PetalswiththeWind 10/24/2006 The Crosswords/Roads of Derrida!

Dr. Notorious Rog mentioned one of my favorite movies in class this past Tuesday, Jarhead. Whenever I feel mental anguish and feel that I can’t go on, some of my marine “homies” taught me a phrase to build up my mental strength and endurance, “OO RA!” I think that it is the way to spell it, but it does not even matter. All that matters is the expulsion of sound that resonates through my entire body, what it does to me, how it builds up energy! Words for the military have to be strong; they can not be self defeating, because when in combat all they can think of are words to keep them, their platoon, and their countrymen alive and free! They have to feel the passion to live at all times.

Language is full of possibilities, of the revealed and the undisclosed! The surfaces of language, the words, are only what are heard and said, but not the deep silent message underneath them. Language adds opinionated judgments. All the value added to the thoughts of others mean naught, as long as one does not agree with the intended underlying message when the system is used historically. Just because we agree to use the language of a Patriarchal system does not mean we have to carry and believe the message intended. It is not a fool proof system since Derrida, Saussure, and other great theorists have figured it out. Once you understand the interlocking features of such formulation; we just have to find the exact combination to unlock it. We all have paid enough attention to a specific message in language over and over again, until it has become part of our subconscious. So much so that we think it is a part of us, which is the actual interlocking of the system.

OO RA!

The system of language itself only points to possibilities, not to the definitive or certainty like we all think. Just because someone says some thing with defining limitation does not mean it is true or false, right or wrong, from situation to situation. Because situation to situation varies, and the only time it is defined with certainty is when we allow language to encompass it with its definitions. I’m so over it! OO RA! People defining my lifetime and telling me how to live through the use of language; if we went back to the cave man days where we could not talk or write, no one could tell me how to live my life or what to think, or not think. No imposition of their opinions, unless through physical violence, and even then I would have the right to defend myself!

Derrida states, “Saussure had only to remind us that the play of difference was the functional condition, the condition of possibility, for every sign; and it is itself silent!”
OO RA, Derrida!

The utility of language serves the purpose of only a few, the hegemony in power! The masses using and maintaining this system of language, fulfills the higher purpose for the hegemony, not themselves. The utility of language functions as mechanisms within a system that keeps people under control, under the power, and the influence of the patriarchs. An experience can be broken down to its essential elements, and not be bounded by language itself. Language can transcend an experience to the closest possible reality, but not quite exactly. Not all words can encompass reality entirely (such as Lyotard’s states with reference to the all encompassing metanarratives), that is where the distortion and confusion comes in.
So as the infamous words of Public Enemy states, “Fight the Power! Fight the Power that be!”
OO RA!