Abstract

Political activists can cheer when Jacques Derrida says that his idea of “democracy to come” is “a call for militant and interminable political critique.” Our acclamations grow louder when he adds that this idea is “a weapon aimed at the enemies of democracy.” He identifies these “enemies” as people who use the discourse of democracy as an “obscene alibi” for “tolerating the plight” of people “deprived of bread and water” and “equality or freedom.”1 He accuses the United States of committing this sort of hypocrisy when it denounces other states for practicing the very roguery in which it indulges.2We can also praise Derrida for what he offers us as well as rejects. He comments that there is a need for a “European...