Todorov Finds Politics

Tzvetan Todorov—perhaps best known stateside as an interlocutor for Russian Formalism—gives a fascinating and pugnacious interview in Critical Inquiry's winter issue. The interview, conducted by Danny Postel, finds Todorov asked the manner of question that one wishes Derrida were given more often and more pressingly and giving the sort of responses that nearly vindicate Derrida's political reticence. While Todorov punts the opening question on his general reluctance to "get political," as it were, he more than makes up for it in his responses to subsequent questions on the Danish cartoons and the November 2005 banlieues riots—yeah, it's that kind of interview.

Here's a good bit on the Paris riots:

The particular forms of violence displayed are also worthy of note. At no point were political, ethnic, or religious demands expressed. The gangs of youngsters did not come to Paris where the rich live, and they didn’t attack city halls or other institutional buildings. They hardly stepped out of the housing projects where they live. Instead of taking their anger out on symbols of the French Republic, they did so on their neighbors who resemble them in every respect but age and on structures of social order that are there for their benefit. They burned cars on their streets and their parking lots, cars that belonged to their uncles or neighbors. They tried to destroy sports facilities and other meeting places intended for their use. They set fire to day-care centers and schools where their younger siblings went and to state employment services that were meant to help them. All these acts have an evident self-destructive character (even if their agents do not always realize it). When they burn buses that connect (however poorly) their housing projects to the outside world, they and their families are the ones to suffer, not the people residing in the upscale districts.

Thanks to DP.