I have gotten two e-rants this week about the shabby assessment of the achievements of Jacques Derrida by the philistines at the New York Times. Apparently there is a petition being circulated too.
I think the problem is that people forget that there will always be something new. Modernism thought it was "it" but then there was postmodernism. Post-structuralism thought it was "it" too but presumably something new is brewing. As someone whose intellectual life was on hiatus from about 1986 to 2000, and who therefore missed out on the excitements of post-structuralism, I don't have the same emotional attachment to its passing as someone who was participating in its heyday.
The trouble is, while you are "in it" it's very hard to recognize the new thing. Is it materiality? Empiricism? Is it just too early to know?
Posted by otto0114 at October 23, 2004 07:10 PM