Theory and citation

θεωρία means to see, to have vision (like in French, savoir has at its root to see, voir). The danger in theory is therefore always that the visual will overpower what touches us in our vision, what resides outside the overflowing of light.

To cite: this is the operation of the person who theorizes. The best theory, however, the theory that touches us, provokes us, changes us in our letting see, in our vision, will be that which so integrates citation into a text that it does not need a citational apparatus external to a text--a footnote, for example ("see Derrida's engagement with the concept of work in Specters of Marx, where..."), or an aside in a conversation ("this seems related to Lacan's idea about the tuché...").

Why? Because the best theorists understand (or maybe do not understand) that text is this citational apparatus itself and already. To cite in theory does not mean to link what you say to so many proper names--which is all too often the case when you listen to someone "do theory"--but to elaborate what the matter is for thinking in the voice of another, beyond what this other has ever said, but entirely within the range of what this other does not have to be beyond her or himself to say.

When Walter Benjamin, for example, suddenly quotes Ernst Jünger in saying "there is no document of civilization which is not at the same time a document of barbarism," he does not credit Jünger with this insight. Even less does he just refer to Jünger by saying "the idea of barbarism being tied in with civilization that Jünger talks about in..." Neither does he "make this quote his own" or some such nonsense, by totally making it other than anything Jünger himself would have said. Benjamin speaks, but speaks as another in the voice of another of this other, which may or not be himself. Or rather, he uses another's vision to see what remains invisible to this vision, what touches us.

Why are ghosts, the citations of those who have lived, usually depicted as transparent? Because they show us this type of vision. Those theorists who try to prove they know by citation, can for these reasons dealing with the other (besides their demeanor) be shown as egomaniacs (they are afraid of the other) and, furthermore, as afraid of ghosts (they are afraid of others in the other, like oneself). Does this mean theory should be humble? Of course not. All it means is that an understanding of citation and the spectral is necessary and not to be feared. What if you were to let that reference to Irigaray go for once, and try to simply let her (you) speak? What if you were to risk a remembrance that exceeded the very limited structure (sight, self) of a footnote?