Uncomfortable Positions 1969–1971 209
will precisely have determined the limits of thematic criticism
itself.^6According to Derrida, the blank designates the diversity of blanks
that appear in the text ‘plus the writing site [.. .] where such a total-
ity is produced’. There is, however, no question of turning the blank
of the page of writing into ‘the fundamental signifi ed or signifi er in
the series. [.. .] This “last” blank (one could equally well say this
“fi rst” blank) comes neither before nor after the series.’^7 Nothing
either can or should arrest the interplay of slippages and drifts at the
heart of writing. Instead of the hermeneutic concept of ‘polysemia’,
Derrida wanted to deploy that of ‘dissemination’. This new mode of
writing, which he was here starting to put into practice, would fi nd
its most radical application fi ve years later in Glas.
On a completely diff erent level, spring 1969 was marked by the
departure of General de Gaulle. After the crisis of the previous year,
he had attempted to regain some personal legitimacy. So regional
reform acted as the pretext for holding a referendum. On 27 April,
the ‘no’ votes won. As he had said he would, de Gaulle resigned on
the following day. A few weeks later, Georges Pompidou, his former
Prime Minister, was elected President.
Even though Derrida was always a man of the Left, he did not
share the gut hostility to de Gaulle of many of his contemporaries.
In a late interview with Franz-Olivier Giesbert, he even mentioned
General de Gaulle as the only politician he had really admired, apart
from Nelson Mandela: ‘Even when I was anti-Gaullist, in the sixties,
I was fascinated by a person like that who could marry everything –
vision and calculation, idealism and empiricism. Skilful and cunning
like all good politicians, he stood head and shoulders above them
with his grand ideas, his verbal felicities, and the theatrical perfor-
mances of his press conferences.’^8 On this subject, Derrida was the
complete opposite of Maurice Blanchot, who loathed de Gaulle with
a permanent and virulent loathing. A few days after the General’s
departure, Blanchot even wrote to Derrida: ‘I have to admit that,
for a moment, I felt myself breathing more easily and, waking in
the middle of the night, wondering: “But what’s happening? Some
weight has been lifted? Ah yes: de Gaulle.” ’^9
In the rue d’Ulm, another departure perturbed spirits even more
than the General’s: the departure of Jacques Lacan. Since 1964,
every Wednesday just before noon, the pavements of the rue d’Ulm
had been invaded by fl ash cars and pretty women. Lacan himself
turned up in his Mercedes 300 SL, before entering the Salle Dussane,
where a dense throng piled in to attend his seminar. People smoked
very heavily, especially since the master himself set the example; the
resulting smoke was so dense that it passed up through the ceiling