In Chapter 3 I pointed to a deconstructive politics of the stage by examining the various forms of intervention in Derrida's work. Often commentators acknowledge the political positions that Derrida, the individual, has taken up, but maintain that these interventions are incompatible with the theoretical commitments of deconstruction. In Chapter 4 I attempted to respond to two key arguments that underpin this claim, what I called the ‘withdrawal’ and ‘wholesale critique’ charges. I tried to show that both are mistaken to claim that Derridean deconstruction is, as a matter of principle, disabled from engaging in politics. I also responded to what I called the ‘mere openness’ charge. This, I argued, misread deconstruction by suggesting that even though deconstruction may be politically useful strategically, it is not, as a matter of principle, orientated by any ethico-political injunction. Setting out Derrida's rearticulation of the concept of experience, and unpacking his account of the ordeal of undecidability, I argued that both are crucial aspects of trying to do justice to the other as other. That is to say, deconstruction is normatively orientated. A key aim of that chapter was to avoid the door being closed on deconstruction in relation to ethics and politics. The task in this chapter is to develop the account now that deconstruction has its foot in the door.

Building on the account of the experience of undecidability in the previous chapter, the first section of this chapter outlines a number of injunctions that flow from that account. In developing this, I respond in more detail to the argument that, in advocating an ethics of openness to the other, deconstruction fails to offer any normative orientation. Emphasising openness to the other, but pointing in no particular direction, deconstruction is seen as leaving us open to any other. In response, I argue that the injunctions of deconstruction are best thought of not in terms of openness to the other, but in terms of maintaining an ethos of interruption. It is in response to this demand that we can understand Derrida's insistence on the necessity of laws, calculation, deliberation, and the need to recognise and close off from that which would put an end to such an ethos. I suggest that the normativity of deconstruction is best understood as a form of negativism (which is not to be mistaken as negative or pessimistic).