A Commitment to Irresponsibility: On Derrida’s Passions: ‘An Oblique Offering’

In accounts of deconstruction’s concern with responsibility, what is often overlooked is its commitment to specific forms of irresponsibility as not just unavoidable but necessary. This article traces that necessity, through a reading of Derrida’s “Passions: ‘An Oblique Offering’”, in the logics governing invitation, hospitality, and literature, and how this irresponsibility is expressed performatively in the “oblique” character of Derrida’s textual experimentation. I argue for this irresponsibility as not destructively opposed to responsibility but as part and parcel of deconstruction’s ethical commitment. This irresponsibility distinguishes deconstructive ethics not just from the relativism long ascribed to ‘postmodernism’, but also from an ethics of responsibility of a Levinasian type. Finally, I argue for this commitment to irresponsibility against contemporary criticisms that deem deconstruction symptomatic of a 1990’s-style ironizing that one supposedly can no longer afford, given the challenges of today.