Specters of Marx: The State of the Debt, The Work of Mourning & the New International (Routledge Classics)

To begin, there is just far too much in this text to do it justice in such a setting. Thus, I will pick and chose based on the complaints I have seen others tossing at this extraordinary work. When are people going to learn that Derrida is not Habermas, or Austin, or even Rorty. In some of the reviews published thus far one complained that there is nothing new to be learned about Marx from this book. I wonder if perhaps the title of the work, in particular the term "Specters" may have tipped him off. Derrida is not attempting to provide yet another interpretation of Marx; rather, he does us a much more profound service. He calls our attention to the fact that there is no longer any such Marx to be learned from. There is only the name "Marx," which haunts us for the violence to which what he had to teach us has been subjected. Why? Because a certain generation, his own, has failed in its responsibility to properly read Marx, instead investing his name with all of the various ideological quests to which it has been attached in the 20th Century. Imagine, Karl Marx, the author of Capital, became little more than a common cultural place holder for all that is evil for those on the right. (It is truly a riot to quiz the disciple of the good and the right, having just called you a Marxist, about Marx or his ideas. Ironically, in our cultural idiom "Marx" and "Liberal" were synonyms for one another. It's not time, but our brains that are out of joint, but I am getting ahead of myself.)Importantly, the book begins with a scene from Hamlet. The old king is giving an injunction to do responsibility to his memory. Importantly, Hamlet has the pivotal line, "Time is out of joint." Precisely. We have a responsibility to READ Marx, not X, Y, or Z's interpretation of Marx. What does Marx say? We must clear the debris of both scholars and killers from his name and work. What did Marx have to do with the Gulag, the Soviet Union in any way what so ever? Nothing, of course. Nonetheless, Whether from the right or the left his name has been associated with so much perversity or promise during the 20th Cenhttp://www.amazon.com/review/create-review/ref=cm_cr_dp_wr_but_right?ie=UTF8&nodeID=283155&asin=0415389577&store=books tury that we can see him only as a ghostly demarcation, and it is certainly no wonder that his message is not a kingly imperative.Part of the debt of mourning we owe to those who bequeathed us their ideas is to take the responsibility to rediscover their works, the material that can be held in one's hand, precisely as their works. And make no mistake, this is a sacred responsibility. One to be upheld, in part at least, to combat the sort of bombastic "The King is dead. Long live the King!" shouting represented by, say, Francis Fukuyama's stunning book, The End of History and the Last Man. This vision--Hegel in triumph having been turned back upright to see the Reign of the Spirit of Capitalism and Christianity--would be the title's "New International." Fukahaha had no doubt that History has finally culminated in the victory and immanent universalization of the free-market economy lead by it's Christian soldiers. (For the sake of fairness, Fukuyama had the intellectual integrity to repudiate most of this earlier work in a critique of his fellow Neo-Cons and their continued certainties, which one may lead right into Iraq 2003). Derrida, generally mild even in the process of eviscerating a particular point of view, took off the gloves here. He knocked Fukuyama on his ass in 1993. I have noted that he had the guts and integrity to stand back up 10 years later, in the midst of what else but the global catastrophe wrought by...guess. Yes, the very free market cum New International, which had crowed far before the dawn of a catastrophe the longest shadows of which we more than likely still await.Specters of Marx is one of Derrida's more broadly important texts and deserves as what it is, not as what many who have reviewed it here thus far think it ought to be. Indeed, Derrida had now joined those intellectual forefathers to whom we owe so much. If he is read responsibly, and if he has taught us to read others with a sense of the honor due their legacy, then, love him or hate him, one must admire the way in which he improves our own work, our own time.

You don't want to put this book down but it makes you want jot notes and quote poetic and sound analysis.

Jacques Derrida found the metaphysical link between the thoughts of Marx and the legacy he left for the marxists: spectrality. Beyond messianism and indoctrination, the way forward for dialectical-based philosophical, political and economic constructs must take in consideration all changes that happened in the multiplicity of social assemblages and the advent of post-structuralist thought that opened up the possibilities of considering the proper relation of virtuality and the discourse of reality. A must read for anybody who have really read Marx and cares for the legacy of his complex philosophical body of work in attempting to enlighten ways of revolutionary solutions for contemporary concrete world problems.

I purchased my copy from EB Books and Magazines and was annoyed to find that I received the Indian Edition, on the back of which is inscribed "For sale in South Asia only," a detail neither indicated by the seller nor the image of the book.Compared to my other Routledge books, this copy is cheaply made; the paper is thin and grainy. The cover is also thin, not like the typical matte Routledge cover, and it immediately began to show extensive wear. I don't feel comfortable referencing it as a source in anything I'd seek to publish.I thought I was getting a good deal, but I basically received a useless book from a sketchy seller.

This is a piece of writing that I longed to read in digital for the essential reason that it itself unfolds.Spectres would erase themselves on the devices more realistically than on books.The effect of reading, believe it or not, would be different on paper from that on display. The proof of this requires the right content, and this book is one of those.

Having met with Bishop Tutu following the fall of the Berlin wall, I asked him where do you go from here? He said he didn't know. Derrida struggles with the same issue with his usual brilliance and linguistic finesse.

Derrida can be dense, elliptical - maddening. And I love him. This later work is as clear and clean and persuasive as I've ever read.

i really appreciated how derrida goes into like multiple spectral concepts surrounding marxism

This is a fascinating book. To make the most of what this work has to say, I recommend reading 'ghostly demarcations' afterwards, for a discussion of this book by Derrida and many marxist readers. 'Specters of Marx' is based on talks conducted by Derrida addressing the question 'whither Maxism?' - where does it stand? Where is it going? He outlines various answers to this, but the bulk of this work discusses what deconstruction's relation to Marx is, and what this seeks to achieve.Derrida tells us that deconstruction follows a 'certain spirit of marxism'. There are many different aspects of Marx's thought which various 'marxisms' have picked up on and use as a critique/tool of analysis for modern political issues. Derrida draws upon Marx's notion of 'spectrality'. What is spectrality? It is 'a non-living present in a living present'. This sounds complex, so lets unpack what this meant to Marx, and then to Derrida...For Marx, capitalism has transformed the nature of objects, they are no longer determined by their use value. Rather, we identify ourselves with commodities, they become a part of our identity, they dictate who we wish to be. Think today of how advertising is used to sell products - through the use of models, sexual imagery and so forth. The product is more than an object to use, it is seen as a means of transforming oneself into something ideal (but something that we can never, in reality become). Spectrality is thus what is never there, but not strictly speaking simply absent either. It haunts the present.But for Derrida, Marx is mistaken that, through abandoning capitalism, we can shake off these specters. The specters are always there, every 'self-same' is haunted by its 'other', nothing is quite as simply, sharply determined as it may seem. Derrida constantly references Macbeth throughout this book, in particular the line 'this time is out of joint' is quoted frequently. Derrida challenges the idea that we can ever fully see the world as it is, its ontology, what it is 'in itself' (see it in-joint). Rather, out condition is that we see the world through a conceptual lens that is organised through language, but the meanings of words change, they defer, subtlely shift in relation to one another.Derrida ties this into ethics and politics. Deconstructive ethics, then, is an openness to otherness, which is also an openness to l'avenir (the future-to-come). What this means is that we should never believe we can fully tie everything down, categorise everything, recognise everything, and everyone absolutely. We should not believe categories such as race, nation, class etc are simple reflections of the world in itself. Derrida wants us to open politics to otherness, that is, recognise that our perspective is context dependent, and that how we percieve things now is not simply 'right'. We need to be open to the possibility of change - changes that we cannot even fathom, and that this openness to the unfathomable is itself where justice lies, for, as Kierkeguaard once said, 'once you label me, you negate me'. Reality is not reduceable to any categories, any ontology. This reduction is what Derrida seeks to break from, deconstructive ethics and politics is 'infinitizing' for it remains open to a beyond categorisation. This is what Derrida calls a 'messianicity without messianism'.The book is an interesting to read, it seems to flow from a philosophical critique to a work of literature in itself. It is very enjoyable and thought-provoking. Derrida wants to challenge the views of the right, in particular Fukuyama, who's recent work has celebrated 'the end of history', which amounts to the death of communism. He also warns against seeing Marx as merely a great philosopher, with no practical relevance on politics today. But he also calls for marxists to acknowledge the crimes committed in their name.Challenges and shorcomings of this book are raised in the symposium I mentioned earlier, published by verso, entitled 'Ghostly Demarcations', so I shall outline those in more detail in a review of that book. I will, however, mention that perhaps the biggest problem with this book is that Derrida doesnt properly address the issue perhaps closest to the heart of nearly every form of marxism - class. In what way does deconstruction challenge the exploitation of the powerless?

Very interesting

I dislike that some portions of the first pages of this book were blank/not printed and I have through my pen have written the missing words.

I ordered them assuming that the books would be of Routledge edition, but they are "Special Indian Edition" :(

Masterpiece!