Friday, January 13, 2006

"(in any case, Heidegger never avoids anything)"

Resistance––for this was a resistance on my part––often indicates the sensitive point in a reading, the point of incomprehension that organizes it. "How can he write this?" I asked myself. And of anyone?....When Paul de Man dared say that Rousseau's text bore no "blind spot" I felt the same impatience. Impatience is never justified. It should incite one to take one's time and to submit oneself to what is not self-evident––without avoiding it....work at reading and rereading these difficult texts....work at going along with their strategy, made up of audacity, cunning and prudence, and with the intractable necessity that contrains them, with their rhythm, above all, their breath....Their time is that of a long-distance run during which you follow someone who continually addresses you....If sometimes you have the feeling that you are dealing with a thinker who is panting or harried, don't kid yourself: you are reading someone who on the contrary is tracking––polemos without polemics––the most powerful thoughts of our tradition.

JD, Introduction: Desistance, in Lacoue-Labarthe, Typography: Mimesis, Philosophy, Politics

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

""(Impatience is never justified.)""

Anonymous said...

Adorno says hoot hoot

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the Adorno. Excellent quote.