SW Derrida

To me, difference was taking two things and subtracting one from the other and then looking at the result. The difference between 5 and 7 is 2. But what this can’t and doesn’t hold true for ever situation. What is the difference between green and purple? Blue is between the two on the color wheel, yet the both contain blue, therefore wouldn’t the difference between green and purple be yellow and red? And what about the binary opposition of right/wrong? What is between this? Indifferent? Derrida says that it, “is not simply one between act and object, cause and effect, or primordial and derived,” (120).

I think Derrida relates to Macherey in the idea it is important to understand and look at what is not being said. Maybe more importantly it relates to Barthes and the idea of the gap. But perhaps it is not the gap we usually think of. In my previous example of the difference between 5 and 7 being 2… we focused on 2, not the fact that 5 is common between the two, and what that might tell us.

This whole concept of “a” vs. “e” is something I am faced with on a (nearly) day to day basis. I have a name the can be spelled either way. I don’t hear the difference in spellings (at least I don’t), yet people either ask, or I always correct them if it is written incorrectly. Perhaps this is what Derrida means when he said it is not, “far from signaling the death of the king” (122). I get the difference of names, yet I am still perplexed by the idea of difference and differance. Hmm, I am typing in Word and differ “a”nce was auto corrected twice. I guess Word doesn’t know what’s going on either (but does it ever really?).

--Scarlett Wishes