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Icarus at home # 3
Sometimes only talking will help! I have been reading and reading and reading to try and get a perspective on the book I am writing, Here Comes the Bogeyman… (writing for children in creative, critical and cultural context) (terrible sub title huh, but needs must). And I read something written by a UK professor which just defied all sense of logic. He wrote: "Derrida pointed out no term is fully meaningful in itself; words only mean in relation to other words which, through their contrast, hold meaning in place (male being the opposite of female, adult of child etc)..." but Derrida would never have said that. Male is, as is female, identified alongside each other as different from each other but not "opposite" surely? I sent this to two people, one a postgraduate student in the UK the other a professor in Australia, both said the same thing, has he never heard of différance? It is a french term coined by Jacques Derrida, "différence" plays on the fact that the French word différer means both "to defer" and "to differ". Where does "opposite come in? I suppose physically I can see the attraction, back to back, front to back, front to front etc... but I sigh at the way such bad ideas are written because the book it comes from is directed at university students - and this
quotation was included in a glossary on Derrida. Unfortunately he makes similar mistakes with Freud and Foucault. I despair of it! But I have decided that such rants will be accompanied by this picture of me since its me sitting in the pontification chair - I wonder, is there a Professor of Pontification anywhere in the world now that Schultz is dead? Bring back the logic of Lucy van Pelt, like, "I never made a mistake in my life. I thought I did once, but I was wrong." or "Happiness is a warm puppy." or "I know the answer! The answer lies within the heart of all mankind! The answer is twelve? I think I'm in the wrong building." You see, real logic out of the head of a very wise woman! Time for some music methinks, Sierra Hull singing about love at the tender age of 16 - but a very good bluegrass mandolin player - out of the hands of babes:
Sometimes only talking will help! I have been reading and reading and reading to try and get a perspective on the book I am writing, Here Comes the Bogeyman… (writing for children in creative, critical and cultural context) (terrible sub title huh, but needs must). And I read something written by a UK professor which just defied all sense of logic. He wrote: "Derrida pointed out no term is fully meaningful in itself; words only mean in relation to other words which, through their contrast, hold meaning in place (male being the opposite of female, adult of child etc)..." but Derrida would never have said that. Male is, as is female, identified alongside each other as different from each other but not "opposite" surely? I sent this to two people, one a postgraduate student in the UK the other a professor in Australia, both said the same thing, has he never heard of différance? It is a french term coined by Jacques Derrida, "différence" plays on the fact that the French word différer means both "to defer" and "to differ". Where does "opposite come in? I suppose physically I can see the attraction, back to back, front to back, front to front etc... but I sigh at the way such bad ideas are written because the book it comes from is directed at university students - and this
quotation was included in a glossary on Derrida. Unfortunately he makes similar mistakes with Freud and Foucault. I despair of it! But I have decided that such rants will be accompanied by this picture of me since its me sitting in the pontification chair - I wonder, is there a Professor of Pontification anywhere in the world now that Schultz is dead? Bring back the logic of Lucy van Pelt, like, "I never made a mistake in my life. I thought I did once, but I was wrong." or "Happiness is a warm puppy." or "I know the answer! The answer lies within the heart of all mankind! The answer is twelve? I think I'm in the wrong building." You see, real logic out of the head of a very wise woman! Time for some music methinks, Sierra Hull singing about love at the tender age of 16 - but a very good bluegrass mandolin player - out of the hands of babes: 
