Complex sentence: He was as brilliant as Derrida, Foucault, Althusser, Bahktin, Beaudrillard, Butler, and the rest, but lacked any trace of cynicism, and used an enlightened sense of pragmatic social justice to displace endlessly theorized away self-serving nihilism.
Split into simpler sentences: He was as brilliant as Derrida, Foucault, Althusser, Bahktin, Beaudrillard, Butler, and the rest. He lacked any trace of cynicism, and used an enlightened sense of pragmatic social justice to displace endlessly theorized away self-serving nihilism.