the future of emancipationsense of the word — which Derrida names l’avenir (some times spelled
l’à-venir), rendered in English as future-to-come; it would entail an
endless repetition of the current situation without any possibility of
transformation, a boundless status quo which would essentially amount
to a disregard of past and present suffering, as well as of injustices yet
to come. To return to the difference between ontology and hauntol-
ogy, ontology focuses exclusively on what is (present(ly)), founding
whatever justifications it may offer on what is at hand — rendering,
accordingly, any claims based on what is not as directly misconceived,
if not false. Hauntology, on the other hand, upholds the necessity (and
urgency) of letting what is not also have a voice, of letting what is not
(counted) also be counted, of giving its due to what is outside of the cur-
rent horizon. And, to reiterate, it is important to realize that in this
sense, hauntology is at once descriptive and normative; it is a descrip-
tion of reality which is more accurate than bipolar ontology, but since
this assertion by itself does not suffice to, as it were, put this same
ontology to rest, hauntology also has an essential normative dimen-
sion: in a situation always at least partly, if not completely, dominated
by traditional ontology, there is a constant need for hauntology to
reassert itself. The double meaning here at issue is quite adequately
captured by the adjective just: it is just (right and proper — and good)
that we justly (correctly) describe reality (in hauntological terms).
But what should we surmise, then, about the ethico-political effects
of hauntology? For Derrida, it is quite clear that this type of thinking
demands a vivid awareness of injustices committed and of the claims
of the dead upon the presently living. In other words, hauntology is
essentially linked with the memory of the past and with the promise
of redemption, of human emancipation, of the coming of justice.^12
And this, precisely, is the common thread by which Derrida wants to
link up with Marx — a certain “‘spirit’ of emancipatory Marxism”
(167/264), as Derrida puts it, which is inextricably and inherently re-
lated to theological issues:
- For a comprehensive account of these issues, see Matthias Fritsch, The Promise
of Memory: History and Politics in Marx, Benjamin and Derrida, Albany: SUNY Press,