Ronell Avital. Proving Grounds: On Nietzsche and the Test Drive

Article. — Modern Language Notes. — 2003. — Vol. 118. — No. 3 (German Issue, Apr.) — pp. 653-669.In an interview that bears the title “Nietzsche and the Machine,” Derrida addresses the hyper-ethical procedure of genealogy. Linking singularities that exceed the structure of the nation-state, he observes that, for Nietzsche, “the trial of democracy is also a trial of...technicization.” Following the cartographies of political utterances drawn up by the last philosopher, Derrida, for his part, suggests that “the name of Nietzsche could serve as an ‘index’ to a series of questions that have become all the more pressing since the end of the Cold War.” Answering the call, I want to link what he calls the trial of democracy to the name of Nietzsche—another name for an indefinitely unsatisfied justice—and to the timing of the democracy for which he calls: “this democracy to come is marked in the movement that always carries the present beyond itself, makes it inadequate to itself.”