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Jacques Derrida<<deer-ee-da>>, a la Shmoop: Binary opposition, différance, and essentialism.

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<<This video is done bobblehead style; narrator is Jacques Derrida (Fr. accent)>>

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Hello, my American friends.

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And yes, I do consider you my friends. Even if I am a little appalled at what you people

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sometimes call... quiche. But... savory custard tarts aside...

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...there are a number of other concepts we came up with over here in "la France"...

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...that I worry you Americans do not quite grasp.

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So I am here to clear things up. And not at all in a snooty, condescending way.

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Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Jacques Deerida, and I am a philosopher.

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What is that? What restaurant do I work at? Ah. You are hysterical.

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Let's dive in, shall we?

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First, let me talk to you for a moment about "binary opposition."

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This is a term that was originally coined by the "structuralists"...

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...a group of human sheep... if you will allow me to express an opinion... who feel that

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everything should be studied in terms of big thematic systems.

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In other words, they liked to examine concepts in terms of opposites, like old and new, rich

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and poor, white and black... and so on.

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And that's fine. But their idea of breaking everything in life down to two basic, opposite

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elements... was just the tip of the iceberg.

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They didn't go far enough with it. In fact, each of these binaries consists of a hierarchy...

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...meaning that one is always better than the other.

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New is better than old, rich is better than poor, white is better than...

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...moving on, yes? Next up... "différance." This word is all

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me. I made it up. Aren't I special? It is not the same as the word "difference"...

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in fact, there is a difference. Er, hopefully, that was not too confusing.

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The word "différance" refers to how a word's meaning can never be absolutely pinned down.

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You can't define one word without using other words, which, in turn, would have to be defined,

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by other words, et cetera. It is a vicious circle.

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Différance extends to literature, too, which means that just when you think you have a

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book figured out... you don't. There are endless meanings in every text,

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and no one interpretation is better than another. Which is deconstruction, in a nutshell.

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Finally, essentialism. Calling someone an "essentialist" is an insult.

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Which is why I like the word so much. It's great to yell at people who cut you off

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in traffic, even if it doesn't quite apply. An essentialist believes in an absolute universal

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"essence" of things. He believes that the concepts we have assigned

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words and definitions to... ...already existed, floating around in the

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cosmos somewhere, before we came along and decided to name them.

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For example, there was beauty, even before mankind looked around and said, "Bee-yoo-tiful!"

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However, an essentialist may also believe things that are a little... narrow-minded.

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Like believing that women are, by their nature, unreasonable or emotional, while men are reasonable

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and intellectual. Of course, said essentialist has not had a

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date in three years? Hm... a small connection, peut-être? <<puh-teh-truh>>

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That is the end of our lesson for today. Hopefully, we have learned together, we have

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laughed, shared a few tears, you know... the whole ball of wax.

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And also, please... stop eating brie on Ritz crackers. It's a disgrace. Oh, mon dieu. <<moan-dyuh>>

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