defends the Jews, striking out against a “‘myth’... an ‘error’
and a ‘very widespread opinion’”: namely, anti-Semitism.
The obvious problem with Derrida’s defense of de Man
here is that the words and phrases he cites repeatedly from de
Man’s article—“myth,” “error,” “lapidary judgment,” “very
widespread opinion”—are applied by de Man not to anti-
Semitism, but rather to the mistaken idea that the Jews have
infected European literature. De Man aims to oppose the myth
that European belles lettres are enjuivées(“Jewified”), not to
combat anti-Semitism itself. To celebrate the fact that Euro-
pean letters have remained vital and healthy despite the pres-
ence of the Jews, this alien force in the heart of Europe, is
hardly to provide a critique of anti-Semitic ideas. And to add
to this, as de Man does, that Europe would hardly miss its Jews
were they suddenly to disappear does not seem like an effective
way of arguing for these Jews and against their persecutors.
But in Derrida’s view de Man makes just such an anti-
anti-Semitic argument. De Man has written an “uncompro-
mising critique” of the Nazis—so Derrida claims, astonish-
ingly. It is, of course, a subtle critique, as we might expect from
de Man. He “preferred to play the role of the nonconformist
smuggler,” just like the members of the resistance ( 143 ).
But, the reader might object, de Man chose to write for a
newspaper filled with crude propaganda against the Jews. Just
look at the pages ofLe Soir:the journal was filled with racist
slurs. Yes, says Derrida, but really it is “as if his article were de-
nouncing the neighboring articles, pointing to the ‘myth’ and
the ‘errors’” ( 144 ). The de Man article is “an anticonformist at-
tack” ( 145 ); we know this because de Man was an anticon-
formist all his life, a noble, independent soul.
It gets worse. Derrida goes on to describe de Man in his
1942 essay as, of all things, actually praising the Jews. Referring
204 Gadamer, Celan, de Man, Heidegger