Polemos: ‘I am at war with myself’ or, Deconstruction™ in the Anthropocene?

Abstract

The term “anthropocene,” emerging around the time of Derrida's death, implies a shift in reference that his late production does not address or anticipate—and thus, if it is to be taken seriously as a ghost term, it poses today a question of a selective translation effect as regards “deconstruction.” This essay finds in Derrida's “last” interview and the “war with myself” that it avows a cipher and entry point for this broader question. Given official “deconstructions” withdrawn, conservative, and fallow state today, as a minor academic camp dedicated to Derridean theology, the essay asks whether the arrival of the term is not a catalyst for the re-organization of deconstructive memes (if not proper names). It examines not only Derrida's systematic avoidance in his writing of eco-catastrophism, but how that occlusion parallels others—specifically, a certain “materiality” that lies outside binaries and, more surprisingly, cinema. In examining this “war” between the two Derridas the essay speculates on whether the anthropocene moves us beyond the sort of soft Derrideanism that, since his death, has paralyzed the franchise (deconstruction™) and fulfilled his prediction of his work's disappearance.