system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
How hard of a read is Derrida?

And what philosophers should one make sure they are familiar with before trying to read him?
gpt
Derrida is difficult; anyone who tells you otherwise is either pretentious, not reading him well, or thoroughly detached from most folks' abilities. You need to be extremely confident in whatever language you're reading him in. He's not afraid to spam ten-gallon words and intricate sentences, as postmodern writers are notoriously wont to do, and he's a linguistic whose language often has several layers playing at once. He draws extensively on Heidegger and Hegel, both of whom are even more challenging to read, by most standards. But don't be daunted; be patient instead. Derrida is near the summit of the mountain of philosophical history. If you climb up by following the chronology of relevant philosophers (Aristotle is necessary for Kant, Kant for Hegel, Hegel for Heidegger, etc.), you'll be well-equipped to tackle the postmodernists with a thorough understanding both of the problems they saw and of how to read their famously difficult prose.