Postcards and Proofs 1979–1981 329
he remained accessible to his pupils and attentive to their personal
careers, things had become very diffi cult since Althusser’s departure.
An essential bond had been broken and the École had become in
Derrida’s eyes inseparable from this tragedy. At the same time, his
relations with Bernard Pautrat were growing more distant. As the
latter relates:
Whatever he may have said, Derrida encouraged his associates
to behave like disciples, and he fostered a kind of mimicry.
Actually, that’s how I myself behaved for a few years, without
altogether realizing, so great was my admiration for him. But
after a while, I could see how much he obeyed the old prin-
ciple ‘he who is not for me is against me’: as soon as there
was a diff erence of opinion, or he suspected one, he drew the
consequences. Being with him meant you gave him complete
support. Now quite apart from the fact that I’m not a model of
obedience, in my view there cannot really be a Derrida school,
because deconstruction is primarily a style – his and his alone.
All he leaves his disciples with are leftovers. This is one thing
that, in a sense, makes him resemble Heidegger, the philosopher
who probably obsessed him the most. Of course, people such as
Nancy and Lacoue-Labarthe have tried to avoid this failing,
and perhaps they’ve succeeded since they were already profes-
sionally formed when they started to work with him. This was
not true of me. So I had no other solution than to escape from
that attraction to fi nd my own orbit. And then I have to confess
that Derrida, the man I had loved and admired so much, had
given place to another, always busy, forever checking his diary,
then his watch, always between two meetings and two tele-
phone calls. This is understandable and acceptable, although it
didn’t strike me as being very ‘philosophical’. But just then, I
have to admit, I found it a bit diffi cult to put up with his never-
ending complaints: ‘If only you knew... I don’t have a minute
to myself... etc.,’ while he’d obviously done everything to
build up this life of turmoil and celebrity.^63However weary he may have been, Derrida did not fi nally give up
his work at Normale Sup during the last months of 1981. In one last
attempt, probably hoping to take advantage of the arrival of a new
director and the recent political upheavals, he drew up quite a radical
plan to transform teaching at the École. Apart from philo sophy, he
pondered the future of the whole Literary School, detailing in a
thirteen-page typewritten document a few ‘propositions for a pre-
liminary project’. His initial judgement was severe: ‘The interests
of the state and the nation decree that we do not allow [.. .] the
potential of a still thriving and productive institution for research