382 Jacques Derrida 1984–2004
the whole work of Heidegger’s thought to that of some Nazi
ideologue. This ‘record’ would be of little interest otherwise.
For more than a half-century, no rigorous philosopher has
been able to avoid a ‘full and frank discussion’ with Heidegger.
How can one deny that? Why deny that so many ‘revolution-
ary’, audacious, and troubling works of the twentieth century
have ventured into or even committed themselves to regions
that, according to a philosophy which is confi dent of its liberal
and leftist-democratic humanism, are haunted by the diaboli-
cal? Instead of erasing or trying to forget it, must one not try to
account for this experience, which is to say, for our age? And
without believing that all of this is already clear for us?^6Derrida soon found himself at the centre of the polemic – it was
just as if, through Heidegger, he was the one under attack. He had
been publishing for twenty-fi ve years, and he had been famous
in French intellectual circles for twenty years. But for the French
public, this was just the second time – the fi rst had been the Prague
aff air – that he had come to notice.
Victor Farías addressed the philosopher directly in a text called
‘13 facts for Jacques Derrida’, published in El País and then
reprinted in Le Nouvel Observateur and several European news-
papers: ‘What does Jacques Derrida say? The facts are there, but
they have no signifi cance in themselves without a corresponding
philosophical interpretation. Even richer than that: Derrida has
“found nothing in this investigation that had not been known for a
long time”.’ Whereupon Farías summarized a series of ‘extremely
important’ elements that had been ‘completely unknown’ before his
book, before he concluded his letter by saying: ‘If Derrida knew all
that, why didn’t he tell us? He would have spared me twelve years’
work.’^7 Even though several aspects of Farías’s work on Heidegger
would be questioned and qualifi ed over the following years, his
attack bore fruit.*
Passions were still running high when, on 27 November 1987,
Robert Maggiori published in Libération a double-page spread
with the title: ‘Derrida tient Heidegger en respect’ (‘Derrida
keeps Heidegger at a distance’†).The article itself was ambivalent:
Maggiori patiently followed the analysis put forward in Of Spirit;
- A few years later, Farías went off the rails when he tried to prove that Salvador
Allende ‘was actually just a supporter of the “Final Solution”, an anti-Semite, a
homophobe, and a sworn enemy of “inferior races”: in short, a Nazi disguised as a
socialist’ (Élisabeth Roudinesco, Retour sur la question juive, Paris: Albin Michel,
2009, p. 294). In 2005, the President Allende Foundation brought proceedings
against Farías for defamation of the dead.
† But with the subtext ‘Derrida respects Heidegger’. – Tr.