Slavoj Žižek on Jacques Derrida, or On Derrida’s Search for a Middle Ground Between Marx and Benjamin, and His Finding Žižek Instead

INTRODUCTIONIn what has now become almost a caricature of itself, according to Derrida, the West's systematic rendering of historical dialectics functioned as a movement of mediation between two full presences.1 Derrida's subsequent negation of (the metaphysics of) presence, however, meant that he was also permanently stuck in-between two poles of thought, between, in words that Derrida himself utilized and which I have discussed elsewhere, canonical (representational) forms and their spectral messianic undoing.2 What Derrida pointed toward through such concepts, defined specifically in relation to Hegel, was the recognition of a form of dialectics practiced as a ceaseless interplay between general and restricted economies that yet comes to define our sense of identification (or 'cultural intelligibility') tout court. The entire deconstructionist project, however, often seemed, to many, to hinge upon a decidedly one-sided view of this rather traditionally conceived-but perhaps also misunderstood-dialectics. This is a fact that, in the present instance, continues to draw our attention quite precisely to certain contemporary (Marxist) dialectical thinkers who opposed, and still oppose, Derrida's project, without, I will here suggest, fully comprehending the stakes in terms of what Derrida was actually attempting to perform as a more 'pure critique' of political structures and norms.As Matthias Fritsch has already indicated, Derrida's conceptualization of dialectics in relation to messianicity is somewhat problematized when juxtaposed against his reading of Walter Benjamin, a figure for whom dialectics were not simply to be continued, but brought to a standstill.3 Such a reading of Derrida would, likewise, affect our understanding of Derrida's reading of Benjamin on issues concerning, for example, the role of violence within our world's political representational frameworks (as in his essay "Force of Law").4 Recasting Derrida's reading of Benjamin as, indeed, somewhat problematic-because he could not bring dialectics to a standstill as Benjamin had sought to, but only emphasized one end of their operations, the deconstructivist side-might allow us to reread Derrida with a new understanding of the political role of deconstruction.Going even a step beyond this, as I intend to do in what follows, we might also be able to take such an interpretation of Derridean politics as indicative of a larger reading of dialectics as a whole. Indeed, Frederic Jameson's recent criticisms of Derrida, if read alongside Jameson's endorsement of Benjamin, might offer us an insight in this regard, as he presents a certain permanent 'suspension' of dialectics, claiming that there is, in truly following Hegel, no third term to be produced. Jameson, for his part, significantly aligns himself in this regard with Paul Ricoeur, a figure no less indebted to dialectical thinking, but often portrayed as more hermeneutical than his deconstructively-minded former colleague, Derrida.5But, are Ricoeur and Derrida so different after all? That is, is deconstruction not capable of being perceived as a necessary partner in hermeneutical operations through and through? It is in light of such questions that I would ask: to what degree are Jameson's sustained critiques of Derrida yet in line with Derrida's own practice of dialectical methods? Are they as opposed as we often take them to be?Critiques of 'Derrida's politics' from contemporary Marxist positions are nothing new, though the nature and force of their argumentation need to be further analyzed in order to conceive of what stake Derrida will continue to have in our understanding of any political or Hegelian inheritance within the coming decades. In this essay, I seek to advance the conversation between Derrida and his Hegelian-Marxist critics-with Slavoj Zizek's unique reading of Derrida being here foremost among them-in order to ascertain more precisely the framework of debate on dialectics and deconstruction that continues to define our realms of political representation. …