Journal Williams

Arrigo, of Contemporary
/ THE SEARCH
Criminal FOR
Justice
EQUALITY
/ August 2000

The (Im)Possibility of Democratic Justice

and the “Gift” of the Majority
On Derrida, Deconstruction, and the
Search for Equality

BRUCE A. ARRIGO
CHRISTOPHER R. WILLIAMS
California School of Professional Psychology

This article conceptually explores the problem of democratic justice in the form of legislated
equal rights for minority citizen groups. Following Derrida’s critique of Western logic and
thought, at issue is the (im)possibility of justice for under- and nonrepresented constituencies.
Derrida’s socioethical treatment of justice, law, hospitality, and community suggests that the
majority bestows a gift (ostensible sociopolitical empowerment); however, the ruse of this gift is
that the giver affirms an economy of narcissism and reifies the hegemony and power of the
majority. This article concludes by speculating on the possibility of justice and equality
informed by an affirmative postmodern framework. A cultural politics of difference, contingent
universalities, undecidability, dialogical pedagogy, border crossings, and constitutive thought
would underscore this transformative and deconstructive agenda.

T he impediments to establishing democratic justice in contemporary

American society have caused a national paralysis; one that has reck-
lessly spawned an aporetic1 existence for minorities.2 The entrenched ideo-
logical complexities afflicting under- and nonrepresented groups (e.g.,
poverty, unemployment, illiteracy, crime) at the hands of political, legal, cul-
tural, and economic power elites have produced counterfeit, perhaps even
fraudulent, efforts at reform: Discrimination and inequality in opportunity
prevail (e.g., Lynch & Patterson, 1996). The misguided and futile initiatives
of the state, in pursuit of transcending this public affairs crisis, have fostered a
reification, that is, a reinforcement of divisiveness. This time, however,
minority groups compete with one another for recognition, affirmation, and

Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice, Vol. 16 No. 3, August 2000 321-343

© 2000 Sage Publications, Inc.

321
322 Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice / August 2000

identity in the national collective psyche (Rosenfeld, 1993). What ensues by

way of state effort, though, is a contemporaneous sense of equality for all and
a near imperceptible endorsement of inequality; a silent conviction that the
majority3 still retains power.4
The “gift” of equality, procured through state legislative enactments as an
emblem of democratic justice, embodies true (legitimated) power that re-
5
mains nervously secure in the hands of the majority. The ostensible empow-
erment of minority groups is a facade; it is the ruse of the majority gift. What
exists, in fact, is a simulacrum (Baudrillard, 1981, 1983) of equality (and by
extension, democratic justice): a pseudo-sign image (a hypertext or simula-
tion) of real sociopolitical progress.
For the future relationship between equality and the social to more fully
embrace minority sensibilities, calculated legal reform efforts in the name of
equality must be displaced and the rule and authority of the status quo must be
decentered. Imaginable, calculable equality is self-limiting and self-referential.
Ultimately, it is always (at least) one step removed from true equality and,
therefore, true justice.6 The ruse of the majority gift currently operates under
the assumption of a presumed empowerment, which it confers on minority
populations. Yet, the presented power is itself circumscribed by the stifling
horizons of majority rule with their effects. Thus, the gift can only be con-
strued as falsely eudemonic: An avaricious, although insatiable, pursuit of
narcissistic legitimacy supporting majority directives.
The commission (bestowal) of power to minority groups or citizens
through prevailing state reformatory efforts underscores a polemic with
implications for public affairs and civic life. We contend that the avenir (i.e.,
the “to come”) of equality as an (in)calculable, (un)recognizable destination
in search of democratic justice is needed. However, we argue that this dis-
placement of equality is unattainable if prevailing juridico-ethico-political
conditions (and societal consciousness pertaining to them) remain fixed,
stagnant, and immutable.
In this article, we will demonstrate how the gift of the majority is problem-
atic, producing, as it must, a narcissistic hegemony, that is, a sustained
empowering of the privileged, a constant relegitimation of the powerful.7
Relying on Derrida’s postmodern critique of Eurocentric logic and thought,
we will show how complicated and fragmented the question of establishing
democratic justice is in Western cultures, especially in American society. We
will argue that what is needed is a relocation of the debate about justice and
difference from the circumscribed boundaries of legal redistributive dis-
course on equality to the more encompassing context of alterity, undecida-
bility, cultural plurality, and affirmative postmodern thought.8
 Arrigo, Williams / THE SEARCH FOR EQUALITY 323

JUSTICE, LAW, AND THE LOGIC OF THE GIFT

The distinction between justice and law has significant ramifications for
the logic of the gift and the discourse on equality in Western civilization. Jus-
tice, for Derrida, is not law: “Laws are not just as laws. One obeys them not
because they are just but because they have authority” (Derrida, 1992, p. 12);
“Justice is what gives us the impulse, the drive, or the movement to improve
the law” (Derrida, 1997, p. 16). Justice functions as the catalyst by which
laws are enacted, amended, or abolished. Thus, we may speak of the law as a
thing: “The law is a physical, written, definable, and enforceable governing
force that constitutes the judicial system in all its legality, legitimacy, and
authorization” (Caputo, 1997, p. 130).
Conversely, justice is not a thing. It is not an existing reality (such as the
law) but rather an “absolutely (un)foreseeable prospect” (Caputo, 1997, p. 132).
It is through justice as an (im)possibility that the law can be criticized, that is,
deconstructed (e.g., Balkin, 1987; Cornell, Rosenfeld, & Carlson, 1992; Lan-
dau, 1992). The sufferance of critical deconstructive analysis is that a provi-
sional, relational complicity between (majoritarian) rules and the (minority)
transgressions the rules formally forbid threaten the very authority of the law
itself and are discoverable through (un)foreseeable justice (Derrida, 1992,
p. 4). Revealing the slippages between law and justice becomes progressively
transparent and represents incentive to seek justice—absent the imposition of
laws (the [im]possible, “just” law). It is this activity of displacing or dissoci-
ating law and, thus, moving toward justice that makes convalescence possible
in the sphere of the legal.9 Moreover, it is through this (im)possibility that
democracy strives for justice when deconstructively examining the law.
In this context, a critique of juridical ideology mobilized by the (im)possi-
bility of justice becomes a tool for a sociopolitical equality, its basis being the
“desedimentation of the superstructures of law that both hide and reflect the
economic and political interests of the dominant forces of society” (Derrida,
1992, p. 13). In other words, the inherent injustice of law as a performative
force becomes the subject of disclosure. Thus, in a sense, deconstruction is
justice. “Justice as the possibility of deconstruction” is what makes the spec-
tre of equality (in)calculable, (un)recognizable, and (un)knowable (Derrida,
1992, p. 15).10
Derrida’s position on the (im)possible, as applied here to justice and equal-
ity, is not so much that it is beyond the exclusionary law-like limits of the pos-
sible as much as it is within it. The (im)possible both constitutes the out-
side-within of the possible and deconstructively disrupts the seemingly
self-contained but actually haunted or forever aporetic dimension of every-
thing that appears as possible. In this way, the (im)possible is never an
324 Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice / August 2000

end-state as much as it is a forever passing moment, that is, a materialist tremor

and/or poetic glimpse of an otherwise displaced alterity that itself repetitiously
displaces (but never absolutely replaces) the partial and provisional autho-
rized legalities it opens up. In this sense, there is a spiraling motion to Derrida’s
deconstruction followed by a law-like (although aporetic) reconstruction.
These reconstructions are exemplars of justice and its (im)possibility.
Much of the distinction between law and justice has implications for the
gift (of equality) and the (im)possibility of justice as equality: “The gift is
precisely, and this is what it has in common with justice, something which
cannot be reappropriated” (Derrida, 1997, p. 18).11 Once a gift is given, if any
gratitude is extended in return, the gift becomes circumscribed in a “moment
of reappropriation” (Derrida, 1997, p. 18). Ultimately, as soon as the giver
knows that he or she has given something, the gift is nullified. The giver con-
gratulates him- or herself, and the economy of gratitude, of reappropriation,
commences. Once the offering has been acknowledged as a gift by the giver
or receiver it is destroyed. Thus, for a gift to truly be a gift, it must not even
appear as such. Although it is inherently paradoxical, this is the only condi-
tion under which a gift can be given (Derrida, 1991).
This is the relationship between the gift and justice. Justice cannot appear
as such; it cannot be calculated as in the law or other tangible commodities
(Derrida, 1997). Although Derrida acknowledges that we must attempt to
calculate, there is a point beyond which calculation must fail and we must
recognize that no amount of estimation can adequately assign justice (Derrida,
1997). For equality (like the “gift beyond exchange and distribution”; Der-
rida, 1992, p. 7) to be possible, we must go beyond any imaginable, knowable
notion. This is why the gift and justice are conceptually (im)possible (Desilva
Wijeyeratne, 1998). They serve a necessary purpose in society; however, they
represent something to always strive for, something that mobilizes our desire.
If the impossible was possible, we would stop trying and desire would die.
Justice, and thus democracy, is an appeal for the gift. As Derrida (1992)
notes, “this ‘idea of justice’ seems to be irreducible in its affirmative charac-
ter, in its demand of gift without exchange, without circulation, without rec-
ognition of gratitude, without economic circularity, without calculation and
without rules, without reason and without rationality” (p. 25). The gift (of
equality), like justice and democracy, is an aporia, an (im)possibility. Thus,
the use of the gift as a transaction in the name of equality, and equality in the
name of justice and democracy, is truly (un)just, (un)democratic, and
(in)equitable. The gift is a calculated, majoritarian endeavor toward illusive
equality. Equality beyond such a conscious effort (i.e., where the illusion is
displaced) is open-ended and absent of any obligatory reciprocation. As
Caputo (1997) notes, “justice is the welcome given to the other in which I do
not . . . have anything up my sleeve” (p. 149).
 Arrigo, Williams / THE SEARCH FOR EQUALITY 325

With this formula of equality and justice in mind, one may still speculate
on the law’s relationship to the gift. But again, the law as a commodity, as a
thing to be transacted, eliminates its prospects as something to be given.

The law as law, on the other hand, is no gift, and hence no guarantee of jus-
tice . . . the law is a calculated balance of payments, of crime and punish-
ment, of offense and retribution, a closed circle of paying off and paying
back. When things are merely legal, no more than legal, then they contract
into narrowly contractual relationships with no “give,” no gifts. (Caputo,
1997, p. 149)

The gift has no idiosyncratic or artful definition that needs to be

addressed. Derrida’s concept of the gift is simply as it sounds: Something that
is given to someone by someone else. Gift, however, is a misleading term.
Once an award is given to someone, that someone assumes a debt (of grati-
tude or a reciprocation of the gift). The giver of the gift, in return, is “con-
sciously and explicitly” pleased with him- or herself for the show of generos-
ity (Caputo, 1997, p. 141). This narcissistic, self-eudemonical exchange is in
fact in- creased if the receiver is ungrateful or is unable, through the anonym-
ity of the gift, to show gratitude. Thus, the offering that is made without
expectation of explicit gratitude simply nourishes the narcissism of the giver.
This is the paradoxical dimension of the gift. The sender of the gift, instead of
giving, receives; and the receiver of the gift, instead of receiving something,
is in debt (Caputo, 1997).
To avoid mobilizing the circular economy of the gift (the circle of ex-
change, of reciprocation, and of reappropriation), the gift must not appear as
such. Thus, the giver must not be aware that he or she is giving, and the
receiver must not be aware that he or she is receiving. Only under those cir-
cumstances would the giver not fuel the fire of narcissistic generosity, and the
receiver not assume a debt. As Caputo (1997) notes, the pure gift “could take
place only if everything happened below the level of conscious intentionality,
where no one intends to give anything to anyone and no one is intentionally
conscious of receiving anything” (p. 147).
Phenomenologists remind us, following Aristotle’s (1925) notion of act
and intentionality, that the agent always acts for its own good. The agent
always intends to act for its own good; otherwise, it will not act at all
(e.g., Heidegger, 1962; Husserl, 1983). Thus, there are always degrees of
intentionality—expectation, reciprocation, and reappropriation—on the part
of the giver. The giving of the gift serves a purpose. It can be traced to narcis-
sism masked by a facade of generosity, or it can be linked to anticipation of
something that will come back at some point some time in the future
(Derrida, 1997). This is where the notion of economy arises. What fuels the
326 Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice / August 2000

economy are “entities determined and exchanged, of calculation and bal-

anced equations, of equity and sound reason, of laws and regularities”
(Caputo, 1997, p. 146). It is the gift that the community has an affinity for in
the name of democratic justice. The justice that the gift does, however,
authenticates the reality of a pseudo-democracy. An imitation (i.e., illusion)
of justice that, as an artifact of simulation, is more real that reality itself; one
that is (im)possible in the community that we refer to as democratic society.12

SOCIETY AND THE

POSSIBILITY OF DEMOCRACY
For Derrida (1989, 1997), democracy is a receptacle for difference. It rep-
resents a nonexclusive heterogeneity under which the “we” (majority) is nei-
ther protected from nor disturbed by the “other” (minority). The presence of
the “other” is, thus, eudemonic; the other benefits or improves the social
well-being of everyone. Furthermore, the “we” must not only harmonize its
existence with the “other” but also actively (consciously and unconsciously)
prepare for the coming, or the arrival, of the other. A democratic society
would be fully integrated when it encompassed and lived, perhaps insatiably,
off of the heterogeneity that diversity and difference embody.
Democracy, then, as a deconstructive initiative, must strive to embrace the
multiplicity of races, ethnicities, and genders in short differences that consti-
tute the whole of a given society. Although Western cultures acknowledge the
physical presence of these others, such citizen groups are all too often
regarded as superfluous or, worse, as an obstruction to our (read majority)
pursuit of a safe, civil nation. Thus, democratic society must embody diver-
sity en esprit, welcoming the beneficence of alterity. As Derrida (1997)
reminds us, “pure unity . . . is a synonym of death” (p. 13). In other words,
democracy cannot flourish (mature or evolve) without attending to the com-
ing of difference.
Society and its institutions are analogical to Derrida’s notion of community.
Derrida, however, asserts an aversion to the word community as well as to the
thing itself. His primary concern for the word relates to its connotations of
fusion and identification (Weber, 1995). Caputo (1997) elucidates these mean-
ings with reference to Derrida’s etymological examination of community.

Communio is a word for military formation and a kissing cousin of the word
“munitions”: to have a communio is to be fortified on all sides, to build a
“common” (com) “defense” (munis), as when a wall is put up around the
city to keep the stranger or the foreigner out. The self-protective closure of
“community,” then, would be just about the opposite of . . . preparation for
the incoming of the other, “open” and “porous” to the other. . . . A “universal
 Arrigo, Williams / THE SEARCH FOR EQUALITY 327

community” excluding no one is a contradiction in terms; communities

always have an inside and an outside. (p. 108)

Thus, the word community has negative connotations suggesting injustice,

inequality, and an “us” versus “them” orientation. Community, as a thing,
would constitute a binary opposition with the aforementioned concept of
democratic society. The latter evolves with, not against, the other. Although
the connotations may be latent and unconscious, any reference to a commu-
nity or a derivative thereof connotes the exclusion of some other. A demo-
cratic society, then, must reject the analogical conceptions of community and
present itself as a receptacle for receiving difference, that is, the demos (the
people) representing a democratic society.
It is not, however, a cursory or laissez-faire reception of the other that
would precede democratic justice. To genuinely receive the other, the society
or community, as a receptacle, must be hospitable. Hospitality is what
Derrida (1991, 1997) refers to as the “welcoming of the other”; it is an invita-
tion to the stranger (Derrida, 1997, p. 110). Although Derrida’s explications
on hospitality typically concentrate on the individual, the philosophical
notion is equally applicable to a more macro sociopolitical level of con-
sciousness. Hospitality on the level of the state involves, among other things,
the inviting or welcoming of immigrants, foreign languages, minority ethnic
groups, and so forth (Derrida, 1997).
An etymological problem akin to that of the word community is also dis-
cernible with the word hospitality. Caputo (1997) again provides insightful
elucidation on Derrida: “The word hospitality derives from the Latin hospes,
which is formed from hostis, which originally meant a ‘stranger’ and came to
take on the meaning of the enemy or ‘hostile stranger’(hostilis), + pets (potis,
potes, potentia), to have power” (pp. 110-111).
The implications, then, of Derrida’s deconstructive analysis are profound.
The word hospitality and, thus, the function of hospitality becomes a display
of power by the host (hospes). Being hospitable is an effort to welcome the
other while maintaining or fortifying the mastery the host has over the
domain. Thus, the host is someone who welcomes the other and gives to the
other while always sustaining control.
The host is always someone who possesses the power to welcome someone
or something. If one did not enjoy some control, some dominance over the situ-
ation, one would not be a host at all: One would be on equal terms with the
other (actually, there would be no other), and neither would constitute the
host or guest. A display of hospitality, then, does not endanger the inherent
power that the host experiences. The power, control, and mastery of the host
and the alterity of the stranger or other are not disrupted by the display of hos-
pitality. As Caputo (1997) notes, “there is an essential ‘self-limitation’ built
328 Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice / August 2000

right into the idea of hospitality, which preserves the distance between one’s
own and the stranger” (p. 110).
The notion of giving while retaining power is embodied in the concept of
hospitality: “A host is only a host if he owns the place, and only if he holds on
to his ownership; [that is,] if one limits the gift” (Caputo, 1997, p. 111). The
welcoming of the other into and onto one’s territory or domain does not con-
stitute a submission of preexisting power, control, mastery, or identity. It is
simply, as Derrida (1997) describes, a limited gift.
The hospes, then, is the one engaged in an aporetic circumstance. The host
must appear to be hospitable, genuinely beneficent, and unbounded by avari-
cious narcissism while contemporaneously defending mastery over the
domain. The host must appeal to the pleasure of the other by giving or tempo-
rarily entrusting (consigning) something owned to the care of the other while
not giving so much as to relinquish the dominance that he or she harbors. The
host must feign to benefit the welfare of the other but not jeopardize the wel-
fare of the giver that is so underwritten by the existing circumstances—
whether they be democratically and justly legitimated or not.
Thus, hospitality is never true hospitality, and it is never a true gift because
it is always limited. Derrida (1997) refers to this predicament as the “im-pos-
sibility of hostil-pitality” (p. 112, italics added). True hospitality can only be
realized by challenging this aporia, ascending the paralysis, and experiencing
the (im)possible. The inherent self-limitation of hospitality must be van-
quished. Hospitality must become a gift beyond hospitality (Caputo, 1997).

Hospitality is . . . that to which I have never measured up. I am always . . . too

unwelcoming, too calculating in all my invitations, which are disturbed
from within by all sorts of subterranean motivations—from wanting to show
off what I own to looking for a return invitation. (Caputo, 1997, p. 112)

Thus, hospitality, like the gift (the gift of hospitality), is always limited by
narcissistic, hedonistic cathexes. Avaricity governs the Western capitalistic
psyche and soma. As the (im)possibility of hospitality and the gift denote,
one will never fully compromise that which belongs to the self.
The conceptual underpinnings of hospitality and community were deliber-
ately juxtaposed. If the notion of community is constructed around a com-
mon defense that we (the majority) fashion against them (the minority), then
it is designed around the notion of inhospitality or hostil-pitality. Community
and hospitality are similarly and equally subject to self-limitations. These
intrinsic liabilities are largely unconscious. Notwithstanding the mythical,
spectral foundations (Derrida, 1994) on which American society’s thoughts
and actions are grounded, the detrimental consequence of our economy of
narcissism is revealed. In offering hospitality to the other, the community
 Arrigo, Williams / THE SEARCH FOR EQUALITY 329

must welcome and make the other feel at home (as if the home belongs
equally to all) while retaining its identity (that of power, control, and mas-
tery). As Caputo (1997) notes, “If a community is too unwelcoming, it loses
its identity; if it keeps its identity, it becomes unwelcoming” (p. 113). Thus,
the aporia, the paralysis, the impossibility of democratic justice through hos-
pitality and the gift is our community.

THE RUSE OF THE MAJORITY GIFT

Derrida’s explication of the gift provides an insightful metaphor with
which to analyze the current state of sociopolitical affairs regarding tradition-
ally subjugated populations. The advances made by the state regarding
minority citizen groups, particularly within the context of employment (eco-
nomic) and education (social), are gifts.13 Legislative enactments designed to
foster the growth of equality and thereby democratic justice (i.e., standards of
what is “right and fair”) produce hegemonic effects constitutive only of nar-
14
cissistic power. These effects are eclipsed by counterfeit, although impactful,
offerings.
The omnipotence of majority sensibilities in Western cultures, particularly
in the United States, has produced an exploitative and nongiving existence
for under- and nonrepresented citizen groups. Despite the many rights-based
movements during the past several decades that have ostensibly conferred to
minorities such abstract gifts as liberty, equality, and freedom, there remains
an enduring wall dividing the masses from those on whom such awards are
bestowed. This fortified separation is most prominent in the (silent) reverber-
ations of state and federal legislative reforms.15
Relying on Derrida’s (1991, 1992, 1997) critique, we can regard such stat-
utory reform initiatives as gifts; that is, they are something given to non-
majority citizens by those in power; they are tokens and emblems of empow-
erment in the process of equality and in the name of democratic justice. The
majority is presenting something to marginalized groups, something that the
giver holds in its entirety: power.16 The giver or presenter of such power will
never, out of capitalistic conceit and greed, completely surrender that which
it owns. It is preposterous to believe that the narcissistic majority would give
up so much as to threaten what they own; that is, to surrender their hospice
and community while authentically welcoming in the other as stranger. This
form of open-ended generosity has yet to occur in Western democratic societ-
ies and, perhaps, it never will.
Thus, it is logical to assume that, although unconscious in some respects,
the efforts of the majority are parsimonious and intended to secure (or
accessorize) their own power.17 The following two means by which a gift
enables self-empowerment were already alluded to by Derrida (1997): (a) the
330 Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice / August 2000

giver (i.e., the sender or majority) either bestows to show off his or her power
or (b) gives to mobilize a cycle of reciprocation in which the receiver (i.e., the
minority) will be indebted. It is for these reasons that the majority gives. This
explanation is not the same as authentically supporting the cause of equality
in furtherance of a cultural politics of difference and recognition.
To ground these observations about gift sending and receiving, the analo-
gous example of a loan may be helpful. Let us suppose that we have $100.00
and that you have $1.00. If we were to give you some of our money (less than
$49 so as not to produce pecuniary equality), we would be subtlely engaged
in a number of things. First, following Derrida (1997), we would be showing
off our power (money) by exploiting the fact that we have so much more
money than you do that we can give some away and remain in good fiscal
standing. Second, we would be expecting something in return—maybe not
immediately, but eventually. This return could take several forms. Although
we may not expect financial reciprocation, it would be enough knowing that
you know that we have given currency to you. Thus, you are now indebted to
us and forever grateful, realizing our good deed: our gift.
Reciprocation on your part is impossible. Even if one day you are able to
return our monetary favor twofold, we will always know that it was us who
first hosted you; extended to and entrusted in you an opportunity given your
time of need. As the initiators of such a charity, we are always in a position of
power, and you are always indebted to us. This is where the notion of egoism
or conceit assumes a hegemonic role. By giving to you, a supposed act of gen-
erosity in the name of furthering your cause, we have not empowered you.
Rather, we have empowered ourselves. We have less than subtlely let you
know that we have more than you. We have so much more, in fact, that we can
afford to give you some. Our giving becomes, not an act of beneficence, but a
show of power, that is, narcissistic hegemony!
Thus, we see that the majority gift is a ruse: a simulacrum of movement
toward aporetic equality and a simulation of democratic justice. By relying
on the legislature (representing the majority) when economic and social
opportunities are availed to minority or underrepresented collectives, the
process takes on exactly the form of Derrida’s gift. The majority controls the
political, economic, legal, and social arenas; that is, it is (and always has
been) in control of such communities as the employment sector and the edu-
cational system. The mandated opportunities that under- or nonrepresented
citizens receive as a result of this falsely eudemonic endeavor are gifts and,
thus, ultimately constitute an effort to make minority populations feel better.
There is a sense of movement toward equality in the name of democratic jus-
tice, albeit falsely manufactured.18 In return for this effort, the majority shows
off its long-standing authority (this provides a stark realization to minority
 Arrigo, Williams / THE SEARCH FOR EQUALITY 331

groups that power elites are the forces that critically form society as a com-
munity), forever indebts under- and nonrepresented classes to the generosity
of the majority (after all, minorities groups now have, presumably, a real
chance to attain happiness), and, in a more general sense, furthers the narcis-
sism of the majority (its representatives have displayed power and have been
generous). Thus, the ruse of the majority gift assumes the form and has the
hegemonical effect of empowering the empowered, relegitimating the privi-
leged, and fueling the voracious conceit of the advantaged.

TOWARD AN AFFIRMATIVE RE-PRESENTATION

OF JUSTICE AND EQUALITY
With regard to the (im)possibility of a legally imposed equality in search of
a transformative justice, we (as social and political beings) must go beyond
what is consciously imaginable, calculable, and knowable. We must go
beyond the realm of recognized possibility. This article does not assume the
position, as some critics of Derrida may suggest, that, given the ruse of the
gift, affording minority populations opportunity to attain equality should
therefore be discarded entirely (see Rosenfeld, 1993, on the dilemmas of a
Derridean and deconstructive framework for affirmative action). This article
is far from a right-wing cry for cessation of those undertakings that would
further the cause of equality in American society. This article is also not a
statement of despair, a skeptical and nihilistic pronouncement on the
(im)possibility of justice (Fish, 1982) in which we are all rendered incapable
of establishing a provisional, deconstructive political agenda for meaningful
social change and action.
What we do suggest, however, is simply the following: That political
and/or legislative attempts at empowerment (as they currently stand) are
insufficient to attain the deconstructive and discursive condition of equality
for minority citizen groups (Collins, 1993). More significant, we contend
that construction of these initiatives as Derridean gifts advance, at best, fleet-
ing vertiginous moments of inequality and injustice. Still further, we recom-
mend the (im)possible; that which, at first blush, admittedly delivers no prag-
matic value for social analysts. Our invitation is for a fuller, more complete
displacement of equality and initiatives pertaining to it such that there would
be no giving for its own sake; that giving would not be construed as giving,
but as the way of democratic justice (i.e., its foreseeability would be [un]con-
scious, its recognizability would be with[out] calculation). If we are able to
give without realizing that we have done so, the possibility of reciprocation,
reappropriation, and the economy of narcissism and representation are
abruptly interrupted and perhaps indefinitely stalled. This form of giving
332 Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice / August 2000

more closely embodies the truth of human existence; that which betters life
for all without regard for differential treatment, neither promoting nor limit-
ing those who are “other” in some respect or fashion.
This re-presentation of equality, this justice both of and beyond the calcula-
ble economy of the law (Derrida, 1997), requires a different set of principles
by which equality is conceived and justice is rendered. What would this dif-
ference entail? How would it be embodied in civic life? In the paragraphs that
remain, our intent is to suggest some protean guidelines as ways of identify-
ing the work that lies ahead for the (im)possibility of justice and the search for
aporetic equality.
A cultural politics of difference grounded in an affirmative postmodern
framework would necessarily prevail (Arrigo, 1998a; Henry & Milovanovic,
1996). In this more emancipatory, more liberatory vision, justice would be
rooted in contingent universalities (Butler, 1992; McLaren, 1994). Provi-
sional truths, positional knowledge, and relational meanings would abound
(Arrigo, 1995). New egalitarian social relations, practices, and institutions
would materialize, producing a different, more inclusive context within
which majority and minority sensibilities would interact (Mouffe, 1992). In
other words, the multiplicity of economic, cultural, racial, gender, and sexual
identities that constitute our collective society would interactively and mutu-
ally contribute to discourse on equality and our understanding of justice.
These polyvalent contributions would signify a cut in the fabric of justice, a
text that “pretends to be a whole” (i.e., the whole of democratic justice)
(Derrida, 1997, p. 194). Equality on these terms would become an ethical,
fluid narrative: “an anxiety-ridden moment of suspense” (Derrida, 1997,
pp. 137-138) cycling toward the possibility of justice. For Derrida (1997),
this is the moment of undecidability. The cacophony of voices on which this
aporetic equality would be based would displace any fixed (majoritarian)
norms that would otherwise ensure an anterior, fortified, anchored justice.
Instead, the undecidable, as an essential ghost (Derrida, 1994), would be
lodged in every decision about justice and equality (Desilva Wijeyeratne,
1998). For Derrida (1997), this spectral haunting is the trace, the differance.19
It is the avenir or that which is to come. The avenir is the event that exceeds
calculation, rules, and programs: “It is the justice of an infinite giving”
(Desilva Wijeyeratne, 1998, p. 109). It is the gift of absolute dissymetry
beyond an economy of calculation (Derrida, 1997). This is what makes jus-
tice, and the search for equality, an aporia: It is possible only as an experience
of the impossible. However, it is the very (im)possibility of justice itself that
renders the experience, and the quest for equality, a movement toward a desti-
nation that is forever deferred, displaced, fractured, and always to come
(Derrida, 1997).
 Arrigo, Williams / THE SEARCH FOR EQUALITY 333

This justice that is to come, this equality as an aporetic destination, resides

in discourse. The production of provisional truths and knowledge requires
that the voice(s) of alterity emerge to construct new visions of relational and
positional equality and justice. Thus, the undecidability of interaction—the
inclusion of minority discourse with majoritarian discourse as differance—
represents a radically democratic in-road producing multilingual, multicul-
tural, and multiracial effects for equality. This is what Caputo (1997) refers to
as a “highly miscegenated polymorphism” (p. 107). For Derrida (1991,
1997), a radical democracy is constituted by preparedness for the incoming
of the other. Derrida (1997) advocates “highly heterogenous, porous, self-
differentiating quasi-identities, [and] unstable identities . . . that . . . do not
close over and form a seamless web of the selfsame” (p. 107). In short, a
receptacle for difference that receives the provisional truths, positional
knowledge, and supplemental processes of meaning making is necessary in
the struggle for (im)possible equality.
This interaction would reflect a different context for policy formation, pro-
gram evaluation, and practical decision making. A hermeneutical appeal to
dialogical pedagogy (Freire, 1972; Laclau, 1991) would be essential. In this
framework, “speaking true words”20 (dialogical encounters) (Freire, 1972,
pp. 57-67) would matter: Giver and receiver of the gift would actively and
reflectively speak alternatively from within each other’s subject position
thereby promoting a revolutionary, more participatory cultural ethos.21
Linking both action and reflection, gift givers and receivers would repre-
sent active agents in the process of becoming equitable citizens (Freire,
22
1972). For minority groups, the goal would be conscientization, that is,
“exercising their right to participate consciously in the socio-historical trans-
formation of their society” (Freire, 1972, p. 50). This right is rooted in concrete
historical struggles of injustice wherein the “multiple, contradictory, and
complex subject-positions people occupy within different social, cultural,
and economic relations” are spoken (Giroux, 1992, p. 21). This is meant to be
both a politics and a pedagogy for change. It is in this context that the gift, as
an emblem of eudemonic justice and aporetic equality, is decoded as a ruse.
Consistent with this radical pedagogical practice, citizen activism would
require border crossings (Giroux, 1992; see also JanMohamed, 1994; Lippens,
1997). Border crossings are a deliberate attempt to displace established
parameters of meaning, forms of consciousness, sites of knowledge, and loci
of truth. Conventional boundaries are transgressed, resisted, debunked, and
decentered. Border crossings would require that one embrace the confluence
of multiple languages, experiences, and desires as folded into the polyvocal,
multilayered, and transhistorical narratives that are reflective of a society of
difference (Giroux, 1992; Irigaray, 1993).23 Thus, the gift of equality would
334 Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice / August 2000

be imbued with pluri-significant, contradictory, incomplete, effusive, frag-

mented, and multiaccentuated expressions of giving and receiving. These
borderlands, as languages of possibility rather than as technologies of disci-
pline (Henry & Milovanovic, 1996), would be seen as “sites for both critical
analysis and . . . a[s] potential source[s] of experimentation [and] creativity”
(Giroux, 1992, p. 34).
The (im)possibility of democratic justice would acknowledge that minor-
ity citizens themselves (and others supportive of meaningful social change),
are constituted by difference, struggle, and discontinuities. Furthermore,
such collectives would be understood to exhibit an inexorable connection to
the very systems (e.g., legal, political, and economic spheres of influence) of
which such citizens are a part (Henry & Milovanovic, 1996). In this constitu-
tive arrangement, both agency and structure would be regarded as fused. As a
result, a coproduction of meaning, truth, knowledge, power, desire, identity,
and so forth would unfold, giving rise to only circumscribed expressions of
justice.
To emancipate both agency and structure, an affirmative postmodern per-
spective would require that subjects themselves be deconstructed and recon-
structed, that is, function as subjects-in-process or as emergent subjects
(JanMohamed, 1994; Kristeva, 1986). Under- and nonrepresented groups
would actively engage in the task of uncovering, recovering, and recoding
their identities (e.g., Collins, 1990; hooks, 1989) in ways that are less encum-
bered by prevailing (majority) sensibilities regarding their given constitu-
tions. The economy of narcissism would, more likely, be suspended, and the
culture of difference would, more likely, be positionally and provisionally
realized.

CONCLUSION
This article was less a condemnation of existing legislative reform than it
was a critique of Western culture in general and American society in particu-
lar. We contend that revisions in the name of equality, and equality in the
name of justice, as presently constructed are not only inadequate but also det-
rimental to and countertransformative for those very (minority) groups who
are purportedly benefiting from such initiatives. Derrida’s socioethical
exploration was instructive, directing us to the limitations of the gift of the
majority in relation to law, hospitality, community, and the (im)possibility of
justice. The work that remains is to displace the aporia located in Derrida’s
critique with supplemental processes of understanding and sense making. An
affirmative postmodern framework, as we have loosely sketched, identifies
some protean areas of potential exploration and worth. We submit that it is
 Arrigo, Williams / THE SEARCH FOR EQUALITY 335

time to move to a new plateau in understanding alterity; one that more com-
pletely embraces racial, cultural, sexual, gender, and class differences. We
contend that it is time to transform what is and more fully embody what could
be. The search for equality realized through a radical and ongoing
deconstructive/reconstructive democracy demands it. We also contend that
by examining several supplemental notions found in affirmative postmodern
thought, important in-roads for the aporia of justice and the destination of
equality are within (in)calculable, (un)recognizable reach.

NOTES
1. The term aporia, as employed hereafter, is suggestive of an impossibility or
an experience of a nonroad; that is, “something that does not allow [direct] passage”
(Derrida, 1992, p. 16; 1987, p. 27). It is the not knowing where to go that is the experi-
ence of minority citizen groups (Derrida, 1993). In short, it is the perplexity that
results from a necessary passage, yet one that is not fully realizable for the passer. (See
Cornell, 1991, for a feminist deconstructive analysis of this point.) Accordingly, any
seemingly fully meaningful statement about justice and equality contains in it an
unacknowledged aporetic moment as a condition of its possibility. Derrida himself
uses the term aporia in a variety of contexts throughout his works (see, e.g., Derrida,
1982) and generally (Derrida, 1993) for a discussion of his various uses of aporia.
When used in this article, however, we are referring to his more traditional, logico-
philosophical treatment.
2. For the purposes of this article, minority or minority populations refer to those
citizen groups traditionally designated as discriminated constituencies or regarded as
objects of marginalization (Young, 1990). Thus, gender, ethnic, racial, and sexual
minorities as well as those populations encompassing the diseased, mentally disabled,
homeless, women, and so on are the subjects of inquiry here. Our analysis, therefore,
assumes something of a monolithic dimension. The primary reason for the admittedly
unjust aggregation of under- and nonrepresented collectives is that each unique popu-
lation endeavors to achieve a similar goal: improved social standing in the political
economy. We contend that a monolithic analysis of minority populations does not
jeopardize the substance of our argument.
3. In this article, the term majority refers to two separate but interwoven mean-
ings. First, it includes all the baggage implied in and endorsed through the capitalist
political economy (Currie, MacLean, & Milovanovic, 1992). Second, it denotes a cer-
tain logic contained in Western philosophical and theoretical discourses that denies
and represses difference (i.e., minority sensibilities). Several commentators have
varyingly described this phenomenon. See Adorno (1973) on the logic of identity,
Derrida (1976, 1978, 1981) on the metaphysics of presence, and Irigaray (1985) on
the phallic economy of sameness. For a justice-based application of these concepts,
see Arrigo (1992).
4. In this article, we do not comment on the sociological problems or solutions
identified by social movement critics where justice and equality are denied minority
336 Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice / August 2000

groups because of intra- and intergroup power blocks (e.g., Jessop, 1990; Schehr,
1997). Instead, we draw attention to language, deconstruction, and discourse analysis.
We argue that the binary tensions embedded in such constructs as law, community,
hospitality, and the like inform the meaning of justice as a possibility for under-
represented constituencies, displacing, in their discursive wake, the socioethical
legitimacy of the gift-giving process (i.e., legislated equal rights).
5. Following Derrida (1993), majoritarian power is not completely secure;
rather, the powerful are haunted to the extent of paranoia by the justice they deny oth-
ers. Indeed, there is an active, material force of supplemental hauntings or ghostly
spectres that operate within the deconstruction of power (Derrida, 1992). Thus, the
majoritarian bestowal of the gift, and the democratic system on which it is based, rep-
resent an uneasy, excitable, and tense-filled process.
6. We are preliminarily delineating the limits of prevailing thought regarding
equality and justice. In subsequent sections, we intend to outline an affirmative,
deconstructive agenda that more completely and authentically embodies the full
meaning of these terms with implications for minority groups.
7. The (in)calculable deconstructive displacement or moment of impossibility
through which minority interests are ostensibly realized may be necessary in the
struggle for justice. Indeed, Derrida’s advocacy of deconstruction as an ethico-political
method acknowledges that reconstructive replacements (i.e., the prevailing gifts of
the majority) are the subject of future displacements in search of justice as an (im)pos-
sibility. Narcissistic hegemony, then, is itself an aporetic dimension of justice.
8. Affirmative postmodern discourse is reconstructive, prospective, and emanci-
patory. It includes a constitutive methodology that fosters liberatory and productive
outcomes (see, e.g., Borgman, 1992; Giddens, 1984). For applications to justice stud-
ies highlighting these themes, see, for example, Milovanovic and Henry (1991),
Henry and Milovanovic (1991), and Arrigo (1995). For a gendered discussion con-
cerning the integration of a social politics of redistribution and a cultural politics of
difference with relevant applications, see Fraser (1997).
9. Indeed, following deconstructive legal criticism, the question becomes what
modes of (law-based) restrictive gift exchange are best allied with the deconstructive
demands for ongoing, periodic alterity? This matter is provisionally explored in the
last section of this article.
10. The spectre assumes a significant role for Derrida and deconstructive analy-
sis. It is that which is denied or repressed (i.e., equality in this context) that will return
to dislodge or create tension in the existing system of legalistic self-enclosure. The
ghostly spectre haunts the system and, thus, creates a “nervous” system. Given the
presence of the spectre of equality and the role of deconstruction in revealing this
inequality that is based on mythical foundations (Derrida, 1992), we can perceive
deconstruction as a spectre that haunts the prevailing system of domination: It forces
injustice to the fore and, thus, presents a threat to the established order of inequality
(see, e.g., Derrida, 1994).
11. The theme of the gift and its logic have an extensive history in Western litera-
ture and philosophy. For example, Emerson’s (1844/1983) short essay titled, “The
Gift,” alludes to the problem of the gift, noting that it represents a threat to one’s inde-
 Arrigo, Williams / THE SEARCH FOR EQUALITY 337

pendence, the contraction of a debt, and engenders feelings of inferiority in the

receiver and dependence on the giver. The gift is also a dominant theme in Nietzsche
(1995) and, elsewhere, appears in the context of “gratitude and revenge” (Nietzsche,
1996, p. 46). Perhaps the most celebrated and influential of discussions concerning
the gift is Mauss (1990). Mauss establishes a sociohistorical link between giving and
the obligation to reciprocate, which is governed by rules and contracts. In short, the
history of giving and receiving practices reveals the presence of a system of exchange
(see also, Simmel, 1950). More recent, Bataille (1988) has addressed the gift within a
general economy of representation and what amounts, through its calculated interest,
to a restrictive economy. Although Derrida’s notion of the gift follows the traces of
these and other similar works, we will not discuss the historical literature. Instead, we
concentrate specifically on Derrida’s (1991, 1997) explications. For a historical over-
view of the gift, including Derrida’s treatment of it, see Schrift (1997).
12. This is a reference to Baudrillard’s (1981, 1983) critique of image and reality,
form and substance, and the counterfeit and the authentic. For applications to justice
studies, see Arrigo (1996a).
13. A representative example of legislated employment and educational opportu-
nity is affirmative action. Although affirmative action is currently under siege (e.g.,
Miller, Reyes, & Shaffer, 1997), its presence still haunts the economic and social sec-
tors today. The abolition of affirmative action programs, as witnessed, for example, in
the state of California following Proposition 209, was a response to perceived prac-
tices of reverse discrimination and a contradiction of the value of meritocracy (Cose,
1995). What is not fully articulated and what remains unexamined in affirmative
action literature are the implications of such programs for purposes of gift giving.
Although the current debate principally addresses the unfair legislative reforms of the
majority (e.g., hiring and/or promotion of unqualified and underqualified minorities,
educational quotas, set asides), questions remain about the unfair or unjust treatment
of minority constituencies themselves for the reasons described in this article. And,
although such programs lie in a state of limbo, they nonetheless (for now) collectively
remain a significant force in American society.
14. For the remainder of this section, the phrase democratic justice will not be
used in reference to the Derridean notion of justice as the (im)possible. Instead, it will
be used in the conventional sociolegal context of what is right and fair. We realize that
the terms justice and democracy retain certain porous meanings within a Derridean
framework. In this section of the article, we do not intend to conflate the two but rather
to employ the phrase democratic justice in reference to the social (i.e., democratic)
ideal of justice as represented by equality.
15. Consider, for example, the dominance of self-interested (i.e., narcissistic) giv-
ing practices that currently (and historically) govern political discourse. Examples
include foreign-aid decisions that are made in light of national interests, the percep-
tion of welfare as a gift that must be replaced by a more contractual agreement where
repayment is assured, and, perhaps more indicative of prevailing societal conscious-
ness in general, the notion of charitable donations. Donations are intended to assist
those populations that are less fortunate. However, the primary motivation for donat-
ing oneself or one’s material assets is often narcissistic. Charity becomes merely a
338 Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice / August 2000

strategy to avoid taxes, and taxes are often perceived as unjust extortion rather than
generosity in the name of humanity (Schrift, 1997). Schrift (1997) aptly summarizes
the economy of narcissism and the gift through the following illustration:
One must wonder what sorts of assumptions regarding gift giving and
generosity are operating in a society that views public assistance to its
least advantaged members as an illegitimate gift that results in an unjus-
tifiable social burden that can no longer be tolerated while at the same
time viewing corporate bailouts and tax breaks for its wealthiest citizens
as legitimate investments in a nation’s future. (p. 19)
16. Following Derrida (1993, 1994), we note that the giver who hosts power also
relationally depends on that which parasites or guests on it. In this instance, then, the
extent to which minority collectives feed off of the self-interests of majoritarian direc-
tives is the extent to which majoritartian power, justice, and equality are sustained.
17. Instrumental Marxists have made similar claims about majoritarian decision
making and manipulation (see, e.g., Miliband, 1969). What we draw attention to,
however, is the sociopsychological and ethical roots of the problem. We contend that
Derrida’s deconstructive linguistic analysis, applied to the overall process of gift giv-
ing and receiving (i.e., legislated rights for minority constituencies), considerably
advances our understanding of justice, law, equality, and their intersections.
18. The false or counterfeit sense of movement is akin to Marx’s (1967) own cri-
tique of capital logic. Unlike Marx, who offers much more of a grounded argument
within the political economy of state-regulated capitalist societies, we are examining
the socioethical dimensions by which this false consciousness is conceived, articu-
lated, reproduced, and relegitimated (Rossi-Landi, 1977, 1983).
19. According to Derrida (1992), the notion of differance implies a binary opposi-
tion regarding hierarchies, forms of logic, and metaphysical underpinnings of various
texts: “Each of the terms in the hierarchy lies in opposition where differences give
them their respective coherence” (Henry & Milovanovic, 1996, p. 83). Some values,
forms of consciousness, belief systems, and so forth are privileged over others (e.g.,
majority/minority, man/woman, White/Black, objective/subjective). The terms differ
from one another considerably. However, the second term in each binary opposition,
the term that is devalued, remains concealed and must wait for or defer to the presence
of the other privileged term. In addition, though, each term, whether in the privileged
or deprivileged position, retains the trace of the other; that is, “each leaves the mark of
the other” (Henry & Milovanovic, 1996, p. 83). This is what Derrida (1976, 1981)
terms the metaphysics of presence.
20. Speaking true words is not synonymous with speaking the truth or the just.
Consistent with Derrida, the deconstruction we have in mind, as an ethico-political
method, entails ongoing self-critique in what we say or do. All forms of ordering,
including dialogical pedagogy, retain some material and symbolic aspects of violence
that must be decentered.
21. This is a reference to Lacan’s (1991) emphasis on the four discourses and the
context in which the discourse of the analyst along with the discourse of the hysteric,
 Arrigo, Williams / THE SEARCH FOR EQUALITY 339

when combined, provide the psychic wherewithal to transform reality and conceive
of alternative forms of knowledge. For applications to gender, race, and class dynam-
ics, see Arrigo (1996b), Arrigo and Young (1998), and Cornell (1993). For various
other applications to law and justice, see Milovanovic (1992, 1997), Arrigo (1996c,
1998b), and Arrigo and Schehr (1998).
22. For a feminist analysis of dialogical pedagogy, education, and the politics of
representation and difference, see Weiler (1994) and Brady (1994).
23. A recent Australian case demonstrates how difference and the absence of bor-
der crossings produced inequality and injustice. The incident is known as the Hind-
marsh Island affair. At issue was the construction of a bridge and marina in south Aus-
tralia and the implications these initiatives would hold for the aboriginal women of
Hindmarsh Island. The indigenous women (the Ngarrindjeri) argued that the territory
was the site of “secret women’s business” and that the sacredness of this island could
not be communicated to men. Furthermore, the Ngarrindjeri claimed that any site con-
struction would destroy the fertility of the aboriginal women residing there. White
male lawyers mandated that the aboriginal spiritual beliefs be “formally proved
through legal evidentiary procedures” (Stacy, 1996, p. 284). This example demon-
strates how the gender (and race) differences of the Ngarrindjeri, as potential border
crossings for new knowledge, were not folded into the Australian tribunal’s discourse
on law, justice, and equality.

REFERENCES
Adorno, T. (1973). Negative dialectics. New York: Continuum.
Aristotle. (1925). The works of Aristotle (W. D. Ross, Trans.). Oxford, UK: Clarendon.
Arrigo, B. (1992). The logic of identity and the politics of justice: Establishing a right
to community based treatment for the institutionalized mentally disabled. New
England Journal on Criminal and Civil Confinement, 18(1), 1-31.
Arrigo, B. (1995). The peripheral core of law and criminology: On postmodern social
theory and conceptual integration. Justice Quarterly, 12(3), 447-472.
Arrigo, B. (1996a). Media madness as a crime in the making: On O.J. Simpson, cul-
tural icons, and hyper-reality. In G. Barak (Ed.), Representing OJ: Murder, crimi-
nal justice & mass culture (pp. 123-136). New York: Harrow & Heston.
Arrigo, B. (1996b). Postmodern criminology on race, gender, and class. In M. Schwartz
& D. Milovanovic (Eds.), Race, gender and class in criminology: The intersec-
tions (pp. 73-90). New York: Garland.
Arrigo, B. (1996c). The contours of psychiatric justice: A postmodern critique of
mental illness, criminal insanity, and the law. New York: Garland.
Arrigo, B. (1998a). In search of social justice: Toward an integrative and critical crim-
inological theory. In B. Arrigo (Ed.), Social justice/criminal justice: The matura-
tion of critical theory in law, crime, and deviance (pp. 253-272). Belmont, CA:
Wadsworth.
Arrigo, B. (1998b). Reason and desire in legal education: A psychoanalytic semiotic
critique. International Journal for the Semiotics of Law, XI(31), 3-24.
340 Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice / August 2000

Arrigo, B., & Young, T. R. (1998). Theories of crime and crimes of theorists: On the
topological construction of criminological reality. Theory and Psychology, 8(2),
219-253.
Arrigo, B. A., & Schehr, R. (1998). Restoring justice for juveniles: A critical analysis
of victim offender mediation. Justice Quarterly, 15(4), 629-666.
Balkin, J. M. (1987). Deconstructive practice and legal inquiry. Yale Law Journal,
96(4), 743-786.
Bataille, G. (1988). The accursed share: An essay on general economy, vol. 1: Con-
sumption (R. Hurley, Trans.). New York: Zone Books.
Baudrillard, J. (1981). For a critique of the political economy of the sign. St. Louis,
MO: Telos Press.
Baudrillard, J. (1983). Simulacrum and simulations (P. Foss, P. Patton, & P. Beitchman,
Trans.). New York: Semiotext.
Borgman, A. (1992). Crossing the postmodern divide. Chicago: University of Chi-
cago Press.
Brady, J. (1994). Critical literacy, feminism, and a politics of representation. In
P. McLaren & C. Lankshear (Eds.), Politics of liberation (pp. 142-153). New
York: Routledge.
Butler, J. (1992). Contingent foundations: Feminism and the question of “postmodern-
ism.” In J. Butler & J. W. Scott (Eds.), Feminists theorize the political. New York:
Routledge.
Caputo, J. (Ed.). (1997). Deconstruction in a nutshell: A conversation with Jacques
Derrida. New York: Fordham University Press.
Collins, P. H. (1990). Black feminist thought: Knowledge, consciousness, and the pol-
itics of empowerment. New York: Routledge.
Collins, P. H. (1993). Toward a new vision of race, class, and gender as categories of
analysis and connection. Race, Sex, Class, 1(1), 25-45.
Cornell, D. (1991). Beyond accommodation: Ethical feminism, deconstruction and
the law. New York: Routledge.
Cornell, D. (1993). Transformations: Recollective imagination and sexual difference.
New York: Routledge.
Cornell, D., Rosenfeld, M., & Carlson, D. (Eds.). (1992). Deconstruction and the pos-
sibility of justice. New York: Routledge.
Cose, E. (1995, April 3). The myth of meritocracy. Newsweek.
Currie, D., MacLean, B., & Milovanovic, D. (1992). Three traditions of critical justice
inquiry: Class, gender, and discourse. In D. Currie & B. MacLean (Eds.),
Re-Thinking the administration of justice (pp. 3-44). Halifax, Nova Scotia:
Fernwood Press.
Derrida, J. (1976). Of grammatology. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University
Press.
Derrida, J. (1978). Writing and difference. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Derrida, J. (1981). Positions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Derrida, J. (1982). Margins of philosophy (A. Bass, Trans.). Chicago: University of
Chicago Press.
 Arrigo, Williams / THE SEARCH FOR EQUALITY 341

Derrida, J. (1989). Psyche: Inventions of the other (C. Portert, Trans.). In L. Waters &
W. Godzich (Eds.), Reading De Man Reading. Minneapolis: University of Min-
nesota Press.
Derrida, J. (1991). Given time: I. Counterfeit money (P. Kamuf, Trans.). Chicago:
University of Chicago Press.
Derrida, J. (1992). Force of law: The mystical foundation of authority. In D. Cornell,
M. Rosenfeld, & D. Carlson (Eds.), Deconstruction and the possibility of justice
(pp. 3-67). New York: Routledge.
Derrida, J. (1993). Aporias (T. Dutoit, Trans.). Stanford, CA: Stanford University
Press.
Derrida, J. (1994). Spectres of Marx: The state of debt, the work of mourning, and the
new international (P. Kamuf, Trans.). New York: Routledge.
Derrida, J. (1997). The Villanova roundtable. In J. Caputo (Ed.), Deconstruction in a
nutshell: A conversation with Jacques Derrida. New York: Fordham University
Press.
Desilva Wijeyeratne, R. (1998). Deconstruction, semiotics, and justice. International
Journal for the Semiotics of Law, XI(31), 105-112.
Emerson, R. (1983). Essays and lectures. New York: Literary Classics. (Original pub-
lished 1844)
Fish, S. (1982). With the compliments of the author: Reflections on Austin and
Derrida. Critical Inquiry, 8(4), 693-721.
Fraser, N. (1997). Justice interruptus: Critical reflections on the “postsocialist” con-
dition. New York: Routledge.
Freire, P. (1972). Pedagogy of the oppressed. South Hadley, MA: Herder and Her.
Giddens, A. (1984). The constitution of society: Outline for a theory of structuration.
Oxford, UK: Polity.
Giroux, H. (1992). Border crossings. New York: Routledge.
Heidegger, M. (1962). Being and time. New York: Harper & Row.
Henry, S., & Milovanovic, D. (1991). Constitutive criminology: The maturation of
critical theory. Criminology: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 29(2), 293-316.
Henry, S., & Milovanovic, D. (1996). Constitutive criminology: Beyond postmodern-
ism. London: Sage.
hooks, b. (1989). Talking back: Thinking feminist, thinking Black. Boston: South End.
Husserl, E. (1983). Ideas pertaining to a pure phenomenology and to a phenomeno-
logical philosophy (F. Kersten, Trans.). The Hague, the Netherlands: Nijhoff.
Irigaray, L. (1985). This sex which is not one (C. Porter & C. Burke, Trans.). Ithaca,
NY: Cornell University Press.
Irigaray, L. (1993). Je, tu, nous: Toward a culture of difference. New York: Routledge.
JanMohamed, A. R. (1994). Some implications of Paulo Freire’s border pedagogy. In
H. Giroux & P. McLaren (Eds.), Between borders: Pedagogy and the politics of
cultural studies. New York: Routledge.
Jessop, B. (1990). State theory: Putting the capitalist state in its place. Cambridge,
UK: Polity.
Kristeva, J. (1986). Revolution in poetic language. New York: Columbia University
Press.
342 Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice / August 2000

Lacan, J. (1991). L’envers de la psychanalyse. Paris, France: Editions du Seuil.

Laclau, E. (1991). New reflections on the revolution of our time. London: Verso.
Landau, I. (1992). Early and later deconstruction I: The writings of Jacques Derrida.
Cardozo Law Review, 14(6), 1895-1909.
Lippens, R. (1997). Border-crossing criminology. Theoretical Criminology, 2(1),
119-151.
Lynch, M., & Patterson, B. (Ed.). (1996). Justice with prejudice: Race and criminal
justice in America. Guilderland, New York: Harrow and Heston.
Marx, K. (1967). Capital. New York: International Press.
Mauss, M. (1990). The gift: The form and reason for exchange in archaic societies
(W. Halls, Trans.). London: Routledge.
McLaren, P. (1994). Multiculturalism and the postmodern critique: Toward a peda-
gogy of resistance and transformation. In H. Giroux & P. McLaren (Eds.),
Between borders: Pedagogy and the politics of cultural studies (pp. 192-222).
New York: Routledge.
Miliband, R. (1969). The state in capitalist society. New York: Basic Books.
Miller, F., Reyes, X., & Shaffer, E. (1997). The contextualization of affirmative
action: A historical and political analysis. American Behavioral Scientist, 41,
223-231.
Milovanovic, D. (1992). Postmodern law and disorder: Psychoanalytic semiotics,
chaos, and juridic exgeses. Liverpool, UK: Deborah Charles.
Milovanovic, D. (1997). Postmodern criminology. New York: Garland.
Milovanovic, D., & Henry, S. (1991). Constitutive penology. Social Justice, 18,
204-224.
Mouffe, C. (1992). Feminism, citizenship and radical democratic politics. In J. Butler &
J. W. Scott (Eds.), Feminists theorize the political. London: Routledge.
Nietzsche, F. (1995). Thus spoke Zarathustra (W. Kaufmann, Trans.). New York: The
Modern Library.
Nietzsche, F. (1996). Human, all too human (M. Faber, Trans.). Lincoln: University of
Nebraska Press.
Rosenfeld, M. (1993). Affirmative action. Cambridge, MA: Yale University Press.
Rossi-Landi, F. (1977). Linguistics and economics. The Netherlands: Mouton.
Rossi-Landi, F. (1983). Language as work and trade: A semiotic homology for lin-
guistics and economics. South Hadley, MA: Bergin and Garvey.
Schehr, R. (1997). Dynamic utopia. Westport, CT: Praeger.
Schrift, A. (Ed.). (1997). The logic of the gift: Toward an ethic of generosity. New
York: Routledge.
Simmel, G. (1950). The sociology of Georg Simmel (K. H. Wolff, Trans.). Glencoe,
IL: The Free Press.
Stacy, H. (1996). Lacan’s split subjects: Raced and gendered transformations. Legal
Studies Forum, 20(3), 277-293.
Weber, E. (Ed.). (1995). Points . . . interviews, 1974-94 (P. Kamuf, Trans.). Stanford,
CA: Stanford University Press.
Weiler, K. (1994). Freire and a feminist pedagogy of difference. In P. McLaren &
C. Lankshear (Eds.), Politics of liberation. New York: Routledge.
 Arrigo, Williams / THE SEARCH FOR EQUALITY 343

Young, I. (1990). Justice and the politics of difference. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Uni-
versity Press.

Bruce A. Arrigo, Ph.D., is a professor of criminology and forensic psychology and the director of
the Institute of Psychology, Law, and Public Policy at the California School of Professional Psy-
chology in Fresno. Prior to his career in academe, he was a community organizer and social
activist for the homeless, mentally ill, working poor, frail elderly, decarcerated, and the chemi-
cally addicted. Dr. Arrigo received his doctorate from Pennsylvania State University, and he
holds master’s degrees in psychology and in sociology. He is the author of more than 70 journal
articles, academic book chapters, and scholarly essays exploring theoretical and applied topics
in criminology, criminal justice and mental health, and the sociology of law. His recent articles
have appeared in Criminal Justice and Behavior; Crime, Law, and Social Change; Justice Quar-
terly; International Journal of Law and Psychiatry; Critical Criminology; Theoretical Criminol-
ogy; Journal of Offender Rehabilitation; Social Justice; Law and Psychology Review; Deviant
Behavior; Theory and Psychology, and the International Journal for the Semiotics of Law. Dr.
Arrigo is the author, coauthor, or editor of five books, which include Madness, Language, and the
Law (1993), The Contours of Psychiatric Justice (1996), Social Justice/Criminal Justice: The
Maturation of Critical Theory in Law, Crime, and Deviance (1998), The Dictionary of Critical
Social Sciences (with T. R. Young, 1999), and Introduction to Forensic Psychology (2000). Dr.
Arrigo is also the editor of Humanity & Society and the founding and acting editor of the Journal
of Forensic Psychology Practice. He is currently completing a book on social justice, critical
criminology, and existentialism.
Christopher R. Williams received his doctoral degree from the California School of Professional
Psychology in Fresno where he specialized in law and policy. His articles have appeared in
Social Justice, Theoretical Criminology, American Journal of Criminal Justice, New England
Journal on Criminal and Civil Confinement, and Humanity & Society. He is the coauthor (with
B. A. Arrigo) of Law, Psychology and Justice: Chaos Theory and the New (Dis)Order (in press).