So You Want to Be an English Major, Part 1

So you want to be an English major. Wonderful! Here are some of the fun new experiences headed your way.

• You will read hundreds of incredible poems, short stories, and novels.

• You will participate in countless fascinating lectures and conversations about art.

• You will gain a deep, interconnected understanding of various books, authors, and literary movements.

Still with me? Good! Let’s keep going.

• You will take Literary Analysis. Before the second class you will be expected to read The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald and “Différance” by Jacques Derrida. You will hole up in the library and finish the The Great Gatsby. You will not finish “Différance.” It will not matter.

• Still, you’ll give “Différance” a try. Here’s how it opens:

  I will speak, therefore, of a letter.

  Of the first letter, if the alphabet, and most of the speculations which have ventured into it, are to be believed.

  I will speak, therefore, of the letter a, this initial letter which it apparently has been necessary to insinuate, here and there, into the writing of the word difference; and to do so in the course of a writing on writing, and also of a writing within writing whose different trajectories thereby find themselves, at certain very determined points, intersecting with a kind of gross spelling mistake, a lapse in the discipline and law which regulate writing and keep it seemly. One can always, de facto or de jure, erase or reduce this lapse in spelling, and find it (according to situations to be analyzed each time, although amounting to the same), grave or unseemly, that is, to follow the most ingenuous hypothesis, amusing. Thus, even if one seeks to pass over such an infraction in silence, the interest that one takes in it can be recognized and situated in advance as prescribed by the mute irony, the inaudible misplacement, of this literal permutation. One can always act as if it made no difference. And I must state here and now that today’s discourse will be less a justification of, and even less an apology for, this silent lapse in spelling, than a kind of insistent intensification of its play.

• This essay will be assigned without an introductory lecture, explanatory readings, or any context whatsoever.

You know what? Derrida’s an interesting guy; let’s stick with him.

• You will be told Derrida’s writing is difficult to read because it is translated.

• You will be told Derrida’s writing is difficult to read because it assumes a philosophical background you don’t possess.

• You will be told Derrida’s writing is difficult to read because he is challenging the authority of writing itself.

• You will be told Derrida’s writing is not difficult to read.

• You will be told Derrida wanted to be a soccer player when he was young, that he got middling grades throughout his education, and that, as an adult, he spent his afternoons playing snooker. You will note he published approximately eighty-seven books a year. You will eventually stop wondering why Derrida’s writing is difficult to read.

But enough about style. Let’s get to the ideas!

• Derrida will claim that throughout Western history, the written word has been valued over the spoken word because the written word has more permanence.

• Sorry, that is incorrect. Derrida will claim that throughout Western history, the spoken word has been valued over the written word because the spoken word has more authority.

• Sorry, that is incorrect. Give me a minute… Sorry, sorry. Let me check my notes…

• Derrida will claim that throughout Western history, either the written word or the spoken word has been valued over either the spoken word or the written word, and he will not provide evidence.

• You will be told Derrida provides lots of evidence, you just haven’t read the right books. You will look at a pile of his books. You will look at War and Peace. You haven’t read War and Peace.

• You will be told all summaries of Derrida are inadequate. You will be told your own summaries of Derrida are inadequate. You will be told that anytime anybody changes any word Derrida wrote, that text no longer adequately explains his ideas, so reading any secondary sources instead of Derrida is inadequate. Considering Derrida’s ideas, you will find this ironic. You will glance at Anna Karenina. You haven’t read Anna Karenina.

• Years later you will learn the term “opportunity cost.”

• Derrida will claim all words are defined by their opposites and that one word in the pair is always privileged over the other. The examples given will be “male / female,” “white / black,” and “straight / gay.” This will strike you as important and true. Years later someone will ask you about words like “giraffe,” “triangle,” and “swimmingly.” Your response will not go swimmingly.

• Derrida will claim language is inherently untethered from reality because a dictionary defines a word via other words which are themselves defined via the dictionary. For example, imagine an entomologist who discovers a new beetle: when defining it in a dictionary or encyclopedia, he contrasts it with other beetles—it has larger pincers than beetles X and Y but smaller pincers than beetle Z—thus, every beetle is defined in the negative by all other beetles. Derrida will claim this is true not only for beetles, but for every word in relation to every other word, including the original word when used in different times and places. This will strike you as important and true.

• Years later you will wonder why the imaginary entomologist didn’t put the beetle in a jar, show it to his colleagues, and say, “Look.”

• Even more years later you will learn the term “deictic gesture.” It will feel nice to have a more technical phrase than “point and speak.”

• Yet even more years later you will come to understand how a dictionary actually works.

• Derrida will recount a story about Jean-Jacques Rousseau. In the story, Rousseau will take a piece of bread his wife spat out and put it in his own mouth. Derrida will argue that Rousseau was more interested in the objects surrounding his wife than his wife herself. He will claim this is evidence for his theory of language. Years later you will realize you were never told if the Rousseau story was supposed to be evidence for Derrida’s theory, or if Derrida’s theory was supposed to explain the Rousseau story. Perhaps both?

• You will learn that, because (1) the spoken word is valued over the written word, (2) every word is defined by its opposite, and (3) all words are inherently untethered from reality, it is necessary for the deconstructionist to “play” with language. You will hear this word many, many times. Play. Play, play, play. See Derrida play. Play with language, Derrida! Play!

• You will not initially be opposed to any of these ideas. You will trust your professors. You will engage with the material and it will often strike you as important and true. You will go home for the summer and tell your father all language is hopelessly imprecise. He will ask, without forethought or malice, how human beings sent a spaceship 240,000 miles to the moon if clear communication is so difficult. You will not have a reply.

• One day you will notice deconstruction undermines itself, obviously. You will be told this is proof it is correct, obviously. You will not have a reply (obviously).

• You will read a book that claims Derrida was the first person to critique the entire Western philosophical tradition. (You will read this in a book about Derrida, so you will be unsure how much to trust it.) The cover will show his smiling face. The inside will have a cartoon of him toppling Grecian columns, each with an important philosophical idea on top.

• You will be told Derrida was not an iconoclast, relativist, or nihilist, and that he deeply respected the Western tradition.

• You will be told contradicting facts about Derrida and his ideas. This will be because he constantly contradicted himself. This will be understood as proof of his brilliance.

• You will learn that during a debate, Derrida listened to another philosopher go on for some time, articulating the reasons he believed Derrida was wrong. You will learn that, once his interlocutor was done, Derrida’s response was to brush his hands together and say, “Oh, I see. [We’re] all finished?” Years later you will read a quote in which Derrida expressed wounded bafflement about the vitriol of his critics.

• You will learn that deconstruction is an endless process in which one can never come to a final conclusion. The phrase “job security” will flit through your mind.

Still with me? Okay. We’ve got Derrida’s ideas down. Now let’s do something with them.

• All of this will be the foundation for analyzing “texts.”

• You will learn that everything is a text.

• You will learned that obviously this doesn’t mean everything is a “text.”

• You will come to understand that Derrida often treated outrageous statements as literal on one occasion and figurative on other occasions. Play, Derrida, play!

• Years later you will learn the term “motte-and-bailey.”

• You will read an analysis of a striptease, of various toilet bowl shapes (sorted by country), and of a jar of mayonnaise. (One of these is false. Make a guess and read the footnote to see how your education is coming along.)1

• You will meet many English majors who love literature as much as you do.

• But you will meet some English majors who seem to have a simmering hatred of literature always bubbling just below the surface.

• You will buy the Norton Critical Edition of House of Mirth by Edith Wharton. The novel will take up one-fifth of the book. Essays about the novel will take up the rest.

• Wharton’s book will be beautifully written, psychologically astute, and sad as hell. It will remind you of the Warren Zevon song “The French Inhaler.” For many years you will think “mirth” means “intense melancholy.” You will eventually learn the title is ironic.

• Your Norton Critical Edition will include a deconstruction of House of Mirth. The introduction (to the essay (about the novel)) will include boilerplate information on how deconstruction seeks to reveal the contradictions inherent in every text. You will read the essay and the author will strike you as someone who loathes—just absolutely loathes—literature in general and The House of Mirth in particular.

• The essay won’t talk about the writing, the characters, or the tragic ending. The essay will seek to reveal the contradictions inherent in every text.

• Something will click.

• You will wonder: if deconstruction always has the same goal, why does it matter what you deconstruct? For the successful deconstructionist, all texts are just raw material. The Great Gatsby will reveal the contradictions inherent in every text. The House of Mirth will reveal the contradictions inherent in every text. The shape of a German toilet bowl will reveal the contradictions inherent in every text.

• You will realize it is almost as if, to the average deconstructionist, the critic matters more than the author.

• Oh.

• Years later you will see authors you admire come to the defense of Derrida. You will want to set your head on fire.

This is getting a little depressing, isn’t it? Don’t worry, that’s to be expected. And I have good news!

• You will be told Derrida had a “political turn” in the 90s and decided there were real truths and clear ways to communicate them and No, no, no, you didn’t think he was succumbing to nihilism did you? He’s big on the Enlightenment, as a matter of fact. Loves it, honestly. Had a book out last year covering all this stuff. Have you read the original French?

• Speaking of politics. You will learn that Derrida was Jewish.

• Speaking of politics. You will learn he had a protégé named Paul de Man.

• Speaking of politics. You will learn de Man wrote hundreds of antisemitic articles for a Nazi newspaper in the 1930s.

• You will watch Derrida use his philosophy of language to defend de Man. That is to say: you will watch a Jew deconstruct the writing of a Nazi to prove the Nazi’s writings aren’t antisemitic.

• It will be heavily hinted that bringing any of this up is a cheap, ad hominem potshot and frankly rather gauche.

Let’s end with a few history facts!

• You will learn that during World War I, the French held the Germans at bay for four years. This milieu produced Jean-Paul Sartre, who said, “Men get the war they deserve.” A professor will explain that Sartre, rather than despairing over the war, took the radical position that, though world events were not in his control, his reaction to them was, and thus even a tragedy provides the chance to define yourself as a human being.

• You will learn that during World War II, the French held the Germans at bay for just over a month. This milieu produced Jacques Derrida, who decided all meaning defers to other meaning, nothing can ever be said about anything, and what are facts anyway?

• You will learn Derrida and the poststructuralists had a particular disaffinity for Sartre and the existentialists.

Oh! I almost forget. One last thing.

• You will learn about deconstructed architecture. It will look exactly like you imagined.