[WikiEN-l] On Clarity and Generalists

Sat Oct 15 21:24:56 UTC 2005

Delirium wrote

> That's certainly an opinion which can be represented.  But that presented 
> by the NYT is also a major mainstream opinion on the subject.  It can of 
> course be said that European Derrida scholars think the NYT sucks, but 
> simply pretending the NYT's view does not exist and is not held by 
> millions of other people is strange.

Point 1 would be that we're talking here about arcane philosophy (and a 
particularly self-entrenched philosopher), not current affairs.  So even one 
of the major newspapers will only be as good as their hired gun who writes 
about it.  Reporters picking up phones are not going to cut it.

Point 2 is that the NYT obituary probably did aim, as obits do, to be 
judicious about the newsworthy bits of Derrida.  Snowspinner, I take it, 
likes the idea that we'd do the same.  But if the NYT blew it ... it became 
fairly worthless as an exercise.

Point 3: would be that the article itself probably got into defensive 
posture when Derrida died, and there was a sudden rush of people essentially 
defacing it.  Yes, it needs to move on, now.  Things written on the talk 
page about being true to his memory or not are rather telling, about that. 
Wiki is a bit llike one of those materials with memory, though.

Charles 