"[ Woman On TV] Good evening." "Later on tonight's late show... we look at the French philosopherJacques Derrida... founder of the post-structuralist mode of analysis... known as deconstruction... and internationally acknowledged by many as one of the most innovative... and inspiring of contemporary philosophers." "[ Siren Wailing ]" "[ Chattering ]" "My theory is that Americans exist to the degree that they're being filmed... or believe themselves to be filmed." " Yeah." " This is their natural condition." "[ Mumbles ] You see how Americanized I am now." "Careful." "[ Chuckles ]" "She sees everything around me, but she's totally blind." "That's the image of the philosopher who falls in the well." "You say?" " [ Woman ] Yes." " While looking at the star." " [ Car Alarm Blaring ]" " Watch it." "Watch-- Uh-uh-uh-uh-uh." "[ Derrida ] I have these people around all the time, day and night." "Wherever I am, for two weeks now they have been constantly..." " Mm." " tracking me." "[ Woman ] Are you getting used to it?" " Sometimes I forget." "I just forget." " Yeah?" "[ Elevator Bell Dings ]" "[ Derrida ] We should not neglect the fact that some biographies-- written by people who have authority in the academy-- finally invest this authority in a book... which, for centuries sometimes... after the death of an author, represent the truth." "Huh?" "The truth." "Someone... interested in biography writes..." "Life and Works of Heidegger." "Well documented... apparently consistent... and it's the only one... published by-- under the authority of a good press." "Okay?" "And then, Heidegger's image" "Heidegger's life image-- is fixed and stabilized for centuries." "That's why I would say that sometimes... the one who reads a text by a philosopher... for instance, a tiny paragraph..." " [ Camera Shutter Clicks ] - and interprets it in a rigorous... inventive and... powerfully deciphering fashion... is more of a real biographer... than the one who knows the whole story." "[ Derrida ] This is the blue jacket I have." "That's nice." "But this doesn't fit with the-- This is black, this is not blue." "Okay?" " And I usually can't" " I know." "Can I" " We won't get your bottom half." "Can I see what it looks like?" "Is that okay?" "I'm sorry to trouble you." "As you know, the traditional philosophy excludes biography... considers biography as something external to philosophy." "You remember, uh..." "Heidegger's statement... about Aristotle." "Heidegger once was asked, I think, uh..." ""What is" " What was the life of Aristotle?"" "What could we answer to the question:" "What was Aristotle's life?" "Well, the answer is very simple." "Aristotle was a philosopher." "The answer holds in one sentence:" ""He was born, he thought and he died."" "And all the rest is pure anecdote." "[ Woman ] His mother's grave is profaned." "His parents never read any ofhis books." "He cries out, "Mommy, I'm scared, '"" "every night until she lets him sleep on a sofa near them." "One side ofhis face is paralyzed for three weeks... leaving his eye open continuously, unblinking." "His father composes his own death notice... shortly before he dies of cancer." "He's expelled from school because he is Jewish." "He learns he was given a secret name, Eli... after thejewish prophet Elijah, that isn't on his birth certificate." "He fails his first entrance exam to the university." "He writes his first novel at age 1 5... about the theft of a diary and blackmail for its return." "He pretends to learn Hebrew so as to read it without understanding it." "He is arrested and thrown in prison for 2 4 hours in Prague... for transporting drugs, which the authorities plant on him." "He receives a collect call from someone who identifies himself as..." ""Martini'"Heidegger." "He declines an offer from Marguerite Duras... to play a part in one ofher films." "As an adolescent, he dreams of becoming a professional soccer player." "He doesn't circumcise his sons... greatly upsetting his mother and father." "He suffers from sleeplessness and nervous collapse... from the overuse of sleeping tablets and amphetamines." "His older brother lives only seven days... dying just a year before he is born." "Classical philosophers... usually avoid autobiography." "It is because they think it's indecent." "That is, a philosopher should not speak of himself as an empirical being." "And this impoliteness, or this politeness... is philosophy itself, in principle." "So, if we want to break... with this philosophical axiom, classical philosophical axiom... according to which a philosopher should not present himself... or..." "[ Stammers ] give in to autobiography... then we have to be indecent to some extent." "[ Woman ] We no longer consider the biography of a philosopher... as a set of empirical accidents... that leaves one with a name... that within itselfbe offered up to philosophical reading... the only kind of reading held to be philosophically legitimate." "Neither readings of philosophical systems... nor external empirical readings... have ever in themselves questioned the dynamics... of that borderline between the work and the life... between the system and the subject of the system." "This borderline is neither active nor passive." "It's neither outside nor inside." "It is most especially not a thin line... an invisible or indivisible trait... that lies between the philosophy on the one hand... and the life of an author on the other." "[ Chattering ]" " Hi." "My name's Jenny." " Hi." "Listening to you speak just elucidated your texts just so much to me." " Thank you." "Thank you." " [ Giggles ]" " But I just wanted to meet you." " Thank you." "I-I read your novel, one of your novels over the summer." "I just wanted to hear you speak so I could understand it better." "I started reading about negative theology... [ Garbled ] and I was wondering if there was any connection... between, you said a specific Christian discourse... but I was wondering if there was any connection between that and say Hebrew cabala..." " uh, and something" " Yeah, it never, it never finishes." "But it's not the same thing." "Cabala is full of... such gentle God beyond God-- [ Microphone Interference ]" "[ Continues, Indistinct ]" " But it doesn't mean there aren't a number of" " Thank you." "[ Woman ] You're very well known in the States for deconstruction." "Can you talk a little bit about the origin of that idea?" "[ In French ]" "[ Woman ] The very condition of a deconstruction... may be at work in the work, within the system to be deconstructed." "It may already be located there, already at work." "Not at the center but in an eccentric center... in a corner whose eccentricity assures the solid concentration of the system... participating in the construction of what it, at the same time... threatens to deconstruct." "One might then be inclined to reach this conclusion." "Deconstruction is not an operation that supervenes afterwards... from the outside, one fine day." "It is always already at work in the work." "Since the disruptive force of deconstruction... is always already contained within the very architecture of the work... all one would finally have to do to be able to deconstruct... given this always already, is to do memory work." "Yet since I want neither to accept or to reject... a conclusion formulated in precisely these terms... let us leave this question suspended for the moment." "[ Chattering ]" "[ In French ]" "[ Beeping ]" "[ Beeping ]" "[ Meows ]" "[ Speaking French ]" "[ Woman ]" "[ Woman ] Who is it that is addressing you?" "Since it is not an author, a narrator or a deus ex machina... it is an "I'"that is both part of the spectacle... and part of the audience." "An "I'"that, a bit like "you, '"" "undergoes its own incessant violent reinscription... within the arithmetical machinery." "An "I'"that functioning as a pure passageway... for operations of substitution... is not some singular and irreplaceable existence... some subject or life... but only rather moves between life and death... between reality and fiction." "An "I'"that is a mere function or phantom." "[ Woman ]" "[ Woman ]" "[ Woman ] There is not narcissism and non-narcissim." "There are narcissisms that are more or less comprehensive... generous, open, extended." "What is called non-narcissism is in general... but the economy of a much more welcoming and hospitable narcissism." "One that is much more open to the experience of the Other as Other." "I believe that without a movement of narcissistic reappropriation... the relation to the Other would be absolutely destroyed." "It would be destroyed in advance." "The relation to the Other, even if it remains asymmetrical... open, without possible reappropriation... must trace a movement of reappropriation... in the image of one's self for love to be possible." "Love is narcissistic." "[ Footsteps Approaching ]" "[ Woman ]" "[ Woman ]" "[ Woman ]" "[ Woman ]" "[ Derrida ]" " These are facts." " [ Woman, In French ]" "Raw facts." "[ Woman ] Now, well, okay." "[ In French ]" "What I'd like to ask you about now is this question of the anecdote." "At the biography conference, you quoted Heidegger as saying... that one could sum up the life of Aristotle as:" "Aristotle was born, he thought and he died." "And then when I asked you about your relationship with Marguerite... you said I can give you the facts, the dates and that's it." "Can you offer some commentary on that?" "[ In French ]" "[ Woman ]" "[ Derrida ]" "[ Marguerite ]" "[ Derrida ]" "[ Woman ] Was it strange to you to see something you had no memory of?" "." "[ No Audible Dialogue ]" "[ Woman ] Just whatever you want to say." "[ Woman, In French ]" "[ Woman, In French ]" "[ Woman, In French ]" "[ Woman ]" "How do you call this?" "[ Woman ] Dispute?" " No problem." "You know, the usual family" "Always something." "Absolute peace." "[ Woman ]" "That was the first and only last time." "[ Laughs ] I saw that once and for all." "[ Mumbles ] You remember this." "[ Chattering In French ]" "[ Derrida, In French ]" "[ Woman ]" "[ Woman ] And I am writing here at the moment... when my mother no longer recognizes me." "And at which, though still capable of speaking or articulating a little... she no longer calls me." "And for her, and therefore for the rest ofher life..." "I no longer have a name." "That's what's happening." "And when she nonetheless seems to reply to me... she's presumably replying to someone... who happens to be me without her knowing it... ifknowing means anything here." "Like the other day in Nice... when I asked her if she was in pain." ""Yes. '" Then where?" "It was February 5, 1 989." "She had in a rhetoric that could never have been hers... the audacity of this stroke about which she will... alas, never know anything... no doubt knew nothing... and which piercing the night replies to my question.:" ""I have a pain in my mother, '"" "as though she were speaking for me... both in my direction and in my place." "I stop for a moment over a pang of remorse... in any case, over the admission I owe the reader... in truth that I owe my mother herself... for the reader will have understood that I am writing for my mother... perhaps even for a dead woman." "For if I were here writing for my mother... it would be for a living mother who does not recognize her son." "And I am paraphrasing here for whomever no longer recognizes me... unless it be so that one should no longer recognize me... another way of saying, another version... so that people think they finally recognize me." "[ Man On Radio ]" "[ Timer Bell Dings ]" "[ Derrida Speaking French ]" "[ Man ] We are now approaching the actual maximum security prison." "[ Chattering ]" "[ Man, Indistinct ]" " How much?" "Eighteen years." " Eighteen years." " That was his cell." " That was his cell?" "Yes." "[ Man ] You will notice that in this cell... there is no water facility or toilets." "Toilets were the buckets." "Their own bucket with a lid." "[ Woman ] As soon as there is the One... there is murder, wounding, traumatism." "The One guards against the Other." "It protects itself from the Other." "But in the movement of this jealous violence... it comprises in itself its self-otherness or self-difference." "The difference from within one's Self, which makes it One." "The One as the Other." "At one and the same time... but in the same time that is out ofjoint." "The One forgets to remember itself to its Self." "It keeps and erases the archive of this injustice that it is... of this violence that it does." "The One makes itself violence." "It violates and does violence to itself." "It becomes what it is, the very violence that it does to itself." "The determination of the Self as One is violence." "[ Derrida ] More than once, we will be faced... with the effects of a preliminary question... which is the question.:" "Who or what?" "Does one forgive someone for a wrong committed... or does one forgive someone something?" "Someone who, in whatever way, can never totally be confused... with the wrongdoing... and the moment of the past wrongdoing nor with the past injury." "So, the question:" "Who or what?" "Do we forgive someone, or do we forgive someone something?" "[ Man ] Okay, a final final question." "[ Man ] There is a very anxious question." "Um, so you're a white Western male, speaking to a white audience." "We are part of the previous oppressive community in South Africa." "And you are speaking to us about unconditional forgiveness." "Um, you might have meant that pure forgiveness thing... um, with a lot of irony." "Um, and maybe that is something that is really impossible." "You know, pure forgiveness being really impossible." "But we sit here as potential objects of forgiveness... and we are, all of us, you included, in a sense guilty." " Now, don't you think" " Okay." " [ Man ] Ask your question." "Don't you think it fulfills an ideological function speaking to us... telling us, in a sense, we should not repent, not ask for forgiveness... because then we ruin pure, unconditional forgiveness." "At the same time, you are telling oppressed people... they should forgive without expecting repentance." "[ Derrida ] Uh, first of all, I take irony seriously." "I take the problem of irony very seriously." "And we need some irony, that is something... which challenges the commonsensical concepts." "And you can't do this without some irony." "So there was no doubt some irony." "Now, of course, in this context..." "I understand your concern and I share your concern." "I want to precisely draw a very rigorous border... between the pure concept of forgiveness... and the idea of reconciliation... and the idea of excuse and the process which is going on." "I think that as soon as you mix the concept of forgiveness... with all the connected concepts which are at work in this current process-- that is reconciliation, repentance, so on and so forth-- then first you obscurely Christianize the process." "You introduce confusion and obscurity... in something which has to be as clear as possible." "[ Derrida In French ]" "[ Man ] Okay." "Five seconds to go." "Five, four, three, two, one." "In your own time." "If I give you an example I've often thought to myself... that Seinfeld, which is America's most popular ever sitcom." "Seinfeld." "Do you know of the Seinfeld sitcom in America?" "If you think of a classic American..." "Jerry Seinfeld made this sitcom... about a group of people living together." "Everything is about irony and parody... and what you do with your kitchen cupboard... is imbued with as much feeling or thought... as whether someone believes in God, if you like." "Do you see anything in that?" "Deconstruction, the way I understand it, doesn't produce any sitcom." "And if a sitcom is this and this... and the people who watch this think that deconstruction is this... the only advice I have to give them is just read... stop watching sitcoms and try and do your homework and read." "[ Chattering ]" "[ Woman ] It's not easy to improvise." "It's the most difficult thing to do." "Even when one improvises in front of a camera or a microphone... one ventriloquizes or leaves another to speak in one's place... the schemas and languages that are already there." "There are already a great number of prescriptions... that are prescribed in our memory and in our culture." "All the names are already preprogrammed." "It's already the names that inhibit our ability to ever really improvise." "One can't say whatever one wants." "One is obliged, more or less, to reproduce the stereotypical discourse." "And so I believe in improvisation." "And I fight for improvisation." "But always with the belief that it's impossible." "And there, where there is improvisation..." "I am not able to see myself." "I am blind to myself... and it's what I will see-- no, I won't see it-- it's for others to see." "The one who is improvised here... no, I won't ever see him." "[ Derrida, In French ]" "[ Clattering, Rustling ]" "[ Woman, In French ]" "[ Derrida ]" "[ Woman ]" "[ Speaking French ]" "Ah." "There was a time-- No, I never read this." "[ In English ]" "[ In French ]" " You recognize this, eh?" " Yes, I do." "So, she has slept here, huh?" " That's nice." "[ Man ] If you had a choice, what philosopher... would you have liked to have been your mother?" "That's his style?" "That's his own style?" " [ Clears Throat ] - [ Sea Gulls Crying ]" "I have no ready answer for this, let me" " Give me some time." "My mother?" "[ Chuckling ]" "A good question." "It's a good question." "In fact." "It's an interesting question." "I'll try to tell you why." "It's impossible for me to have any philosopher as a mother." "That's the problem, hmm?" "My mother-- My mother... couldn'tbe a philosopher." "[ In French ]" "[ Woman ] That philosophy died yesterday... since Hegel or Marx, Nietzsche or Heidegger-- and that philosophy should still wander toward the meaning of its death-- or that it has always lived knowing itself to be dying,:" "that philosophy died one day, within history... or that it has always fed on its own agony... on the violent way it opens history... by opposing itself to non-philosophy... which is its past and its concern... its death and wellspring,:" "and that, beyond the death or dying nature of philosophy... perhaps even because of it... thought still has a future." "Or even as is said today... is still entirely to come because of what philosophy has held in store,:" "or, more strangely still... that the future itself has a future." "All these are unanswerable questions." "By right ofbirth, and for one time at least... these are problems put to philosophy... as problems philosophy cannot resolve." "Long ago, I had dinner... and his mother, when she was alive, was there." "And one of the great dictionaries in France had just come out... and included, uh" "I don't know if it was the Petit Robert, or something-- included "difference" with an "A" and that it happened that day." "And at dinner I said that we should have a party to celebrate... the induction of "difference" with an "A"... into the dictionary." "This was a monumental, encyclopedic event... that ought to be marked, and a proper ceremony-- which I was very willing to arrange-- should take place." "And Jacques's mother, who is very ancient but noble... she said, "Jackie, did you spell "difference" with an "A"?" "And she was mortified." "But it was so sweet." "It was so fabulous, and there was this moment where I also felt..." "I had, um, blabbed... because, you know... now what's he supposed to do:" "explain to his mother, or" "He doesn't-- He's very modest." "He doesn't talk about himself to his family" "I mean, his relative's family." "[ In French ]" "[ Interviewer]" "[ Camerawoman ]" "[ Interviewer]" "[ Camerawoman ]" "[ Interviewer]" "[ Camerawoman ]" "[ Applause ]" "[ Derrida ] You can imagine how strange it is... to have someone gather your so-called archive... but to attend the event of the inauguration of the archive" "I realized the other day, and this afternoon... by looking at the archive, in the library... with these... uh, gray-  black and gray urns, uh..." " [ Laughing ] accumulated, like, of course in a graveyard... and, uh, already mourning" "We are already-- always already mourning." "Well, you know, among the concerns we have... about where are we going to be buried..." " [ Laughing ] - the question is, "With whom?"" "This is the entire Derrida archive... beginning there, and, um... almost to the end, and there's about a hundred boxes." "[ Yeghiayan ] But he mentioned that, you know, that his wife was... kind of reluctant to see these materials go." "That he was kind of foretelling of his imminent death... or something like that" "And, you know, we then had the boxes still in our reading room." "We were in a kind of different situation there." "And he, uh, he treated it like it was... you know, his little child." "And, I remember the manuscript, it was pushed out... and he looked at it, kind of touched the box." "You know, kind of sorry to see it go... or be in another domicile or whatever." "[ Woman ] The question of the archive... is not a question of the past." "It is not the question of a concept dealing with the past... that might already be at our disposal." "An archivable concept of the archive." "It is a question of the future... the question of the future itself... the question of a response, of a promise... and of a responsibility for tomorrow." "The archive." "If we want to know what that will have meant... we will only know in times to come." "Not tomorrow, but in times to come." "Later on, or perhaps never." "[ Woman, In French ]" "[ In French ]" "[ In English ]" "[ In French ]" "If you want a quick answer, you don't want a justification of the answer." "[ In French ]" "[ Woman ]" "[ Falling Silent ]" "[ In French ]" "When you will be editing all that, you will keep... exactly what you think has to be kept, okay?" "It will be your signature, and your autobiography in a certain way." "[ Woman ] How can another see into me... into my most secret Self... without my being able to see in there myself?" "." "And without my being able to see him in me." "And if my secret Self... that which can be revealed only to the Other... to the Holy Other-- to God if you wish-- is a secret that I will never reflect on... that I will never know, or experience or possess as my own... then what sense is there in saying that it is my secret?" "Or in saying, more generally, that a secret belongs,:" "that it is proper to, or belongs to someone... or to some Other who remains someone." "It's perhaps there that we find the secret of secrecy." "Namely, that it is not a matter ofknowing... and that it is there for no one." "A secret doesn't "belong. '"" "It can never be said to be "at home, '"" "or in its place." "The question of the Self, "Who am I?"-- not in the sense of "Who am I?" "'... but rather, "Who is this 'I' that can say, 'Who'?" ""What is the 'I'and what becomes of responsibility... once the identity of the 'I' trembles in secret?" "'"" "[ Woman ] You asked me the other day if I regretted... having undertaken this project, and I was wondering... if that was a projection-- if you've regretted it?" "No, so far." "Perhaps, one day I will regret it." "So far, no." "I don't know." " Have you ever been in psychoanalysis yourself?" "." " No." " Would you ever consider it?" " No." " I absolutely exclude it." " [ Laughing ]" "Could you characterize any traumatic breaks in your own life?" "Uh-- There has been, yes." "Yeah." "[ Laughing ]" "[ Giggling ] Thank you." "No, again, I won't be able to-- No." "No." "Um" " No." "No." "[ Traffic, Horns Honking ]" "[ Church Bell Ringing ]" "[ Woman ] We will wonder what he may have kept... ofhis unconditional right to secrecy... while at the same time, burning with the desire to know... to make known, and to archive... the very things he concealed forever." "What did he conceal, even beyond the intention to conceal?" "Beyond the intention to lie or to perjure." "We will always wonder what-- sharing with compassion in this archive fever-- what may have burned ofhis secret passions... ofhis correspondences or ofhis life." "Burned without him, without remains... and without knowledge." "Without the least symptom... and without even an ash."