““Admitting that his distance probably contained ‘a sort of crypto-Communist legacy’, Derrida spoke in more detail about his attitude to the student movement in his interview with Maurizio Ferraris: I did not say no to ‘68’, I took part in the demonstrations, I organized the first general assembly at the École Normale. Still, rightly or wrongly, my heart was not ‘on the barricades’. What really bothered me was not so much the apparent spontaneity, which I do not believe in, but the spontaneist political eloquence, the call for transparency, for communication without relay or delay, the liberation from every sort of apparatus, party or union. [. . .] Spontaneism, like workerism, pauperism, struck me as something to be wary of. I wouldn’t say my conscience is clear on this matter and that it’s as simple as that. These days [. . .], I would be more cautious about formulating this critique of spontaneism.””
