understanding and ownership

I'm amused by the term surrounding Derrida, Foucault, and the other French post-structuralists of the 60s called "terrorist obscurantism," coined by Foucault himself, describing the opaque and esoteric nature of their writings. Foucault coined the term referring to Derrida, arguing that his style of writing refutes criticism; since it is so difficult to understand and unpack, the author can always respond to criticism by claiming that "you just don't understand me, you're an idiot."

This term is particularly pertinent in the context of Derrida's discussion of signature as something that can be recognized and repeated, and therefore copied and co-opted. Terrorist obscurantism becomes a way to maintain permanent ownership, or signature, because while the text exists in the public domain one can still always return to the uncounterable claim that the critic simply doesn't understand.

On Foucault's interesting analysis of the constructed frameworks within which discourse takes place (through categorization and labels), and his chapter on the gaze, I find that facebook is an interesting microcosm for analysis and example in which "subject and object, the spectator and the model, reverse their roles to infinity." This ultimately is what the network and communication are all about. In facebook subjects are objects, and subjects become their own objects in the reflexive act of profile narcisim. Text and information get removed from the context and authorship through the newsfeed, and speech acts are solidified through the very structures of the system, the signifier preceding the signified in the act of 'friending.'