The+Decentering+Event+in+Social+Thought


 * =Title= || The Decentering Event in Social Thought ||
 * =Author= || Jacques Derrida ||
 * =Date= || 1966 ||
 * =Summary By= || Namalie

//Note: If you want a more coherent summary of Derrida’s work, I’d read the essay by Lemert. I first read the Derrida piece, got confused, then went to Lemert and got a little less confused. But nonetheless, I struggled with this summary so I apologize if I missed any important points.// ||
 * =Summary= || Derrida begins about an event that could have happened that ruptured the old way of thinking. He then starts talking about structure and how it had served to limit and confine modern thought.

Every structure has a center, a place of fixed origin. The center balances the structure but it also limits it; there is a lack of play. Play can only occur within the structure. However, the center is not part of the structure: “the center, which is by definition unique, constituted that very thing within a structure which while governing the structure, escapes structurality” (414). The center is within the structure and outside of it – the center is therefore not the center.

Before this event happened, the event that Derrida alluded to in the beginning, the entire history of the structure “must be thought of as a series of substitutions of center for center”, where the center came under different names (414). The event disrupted this repetitive, substitutive process, where it became necessary to think that there was no center, no fixed origin.

So where does this leave us? Everything has become discourse – “a system in which the central signified, the original or transcendental signified, is never absolutely present outside a system of differences” (415). He goes on to critique Heidegger, Nietschze and Freud, noting that they attempted to destroy metaphysics by using the concepts of metaphysics, which, according to Derrida, makes no sense. In sum, he says you cannot talk about breaking down the system without using the terms of that system. This makes me think of that Audre Lorde quote: “The master's tools will never dismantle the master's house”. || = = = = = = = = = = = =

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