Summary

• Objects (1 modified, 1 added, 0 removed)
  • Caselist.RoundClass[12]
  • Caselist.CitesClass[11]

Details

Caselist.RoundClass[12]

EntryDate

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1		-2017-02-11 05:07:04.539
	1	+2017-02-11 05:07:04.0

Caselist.CitesClass[11]

Cites

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	1	+Deconstructive logic is constitutive of metaphysics. All concepts, identities, and judgements are constructed in opposition to their negative. There can be no conception of good without bad, friendship without betrayal, promises without promise breaking. Ontological violence is foundational to any ethical or political framework. HÄGGLUND:
	2	+“THE NECESSITY OF DISCRIMINATION DISJOINING DERRIDA AND LEVINAS” MARTIN HÄGGLUND // UH-DD
	3	+“Derrida targets precisely this logic of opposition. As he argues in Of Grammatology, metaphysics has always regarded violence as derivative of a primary peace. The possibility of violence can thus be accounted for only in terms of a Fall, that is, in terms of a fatal corruption of a pure origin. By deconstructing this figure of thought, Derrida seeks to elucidate why violence is not merely an empirical accident that befalls something that precedes it. Rather, violence it stems from an essential impropriety that does not allow anything to be sheltered from death and forgetting. Consequently, Derrida takes issue with what he calls the “ethico-theoretical decision” of metaphysics, which postulates the simple to be before the complex, the pure before the impure, the sincere before the deceitful, and so on. All divergences from the positively valued term are thus explained away as symptoms of “alienation,” and the desirable is conceived as the return to what supposedly has been lost or corrupted. In contrast, Derrida argues that what makes it possible for anything to be at the same time makes it impossible for anything to be in itself. The integrity of any “positive” term is necessarily compromised and threatened by its “other.” Such constitutive alterity answers to an essential corruptibility, which undercuts all ethico-theoretical decisions of how things ought to be in an ideal world.11 A key term here is what Derrida calls “undecidability.” With this term he designates the necessary opening toward the coming of the future. The coming of the future is strictly speaking “undecidable,” since it is a relentless displacement that unsettles any defi nitive assurance or given meaning. One can never know what will have happened. Promises may always be turned into threats, friendships into enmities, fidelities into betrayals, and so on. There is no opposition between undecidability and the making of decisions. On the contrary, Derrida emphasizes that one always acts in relation to what cannot be predicted, that one always is forced to make decisions even though the consequences of these decisions cannot be finally established. Any kind of decision (ethical, or political decision, juridical, and so forth) is more or less violent, but it is nevertheless necessary to make decisions. Once again, I want to stress that violent differentiation by no means should be understood as a Fall, where violence supervenes upon a harmony that precedes it. On the contrary, discrimination has to be regarded as a constitutive condition. Without divisional marks—which is to say: without segregating borders—there would be nothing at all. In effect, every attempt to organize life in accordance with ethical or political prescriptions will have been marked by a fundamental duplicity. On the one hand, it is necessary to draw boundaries, to demarcate, in order to form any community whatsoever. On the other hand, it is precisely because of these excluding borders that every kind of community is characterized by a more or less palpable instability. What cannot be included opens the threat as well as the chance that the prevalent order may be transformed or subverted. In Specters of Marx, Derrida pursues this argument in terms of an originary “spec- trality.” A salient connotation concerns phantoms and specters as haunting reminders of the victims of historical violence, of those who have been excluded or extinguished from the formation of a society. The notion of spectrality is not, however, exhausted by these ghosts that question the good conscience of a state, a nation, or an ideology. Rather, Derridaʼs aim is to formulate a general “hauntology” (hantologie), in contrast to the traditional “ontology” that thinks being in terms of self-identical presence. What is important about the figure of the specter, then, is that it cannot be fully present: it has no being in itself but marks a relation to what is no longer or not yet. And since time— the disjointure between past and future—is a condition even for the slightest moment, Derrida argues that spectrality is at work in everything that happens. An identity or community can never escape the machinery of exclusion, can never fail to engender ghosts, since it must demarcate itself against a past that cannot be encompassed and a future that cannot be anticipated. Inversely, it will always be threatened by what it can- not integrate in itself—haunted by the negated, the neglected, and the unforeseeable. Thus, a rigorous deconstructive thinking maintains that we are always already in- scribed in an “economy of violence” where we are both excluding and being excluded. No position can be autonomous or absolute but is necessarily bound to other positions that it violates and by which it is violated. The struggle for justice can thus not be a struggle for peace, but only for what I will call “lesser violence.” Derrida himself only uses this term briefly in his essay “Violence and Metaphysics,” but I will seek to develop its significance.The starting point for my argument is that all decisions made in the name of justice are made in view of what is judged to be the lesser violence. If there is always an economy of violence, decisions of justice cannot be a matter of choosing what is nonviolent. To justify something is rather to contend that it is less violent than something else. This does not mean that decisions made in view of lesser violence are actually less violent than the violence they oppose. On the contrary, even the most horrendous acts are justified in view of what is judged to be the lesser violence. For example, justifications of genocide clearly appeal to an argument for lesser violence, since the extinction of the group in question is claimed to be less violent than the dangers it poses to another group. The disquieting point, however, is that all decisions of justice are implicated in the logic of violence. The desire for lesser violence is never innocent, since it is a desire for violence in one form or another, and there can be no guarantee that it is in the service of perpetrating the better.” (46-48)
	4	+
	5	+And, deconstructive logic is a criticism of ideal starting points. The logic of opposition is incompatible with universal starting points that do away with violence. HÄGGLUND 2:
	6	+“THE NECESSITY OF DISCRIMINATION DISJOINING DERRIDA AND LEVINAS” MARTIN HÄGGLUND // UH-DD
	7	+“An possible objection here is that we must strive toward an ideal origin or end, an arkhe or telos that would prevail beyond the possibility of violence. Even if every community is haunted by victims of discrimination and forgetting, we should try to reach a state of being that does not exclude anyone, namely, a consummated presence that includes everyone. However, it is precisely with such an “ontological” thesis that Derridaʼs hauntological thinking takes issue. At several places in Specters of Marx he maintains that a completely present life—which would not be “out of joint,” not haunted by any ghosts—would be nothing but a complete death. Derridaʼs point is not simply that a peaceful state of existence is impossible to realize, as if it were a desirable, albeit unattainable end. Rather, he challenges the very idea that absolute peace is desirable. In a state of being where all violent change is precluded, nothing can ever happen. Absolute peace is thus inseparable from absolute violence, as Derrida argued already in “Violence and Metaphysics.” Anything that would finally put an end to violence (whether the end is a religious salvation, a universal justice, a harmonious intersubjectivity or some other ideal) would end the possibility of life in general. The idea of absolute peace is the idea of eliminating the undecidable future that is the condition for anything to happen. Thus, the idea of absolute peace is the idea of absolute violence.” (49)
	8	+
	9	+Framework Implications:
	10	+A. Controls the internal link to every other framework because any theory requires us to choose a conception of the good otherwise they are baseless and cannot prescribe an obligation. So, other theories would have to concede exclusion of beliefs as a condition for their normativity in the first place.
	11	+B. Controls the internal link to any judge obligation. The ballot forces the judge to make a decision between who did the better debating, which inherently entails a judgement of discrimination because any decision assumes a paradigm for what better debating entails, which necessarily discriminates between various interpretations.
	12	+
	13	+Thus, the standard is consistency with deconstructive logic. To clarify, violations of deconstructive logic entail the construction of judgements as pure and without the necessity of an oppositional negative.
	14	+
	15	+Independently prefer:
	16	+
	17	+First, ethics requires answering the question of responsibility otherwise agents can always question why they are subject to the rule i.e “I know that a certain principle is moral, but why should I care about acting morally.” However, any conception of ethical responsibility is rooted in deconstructive logic. HÄGGLUND 3:
	18	+“THE NECESSITY OF DISCRIMINATION DISJOINING DERRIDA AND LEVINAS” MARTIN HÄGGLUND // UH-DD
	19	+“For the same reason, Derridaʼs notion of “infinite responsibility” should not be conflated with Levinasʼs. For Derrida, the infinitude of responsibility answers to the fact that responsibility always takes place in relation to a negative infinity of others. The negative infinity of responsibility is both spatial (innumerable finite others that exceed my horizon) and temporal (innumerable times past and to come that exceed my horizon). Far from confirming Levinasʼs sense of responsibility, the negative infinity of others is fatal for his notion of an originary encounter that would give ethics the status of “first philosophy” and be the guiding principle for a metaphysical “goodness.” Even if it were possible to sacrifice yourself completely to another, to devote all your forces to the one who is encountered face-to-face, it would mean that you had disregarded or denied all the others who demanded your attention or needed your help. For there are always more than two, as Richard Beardsworth has aptly put it 137. Whenever I turn toward another I turn away from yet another, and thus exercise discrimination. As Der- rida points out in The Gift of Death, “I cannot respond to the call, the demand, the obligation, or even the love of another without sacrificing the other other, the other others” 68. Consequently, Derrida emphasizes that the concept of responsibility lends itself a priori to “scandal and aporia” 68. There are potentially an endless number of others to consider, and one cannot take any responsibility without excluding some others in favor of certain others. What makes it possible to be responsible is thus at the same time what makes it impossible for any responsibility to be fully responsible. Responsibility, then, is always more or less discriminating, and infinite responsibility is but another name for the necessity of discrimination.” (56)
	20	+
	21	+Second, ethical relationships are mediated through radical alterity. The other is always undecidable and carries the possibility of annihilating me, yet this very condition is necessary to have any relationship whatsoever. This requires a violent opening to ethics. HÄGGLUND 4:
	22	+“THE NECESSITY OF DISCRIMINATION DISJOINING DERRIDA AND LEVINAS” MARTIN HÄGGLUND // UH-DD
	23	+“Thus, Derrida articulates a double argument concerning the relation between self and other. On the one hand, Derrida emphasizes that the subject cannot go outside of itself. The openness to the other is mediated through oneʼs own experience and thus necessarily limited. On the other hand, the subject can never be in itself, but is always exposed to an alterity that exceeds it. Alterity does not stem from the Good beyond being, but from the spacing of time that breaches the integrity of self and other from their first inception. The spacing of time entails that alterity is undecidable. The other can be anything whatsoever or anyone whosoever. The relation to the other is thus the nonethical opening of ethics. This opening is violent because it entails that everything is exposed to what may corrupt and extinguish it. Hence, Derrida emphasizes that the other as other is the other as mortal. It is this originary finitude that raises the demand of responsibility in the first place. If the other could not be violated or annihilated (and inversely, if the other could not violate or annihilate me) there would be no reason to take responsibility or pursue reflections on ethical problems. As Derrida writes in Politics of Friendship, the violent opening of ethics is already revealed in the decree “thou shalt not kill.” For Derrida, this in- junction does not testify to a primary peace but indicates that violence is an imminent threat (otherwise there would be no need for a prohibition). Assaults and violations are always possible since relations can be forged only between finite beings, where the one is exposed to being murdered by the other and inversely. Even the most affectionate love or intimate friendship is therefore haunted by the sentence “I can kill you, you can kill me,” as Derrida puts it in Politics of Friendship 122/143.” (Pg. 52)
	24	+Contention:
	25	+
	26	+analytic

EntryDate

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	1	+2017-02-11 05:07:05.794

Judge

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	1	+Any

Opponent

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	1	+Any

ParentRound

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	1	+12

Round

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	1	+1

Team

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	1	+Christopher Columbus Navarrete Neg

Title

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	1	+1- SEPTOCT Derrida NC

Tournament

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	1	+St Marks