(Hyperlinks to the first two parts of this series: Part I and Part II.)
Not only do we have a famed promoter of the Enlightenment defending the Catholic Church (Jurgen Habermas from Germany), and a Catholic historian decrying the supposed death of the Enlightenment in America (Garry Wills), but now we have Jacques Derrida, notorious deconstructor of the Western philosophical tradition, a Gorgias to your Plato, calling himself a defender of the Enlightenment!
In a largely laudatory piece that deals primarily with two things, the greatness of Le Monde and the greatness of Europe (and which had to have been one of the last things he ever wrote before he passed away), Derrida says,
Caught between US hegemony and the rising power of China and Arab/Muslim theocracy, Europe has a unique responsibility. I am hardly thought of as a Eurocentric intellectual; these past 40 years, I have more often been accused of the opposite. But I do believe, without the slightest sense of European nationalism or much confidence in the European Union as we currently know it, that we must fight for what the word Europe means today. This includes our Enlightenment heritage, and also an awareness and regretful acceptance of the totalitarian, genocidal and colonialist crimes of the past. Europe’s heritage is irreplaceable and vital for the future of the world. We must fight to hold on to it. We should not allow Europe to be reduced to the status of a common market, or a common currency, or a neo-nationalist conglomerate, or a military power. Though, on that last point, I am tempted to agree with those who argue that the EU needs a common defence force and foreign policy. Such a force could help to support a transformed UN, based in Europe and given the means to enact its own resolutions without having to negotiate with vested interests, or with unilateralist opportunism from that technological, economic and military bully, the United States of America.
The "Enlightenment heritage" of Europe is the one hope in a world caught between China, Islamic Theocracy, and the "US Hegemony." To me this sounds a lot like the third-way movements during the Cold War, some of which proposed a sort of moral equivalency between the USSR and the USA, a belief which time has thoroughly discredited (Thomas Merton, for example, called both powers "Gog and Magog," while admitting that the United States--"Magog"--was slightly superior). I doubt that Derrida would argue that the Mullahs and Al Qaeda are morally equivalent to George Bush and his Cabinet, but nothing here helps you determine anything. The US, if anything, apparently does not share in the great "Enlightenment tradition" that Derrida speaks about. This if course is not true--perhaps the US was not influenced by the more revolutionary and anti-clerical French brand of the Enlightenment, but it certainly was influenced by the British Enlightenment. In her recent book on the history of the Enlightenment, Gertrude Himmelfarb even goes so far in her latest book to claim that the US produced its own brand--"the American Enlightenment." But I don't want to say too much about a book I haven't read.
Derrida goes on:
This Europe, as a proud descendant of the Enlightenment past and a harbinger of the new Enlightenment to come, would show the world what it means to base politics on something more sophisticated than simplistic binary oppositions. In this Europe it would be possible to criticise Israeli policy, especially that pursued by Ariel Sharon and backed by George Bush, without being accused of anti-semitism. In this Europe, supporting the Palestinians in their legitimate struggle for rights, land and a state would not mean supporting suicide bombing or agreeing with the anti-semitic propaganda that is rehabilitating (with sad success) the outrageous lie that is the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. In this Europe it would be usual to worry both about rising anti-semitism and rising Islamophobia. Sharon and his policies are not directly responsible for the rise of anti-semitism in Europe. But we must defend our right to believe that he does have something to do with it, and that he has used it as an excuse to call European Jews to Israel.
Apart from the reference to "Muslim theocracy," Derrida does not give much attention to the threat of fundamentalist terrorism. It makes you wonder how much he perceives organizations like Al Qaeda as threatening to the liberal ideals of the Enlightenment.
Derrida is painting quite a Utopian picture of the Europe of the "Enlightenment to come." There will come a time, he says, when a new world will be born:
That is my dream. I am grateful to all those who help me to dream it; not only to dream, as Ramonet says, that another world is possible, but to muster the strength to do all that is needed to make it possible. This dream is shared by billions of men and women all over the world. Some day, though the work may be long and painful, a new world will be born.
Well, it's nice at least to know that an old man like Derrida could still maintain a youthful optimism about the world, even though his vision for the future is patchy at best. But using the term "Enlightenment" so loosely does a disservice to those trying to answer the question: What is the Enlightenment?
Not only do we have a famed promoter of the Enlightenment defending the Catholic Church (Jurgen Habermas from Germany), and a Catholic historian decrying the supposed death of the Enlightenment in America (Garry Wills), but now we have Jacques Derrida, notorious deconstructor of the Western philosophical tradition, a Gorgias to your Plato, calling himself a defender of the Enlightenment!
In a largely laudatory piece that deals primarily with two things, the greatness of Le Monde and the greatness of Europe (and which had to have been one of the last things he ever wrote before he passed away), Derrida says,
Caught between US hegemony and the rising power of China and Arab/Muslim theocracy, Europe has a unique responsibility. I am hardly thought of as a Eurocentric intellectual; these past 40 years, I have more often been accused of the opposite. But I do believe, without the slightest sense of European nationalism or much confidence in the European Union as we currently know it, that we must fight for what the word Europe means today. This includes our Enlightenment heritage, and also an awareness and regretful acceptance of the totalitarian, genocidal and colonialist crimes of the past. Europe’s heritage is irreplaceable and vital for the future of the world. We must fight to hold on to it. We should not allow Europe to be reduced to the status of a common market, or a common currency, or a neo-nationalist conglomerate, or a military power. Though, on that last point, I am tempted to agree with those who argue that the EU needs a common defence force and foreign policy. Such a force could help to support a transformed UN, based in Europe and given the means to enact its own resolutions without having to negotiate with vested interests, or with unilateralist opportunism from that technological, economic and military bully, the United States of America.
The "Enlightenment heritage" of Europe is the one hope in a world caught between China, Islamic Theocracy, and the "US Hegemony." To me this sounds a lot like the third-way movements during the Cold War, some of which proposed a sort of moral equivalency between the USSR and the USA, a belief which time has thoroughly discredited (Thomas Merton, for example, called both powers "Gog and Magog," while admitting that the United States--"Magog"--was slightly superior). I doubt that Derrida would argue that the Mullahs and Al Qaeda are morally equivalent to George Bush and his Cabinet, but nothing here helps you determine anything. The US, if anything, apparently does not share in the great "Enlightenment tradition" that Derrida speaks about. This if course is not true--perhaps the US was not influenced by the more revolutionary and anti-clerical French brand of the Enlightenment, but it certainly was influenced by the British Enlightenment. In her recent book on the history of the Enlightenment, Gertrude Himmelfarb even goes so far in her latest book to claim that the US produced its own brand--"the American Enlightenment." But I don't want to say too much about a book I haven't read.
Derrida goes on:
This Europe, as a proud descendant of the Enlightenment past and a harbinger of the new Enlightenment to come, would show the world what it means to base politics on something more sophisticated than simplistic binary oppositions. In this Europe it would be possible to criticise Israeli policy, especially that pursued by Ariel Sharon and backed by George Bush, without being accused of anti-semitism. In this Europe, supporting the Palestinians in their legitimate struggle for rights, land and a state would not mean supporting suicide bombing or agreeing with the anti-semitic propaganda that is rehabilitating (with sad success) the outrageous lie that is the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. In this Europe it would be usual to worry both about rising anti-semitism and rising Islamophobia. Sharon and his policies are not directly responsible for the rise of anti-semitism in Europe. But we must defend our right to believe that he does have something to do with it, and that he has used it as an excuse to call European Jews to Israel.
Apart from the reference to "Muslim theocracy," Derrida does not give much attention to the threat of fundamentalist terrorism. It makes you wonder how much he perceives organizations like Al Qaeda as threatening to the liberal ideals of the Enlightenment.
Derrida is painting quite a Utopian picture of the Europe of the "Enlightenment to come." There will come a time, he says, when a new world will be born:
That is my dream. I am grateful to all those who help me to dream it; not only to dream, as Ramonet says, that another world is possible, but to muster the strength to do all that is needed to make it possible. This dream is shared by billions of men and women all over the world. Some day, though the work may be long and painful, a new world will be born.
Well, it's nice at least to know that an old man like Derrida could still maintain a youthful optimism about the world, even though his vision for the future is patchy at best. But using the term "Enlightenment" so loosely does a disservice to those trying to answer the question: What is the Enlightenment?
