Derrida – always already “political” writing – perjury – pardon

Abstract

Derrida politics – how to listen to the resonance of this title?

Born of the challenge of such a listening, this text attempts to present and support, across the problematics of writing or trace – a first designation of Derridean Deconstruction in the 60‑70s –, of perjury and of pardon, a sort of formal hypothesis or a quasi‑thesis concerning the political condition or “uncondition”, singularlypolitical, always already singularly political, even though differently political, of Jacques Derrida’s thought, as well as of thought itself, of the unconditionalityof thought according to Jacques Derrida in the uniqueness of its difference fromphilosophy: namely, the hypothesis of the quite singular hyper‑ or ultra‑political apoliticism of his thought, of the impossibility and the unconditionality that dictates and magnetises the undeconstructability of his thought, and by which he rethinks and appeals to us to rethink and re‑elaborate the «obscure» concept, the «very obscure» metaphysical concept of politics (polis).

This hypothesis is not only aimed at countering the unfounded and very often intellectually incompetent and dishonest criticism, that there would be no political concern, no political scope, no political philosophy in Deconstruction – and, in fact, there is no political philosophy in it, but there is a thought of the political which is, in itself, already hyper‑political and which, far from any kind of militancy, thinks by doing/acting – but it also intends to oppose (this hypothesis) to the idea of the existence of a «political turn» or an «ethical turn» in Derridean Deconstruction. The aim of our hypothesis is then to show that, in its very singular a‑politicism or trans‑politicism of principle (a‑politicism only regarding the metaphysical concept of politics!), the eschatological‑messianic unconditionality that inspires and moves the deconstruction of the phono‑logo‑centrism in the 60‑70s against the Linguistic Turn, not only had strong political implications, but already had in itself a «political» tone, a hyperpolitical scope, as the link between writing and perjury and the motifs of gift, and pardon – two of the unconditionals or the impossibles of Derridean Deconstruction, which, with this in view, we briefly approach here – widely attests.