Silence on atrocity can force more genuine thinking than easy condemnation

Evidence

One of the few ever to express sympathy for this response was Jacques Derrida, the great philosopher of deconstruction: in a talk of 1988, he turned the question of Heidegger’s silence around by asking what would have happened if he had made a simple statement along the lines of ‘Auschwitz is the absolute horror; it is what I fundamentally condemn.’ Such an announcement would have satisfied expectations and closed the Heidegger file, as it were. There would be less to discuss and puzzle over. But then, said Derrida, we would feel ‘dismissed from the duty’ of thinking the question through and asking what Heidegger’s refusal implied for his philosophy. By remaining silent, he left us a ‘commandment to think what he himself did not think’ — and for Derrida, this was more productive. — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 605

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: Derrida’s reversal — that a refusal to condemn may be more intellectually fecund than a simple statement of horror — is a genuinely provocative, sit-with-it claim about ethics and thought.
• XREF: Connects to the reader’s silence-focused interests and to the theme of silence as productive presence from other books read. — connects to: The idea of an absolute silence functions as a necessary reset point for thought — George Michelsen Foy, Zero Decibels: The Quest for Absolute…, 531

Broader Connections

• The idea of an absolute silence functions as a necessary reset point for thought #expands (0.85) — George Michelsen Foy, Zero Decibels, 531