Genesis, gains strength from the push and shove of rival mean-
ings: from, as he calls it, the equivocal. Writing is, remarks Der-
rida, “A power of pure equivocality that makes the creativity of
the classical God appear all too poor....Writing is the anguish
of the Hebrew ruah,experienced in solitude by human re-
sponsibility” ( 9 ). There is a notable ambivalence here: does
Derrida want to enlist the Jewish God in the deconstructionist
cause or not? The ruah is the breath of God at the beginning of
Genesis, moving on the face of the waters. Here Derrida wres-
tles with the Hebrew God of his youth, and steals this God’s
power for literature: for the solitary excess of a Blanchot-like
ascesis, and for an idea of human responsibility borrowed
from the existentialists. (Continuing the religious motif, Der-
rida follows these sentences with a comparison between the
anguish-ridden adventure of writing and the prophetic ordeal
of Jeremiah.)
Derrida in “Force and Signification” manifests his force
by fanciful pen thrusts. His equivocation, the source of power
he claims for writing, makes it at times hard to tell whether he
is advancing a real argument or merely playing the sublime,
and sublimely ridiculous, philosopher. He is capable of invok-
ing both Moses and Nietzsche’s Zarathustra in order to herald
the Derridean revelation: “It will be necessary to descend, to
work, to bend in order to engrave and carry the new Tables
to the valleys, in order to read them and have them read” ( 29 ).
Derrida, at the ready age of thirty-two, stands supremely
confident and ambitious, trying on the role of prophet and
law giver. He smiles at his own pretension and coaxes forth
thundering pronouncements. “Force and Signification” is an
astonishing piece of creative writing, for a philosopher, for
anyone.
“Force and Signification” begins Writing and Difference
Writing and DifferenceandOf Grammatology 119