Jacques Derrida, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and the Supplement The mother Jacques Derrida, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and the Supplement

The mother as supplement For Rousseau the mother is a supplement to mother nature. However, Rousseau considers supplementation to be bad in relation to nature, which is inherently good. What might this mean for how we can think about nature and nurture, particularly in terms of childcare and education? Derrida critiques Rousseau’s dislike of supplementation by suggesting that, despite Rousseau’s reasoning, human experience is inseparable from a logic of supplementation. This also leads Derrida to imply that any form of ‘natural’ reasoning is therefore paradoxical: it is itself supplementary and supplementing.

Nature against writing or presence against absence ‘Rousseau condemns writing as destruction of presence and as disease of speech.’ (142) Rousseau is interested in preserving a ‘natural’ absolute presence and because to him writing (unlike speech) is seen as unnecessarily supplementary to experience it is bad. Derrida argues that the reasons for Rousseau’s dismissal of writing are actually implicit in the conditions of human experience. Derrida argues that Rousseau indicates he is sacrificing his own self-presence to be able to communicate his ‘worth.’ He thus becomes self-present to his own sacrifice and thereby his worth.

differance Derrida introduced a concept called ‘differance’ to philosophy. It is used to remind us that there is more to life than what is present and that it takes more than what is present to make life. With this concept of differance, Derrida picks up on a paradox in Rousseau’s thought and the philosophy of presence in general. To desire absolute presence (or un- supplemented nature), like Rousseau does, is precisely to desire an ideal which is not present within presence: ‘Without the possibility of differance, the desire of presence as such would not find its breathing-space. That means by the same token that this desire carries in itself the destiny of its non-satisfaction. Differance produces what it forbids, makes possible the very thing it makes impossible. (143)

Introducing the supplement Derrida says that he wants to think ‘Rousseau’s experience and his theory of writing together.’ (144) This is because Derrida want to use Rousseau’s theory of writing as a framework within which to reconsider his experience: ‘On the side of experience, a recourse to literature as reappropriation of presence, that is to say, as we shall see, of Nature; on the side of theory, an indictment against the negativity of the letter, in which must be read the degeneracy of culture and the disruption of community. If indeed one wishes to surround it with the entire constellation of concepts that shares its system, the word supplement seems to account for the strange unity of these two gestures.’ (144) Read from here until ‘…lack nothing at all in itself.’ (145)

Childhood and pedagogy A supplement can be thought of as being in addition to or in place of. However, in general Rousseau sees any supplement as being in place of the goodness of nature. For Rousseau nature is good and ought not to be supplemented. But as nature cannot supplement itself we sometimes need to so as to be able to preserve its goodness. But for Rousseau, all education is supplementation; it must therefore be as close to nature as possible. Derrida raises some problems for this: ‘Childhood is the first manifestation of the deficiency which, in Nature, calls for substitution. Pedagogy illuminates perhaps more crudely the paradoxes of the supplement. How is a natural weakness possible? How can Nature ask for forces that it does not furnish? How is a child possible in general?’ (146)

Nature and reason Nature and Reason are both supplemented, which is unthinkable in terms of Reason. This puts into question any conception of natural law or human nature. This is because if it necessary to supplement Nature and Reason then they cannot account for everything. This is why the supplement is ‘dangerous’ – it is dangerous for the ideal concepts of Reason and Nature. ‘Reason is incapable of thinking this double infringement upon Nature: that there is a lack in Nature and that because of that very fact something is added to it.’ (149) This kind of paradox is valid but beyond reason: that Nature is ‘naturally’ supplemented. ‘The supplement is therefore equally dangerous for Reason, the natural health of Reason.’ (149) However, Reason itself is also what figures out a logic of supplementary. It exists precisely because of a ‘lack’ in Nature.

The natural and the supplement One of the underlying themes that Derrida locates in Rousseau’s texts is that of a difference between sex and masturbation. Sex is understood by Rousseau as natural but masturbation is a dangerous and unnatural supplement.

Mother? For Rousseau, ‘The supplement that “cheats” maternal “nature” operates as writing, and as writing it is dangerous to life.’ (151) Here again we see the connection between Rousseau’s experience and his theory of writing. Read from ‘It thus destroys Nature…’ (151) to ‘…I no longer saw her.’ (152)

The supplement ‘The enjoyment of the thing itself is thus undermined, in its act and in its essence, by frustration. One cannot therefore say that it has an essence or an act (eidos, ouisa, energeia, etc.). Something promises itself as it escapes, gives itself as it moves away, and strictly speaking it cannot even be called presence. Such is the constraint of the supplement, such, exceeding all the language of metaphysics, is this structure “almost inconceivable to reason.” Almost inconceivable: simple irrationality, the opposite of reason, are less irritating and waylaying for classical logic. The supplement is maddening because it is neither presence nor absence and because it consequently breaches both our pleasure and virginity.’ (154)

Mother, ‘Mamma’, Therese and masturbation Writing, like masturbation, is based on a reference to that which is strictly absent. You are engaging with something that is there and yet is also not there. This kind of thinking is hugely problematic for reason. For Rousseau, his ‘Mamma’ supplemented his mother, who in turn had supplemented nature. His masturbation supplemented his desire for the actual sexual relation with his ‘Mamma’. Later his love Therese supplemented the place of his ‘Mamma’ – but he also supplemented his relation to her with masturbation.

Inconceivable to reason ‘Through this sequence of supplements a necessity is announced: that of an infinite chain, ineluctably multiplying the supplementary mediations that produce the sense of the very thing they defer: the mirage of the thing itself, of immediate presence, or originary perception. Immediacy is derived. That all begins through the intermediary is what is indeed “inconceivable [to reason].”’ (157)

‘There is nothing outside the text’ (158) ‘We must begin wherever we are and the thought of the trace, which cannot take the scent into account, has already taught us that it was impossible to justify a point of departure absolutely. Wherever we are: in a text where we already believe ourselves to be.’ (162) It is impossible for us to conceive of ourselves as unsupplemented. And if even mothering a child is fundamentally supplementary then it may be difficult to think of any time before the supplement. If Nature is supposed to be that which is unsupplemented then we are left with sense that anything sociobiological cannot simply be Natural. For Derrida nature is always already supplemented by nurture within our reasoning, whether we are aware of it or not. We can only conceive of what would be ‘natural’ within reason and because reason itself is a supplement (however ‘natural’ it might also be) any idea of ‘nature’ is already caught within a paradox.

Reference Derrida, J. (1976) '... That Dangerous Supplement ...' in Of Grammatology http://www.colorado.edu/envd/courses/envd4114- 001/Spring%2006/Theory/Derrida-Supplement.pdf