The town halo

Couple of notable deaths recently: Christopher Reeve and Jaques Derrida. The Reeve death, naturally, is getting most of the news coverage since he is a Holloywood celebrity, though perhaps his death was more of a shock, since I guess everyone had hope that maybe someday he could recover from his paralysis.

But Derrida is a figure who, in the long run, will likely have made more of an impact on humanity (even more than Superman!). Derrida is/was one of the pre-eminent philosophers of the 20th century, ranking with Sartre or Wittgenstein. Although a philosopher, his ideas translated best in the realm of literary criticism since the foundation of Derrida's deconstructionist critiques lay in a critique of language as an instrument that contains and transmits knowledge. Derrida was the founder of deconcstruction, a term that is overused in pop culture by a lot of people who don't really understand what it is (or think it is somehow synonymous with "destruction" - it is NOT). Derrida was a prolific author, but his texts are notoriously difficult to read. A few years ago, a documentary film was made with his cooperation (here) which serves as a nice introduction (and historical archive) of a brilliant philosopher.