let it be

thinking this while shedding the contents of a
hall closet onto the floor in search of an old
recipe (book)and finding a personal copy of
Do the Right Thing (1989) wedged tightly under
everything else. So much unnecessary clutter.
Wondering why long lost items only resurface
precisely when one is not looking for them?
Convinced that it must have something to do with
surreptitious black hole conduits hidden in the
shadowy deep space of storage compartments. How
they might routinely spill their contents backandforth
between parallel universes. The notion that
somewhere between here and there, all things happen
for a reason. Egalitarian exhange or Divine rationale.
That all of life's excrutiatingly profound answers lie
wedged in between the inbetweens. Contained. All those
hidden truths that accidently tumble out into the
lightoflife, when least expected. Speeding past while
one is just too busy looking for other things.

And suddenly quite determined to connect this notion
to the unfolding season at hand. To link randomly
retrieved videos to the time of year as it may or
may not relate to the deconstructive method.
This confluence. To make it fit.

1.


American New Wave. Cinematic subjectivity peppered
with (Spike Lee's unique brand of) neo-realism.
Auteur director. Filmic essay unraveling the exact
sociopolitical nature of (his) urban milieu. Mixing
film forms. Juxtaposing moods. Playing with a
celluloid language to pose questions about violence
as-a-product-of-oppression. As expressed from within
an explosive visual style. Actual quotes from Martin
Luther King and Malcolm X contextualizing the film.
Neo-realist strategy to create an historical frame
through the rapidfire play of an era's worth of music.
Auditory mise-en-scène. Ambiguous message concerning
the nature of violence. Condoning violence as
self-defense (as Malcolm X suggests)? Or violence as
an immoral act, regardless of situation ethics
(as Martin Luther King suggests)? The King quote
resonates ever-louder in this festive holiday season,
claiming; "An eye for an eye leaves everybody blind."

The unravelling closet of so many open-ended questions.

+ 2.

Most of Derrida's early writings advocate one single truth.
That thought is limited by language's inability to fix
meaning in absolute terms. That there can be no absolute
truths that transcend language. Turth-in-flux. Truth of a
moment. Just as there is no escape from the language which
permits its denotation. Paradox: if G_d is a word, then all
language-based concepts are deconstructable. All lead to other
wor(l)ds in infinite regress, which in turn lead to the
impossibility of absolutes. But for language, Truth.

Always but.

Derrida's later writings admit to the existence of one
absolute. The one that ultimately remains outside of
language and the once incapable of being deconstructed.
Justice. In an 1989 symposium in New York, Derrida
lectures on deconstruction. On the possibility of Justice.
Deconstruction applied to the law. How it cannot undercut
the notion of justice which precedes the law. Since 1990,
his ideas grow increasingly intent on discussing the
political implications of deconstruction. That there can
be no political discourse outside the frame of culture.
How politics and culture remain interconnected.
Is this why humanities subjects more readily embrace (the
process of) deconstruction than other faculties do?

To question the institution of Western philosophy.
How it is perpetuated. Partly to raise the issue of
(university) responsibility. Ever seeking alternative
ways to 'write' university education from within an
educational bureaucracy that reveres logocentric
learning. To interrogate tradition. Promising to make
room for the impossibility of thinking what has not
yet been thought. Doing so from inside its hallowed
halls. Knowing change only happens from within.
Knowing that the deconstruction of institutional
thinking has ethical implications. And always seeking
justice. Justice as an experience of undecidability.
Thinking a justice that always addresses itself to a
singular other. To what gets left out. As Derrida states;

"There can be no 'politics', no law, no ethics without
the responsibility of a decision, which to be just,
cannot content itself with applying existing norms
or rules" (Derrida, 2000).

The Ethics of Deconstruction

The word 'ethic' derives from the Greek word 'ethos'.
Meaning custom or habit. Refers to the characteristic
conduct of an individual human life. Ethics. Also
that branch of philosophy concerned with the evaluation
of human conduct. Its history as a disciplined study
begins with Aristotle. Derrida distinguishes between
the factual study of the ethical standards (or principles)
of a group (or tradition) as descriptive ethics. Whereas
the development of theories and ideologies
that systematically determine right and wrong actions
is called normative ethics. While the pragmatic use of these theories form judgments regarding its practical cases
is called applied ethics.
Finally, the careful analysis of the meaning and justification
of ethical claims is resolutely called meta-ethics (Kemerling, 2000).

If deconstruction is an ethics...If it promises a new way
to think beyond creating norms and values. A way to rethink
the institution of that idea, it follows that one must first
question the institution (of the university) as an 'idea'.
In the case of traditional philosophy, deconstruction
questions the foundation of reason (upon which philosophy
is built). But in doing so, the act of displacing
tradition always raises ethical concerns. One that is
always responsible for addressing that which has been
marginalized (in traditional institutions).

A meta-ethical lens.

Neo-realist.

To unravel the ethics inherent in deconstruction.
To understand its certain paradoxes. A deconstruction
that questions the assumptions of traditional philosophy.
Namely a metaphysics of presence, an epistemology of
absolutes and a psychology of identity. Deep sigh.
Derrida challenges these Notions that remain at the
centre of Greek thought. Those that remain with us.
Those that influence Western thinking for the past 2500
years. Long line of thought. (De)constructing a lever with
which to re-examine their usefulness. Not negating them.
But placing them under-erasure. Re-inscribing them with
the form of paradoxes. Showing their contra-dictions so as
to suggest other possibilities.

Derrida replaces a Western metaphysics of presence
with a metaphysics of dissemination.
Replaces an epistemology of absolutes with an epistemology
of differance.
Replaces a psychology of identity with a psychology of undecidability.
All three replacements suggest aporias which undo
the Western philosophical tradition.

= 3.

Tis the season for cluttered closets
and the spilling out of inbetweens,
disseminating spikey things
in decon/recon juxtapositions,
amidst 2500 years of presence
habitually placed under the epistemological trees
that grow inside one's head
and scratching these words across eyes
to shine like stars
to light the way
while wondering
if
this
is
why
your
uni-verse
extolls
the
trojan
horse
of
viral
love
rolled
up
and
over,
again
and
again