Derrida offers an exposition of the text (contrasted with the immediacy of the spoken) as pharmakon, in referencing a Platonic encounter between Socrates and Phaedrus. There is the creative freedom in the written form that allows for unlimited refinement to augment the spellbinding and beguiling properties of the pharmakon. It is apt to differentiate the mechanics of written versus spoken discourse—despite the obvious—in this specific Platonic context: the written and the true are incompatible and diametrically opposed. The falsehood here, the written text, is a distancing device—an obstruction of expression for the immediate subject, even a distortion of consciousness itself, as the writer discourses ‘what he does not speak, what he would never say and, in truth, would probably never even think’ (Derrida, 2004:73). The archetypal author of text discourse (the sophist in this particular context) is classified as ‘the man of non-presence and of non-truth’ (73). What is interesting when considering the prominent modes of communication and information production today is this Platonic notion of writing as a synonym of deception and preternatural communication. In particular, the quality of non-presence is striking, as it is this mode which is dominant in our communication-sphere today, and to ignore its significance and insidiousness since communications tech grew in prevalence and reached the intensity of today with the digital would be a mistake. What Derrida’s account does is provide a philosophically based explanation for the type of unsavoury communication which has become dominant online: the “trolls”; the lack of decorum; the harrowing lack of responsibility, both social and personal; and the broader loss of empathy—resulting in a social space inhabited by faceless typists closely resembling schizoid sufferers.

Derrida, J. (2004) Dissemination. Reprint, London: Bloomsbury Academic (2013)