Democracy Today: Reflections on Derrida’s Essay on Public Opinion

Abstract

Opinion is identity expressed in an interplay between ephemeral forms of creativity and the enduring need to codify, structure, and preserve these expressions across time. From the earliest physical and transient manifestations such as dance and performance to building artifacts that celebrate the cultural and aesthetic values of a society, lives the duality between the ephemeral and the perpetual. Language emerged as the means of expression—spoken then written—of the dialectic between the fleeting and the permanent, among other complexities of life. Spoken language, in prose or poetry, exists in the moment, not unlike dance and performance; yet, once written, its ideal content is preserved for posterity, reexamination and the study of linguistic structures as well as historic record, also affording historical continuity. Through grammar and philology, language is analyzed as a framework and vehicle for ideal and emotional content maintaining relevance and comprehensibility over generations. This inquiry into language parallels the broader artistic endeavor to balance immediate, intuitive expression with the desire to create a lasting cultural legacy. Just as dance or oral storytelling can captivate an audience in the present, the written word and enduring artifacts make these expressions available for access and interpretation. In architecture, built artifacts bear the parallel duality of form and purpose—utilitarian and emotional—within structures in symbolic meaning. And so, artistic expression is a continual discourse across many forms, whether ephemeral or enduring, with each form serving creativity that is at once instantaneous and historically relevant.