Virtual Derrida

Abstract

Against the web of a promise writ large or of a duty wantonly (or otherwise) inherited, this article contends, rather, that what compels one to act is the (impure) law of the »must be/to be« - the law of a necessity in all its forms, not the least of which operates at the level of impossibility. But this level of impossibility is »impossible« not because it is »unreal« or »ghost-like« as we find in Derrida's most recent Spectres of Marx. Nor for that matter is it impossible because it is »yet to come« or even »past tense«, Hamlet notwithstanding. This (impossible) law of necessity is impossible precisely because it is both real and unreal - a virtual-real, having little to do with spectres and even less to do with (be-headed) messianistic masters, the corpus of Marx notwithstanding. To disengage from the spectral and recast it with and against the (three) laws of necessity (as outlined below); in fact, to shift to a multiplicitous, corrupted - one might even say violent - albeit, virtual-reality, means not only that we get a very different read, not to mention, a different place, of the political, but, indeed, of the ethical-political, itself.