John Searle reports this conversation with Michel Foucault about deconstructionist Jacques Derrida:
‘You can hardly misread him, because he’s so obscure. Every time you say, “He says so and so,” he always says, “You misunderstood me.” But if you try to figure out the correct interpretation, then that’s not so easy. I once said this to Michel Foucault, who was more hostile to Derrida even than I am, and Foucault said that Derrida practiced the method of obscurantisme terroriste … And I said, “What the hell do you mean by that?” And he said, “He writes so obscurely you can’t tell what he’s saying, that’s the obscurantism part, and then when you criticize him, he can always say, ‘You didn’t understand me; you’re an idiot.’ That’s the terrorism part.”’
Related:
Explaining Postmodernism:
Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault
For the context and significance of this quotation from Derrida:
“Deconstruction has never had any sense or interest, in my view at least, except as a radicalization, which is to say also in the tradition of a certain Marxism, in a certain spirit of Marxism.”
Dr. Hicks, I am looking for the source of the above quote. I find it helpful in my dissertation on comedy and rhetoric. Would you be so kind as to cite it for me? Thank you. Jason Parker.