The Derrida International 1996–1999 479
heritage without getting bogged down in concepts. [.. .] The
ambiguity – and this is a complicating factor that I must take
into account – is that those young people were often agitating
on behalf of good causes, just causes: human rights, in par-
ticular. That generation was fi ghting for causes that were, in
principle, often respectable, but they gave the impression that
they were using them rather than being of use to them.^3And so, even when, fundamentally, his positions were not all that
diff erent from those of the nouveaux philosophes, Derrida found it
extremely diffi cult to associate his name with theirs. He did belat-
edly recognize, however, that ‘if this permeability between the
intellectual and media fi elds is a very French phenomenon’, this
desire to speak out could become a good thing for the public space
and for democracy, on condition that it did not become merely
a matter of ‘gesture’ politics, or allow itself to be ‘contaminated
by little self-promoting narcissisms, facile demagogic ploys or the
vulgar rapacity of publishers’.^4
Derrida’s attitude towards the press continued to be edged with
wariness, except in relation to the few papers he considered to be
‘friendly’. With Libération, in particular, especially with Robert
Maggiori, his relations had become more cordial. As regards Le
Monde, Derrida remained on the defensive, partly because of his
complicated links with Roger-Pol Droit, and partly because the
editor of the books section, Josyane Savigneau, was very close to
Philippe Sollers. Even though the arrival of Dominique Dhombres,
one of his former students at Normale Sup, helped to smooth over
certain tensions, he was still mistrustful. ‘Like Bourdieu, Derrida
was a “tricky customer”,’ as Dhombres recalls. ‘To begin with, he
played along with interviews, and greatly enjoyed improvising. But
he later wanted the result to resemble a real text, something that’s
diffi cult in the press. The need to observe word limits was something
he completely rejected. The least little cut was, in his view, a form of
censorship.’^5
Derrida had eventually accepted photographs, recognizing
belatedly that the ideological character of his earlier refusal also
concealed a ‘prudish fl irtatiousness’ and a ‘tormented relation’ with
his own image.^6 For him, the problem had shifted its ground: it
was now a question of whether or not to appear on television. He
was never invited on Apostrophes, but he claimed he would have
refused anyway. In February 1996, at a meeting with students from
the University of Paris VIII, he stated his admiration for Patrick
Modiano* in the programmes on which he was invited to appear:
- Modiano is a distinguished French novelist and a stammerer. – Tr.