Responsibility and Politics in Derrida
Reframing our understanding of Derrida, Politics, and Christianity
For Derrida, there is a relationship between secrecy and responsibility, but a relationship akin to that of the political left and the political right. Secrecy is, on the one hand, the “mystery of the sacred,” but is also a “demonic rapture,” removing responsibility.
If you've heard of Jacques Derrida, but have not really read Jacques Derrida, this should shock you. Why? Because thinkers such as Jordan Peterson, (who, it appears, has also only heard of Jacques Derrida and has not actually read Jacques Derrida), claim that Derrida “described his own ideas as a radicalized form of Marxism,”1 without providing a citation to follow up on Derrida's self-described Marxism. A few pages later, he discusses Derrida in a bit more detail, but fails to properly encounter Derrida where he criticizes him and fails to properly criticize him where he encounters Derrida.2 He then goes on to make Derrida the scapegoat for the entire postmodern turn where we no longer can distinguish between man and woman, etc.
This makes Derrida sound like a rather scary, radical leftist ideologue without much to contribute to the political and cultural conversation of today other than absolute marxism and support for the most radical of the leftist agendas.
But let's return to his explication of secrecy and responsibility. Already, this talk of responsibility should sound familiar to those of you who are fans of Peterson: individual responsibility is a large part of the backbone of his thinking (e.g., clean your room, stand up with your shoulders straight, etc.). So let's continue on and see what else he has to say. It might surprise you.3
We have secrecy on the one hand and responsibility on the other. Between, we have the demonic rapture which acts as a removal of responsibility, and therefore brings you into secrecy, covers you over in an opaque cloak under which you may operate in private.
He then proposes that “religion presumes access to the responsibility of a free self.”4 This is not an altogether uncommon argument. Think of many's explanation for the story of the Fall in the garden of Eden: Adam and Eve were able to disobey God's explicit command because they already had a “free self” and were then able to take responsibility for their actions. This is a clear example of religion presuming access to the responsibility of a free self.
For Derrida then, we have to distinguish between demonic and responsibility (and this is where things get very interesting for those who despise Derrida for his “radical Marxism” that they claim led to this failure to distinguish man and women, etc.) the demonic is “that which confuses the limits among the animal, the human, and the divine,” and, he says, “retains an affinity with mystery, the initiatory, the esoteric, the secret or the sacred.”5 Think on that: Derrida is calling demonic that which confuses the limits between animal, human, and divine. This could come from the mouth of a contemporary conservative, no? Let us turn what he is saying into its opposite: responsibility is that which full recognizes the limits between the animal, the human, and the divine, and values clarity over mystery, the telos over the initiatory, and the uncovered over the covered.
Now especially when we think of this secrecy, we want to think of Heidegger's “unearthing” or “uncovering,” and alethēia, the “revealing truth.”
Furthermore, what is necessary for Derrida is to reinforce the coherence of a way of thinking (a path forwards) that accounts for the event of Christian mystery as an absolute singularity. First, we must remark upon Derrida's immediate insistence that we assign value to “the event of Christian mystery.” We're only on page two, and he's stating that it's necessary to reinforce the coherence of a way of thinking that accounts for it. In other words, in order to avoid the demonic, we must “uncover” a way of thinking that reinforces, values, and prioritizes the coherence of the Christian event rather than, as so many do, attempting to shroud it in mystery.
We must reinforce coherent thinking about the Christian event to avoid shrouding both that event and our way of thinking in demonic mystery. That doesn't sound much like the Derrida you hear about on YouTube.
Perhaps even more fascinating is where he goes from there. He states that religion exists once the secret of the sacred, orgiastic, or demonic mystery has been integrated and subject to the sphere of responsibility. And religion is responsibility, or it is nothing at all. Demonic mystery, shroudedness, and secrecy must be integrated and subjected to the sphere of responsible religion.
He goes further! Those who might criticize Derrida for being the culprit behind what they seem the absolute sexualization of everything, to the fading distinguish between man and woman, to the increasing numbers of something-sexuals should interrogate their sources. Derrida relates the demonic (remember, the crossing boundaries of human/animal/divine–an entirely biblical definition as the original “sin” that Satan tempted was for humans to become like God) with sexual desire.
So, where are we in Derrida's uncharacteristic (so we are told) text? We have responsibility on the one hand, and the demonic irresponsibility on the other hand. Derrida then heads straight to Copenhagen and the wings of Kierkegaard, stating that as such, one's relation to one's self as being before the other is an instance of liberty. Especially when “the other” is also before “infinite alterity” or infinite “otherness”, which we can explicate to suggest one is simultaneously before multiple aspects of the same spiritual Other, as in Christ the Son and God the Father, both in and of themselves together and apart, in relation but one, and the self relates to all together and separately in their infinite alterity.
This is, perhaps, a brilliant summary of Kierkegaard's A Sickness Unto Death in disguise, no?
Taking this approach, we then see Derrida as a historical apologist extraordinaire. He claims that European historians' misunderstanding of historicity is explained, clearly, by the extent to which their historical knowledge confines their questions abyssally, or to which they lose themselves in the details. Il y a de l'abime! There is an abyss, he declares, which resists totalizing summary (and which perhaps, though he does not say as much, resists historicity itself?) The question is posed, in light of this european historian's missteps, whether historical man (man within history) can acknowledge history at all?
That depends. Derrida argues that history is tied to responsibility, faith, and gift.
It is tied to responsibility in the experience of absolutely decisions made outside of knowledge or given norms. We can think, easily, of the teleological suspension of the ethical in Kierkegaard's Fear & Trembling, where Kierkegaard studies the command for Abraham to sacrifice Isaac. He must make the decision (and this is nothing if not an ethical decision!) whether to follow God's command and murder his own son, who was to be the leader of nations, or whether to disobey God and remain within the ethical boundaries of his time and place.
It is tied to faith through a form of involvement with the other that is a venture into absolute risk, beyond knowledge and certainty. Again, we can easily look to Kierkegaard's Works of Love and the command to love thy neighbour as thyself, the ethic of Christianity proper. Our neighbour is not always known to us. There is often an inherent risk in loving one's neighbour–and yet, we must do so. We shall do so. The divine command to love one's neighbour enters history, becomeshistory, in the acting out of this command eternal, through faith. Faith is connected to history in the absolute risk of neighbour-love.
We can also see how faith is tied to history through the “leap of faith,” (yet another Kierkegaardian concept), in the “absolute risk,” “beyond knowledge and certainty” where faith lives. Here, now, in time and place, we must leap to faith proper. This is an entirely historical act, and yet it is an act (leaping as action) of faith.
History is tied to the gift of death where it puts me in relation to the Other transcendent, to the “selfless goodness”/love that is Christ Himself, which can only be provided in history. The gift of death is a gift within history. Not only my death, but the death of Christ for me, where promises eternal are uncovered, unearthed, revealed, made known. Secrets are no more.
It is here, most precisely, that we see responsibility and faith go hand in hand (paradoxically). At death, we are confronted with ourselves and must take responsibility for ourselves, our actions, and our failures. Yet with faith we know that Christ Himself has died (the gift!) for those actions, He takes responsibility whilst we do simultaneously. For Derrida then, "the gift of death is this marriage of faith and responsibility"6 where we are confronted, absolutely, with both and their relation to each other. The gift of death is the marriage of faith and responsibility. Our death is a gift in that faith and responsibility finally meet. And not only meet, but marry! A perfect union to last, we can only say, forever. (Is this the only time we can say that “‘til death do us part” simply cannot apply: the limit of death no longer applies and so this union certainly is eternal?)
Derrida then claims that history depends on the gift of death at first, on this excessive beginning that marries faith and responsibility, even if only in possibility, since the genesis of history. Is Derrida here referencing the “spirit hovering over the waters” in the Book of Genesis? Perhaps this is too speculative for you. But we must admit that such a thought, for Derrida, that history is contingent on anything at all is precisely the sort of metaphysical religious contingency that requires a view beyond the horizon of the physical, material world.
What does one do, then, with the gift of death? (Is this not the mirror-question of the Christian, “what does one do with the gift of faith”?) There are two activities, intertwined: becoming-responsible and becoming-historical. Both are intimately tied to the Christian event of the "terrifying mystery of the sacrificial gift" (i.e., Christ's death).7
In both becoming-responsible and becoming-historical, one is engaged in the task of becoming-human. A person can only become a person when “paralyzed in singularity” by the “gaze of God.”8 Here, we turn again to Kierkegaard and his anatomy of the self in The Sickness Unto Death, where one must be "anchored in the power that established him" in order to fully escape despair and, thus, attain faith and the fully human experience.
When one is paralyzed in singularity by the gaze of God, one see's oneself in the gaze of another. Sartre has a nice story indicating the power of this reflective gaze of the Other: a boy has climbed the stairway, walked down the hallway, and peered through the keyhole to watch a girl undress. He watches, innocently enough. Then, a creak on the stair. Someone is coming. They see the boy there, and he turns and looks at them while still frozen (paralyzed!) in his keyhole-peeping position. The boy is suddenly made aware of his ethical situation: seeing the horror/disdain/judgment of the other, the boy suddenly experiences the morality of his action in a way that he did not before. How much more powerful is this gaze when it is the gaze of God Himself? Of course, the power of God's gaze is enough to paralyze one for life. But we are fortunate that this same God "holds our right hand" (Psalm 74) nevertheless. And indeed, Derrida notes, this God holds us by the interior hand. It is within, not without. This superior being that calls us to responsibility holds us from within, whilst maintaining its "superior" and manifestly distinct characteristics. This supreme being cannot in any way be characterized as part of us in the way we might think. Its origin is not within us, and yet it is capable of holding our "interior" hand. This is not an immaterial observation by Derrida, but rather an observation of the most material kind. It is a theological statement, through and through.
What does this mean, then, that this God "holds our interior hand"? How does this bear on responsibility as Derrida explore sit? First, we must note that this "holding of the interior hand" does not permit responsibility to be subjugated to the realm, to the objectivity, of knowledge. To "subordinate responsibility to the objectivity of knowledge is to discount responsibility," Derrida says.9 This provides the sort of ethical structures that enable us to call one another to ethical action, to determine what is ethical and what is unethical as we live together, but still leaves room for what Kierkegaard calls the "teleological suspension of the ethical," where what we might "know," objectively, as ethical and unethical behavior does not fit the ethics of what we have been called to do by this supreme being.10
Structurally, Derrida provides the following meta-historical framing for responsibility: first, we have orgiastic mystery11 from which Platonism emerges. In doing so, Platonism suppresses the orgiastic mystery (which we can think of as a sort of unrestrained explosion of emotion/passion/personality). The orgiastic mystery informs Platonism, yet at the same time is suppressed by it in a Kierkegaardian dialectic. Christian thinking then emerges from Platonism (Derrida emphasizes that in many ways, Christianity is essentially a neo-Platonism--a point where he is, ultimately, wrong.) This Christian thinking is informed by Platonism (correct), and suppresses Platonism (also correct… it's where he says it's the "new" Platonism, as if Christianity is just Platonism smuggled in under the guise of Christianity that he is mistaken.)
What we find, then, is that under this Christian emergence of responsibility, my gaze, precisely as it regards my own self, is no longer the measure of all things.12 True subjectivity is abolished by one's relation to Other. And again, this is not just a relation to God, but to one's neighbor. In this way, we can say that love of neighbor abolishes true subjectivity. This is the emergence of proper responsibility. True ethical action emerges as a response to the need of one's neighbor. This is always the fascinating "warped mirror" reflection of Christian ethics and modern political leftism: Christianity requires that the individual be "roused to action" for one's neighbour (the means of which Derrida addresses shortly), and modern political leftism also requires the same. The warp, however, attempts to dispense with the context within which one is roused to the love of neighbor. Gone is the supreme being that holds our interior hand, whose gaze we are eternally staring at. Gone is the standard from which we must aim, when we are roused to action, what are we acting for? Leftism cannot truly answer these questions with the same depth as Christianity, and this is where it ultimately fails to fully reflect the origin of responsibility.13
For Patocka (and fully endorsed here by Derrida), Christianity is theonly means of plumbing the depths of the "abyss of responsibility".14 Messianic eschatology is indissociable from phenomenology.15 It is not possible to fully explore the existence of things, including ourselves, without messianic eschatology. To remove the canopy protecting us from abyssal anomy, we must look to Christ. Some have criticized Derrida for removing Christ from his portrayal of Christianity in The Gift of Death, making Christianity a sort of Gnosticism. But as with many biblical texts, Christ is present even where He isn't explicitly mentioned by name. Derrida may have been all too aware of this. His judaic heritage gave him intimate knowledge of the Old Testament biblical texts, where Christological readings of the Hebrew text reveal Christ as present long before he was born into the world.
So then, where does Christianity emerge? In classic Derridean style, the answer is, first, not through Christianity. For Derrida, Christianity has yet to fully shed its Platonic roots (ie, it is still suppressing and being informed by Platonism). Therefore, there has been no authentic Christian politic because of the residual Platonic polis. This is all too clear in much of the West, where (of course) the Roman Empire carried with it much Platonic thinking when it converted to a Christian state, but also other Western states were firmly influenced by Greek thinking before their statewide conversion to Christianity. The residue from that conversion has never truly left when thinking Christo-politically. Europe must break from its Greco-Roman politics to fully achieve Christianity.16 Derrida, excited, asks, "what is the secret of a europe emancipated from Rome and Athens?"17 The secret is Christianity, authentically political. One is tempted to question the place of Christianity in politics. But when one does so, is one not already thinking of politics as defined by two thousand years of Greco-Roman definitions of what politics should be? Does Christianity not demand that we have a total break from such structures in order to have a fully authentic Christian politic? There is a space outside these structures within we have lived, thought, and interacted that is distinctly Christian. Perhaps the task of deconstruction is washing off the Greco-Roman residue of politics so that we can start anew, held both within and without by the supreme being, by God, by Christ.
Peterson Jordan B et al. 12 Rules for Life : An Antidote to Chaos. Random House Canada 2018, p. 306.
Id. at 310-311.
There may be some Derrideans among you who insist that I am misreading Derrida. But if you find yourself thinking as such, please do let me know precisely where I am misreading him, as I am simply following Derrida's own advice: there is no outside-text! And taking Derrida on the page as I find him.
Derrida Jacques. The Gift of Death. University of Chicago Press 1996, p. 2.
Ibid.
Id. at 6.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Id. at 7.
Please note that I am being careful not to say that a particular "situation" might call for a teleological suspension of the ethical, as I would rather not confuse this concept with what one might call "situation ethics," an entirely different (and perhaps more incorrect?) beast.
And yes, that word means roughly what you think it does…
Derrida, 7.
My point in this article is both that Jacques Derrida is not the enemy of personal responsibility as many on the right have made him seem, but also to point out that he wasn't afraid to criticize the left either, and that he offers a fascinating "inbetween" path that is rarely explored because of political biases.
Derrida, 28.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Id. at 29.
(Photo source: Photograph by Denis Dailleux / Redux)
Excellent piece Anthony! Derrida is one of these thinkers that is so easy to misread, and thank you for your clarifications and observations.