Over the hill and far away: double critique in Radomir Konstantinović’s Philosophy of Parochialism

Abstract The article examines Radomir Konstantinović’s treatise The Philosophy of Parochialism . First published in 1969, Konstantinović’s book is considered a seminal contribution to modern Yugoslav philosophy. By relying on Abdelkebir Khatibi’s concept of double critique, the article offers a close reading of Konstantinović’s text that uncovers a specific strategy of subversion. In a first step, Konstantinović offers a merciless critique of what he regards as a “parochial spirit”, a spirit that attempts to deny both history and the possibility of a plural world. In a second step, the spirit of parochialism gets associated with phenomena characteristic of Serbian, and, by extension, Yugoslav and Balkan culture. Consequently, it gets opposed to a notion of the “West” or of “Europe.” Finally, through an effect of supplementarity in Jacques Derrida’s sense of the term, Konstantinović radically displaces the dynamics of “centre” and “margin” created through his first critical gesture. The Philosophy of Parochialism thus offers a mechanism that dismantles the concept of a “marginal,” yet indigenous, “organic” culture, while at the same time denying the possibility of full identity to any kind of “centre.” Being an exemplary attempt at contesting dominating discourses on two fronts at once, Konstantinović’s gesture could be of relevance for a global theory of double critique.