properly. For Rousseau, Derrida asserts, writing is “a tragic fa-
tality come to prey upon natural innocence” ( 168 ), the na-
tive strength enshrined in living speech. Natural presence—
which for Rousseau takes the form of maternal love, as well
as the speech that comes before writing—“ought to beself-
sufficient” ( 145 ).^3
In his commentary on Rousseau, Derrida describes how
a “dangerous supplement” insinuates itself into the values of
presence and natural being. This serpent in Eden, the supple-
ment, is, in the realm of sexuality, masturbation, with its
attachment to artificially generated fantasy images (masturba-
tion receives significant attention in Rousseau’s Confessions).
In the realm of communication, the supplement is writing,
which erodes speech by substituting itself for it.
Derrida suggests that we need to reverse the terms of val-
uation: the supplement proves essential, rather than corrupt-
ing. Once we have realized that even pure nature itself is a
substitute, that it is constituted retroactively as a nostalgic
vision—the Eden we never had—then we are liberated, at least
to a degree, from such fantasies of innocence. “One can no
longer see disease in substitution when one sees that the sub-
stitute is substituted for a substitute” ( 314 ). Liberation (of this
rather thin, shadowy sort) would consist in recognizing writ-
ing for the original, pervasive factor it is, rather than as a
falling-offfrom speech. Derrida’s treatment of Rousseau sug-
gests, however partially, a realm of freedom at the far end of
metaphysics: the end of fantasies of voice, and the acknowl-
edgment of writing.
But writing is still too insubstantial for Derrida’s pur-
poses. It is a creature of skepticism, of absence, rather than
a true, revolutionary otherness. Derrida turns instead to
Nietzsche and (in a different vein) to Lévinas for the overcom-
92 Writing and DifferenceandOf Grammatology