The Blindness of Vision: Derrida, Memory, and the Ruin of the Self
AI-generated image inspired by Norman Rockwell’s Self-Portrait . Introduction In Memoirs of the Blind (1990), Jacques Derrida turns to the practice of drawing, particularly the self-portrait, to meditate on the paradox of sight. Vision, he suggests, depends upon a constitutive blindness. The very act of seeing oneself implies a limit, a moment when the gaze falters and must rely on memory. Through the self-portrait, Derrida reveals that self-representation is never pure presence but an interplay between absence and recollection. This essay examines that paradox through his notions of origin and supplement , connecting them to Lacan’s account of the mirror stage. It argues that the blind spot functions as one of Derrida’s characteristic liminal zones , spaces where boundaries blur and meaning emerges from interruption. What appears trivial—the blink, the pause, the turn—becomes the hinge upon which perception, memory, and selfhood depend. The Self-Portrait and the Structure of ...