Wait... Seriously?

            Thinking about writing and communicating via a written blog provides some unique problems, but Jacques Derrida’s article titled "Signature Event Context"  hopes to modify the common conception of writing nonetheless. He explains that there is a “distance", or "Differance" between the writer and the reader that can never be breached. Once a writer has written something, the reader will have to come to some sort of understanding on his or her own accord, which may not necessarily be what the author intended.

          Derrida elaborates on the distance between the author and the reader when he writes, “…a written sign carries with it a force that breaks with its context... this breaking force is not an accidental predicate but the very structure of the written text.” When an author is in the midst of writing, much like I am at this very moment, the author is in, “a certain ‘present’ of the inscription the presence of the writer to what he has written…the wanting-to-say-what-he-means.” The “present of the inscription”, for Derrida, is something like the context in which an author’s work was originally produced. The meaning of the author’s writing, however, is not determined by this context.  When a person writes something, those words must have meaning to a reader regardless of original intent or the context in which it was written.

            In an attempt to re-word this idea a little more directly, Derrida suggests that the original context and intention of an author does not have command over what the author’s text actually means. This concept becomes even more interesting when we think about how it impacts the process of interpreting another author’s work. Because Derrida believes in an irreducible absence of an author's intention and attendance, the reader or interpreter of a text is left to glean meaning from nothing but the text itself. The context in which a text was written or the original intent of the author cannot be determined from reading someone’s work, which leaves a reader with nothing but the written words that formulate a specific, coherent work to determine meaning.

            To illustrate my point, one mode of communication comes to mind: satire. For example, let’s look at a recent article published by The Onion regarding the first openly gay athlete in the NFL: 

“Providing further evidence of the hesitancy in professional sports to accept homosexual athletes as equals, a new poll published Thursday revealed that more than 97 percent of NFL players are still not ready to date a gay teammate. "Throughout the league there’s a lot of archaic attitudes toward homosexuality, and I’m just not sure NFL players are comfortable enough to enter a monogamous relationship with a gay teammate," said an anonymous player who felt that a steady dating situation with a homosexual teammate wouldn’t be worth the distractions in the locker room.” Full Onion Article

If we were to accept Derrida’s explanation of writing, we quickly begin running the risk of positing a inherently incorrect interpretation of this article as “true.” For Derrida,  if I, as the reader, acknowledge that this bit of an article has become separated from the author’s original context and intentions, I am left to my own devices to glean some significance from the words before me. I must use the system of symbols and meanings found within the quote to determine a fair interpretation of the text.

 So, what does The Onion article mean? Allow me to rehearse a false interpretation that Derrida’s concept of authorship would accept as true: It is a news story concerning a major breakthrough in the NFL. Just as the rest of our country, the National Football League is adjusting to an evolving and more accepting world, but this change doesn’t come without growing pains. For example, some players just don’t feel ready to start dating other men. Gay athletes might be able to play professional sports without hiding their sexuality, but the rest of the players still aren’t ready to embark on romantic relationships with their gay teammates.

For those unfamiliar with The Onion, the interpretation I just provided is unequivocally misguided. The Onion, by nature, is sarcastic or facetious; it is not meant to be taken seriously. Positing that this article is an attempt to explain the unique dating pressures surrounding the first openly gay NFL player is simply incorrect. In fact, the article’s purpose is much different. Through humor, the Onion is attempting to mock the media firestorm surrounding Michael Sam and his entering this year’s NFL draft. Networks like ESPN seem to mention the fact that an openly gay man is playing football every twenty minutes. They bring in current and former players and coaches to explain how a gay player will affect an NFL team. It seems The Onion saw this constant focus on Michael Sam as an opportunity to poke fun at the often mellow-dramatic sports media and the way this story has been covered.

It seems satire, in general, provides an interesting challenge to Derrida's concept, because satire relies on the manipulation of implied intention. The Onion writes poignant and funny articles because they are written in a way that makes them appear and sound earnest. In this way, The Onion's satire works because the implied intention stands in direct contrast to the author's sincere intention, which is to highlight the media's folly by pretending to take absurdity seriously. Lastly, it is important to note that this sarcasm is determined by the author of the text, not the reader: an audience can laugh at what appears to be serious because it is understood that, in fact, the author intended just the opposite.  

According to Derrida, however, my initial understanding of this article is justified. The reason I know the Onion is meant to be taken as a joke is because the Onion does not hide their intentions. Somebody who regularly reads The Onion is aware of these sarcastic intentions, despite the fact that they are never explicitly written in the text. This, however, means that Derrida would not be able to use a relation of symbols strictly limited to this article to understand what it means. Derrida, after rendering an attempt to understand the author’s intentions useless, allows for the possibility of justifying a falsehood. Furthermore, someone who subscribes to Derrida’s outlook would not only run the risk of misreading this text, but it becomes almost impossible to prove how or why a literal interpretation demonstrates misunderstanding. There is no evidence suggesting The Onion’s article is meant not to be taken seriously within the given quote, yet the meaning of the quote is determined, at least in part, by the author’s implicit intent. 

Using a line of thinking that hopefully resembles Russell’s correspondence theory (Stanford Encyclopedia Summary) , a re-focused summary of my argument looks something like this: “The Onion's article is sarcastic” is a true interpretive statement because it corresponds to the true fact that “ The Onion wrote a facetious article” (remembering that they write this way because they very much intend to). However, if I said, “the onion’s article is a literal and sincere news story,” Derrida’s philosophy makes it impossible to have this statement correspond to any true fact outside of the article itself. I cannot posit, “The Onion intends for their news to be taken seriously” or that “ The Onion does not intend for the news to be taken seriously” because an author’s intent no longer impacts the meaning of the text. The inability for Derrida to fully account for the truth underlying either of these statements allows for the potential to justify false interpretations. 

 It seems the only way to understand the meaning of such a satirical piece of writing is to understand that the author did not intend to be taken seriously. In the case The Onion’s brand of satire, ignoring the author’s intention is turning a blind eye to the meaning of the text, a meaning that cannot be recovered as long as the reader remains ignorant of original intent.