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: Mon, 1 Feb 1999 01:23:50 -0000



m. sent back from on high,

> On Sun, 31 Jan 1999, michelle phil lewis-king wrote:
>
> > > I have excerpted the core issue to spare us all
> > > the endless cascades of banter:
> >
> > (banter which reveals your own nurgatory position)
>
> Oh, please.  The only thing this thread has
> revealed is your inability to read (or spell).
> But if you really wish to continue, I shall
> post my full reply to your previous tissue of
> non sequiturs and evasions immediately.
>
>
> > > 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.
> > > 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.
>
> Like, duh.

Such a musical sound.

 Of course it is.  But that doesn't
> dispute the manifest sense of the passage, which
> is to say that "that referential substance" is
> a written arche-writing -- not as a Derridean
> script but as a historical writing machine.  I.e.,
> archi-ecriture is NOT what Derrida thinks it is,
> i.e., Derrida is wrong.
>
No, as I have stressed again and again , D+g in a.o seperate a SIGNIFYING
writing from an a-signifying one. Derrida is seen by them as indicating an
A-SIGNIFYING writing. In the above passage Guattari reinforces this
difference between a Derridean script (as in the Duras quote which I
forwaded) and a SIGNIFYING arche writing which is not that of Derrida's.
I don't think Derrida had the copyright on the terms he came up with. As
someone else wrote in Guattari is 'tweaking' here.

> > 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.
>
> Nothing you are saying here is supporting your
> position.
>
explain.

> > > 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.
>
> You have yet to offer the slightest evidence
> for this hypothetical "non-Derridean signifying
> arche-writing".  I mean, when someone uses the
> term archi-ecriture, who else are they referring
> to but Derrida?  The comment about retrospective
> illusion clearly takes a Marx-vs.-Hegel-style,
> materialist-criticizing-the-idealist jab at the
> metaphysical nature of Derridean archi-ecriture.
>
Guattari is simply appropriating the term, of course  he is refering to
Derrida who traces the two moments of 'writing' in 'On Grammatology'
a-signifying and signifying. Guattari is signalling that he plumps for the
a-signifying regime, as he specifies in...

> > - 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
>
> Damning with faint praise.
>
You got a real issue with this don't you. I'm not even that big a fan of
Derrida.

> > 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.
>
> Since you can't seem to read the above,
> here are some more examples:
>
> See, e.g., his remarks near the beginning of
> the chapter in Chaosmosis entitled "Schizo-
> Modelization" (I don't think that title is
> right, but I don't have any Guattari lying
> around).  He slyly digs at "differance" as
> a form of neurosis.
>
> Or, in "Towards a Micro-Politics of Desire"
> (as Clifford Duffy recently posted):
>
> "Short of appealing to some divine agency - such as Derrida's myth
> of the 'complicity of origins' established at the level of a signifying
> arche-writing - there is no means of conceiving the conjunction of words
> and things other than by resorting to a system of machinic keys that
> 'cross' the various domains we are considering."


You, and the writers of the glossary in M.R are confusing an a-signifying
'writing' with a signifying 'arche-writing'. Derrida and Guattari both
attack the way in which the signifier, The Word, can make itself appear at
the origin through the operation of a writing submitted to the voice. The
history of this action is part of what Derrida draws in 'On Grammatology'.
He describes the myth and how it operates. Only in that sense is it 'his
myth.'Guattari is giving him credit for drawing attention to it.


> The above very clearly reinforces the
> critical attitude expressed in "The Place
> of the Signifier".
>
> Or, ask Charles Stivale about Guattari's
> less-than-loving personal relationship to
> Derrida, stemming from the academic politics
> of the International College of Philosophy.

I would indeed be very interested. I was under the impression that as
founders they had similar problems with the direction it took later.

> I patiently await your response.  No doubt
> it will live up to the high standards you
> have consistently maintained throughout this
> exchange.
>
I doubt it will scale the bleak neo-classical heights of your voice.

Phil.