File spoon-archives/lyotard.archive/lyotard_2003/lyotard.0312, message 118


Date: Wed, 10 Dec 2003 16:05:21 -0500
From: hbone <hbone-AT-optonline.net>
Subject: Re: futur anterieur


Geo


> "The site is not the empirical and national Here of a territory.  It is
> immemorial and thus also the future.  Better:  It is tradition as
adventure"
> (Difference and Writing).
>

Let's try to understand this statement:

1) "The site

a physical, geographical location is a "site"

2) is not the empirical and national Here of a territory

empirical -  known by experience
national  -   known by the nation
Here - (capitalized)  - a special "here" presumably known to Derrida's
addressees (readers)
territory - a bounded geographical space -  the "site" of which Derrida
writes?

3) It is immemorial and thus also the future

immemorial - Long past, beyond the limits of memory or tradition or recorded
history.
future - Derrida  assumes the future will repeat the past?

4) It is tradition and adventure

tradition - a narrative about the past
adventure - a) personal experience in the present, or b) another person's
experience (as narrated)

Thus when I sit down to read "Difference and Writing", I expect a narrative
of certain experience(s)
of Derrida.  Reading that narrative will be my experience/adventure i.e. the
act of reading.

So tradition is, or can be adventure, but it is not the site or  the Here of
a territory, merely tradition as
adventure.

I will guess that the "Here" of the site, is for Derrida, all he can see,
feel, hear, say, know, think about "a" site
or "the" site which is normally a particular location,  known to the nation.
But it might be an abstraction pertaining to all sites Derrida had "in mind"
as he wrote.

regards,
Hugh



   

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