While reading Gabriel Rockhill’s exposé on Slavoj Zizek what stood out to me a lot was the brief mention of postmodern philosopher Jacques Derrida being involved in “anti-communist political activism against the government in Czechoslovakia”.
While I’ve always known that Postmodernism is an enemy of Marxism, this makes it sound like postmodern philosophers are also feds. The source Rockhill cites for Derrida’s anti-communist praxis is the 1999 book The Velvet Philosophers by Barbara Day. Has anyone read this book? What specifically is said about the topic in it?
I wouldn’t be quick to take such general criticisms of entire philosophies too seriously. Just as you might see people struggling to criticize Marxism due to its breadth and depth, and because of the time needed to learn, same can be said of other ways of thinking. It’s easy to reduce things down and dismiss them, but in reality people utilize postmodernist and post structuralist thinking fairly routinely without ever reading Derrida.