the future of emancipationwhen reading further we immediately learn that this does not mean
that we should hastily equate this indispensable and currently relevant
spirit of “Marxist critique” with what Derrida wants to call “a
deconstruction,” inasmuch as the latter “is no longer simply a critique”
and, in any case, it has never “been in a position either to identify with
or especially to oppose symmetrically something like Marxism, the
Marxist ontology, or the Marxist critique” (68/117). Deconstruction
seeks inspiration from this particular aspect of Marx’s legacy, but the
former should by no means be reduced to the latter, no more than it
should be seen to situate itself in direct opposition to it.
Be that as it may, but still the question insists: in what way are we,
then, to address and respond to this particular spirit of Marx con-
taining, as it does, the messianic core so dear to us? We have been
given a fair idea of what we should not do: we should abstain from
Marxist ontology, the Marxist system, and from materialism in the
Marxian vein, be it historical or dialectical. At this point, it is difficult
to resist the temptation to ponder a little about the overtones of this
reductive adherence to Marxism — is this not, in some respect,
idealism’s ultimate revenge on Marx? After all, Marx surely wanted his
theory to be something more than a mere “spiritual” element, a
“critique” that can inspire scholars haphazardly but remains devoid of
any actual practical dimension or, what is worse, of any claim to be a
scientific description of the workings of history. What can ever be the
effective emancipatory force of such a “critical spirit” — not least when
we keep in mind that it should not let it self be “incorporated in the
apparatuses of the party, State, or workers’ International”?
As it turns out, however, Derrida really does propose, in Specters of
Marx as well as in his book on the Politics of Friendship,^14 a new type of
community destined to fight the ruling hegemony. Thus, early on in
Specters of Marx, he gives a brief description of an “alliance of a rejoining
without conjoined mate, without organization, without party, without
nation, without State, without property (the “communism” that we
will [...] nickname the new International)” (29/58). Even if Derrida
somewhat surprisingly relates this new alliance to “communism,” it is
quite clear that what he has in mind differs radically from what is
- See Jacques Derrida, Politiques de l’amitié, Paris: Galilée, 1994.