A Taste for the Extreme: a Critical Analysis of Baudrillard and Derrida on Terror and Terrorism
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.3989/isegoria.2012.046.08Keywords:
Terror, terrorism, Mauss, gift, death, autoimmunity, Abraham, ethics, res-ponsibilityAbstract
For Baudrillard, the «new terrorism» should be understood as a symbolic exchange of gift and counter-gift: the terrorist’s death is an unanswerable counter-gift that disrupts the coercing circle of social relationships «imposed» by the global system. In turn, Derrida’s conception has two dimensions, explicative and normative. First, Derrida considers 11/9 as a multi-faceted symptom of an autoimmunitary crisis that has political, religious and technological-capitalist aspects. Second, Derrida argues that there is an Abrahamic «moment» of terror, violence and sacrifice that is constitutive to ethical decisions and responsibility. On the critical side, I will argue that Baudrillard’s view is premised on an extreme and partisan notion of a system interpreted as a totalitarian ruler writ large. In turn, Derrida unnecessarily turns the common observation that human actions can have perverse consequences into a law of autoimmunity inspired by biology. By seeing terror as constitutive even to the most common ethical relationships, Derrida also runs the risk of turning an extreme phenomenon into a catch-all concept, and of losing touch with the day-to-day ethical practice. I will conclude that Baudrillard’s and Derrida’s conceptions of terror and terrorism partake in a «taste for the extreme» that makes them ultimately unconvincing.
Downloads
References
Adloff, F. y Mau, S. (eds.) (2005): Vom Geben und Nehmen, Zur Soziologie Der Reziprozität, Frankfurt/Nueva York: Campus.
Almond, I. (2007): The New Orientalists: Postmodern Representations of Islam from Foucault to Baudrillard, London: I. B. Tauris.
Balke, F. (2005): «Derrida and Foucault on Sovereignty», German Law Journal, 6, 1, pp._1-12.
Baudrillard, J. (1993a [1976]): Symbolic exchange and death, Sage.
Baudrillard, J. (1998 [1970]): The Consummer Society, Sage.
Baudrillard, J. (1999 [1983]): Fatal Strategies, Pluto Press.
Baudrillard, J. (2003 [2002]): The Spirit of Terrorism and Requiem for the Twin Towers, trans. C. Turner, Londres: Verso.
Baudrillard, J. (2010 [2008]): Carnival and Cannibal, or the play of Global Antagonism, Chicago: Chicago University Press.
Bishop, R. (ed.) (2009): Baudrillard Now: Current Perspectives in Baudrillard Studies, Londres: Polity.
Bloom, D. (1987): The Closing of the American Mind, New York: Simon & Schuster.
Butler, R. (1999): Jean Baudrillard: The Defence of the Real, London: Sage.
Caillé, A. (1989): Crise de la Raison Utilitaire, La Découverte.
Caputo, J. D. (1997), The Prayers and Tears of Jacques Derrida: Religion without Religion, Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Caputo, J. D. (2001): On Religion, Routledge.
Clarke, D., M. Doel, W. Merrin and R._G. Smith (eds.) (2009): Jean Baudrillard: Fatal Theories, Londres: Routledge.
Derrida, J. (1995): Gift of Death, Stanford University Press.
Derrida, J. (1996): «Remarks on Deconstruction and Pragmatism», en C. Mouffe and S. Critchley (eds.), Deconstruction and Pragmatism, Verso, 1996.
Derrida, J. (1996): Specters of Marx, Verso.
Derrida, J. (1998): «Faith and Knowledge: the Two Sources of “Religion” at the Limits of Reason Alone», en Religion, Jacques Derrida and Gianni Vattimo, eds., Polity.
Derrida, J. (1999): «Interview with Kearney,» in Questioning Ethics, ed. R. Kearney and M. Dooley, Londres: Routledge, 1999, pp._30-71.
Derrida, J. (2002): Acts of Religion, (ed. Gil Anidjar), Routledge.
Derrida, J. (2003): «Autoimmunity: Real and Symbolic Suicides. A Dialogue with Derrida», en G. Borra-dori (ed.), Philosophy in a Time of Terror: Dialogues with Juergen Habermas and Jacques Derrida, University of Chicago Press, 2003.
Derrida, J. (2005): «Epoché and Faith», en Y. Sherwood and K. Hart (eds.), Derrida and Religion. Other Testaments, Routledge, 2005.
Gane, M. (2000): Jean Baudrillard: In Radical Uncertainty, Londres: Pluto.
Gane, M. (ed.) (2000): Jean Baudrillard, Volumes 1-4, Londres: Sage.
Held, D. y A. McGrew (eds.) (2000): The Global Transformations Reader, Polity.
Kant, I. (2005): Religion and Rational Theology, The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant, (eds. Allen w. Wood and Georg di Gio-vanni), Cambridge University Press, 2005.
Kierkegaard, S. (1983): Fear and Trembling. Repetition, Princeton University Press.
Komter, A. (2005): Social Solidarity and the Gift, Cambridge University Press.
Lane, R. J. (2009, 2nd edn): Jean Baudrillard, London: Routledge.
Löwith, K. (1964): From Hegel to Nietzsche, Columbia University Press.
Marino, A. y G. Marino (eds.) (1998): The Cambridge Companion to Kierkegaard, Cambridge University Press.
Marion, J. L. (2002): Being Given, Stanford University Press.
Marion, J. L. (1991): God without Being, Chicago University Press.
Mauss, M. (1966): The Gift. Forms and Functions of Exchange in Archaic Societies, con una Introducción de E. E. Evans-Pritchard, Cohen & West Ltd., Londres.
Peretti, C. de (ed.) (2003): Espectrografías (Desde Marx y Derrida), Madrid, Trotta.
Peretti, C. de y Velasco, E. (eds.) (2001): Conjunciones. Derrida y com-pañía, Madrid: Dykinson.
Perkins, R. L. (ed.) (2005): Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling: Critical Appraisals, Wipf & Stock Publishers.
Ricoeur, P. (2004): Memory, History, Forgetting, University of Chicago Press.
Ricoeur, P. (2005): Parcours de la Reconnaissance, Editions Stock.
Rorty, R. (1991): Essays on Heidegger and Others: Philosophical Papers II, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511609039
Smelser, N. J. y Swedberg, R. (eds.) (1994): The Handbook of Economic Sociology, Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Taylor, Ch. (2007): A Secular Age, Harvard University Press.
Taylor, Ch. (2011): Dilemmas and Connections, Harvard University Press.
Ungureanu, C. (2008): «Derrida on Free Decision: Between Habermas' Discursivism and Schmitt's Decisionism», en Journal of Political Philosophy, 3, 293-325.
Ungureanu, C. (2012): «Derrida's tense bow», article in European Legacy, 4 (en prensa).
Vidarte, P. (coord.) (2000): Marginales. Leyendo a Derrida, Madrid: UNED. www.decontra.es/publicaciones/
Zucca, L. y Ungureanu, C. (editores) (2012): Law, State, and Religion in the New Europe: Conflicts and -Dilemmas, Cambridge University Press.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2012 Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
© CSIC. Manuscripts published in both the print and online versions of this journal are the property of the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, and quoting this source is a requirement for any partial or full reproduction.
All contents of this electronic edition, except where otherwise noted, are distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence. You may read the basic information and the legal text of the licence. The indication of the CC BY 4.0 licence must be expressly stated in this way when necessary.
Self-archiving in repositories, personal webpages or similar, of any version other than the final version of the work produced by the publisher, is not allowed.
