Clarity

While reading this text, I found myself referring to previous knowledge I’ve acquired from this class and others. While Jaques Derrida was attempting to explain his claim through thorough examples of why Difference with an e, which at the basic level is indicating to differ, to be of a distinction (along with many other elaborate details to support the singular word), he argued that Difference with an a, is not a word or a concept at all. Therefore making it an ineligible word for further definition. To be honest, I’m still not entirely sure the purpose of the word Difference other than in the spoken, the word distinction is inaudible, therefore it can only be recognized in written text. With this he suggests, that only the written word attempts some form of clarity.

I believe this slightly contradicts with what he states on page 277 in reference to the two axes. The axis that he is speaking of specifically with this example is time: “When we think of anything we cannot grasp it in the ‘present moment’ because that present moment is always slipping away” (Derrida 277). The moment I read this, I was immediately taken back to Campbell’s essay. In it, she notes the value of a live experience. The women and men present at Sojourner Truth's speech experienced an entirely different experience than the one we the Millennials are recreating. Both theorists are implying that once a thought is transcribed into a symbol and written down on some form of media, that means of communication (language) is dead.  Same with spoken word, it is no longer. This brings me to his second axe, space. He states that a locatable object in space has its own identity.

“Trace,” however, is without an identity because it shadows the presence. The way in which I interpreted this idea, is that all ideas, and objects of thought and perception bear a ‘trace’ of other things. They bear a trace of alterity. I strongly agree with the idea that we are constantly building off of one another. Derrida states that our thoughts are not pure or original because they stem from another part. He believes that all ‘parts’ are connected.

While reading this I couldn’t help but think of the Sophists. They believed that our truth is based on individual perception. Our perception of the world, according to them is inherently flawed due to our experiences, which shape the way in which we perceive the world around us. As it relates to Derrida, there are no pure or original thoughts because it all stems from a part of the same source. To put it in the most common of terms, it is the cycle of life; at the core of it all, ideas are passed down and repeated

In short, I do not think that writing does not present clarity. However I think that it does a good job of trying to describe attributes that may already be familiar to the reader. When an author does this they are assigning a ‘part’ to a whole of a characteristic by giving it qualities that are similar to some other object (or idea). Derrida says on page 284 that “when the present does not present itself we signify, we go through the detour of signs” (Derrida 284).