Perjury and Pardon, Volume I by Jacques Derrida;Ginette Michaud;Nicholas Cotton;

Author:Jacques Derrida;Ginette Michaud;Nicholas Cotton; [Derrida, Jacques]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: PHI000000 PHILOSOPHY / General, PHI027000 PHILOSOPHY / Movements / Deconstruction, PHI046000 PHILOSOPHY / Individual Philosophers
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Published: 2022-09-09T00:00:00+00:00

APPENDIX 2, SIXTH SESSION

Page 161, note 4

When I said too quickly last time1 that the scene of the secret on which I insisted so much in relation to the sacrifice of Isaac—the sacrifice of Isaac which, precisely, was removed from ethical generality, hence from public, family, national, civil, etc., space—when I said that that scene of secrecy was exemplary and that it was therefore in appearance only that it was confined to this paroxystic and hyperbolic and almost monstrous situation constituted by the sacrifice, by his father, of a favorite son (the son of a promise because Isaac is the promise of the future), I would like to go back over that while still maintaining what I said. It must not be forgotten that, notwithstanding however exemplary that scene be within its universal, universalizable structure, Abraham would today be considered—Kierkegaard said it so well—an absolute criminal. He would be put on trial, but if he had only begun to do what he did and had been surprised in the act of doing that, isn’t it true, it is certain that he would be judged without pity as such a criminal not only in Europe but in the United States! [Laughter] Well, the question is perhaps this: what consequences are to be drawn from the fact that he would be judged without pity, tried, and sentenced, if the exemplarity—which I would call “ordinary”—of this scene, this scene about which I have spoken at length these past few sessions, remained indisputable, namely, that it is exemplary, it always takes place, it is a fact of most ordinary life, and nevertheless, the fact is monstrous and calls virtually for prosecution by the law? In other words, wherever absolute secrecy is asked for in a radical way, as is the case in this scene, well, it is naturally punishable by the most lengthy sentences and all the way to capital punishment. Which means that crime is everywhere, that this crime, this request for secrecy that I tried to analyze, is virtually criminal and liable under the law wherever there is a law, wherever there is right, wherever there is political right. That means what? It means that this request for secrecy, for respecting absolute secrecy, about which we spoke, must remain absolutely secret in its experience and especially in its consequences, must remain invisible, failing which, naturally, it is liable to the harshest punishment. That is the death penalty. When it comes to requesting absolute secrecy, it is inscribed in the structure of the juridico-political in which we live that the harshest punishment must be required. And the consequences must be drawn from that, virtually, except where, naturally, one has been put to the test, as in the case of Abraham where finally the angel arrived and suspended the crime, remember, except in that case, but virtually, virtually, because no one could be sure that the angel was going to descend, virtually, the request for absolute secrecy renders liable to the heaviest sentencing and is intolerable for a juridico-political order in the strict sense.

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