https://doi.org/10.24101/logos.2020.68 Gauta 2020 10 14 BASIA NIKIFOROVA Lietuvos kultūros tyrimų institutas, Lietuva Lithuanian Culture Research Institute, Lithuania dERRIda žYdIškumaS: Savo IR kItoS tapatYbėS dEkonStRuktoRIuS derrida’s Jewishness: deconstructor of own and other Identity SummaRY derrida’s main source of creativity was “misreading” the philosophical and religious canon. derrida, who is famous as a deconstructor of binary oppositions, feels himself beyond almost any binary opposition that he analyzed. derridean researchers found an analogy between his types of liminality: the geographic or cultural outside space of the marrano Jew and a philosophical position outside of both athens and Jeru- salem (Jewish and Greek traditions). He partly represents marranos, who were expelled from the accultur- ated country but did not take a position in Jewish religion and existed at the margins of the host culture. derrida was alienated from the place of his birth, native tongue and Jewish heritage. the aim of this arti- cle is to show how derridean deconstruction destroys a hierarchy of identity and all subordinations between European and non-European identities. SantRauka vienas pagrindinių derrida kūrybiškumo šaltinių buvo „neteisinga” filosofinių ir religinių kanonų interpre- tacija. derrida, kuris garsėjo binarinių opozicijų dekonstrukcija, jautėsi esąs anapus bet kurios analizuoja- mos binarinės opozicijos. derrida kūrybos tyrinėtojai randa panašumų su jo paties tarpine (liminalia) bū- sena: maranų žydo geografiniu ar kultūriniu užribiu ir filosofine pozicija, esančia Jeruzalės ir atėnų (žydų ir graikų tradicijų) užribyje. Iš dalies jis atstovauja maranams, išvarytiems iš akultūruotos šalies, tačiau neįsipareigojusiems žydų religijai ir gyvavusiems priėmusios kultūros paribyje. derrida nutolo nuo gimtinės, gimtosios kalbos ir žydų paveldo. šiame straipsnyje siekiama atskleisti, kaip derrida dekonstrukcija suardo tapatybės hierarchiją bei visas europinės ir neeuropinių tapatybių subordinacijas. RaktažodžIaI: dekonstrukcija, derrida, tremtis, tapatumas, ribiškumas, vienkalbystė. kEY WoRdS: deconstruction, derrida, exile, identity, liminality, monolingualism. 14 LOGOS 105 2020 SPALIS • GRUODIS MokslinĖ Mintis The lesson of the Jew Greek remains: the mongrels shall inherit the earth. (Steven Kahhen 2013) IntRoduCtIon About 70 years ago Spanish philoso- this extra feature… ontological supple- pher Jose Ferrater-Mora in the essay “In ment…, which opens the way for a phi- times like these: Wittgenstein, a Symbol losopher to be the object of a biography. of Troubled Times” wrote: “But my con- Only a philosopher who really is a phi- tention that Wittgenstein was a genius losopher will qualify for a biography”. has a wider scope. It means that he was Such meanings or demands as “live hid- more than a philosophical genius. He den”, “will to remain secret” were very was, in fact, a genius of our age, a symbol important in Jacques Derrida’s life and of troubled times. What it means to be mostly were linked with his religious genius “in time like this”? First, “those identity. The word secret means for him who know what the words “troubled interiority that remains eternal incom- times” mean does not know Wittgen- mensurable with exteriority. Oskar Baum, stein; those who know Wittgenstein do who directly corresponded with Kafka, not know what the words “troubled analyzing his Jewish identity, underlined times” mean”. Second, he was a “mystery that Kafka is not a “Jewish writer” for the man.” Consequently, he was afraid of the reason that his parents were Jews but pri- world and all his life follows the motto: marily because of his alienation, hope- Live hidden! His most popular maxima: lessness and fear, spiritual form of world “Where of one cannot speak, thereof one tragic fixation. Partly these words are must be silent” has continuation in the possible to say about Derrida but only words “Will to remain secret.” partly. For him, “the secret as such sepa- “Writing a biography means living rates and already institutes a negativity; through an intimate and sometimes in- it is a negation that denies itself. It de- timidating adventure,” writes Benoît negates itself”. During life, Derrida has Peeters, the author of Jacques Derrida’s many secrets; nevertheless, the important biography (Peeters 2013). The sheer dif- part of his personal secrets was connected ficulty of Derrida’s writing contributed to with Jewish origin and later identity. Der- its aura, but the main source of its creativ- rida’s galut (exile) is his Jewishness as a ity was “misreading” of the philosophical private place outside of all discourse, and religious canon. Same as Wittgen- which is inevitably ethnocentric. Derrida stein, Derrida was a famous system-de- is alienated from the place of his birth, stroyer, who used his texts to change the acculturation, including his only native traditional philosophy by its own philo- tongue and Jewish heritage. sophical method and ideas. For him, “be- The methods of research include anal- ing a philosopher obviously involves yses of Derrida’s philosophical works, more than merely doing philosophy, and some interviews and the works of re- LOGOS 105 15 2020 SPALIS • GRUODIS BASIA NIKIFOROVA searchers that examine the case of Der- Jews” (Arendt H., Aschheim S. E., Bielik- rida’s complicated identity, phenomenon Robson, A., Caputo, J. D., Kutash, Cix- of Other’s liminality, the Marrano case ous, H., Thompson, A., Topolski, A. and and the phenomenon of “psychological Yerushalmi, Y. H.). LImInaLItY and tHE maRRano CaSE The term ‘liminality’ comes from the includes ambivalence, because it does Latin word limen, threshold, and in our not fit into the framework of any clas- case, it means the disorientation be- sifications in a cultural space. Their am- tween a previous way of understanding bivalent properties are expressed by a of an own identity and assumption of a wide variety of symbols. In the state of new one. For Derrida as a postmodern psychological liminality, the feeling of philosopher, this term can be applied the individual’s identity turns out to be between two types of liminality: the geo- diffused. Their feelings to be fixed on graphic or cultural exteriority of the certain mental images and contents: Marrano Jew and at the same time, his own and others. The person mostly is philosophical position that is outside involved in an area that he/she cannot both Jewish and Greek traditions. In control and the cognitive and behav- fact, Derrida is outside of any binary ioral cases, which he/she does not rec- opposition. Derrida is alienated both ognize as “his/her own”. from the place of his birth and native Hannah Arendt compared the fa- culture, including his mother tongue, mous European Jewish origin thinkers ethnic and religious Jewish heritage. to the Marranos who were permitted to Derrida’s galut (exile) is neither Hebrew enter to the European intellectual circle nor Greek; it is a secret place outside the under condition that they publicly refuse margins of all discourses that are inevi- their Jewry. She wrote: “When it comes tably ethnocentric. Between liminality to claiming its own in the field of Euro- and the Marrano Jew there always was pean arts and letters, the attitude of the a common space and a close relation- Jewish people may best be described as ship, which concentrated on both psy- one of reckless magnanimity. With a chological statuses. First, the disorienta- grand gesture and without a murmur of tion between a previous identity and a protest it has calmly allowed the credit new one, second, the historic, geograph- for its great writers and artists to go to ic cultural or linguistic exteriority of the other peoples” (Arendt 1944: 90). The Marrano Jew are a special case of lim- meaning of liminality and the Marrano inality as such. In the liminal personal- for Derrida will be taken up here in three ity it is possible to find all symptoms of different contexts: language, archives spiritual and social discomfort, which and philosophical activity. 16 LOGOS 105 2020 SPALIS • GRUODIS MokslinĖ Mintis GREEkJEW – JEWGREEk During his life Derrida was trying to above, Derrida also is alienated from the answer the question: “Who am I?” This place of his birth, the native language, question had for him different levels of the Western (Greek) philosophical tradi- sense: personal, philosophical and po- tion and his Jewish heritage. This situa- litical. In “Violence and Metaphysics,” tion gives him possibility to feel free to Derrida wrote that before philosophical analyze and criticize the Western host deconstruction he should formulate the culture, Algerian colonial and post-colo- following important questions: Are we nial situation and the Hebraic tradition- Greeks? Are we Jews? However, who, al archive. For philosophical research, we? Are we… first Jews or first Greeks? Derrida chooses a place of exteriority, “To what horizon of peace does the lan- alterity or marginality. Derrida names guage, which asks this question, belong? himself, a man who has understood and Can it account for the historical coupling own a “radical lack of culture from of Judaism and Hellenism? Moreover, which I undoubtedly never completely what is the legitimacy, what is the mean- emerged” (Derrida 1998: 53). ing of the copula in this proposition? John D. Caputo in the introduction ‘‘A “Jewsgreek is Greekjew. Extremes meet?” Passion for the Impossible’’ to the book (Derrida 1978). As Elizabeth J. Bellamy “The Prayers and Tears of Jacques Der- notices, Derrida’s “jewsgreek” knows rida…” in this way shortly described Der- neither temporality nor logic: the “jew- rida’s Jewishness. He cited his notebooks sgreek” is not “chronological” but “pre- of 1976, in which Derrida described his logical” (Bellamy 1997: 74). broken covenant with Judaism that From Derrida’s view, the “Jewish” would “leave nothing, if possible, in the cannot be conceived without the “Greek,” dark of what related me to Judaism, the and vice versa. Nevertheless, Western alliance broken in every respect” (Caputo European Jewry is a special kind of Jew- 1997: xvi), (Derrida 1993: 155–156).