Severed Ties 1972–1973 237
when we see Jean Ristat, spiritual son of Aragon-Cardin,
changing course. [.. .] This issue is not short of a paradox or
two, so let us savour this one: Derrida’s book Dissemination,
which is a pretext for this gathering of intellectuals electing by
plebiscite the policies of the pcfr, takes its title from an essay of
a hundred pages (a third of the book) which Derrida devotes
to Philippe Sollers’ novel, Numbers. Need we say that we fi nd
practically no trace of Sollers’ work, or even of Derrida’s work
on Sollers, in this issue of Les Lettres françaises?^18The second article, signed ‘Ideological struggle at the front’, bore
the title ‘Derrida or the anti-yellow peril’. The attack was simultan-
eously brutal and sheepish. After all, the author of Writing and
Diff erence had long been one of the pillars of Tel Quel:
29 March – Lettres françaises – Homage to Derrida.
[.. .] Revisionism delights in the texts of the idealist philo-
sopher Derrida published over two years ago. Eclectic
ecstasies. Ragbag of revisionist intellectuals (the socialite
backès-clément and the Marxist Jean Genet). Obviously, as
soon as anyone refers to Revolutionary China, it all becomes
much clearer. Derrida, a specifi c moment in the history of
the avant-garde, a philosopher who is formed of nothing but
the shameful abandonment of all philosophical struggle in
the shape of revisionism. But intelligent idealism, 1,000 times
better than dumb materialism. Derrida today is absorbed,
overtaken by the avant-garde in a scientifi c theory of ideolo-
gies. Revisionism, with its back to the wall, lauding to the skies
mere crumbs. Wheeling and dealing: revisionism lives only
by exploiting the past achievements of the same avant-garde
which denounces it.^19Barthes’s participation in this issue of Les Lettres françaises was, of
course, ignored.
At Pierre Overney’s funeral, Bernard Pautrat bumped into Michel
Foucault: ‘So,’ the latter asked him, ‘what are you up to? Still
philosophical scribbles?’^20 Through Pautrat, the attack was clearly
aimed at Derrida, whom Foucault had just critiqued twice over.
This polemic, exactly contemporary with the split with Tel Quel, but
on a quite diff erent level, would become one of the best-known in
modern philosophy.
the telqueliens. As for June 71, chosen as the name of the movement, it is the date on
which Macchiocchi’s Daily Life in Revolutionary Ch ina was published. Many other
allusions could be spelled out.