Deferral, Debt and the Idiom - by Dennis Bouvard

Deferral and debt are closely related; we might even say that debt is the tokenization of deferral. The beauty of the concept of deferral and its irreplaceability for center study as for GA is that, unlike, e.g., “prevent,” “refrain from,” “desist,” and other near synonyms, “deferral” posits no endpoint. As long as there is humanity there is deferral. We can also distinguish deferral from another kind of delay, “deter,” and its nominalized form, “deterrence,” insofar as deferral includes deterrence (we all must defer or there’s no deferral and therefore we all must monitor one another’s deferral) while adding a critical component: allowing for an orderly distribution. When we deter, we just watch each other; when we defer, we allow one another to proceed, to “re-imagine” the shared object of desire in creative ways. “Defer” includes deferring to the other. With deterrence there is no object, and therefore no desire—only fear. We each let the other take a piece in the “faith” that they

Deferral and debt are closely related; we might even say that debt is the tokenization of deferral. The beauty of the concept of deferral and its irreplaceability for center study as for GA is that, unlike, e.g., “prevent,” “refrain from,” “desist,” and other near synonyms, “deferral” posits no endpoint. As long as there is humanity there is deferral. We can also distinguish deferral from another kind of delay, “deter,” and its nominalized form, “deterrence,” insofar as deferral includes deterrence (we all must defer or there’s no deferral and therefore we all must monitor one another’s deferr