From: "michelle phil lewis-king" <king.lewis-AT-easynet.co.uk>
Subject: RE: Is d+g's notion of writing inspired by Derrida's? (was: Dialectic)
Date: Sun, 31 Jan 1999 17:18:29 -0000




>
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> I have excerpted the core issue to spare us all
> the endless cascades of banter:

(banter which reveals your own nurgatory position)

> On Sat, 30 Jan 1999, michelle phil lewis king wrote:
> >
> > I am the
> > one sticking close to d+g's actual texts.. consistently having to
> > correct your impression that Guattari dismisses Derrida's contribution
> > when rather he specifies that there is a difference between a
> > non-signifying and a signifying arche ecriture, specifying that the
> > signifying arche-writing is the basis of empire while the other (in
> > Derrida's sense) "engenders all semiotic organisation".
> >
> > "(b) Semiologies of signification. On the other hand, all their
> > substances of expression (of sound, sight and so on) are centred on a
> > single signifying substance. This is the 'dictatorship of the
> > signifier'. That referential substance can be considered as a written
> > arche-writing, but not in Derrida's sense: it is not the matter of a
> > script that engenders all semiotic organisation, but of the appearance-
> > datable in history- of writing machines as a basic tool for for the
> > great despotic empires."m.r pp75
>
> You are misreading the passage.

 No, I humbly beg to point out that you are.

The "it" after the colon refers to how "that referential substance
> can be considered as a written arche-writing",

No, that referential substance is the writing machine.. the basic tool of
the despotic empire. It is an arche writing but not in Derrida's sense of
arche writing. I am not misreading because the same distinction is made in
A.O.


> i.e., not as a script organizing semiosis (i.e.,
> "not in Derrida's sense"), but as a historical
> phenomenon (of writing machines).
>
> This is probably, as others have noted, a misreading
> of Derrida.  But it (along with the rest of the
> passage, which goes on to criticize the "retrospective
> illusion" of a Derridean archi-ecriture, or many
> other remarks of Guattari's about Derrida) clearly
> gives the lie to your claim that d+g's practice of
> writing is inspired by Derrida's archi-ecriture.
>
The retrospective illusion refers to that non Derridean signifying arche
writing which takes the place of 'his' non signifying,  non referential
writing. - Guattari actually gives some kind of credit to Derrida in
Chaosmosis for his  shedding light on the relative autonomy of an
a-signifying regime.

"The different current of structuralism have given neither autonomy nor
specifity to this a-signifying regime, although authors like Julia Kristeva
or Jacques Derrida have shed some light on the relative autonomy of this
sort of component."c. pp4

He then goes on to have a go at Barthes for, in contrast, bringing
everything under the control of the linguistic signifier.

My claim that D=G base their notion of primitive process on Derrida's
general notion of  'writing' is based on reading them say it in
anti-oedipus. As this notion is crucial to their development of desire as a
force ( after Lyotards figure - matrix..) and that their writing is an
operation and experience of desire I don't at all feel 'given the lie'.

I am still waiting patiently for some examples of Guattari's remarks about
Derrida to back up your 'impression'. I am genuinely interested.

Phil.
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