Post Modernism: Jacques Derrida

In the mid 1960’s Jacques Derrida along with fellow French philosophers Michel Foucault and Jean Francois Lyotard popularized and established Post-Modernism as an extension of Modern philosophy that expanded to different areas of society and culture such as Post-Modern art (Aylesworth, p.1). Adapting their interpretations to contemporary societal conditions. Although Post-Modern philosophers do not admit to a distinctive departure from Modernism, their approach to the works of Classical and Modern theorists is unconventional and impalpable.   Post-Modern examination of convention by way of rhetoric and in-depth text analysis has led to a new set of perspective lenses in which the politics of society and history can be examined through. In the essay, ‘Democracy to Come’, written by Jacques Derrida, the idea of democracy is presented as a mechanism for maintaining a status quo that is in favor of Western democratic states. It is a tool in which the idea of democracy and justice is falsely established in the world to facilitate an illusion used by the West to maintain a form of aristocracy among today’s society. Through examination, interpretation, analysis, direct referencing from various academic texts and a strong focus on the essay, “Democracy to Come” in “The Last of the Rogue States” written by Jacques Derrida, this essay will seek to demonstrate the value and distinct significance of Jacques Derrida’s approach to democracy and the impact of Post-Modernism in politics today.
Jacques Derrida is most notably famous for his work on Deconstruction, an approach used to break down texts in search of a secondary meaning. Deconstruction has had a great impact on the Post-modern school of thought and has since been adopted as a form of theoretical analysis. Derrida uses deconstruction as a way to obtain a deeper and more thorough analysis of the idea of democracy and sovereignty. Although his deconstructions are not extensive or obviously stated in the text, the style...