the <\/em> impossible,\u201d traditions that guard against the possibility of a breakthrough, of novelty. <\/p>\n For Derrida, the right response to a tradition is always double: \u201cTo have a tradition is to practice, at one and the same time, the greatest fidelity and a filial lack of piety, to feel the paralysis of owing a debt and owing it to ourselves to forget the debt, for only then will the tradition really move ahead. Pure fidelity is death, but so is pure infidelity. The art of the heir is to maintain the greatest possible tension between fidelity and infidelity . . . between the circle and the gift, to be paralyzed by this aporia and then to make a move (when it is impossible).\u201d <\/p>\n
On this view, tradition is \u201d traditio <\/em> , giving, giving-over, trans-dare <\/em> , the very process of giving or transmitting the gifts of the tradition.\u201d In the trans-giving, the tradition is inevitably altered, and thus Derrida\u2019s understanding of tradition runs contrary to the \u201ctraditional idea of tradition,\u201d which will \u201cflatten us into submission by its massive dead weight, by the boulders that are rolled down its hill with all the weight of the great blockbusters of the past, the great texts and practices of the fathers, which we are all supposed immediately and unquestioningly to shoulder like good children who know the debt they owe their venerable ancestors.\u201d Derrida recognizes that traditions are \u201cpolyvocal\u201d and that we must inevitably \u201clearn to make our way, selectively and judiciously\u201d among the various voices. Let\u2019s call him \u201cDerrida the Protestant.\u201d <\/p>\n Reception of tradition is thus at the same time Enlightenment, not the Enlightenment that aims to \u201cforesee and plan and program everything\u201d to make sure that everything is \u201cshut . . . down in advance.\u201d Rather, it is a \u201cnew Enlightenment\u201d that \u201ccuts us a break, which breaks open a possibility, an im <\/em> possibility, which deals us not death but a break, delivering the shock of something different, tearing up the circle of time.\u201d <\/p>\n All this puts me in mind of Rosenstock-Huessy: We are always on the cross stretched between the demands of the past and the promise of the future. Derrida has the structure right, but I don\u2019t think that Derrida has the resources to sustain this tension. We have to have access to something more contentful than the impossible pure gift to maintain this faithful infidelity. We need something like revelation. <\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Caputo ( The Prayers and Tears of Jacques Derrida: Religion without Religion (Indiana Series in the Philosophy of Religion) , 181-5) notes that for Derrida \u201ctraditions trace out the circle of a debt,\u201d and thus tradition does not constitute gift in the strict sense (which, on Derrida\u2019s terms, elude debt). Still, \u201cDerrida is not against […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3021,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8163","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-history","category-philosophy"],"yoast_head":"\n
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, 181-5) notes that for Derrida \u201ctraditions trace out the circle of a debt,\u201d and thus tradition does not constitute gift in the strict sense (which, on Derrida\u2019s terms, elude debt). Still, \u201cDerrida is not against traditions or having a debt to a tradition\u201d adn he never claims that we can take up \u201ca site of simply exteriority to the circle of tradition.\u201d Derrida knows that gift in his strict sense is impossible \u2013 it is, in fact \u201d the <\/em> impossible.\u201d So we incur debts, unavoidably, and the problem is with traditions that \u201clay down encircling horizons of possibility so forcefully as to wall us in and cut off the <\/em> impossible,\u201d traditions that guard against the possibility of a breakthrough, of novelty. <\/p>\n