ignoring the most important, the economy of the discourse itself that escapes into the indeterminate. Concerning his discursive economy, Derrida is undeniably a revolutionary, but not when it comes to the outcome itself. Imitating the economy of discourse to some extent has been the hallmark of Derrida’s interpreters, as demonstrated by the works of Baudry, Goux, Kristeva and Sollers.
What distinguishes Houdebine and Scarpetta from Derrida can be summarized as follows: Derrida acknowledges the existence of hierarchy, but refuses to explicitly promote the legitimation of any alternative value hierarchy. Derrida’s own discourse follows a different economy (fleeing from dichotomies, promoting disparity, non-linearity and “everything flows”). Houdebine, in turn, wishes to establish a hierarchy which is ruled by Marxist thinking and which has the goal of establishing a materialistic textual science. Derrida’s ideal is transgression in the form of eternal critique and skepticism. For him, questioning and skepticism are values in themselves that lead to the acceptance of one form of reality as legitimate as any other. In Derrida’s symbolic revolution, reality has evaporated into thin air as a result of sophism. Perhaps the formal and simplified Table 9.1 can clarify the relationships between the “science” of the text and Marxism.
In this table, Derrida moves in spaces 1A and 2A without entering 3A. Kristeva, Houdebine and Scarpetta as well as Sollers attempt to combine all of these in their texts. In a theoretical sense, stopping the chain of signifiers and founding a hierarchy is always arbitrary and always takes the form of a judicial act. The critique of topography is undoubtedly also a critique of jurisprudence. Derrida’s reflections “precede” dialectics, which is the Marxist method par excellence, in the sense that he attempts to criticize the philosophical a priori underlying dialectics. For Derrida, the text is not a self-reflective and homogenous entity but rather a problem; for Marxism, the production of the text is the problem. In the case of the problem of ideology, for the science of text ideology is in the text, or, we should rather say, in texts, whereas for Marxism the development of ideology is tied to the development of production forces and production relationships. As a concept, the text is on a different level in the “science” of the text and Marxism. Combining them is therefore problematic. Other concepts, such as the concept of the “subject,” for instance, are likewise problematic. What precisely do we mean by the subject: the Spirit in the Hegelian sense, the person in a judicial sense, a corporation, an individual? What is it that makes the science of the text a better theory than some other theories? In Derrida’s and Houdebine/Scarpetta’s debate the issue was the scientific foundation of the science of the text.
Table 9.1 The “science” of the text and Marxism
Until the end of the 1960s and the beginning of the 1970d, Kristeva’s, Sollers’ and Houdebine/Scarpetta’s discourses had strongly relied on Derrida’s analysis. Derrida’s concept of writing/text as well as the “indissolubles” such as différance were defining power-ideas for, among others, Goux’s and Baudry’s numismatics and materiology. Collective distancing from the communist party and rapprochement with Lacan and Maoism necessitated a more active political philosophy, which could justify giving up the communist party line. This was at stake not only in the debate between Derrida and Houdebine but also more broadly in all the debates and symbolic struggles that were taking place. After May 68, a macro-level symbolic transformation was occurring that loosened the ties between political and intellectual avant-gardes. In this context, symbolic recognition from Derrida was seen as a sine qua non condition for detachment from the tutelage of the communist party and intellectuals like Althusser. However, the greatest problem of Derrida’s philosophy was that it lacked an explicit political philosophy. Derrida’s implicit political philosophy was relatively close to the philosophy of transgression and a form of political conservatism.
At around the same time as Tel Quel and the members of its social networks adopted a Maoist political philosophy, Barthes, in his book S/Z (1970), gave up on the scientific ideal. Tel Quel did not, however, give up their ultratheoretical approach as a form of radicalism. According to Derrida, his critique of Lacan did not please Sollers (Derrida 1987a). After breaking off relations with Derrida, the Tel Quel group increasingly turned their focus towards Lacanian psychoanalysis and its collaborative circles. The break between Derrida and Sollers was partly caused by Sollers noticing that he had lost his hold on Derrida. The bitterness was palpable (see Kristeva 1992: 109–10). In the spring of 1972, Tel Quel’s Maoist bulletin published an article on Derrida—ironically titled “O mage à Derrida”—where Derrida was scorned for his esotericism. The title plays with the homophony between mage (wizard, witch) and hommage (homage). At the same time, Derrida’s intellectual debt to Sollers was exposed:
Derrida’s book La Dissémination, which forms a pretext (pré-texte) to this gathering of intellectuals who have espoused the policy of the communist party, owes its title to a hundred-page essay (one third of the book) that Derrida has dedicated to Philippe Sollers’ novel Nombres. Do we even need to say that no signs of Sollers’ work, or even Derrida’s work discussing Sollers, are to be found in this issue of Lettres Françaises? (Tel Quel 1972a: 2).
As this debate between Derrida and Houdebine demonstrates, symbolic struggles are attempts to tease out recognition, in this case the privileged status of materialism and heterogeneity. These struggles for intellectual recognition are always with personal relationships—a dimension difficult to get to. Recognition from an authority like Derrida would have licensed Houdebine and his troops (read Sollers) to continue developing a materialist theory of society. Derrida’s attempt to avoid final solutions and to flee into the unsolvable did not at that moment satisfy the still rebellious leftist intelligentsia that had to look for symbolic guarantors after the distancing of the French communist party. With closer scrutiny, we can highlight the weaknesses of the “science of the text” patched, as it were, with a political theory—an interim solution if there ever was one. Attempts to develop a leftist deconstruction get tangled in irresolvable contradictions and are soon abandoned as Derrida was increasingly drawn into transatlantic symbolic struggles (see Cusset 2005). The debate also revealed that Derrida’s radical theory of deconstruction was politically conservative, as it did not back the strategies of politically progressive forces in the political field. Like the other “French theories” examined in this work, it led to an infinite, negative critique. Symbolic chaos followed the withering away of the French communist party’s caution. While the Sokal scandal (Sokal and Bricmont 1999) has highlighted some problems of the theories of the 1960s, detaching these debates from their historical context, it simplified these theories by repeating only some of the (mathematical) criticism raised (Roubaud and Lusson 1969, 1970, see also Kauppi 1994 for discussion). Roubaud and Lusson were both university professors of mathematics (Rennes and Poitiers respectively) and Roubaud a member of the famed literary group OuLiPo (Ouvroir de littérature potentielle). The main objections to these theories, formulated by linguists, philosophers, and literary theorists integrated in competing collaborative circles, revolved—not surprisingly—around issues of conceptual obscurity and metaphysical dramatics.