Every Man a Derrida: A nation on the verge of self-deconstructing

Derrida came to Stanford when I was there. His talk was at the largest hall on campus, and when I got there it was so packed you couldn't even get a spot on the floor (the aisles and every spare corner were covered with people). He was so important they couldn't just introduce him: they had to introduce someone to introduce him (that was Rorty, who himself talked for quite some time and said Derrida was the most important thinker since Wittgenstein). The moment he started talking, I saw dozens of earnest students writing notes so quickly that they must have been trying to capture every word.

After a few minutes, the first person got up and left. Then another, then another. After 15 minutes, you could get a spot on the floor because people had moved into vacated seats. After 30 minutes, there were empty seats and after 40 minutes there were a lot of empty seats. It was a steady drain of people. The note-takers were still furiously at it, though.

After an hour or so I left. I memorized a bunch of the best (i.e. worst and most convoluted) things Derrida said and for a few years I would pull them out to make people laugh, but they're long forgotten now. Anyway, I had a fun idea. I stood outside the exit and asked people as they came out: "Excuse me. Did you understand a single thing he said?" Most people laughed and said no. A handful looked suspicious and said yes defensively. I wanted to follow up with "Oh yeah? What?" but that would have been mean.