Analysis #5 - Poststructuralism and Derrida

Born in El-Biar, Algeria, to a Jewish Algerian family, Derrida moved to France at the age of 22 to begin his studies at the École Normale Supérieur, university for Higher education in Paris, focusing on the phenomenology of Edmund Husserl. His particular interest was in the analysis of écriture, the writing of philosophy itself.What is not commonly known about Derrida is the fact that though he is thought to be French, he is Algerian, since at the time of his birth, Algeria was a French colony.
From 1965 to 1984, Derrida taught at his alma mater, dividing his time between universities in Paris and America, at schools such as Yale and Johns Hopkins. Over the years he wrote several books from Speech and Phenomena , Of Grammatology and Writing and Difference, all in 1967, to The Post Card: From Socrates to Freud and Beyond (1980), all of which spoke of his “post-structural” ideas as he and other French theorists had their ideas called by the Americans. He was not alone in his theories, one example being Michel Foucault himself.
After his death of pancreatic cancer in 2004, he has without question been labeled one of the most influential philosophers of the 20th century.

Post-structuralism is one of the more difficult theories to translate. In short, though, it can be said that is shows human culture to be molded from language itself.
The title itself was created by American scholars to place a name to the series of works done by French academics. The distinction between the two, post-structuralism and structuralism itself forms a distinction between organization of reality with that of imagination and ideas, a sort of ‘third order”. The precise idea of the differences structuralism differ from author to author, with common themes of rejection and self-sufficiency, as well as a series of binary oppositions throughout.
Structuralism itself was a movement during the 1950s and 60s that used analytical concepts of linguistics, psychology, anthropology and other fields to understand the construct of culture itself.
Like any theory, both structuralism and post-structuralism had their faults. Structuralism felt that systems of meaning were arbitrary and unnecessary, though critics would say that this wasn’t completely true since structuralists still found reason to find a fixed point in meaning to be studied.
Like many theorists, Derrida knew that both poststructuralism and structuralism were faulty, which kept him writing like many others in both areas, attempting to find a point that there were no faults, if that is ever possible:
"The future can only be anticipated in the form of an absolute danger. It is that which breaks absolutely with constituted normality and can only be proclaimed, presented, as a sort of monstrosity. For that future world and for that within it which will have put into question the values of sign, word, and writing, for that which guides our future anterior, there is as yet no exergue" (p.1691, Derrida).
Here Derrida gets across that so far, there is no idea where language will lead the world in its ever changing ways. We will just have to stand aside and watch.

Works Cited
Leitch, Vincent B. The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. New York: Norton, 2001. Print.

Weekly Post #8 - D&G and Postmodernism

A schizophrenic out for a walk is a better model than a neurotic lying on the analyst's couch. A breath of fresh air, a relationship with the outside world.
Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, Anti-Oedipus.

Deleuze and Guattari, sometimes referred to as D&G, they followed the theory started from Lacan about the human mind not being as clear as the rhyme and reason as why is does what is does, it just does. Freud didn't like to look at this view of things, finding he preferred the more mapped out more predictable map of the human mind he himself discovered.
In class, we viewed part of American Psycho, where a yuppy for no clear reason, starts to kill anyone one he just about comes across, prostitutes, co-workers, by the end of the movie, almost anyone. But then the main character discovers none of what he did happened, and he has a breakdown. This is a prime example of what Freud is against, that he believes that every action a person has is for a clear reason, and Patrick Bateman's actions have no reason, but seem to serve as an outlet from some sort of suppressed emotions, no one really knows.

Weekly Post #7 - Poststructuralism and Foucault

A major part of Foucault's theory included binaries within Poststructuralism in which he is considered one of its founders. Early in his career, he became disillusioned by Marxist, and came to reject the idea of ideology, a big part of marxism. Three parts of this part of his theory include:
1.) ideology is always in opposition with another truth claim. 2.) it refers to something of the order of a subject. 3.) it is based on determinist infrastructure (base) – superstructure model (criticism of economic determinism).
With this, Foucault saw power differently than Marx did, he saw is as something exercised rather than possessed, something that could only be practiced and had to anchors to any one place or institution.

Weekly Post #6 - No Class - A Major Issue with Spring Break

Easter break. Seems that it should come at the same time every year, but unfortunately in today's society, the actual reason for the holiday is dwindling. Its sad that people just look forward to Spring Break, and not the actual reason that this time of year is really so important. From the fact that the Ten Commandments and classroom prayer, even the Pledge of Allegiance are either stricken from public view and away from our children, but that so many people do not realize what is really going on with all these things being wrong. These are things that our country were built on, and instead of respecting them, we are throwing them away or editing them, like a shirt with a fixable tear in it. All you need is a thread and needle. But unfortunately our country has become so blind that that we do not realize that the tear has gotten bigger over the course of the last century. It takes away the fact that one day a year is the day that one man, a simple carpenter died for all of us, so that we could live the lives we have today, and so many of us do not have the gall to celebrate the holiday properly, instead, Spring Breaks are scattered all over the month of April like little kids and their candy wrappers, instead of leaving the week after Easter open for a longer time of realizing what one man gave up for us all.