An illustration: Derrida's reading of Lévi-Strauss
A more concrete example, drawn from one of Derrida's most famous works, may help to clarify the typical manner in which deconstruction works.
Structuralist analysis generally relies on the search for underlying binary oppositions as an explanatory device. The structuralist anthropology of Claude Lévi-Strauss argued that such oppositions are found in all cultures, not only in Western culture, and thus that the device of binary opposition was fundamental to meaning.
Deconstruction challenges the explanatory value of these oppositions. This method has three steps. The first step is to reveal an asymmetry in the binary opposition, suggesting an implied hierarchy. The second step is to reverse the hierarchy. The third step is to displace one of the terms of the opposition, often in the form of a new and expanded definition.
In his book Of Grammatology, Derrida offers one example of deconstruction applied to a theory of Lévi-Strauss. Following many other Western thinkers, Lévi-Strauss distinguished between "savage" societies lacking writing and "civilized" societies that have writing. This distinction implies that human beings developed verbal communication (speech) before some human cultures developed writing, and that speech is thus conceptually as well as chronologically prior to writing (thus speech would be more authentic, closer to truth and meaning, and more immediate than writing).
Although the development of writing is generally considered to be an advance, after an encounter with the Nambikwara Indians of Brazil, Lévi-Strauss suggested that societies without writing were also lacking violence and domination (in other words, savages are truly noble savages). He further argued that the primary function of writing is to facilitate slavery (or social inequality, exploitation, and domination in general). (This claim has been rejected by most later historians and anthropologists as incorrect. There is abundant historical evidence that both hunter-gatherer societies and later non-literate tribes had significant amounts of violence and warfare in their cultures.)
Derrida's interpretation begins with taking Lévi-Strauss's discussion of writing at its word: what is important in writing for Lévi-Strauss is not the use of markings on a piece of paper to communicate information, but rather their use in domination and violence. Derrida further observes that, based on Lévi-Strauss's own ethnography, the Nambikwara really do use language for domination and violence. Derrida thus concludes that writing, in fact, is prior to speech. That is, he reverses the opposition between speech and writing.
Derrida was not making fun of Lévi-Strauss, nor did he mean to supersede, replace, or proclaim himself superior to Lévi-Strauss. (A common theme of deconstruction is the desire to be critical without assuming a posture of superiority.) He was using his deconstruction of Lévi-Strauss to question a common belief in Western culture, dating back at least to Plato: that speech is prior to, more authentic than, and closer to "true meaning" than writing.
Criticisms of deconstruction
As a rule, deconstructive writing tends to be rather inaccessible and eccentric, containing word-play, playful interpretations of texts, and other features that invite criticism. Judged on the basis of more orthodox Western thought, these writings may appear irrelevant and incoherent. For example, Derrida used punning on the name of a poet as a way to explore the meaning of a poem.
The practices of deconstructive writers have been disputed and criticized by many historians, linguists, and literary scholars. For example:
- Deconstructionists have deconstructed the idea that each text has a "truth" corresponding to what the author intended to say. In response, critics argue that as a matter of practice most authors do have specific objective intentions, and the authors themselves may agree that readers are able to accurately understand their intentions. There is no reason, they argue, to suspect that an author is lying when they state that their text is understood properly. In response, deconstructionists defend this position by saying that an author's claims "participate in the same condition of textuality" in which the "works" in question are enmeshed. In other words, text can be thought of as "dead," and what an author says about their text doesn't revive it, and is just another text commenting on the original, along with the commentary of others. In this view, when an author says, "You have understood my work perfectly," this utterance constitutes an addition to the textual system, along with what the reader said they understood about the original text, and not a resuscitation of the original dead text. Most philosophers, literary critics, scientists and historians would not agree with this view.
- No one can know anything about the true nature of reality. Some deconstructionists have deconstructed the idea that there is a privileged, objective reality "out there", arguing instead that reality is a social construct as defined by text. This view is often rejected as a disguised version of solipsism. Deconstructionists hold that this view is justified; they claim that deconstruction questions the very notion that meaning can be fixed by reference to a source or principle within the mind. Most philosophers, literary critics, scientists and historians would not agree with this view.
- No claim of knowledge is privileged; no method of learning provides authoritative information. This deconstructionist belief is rejected on its face; the articles on Knowledge, science and history give explanations of why most people believe that there are reliable ways of learning information. Many deconstructionists defend this position; they hold as a belief that all information or knowledge, no matter how thoroughly tested and confirmed, is only available within a discursive system, that is, within textuality. Most philosophers, literary critics, scientists and historians would not agree with this view.
- Deconstruction is seen by many as means of academic empire-building; it is seen as a vain attempt to make literary analysis of texts become as important as the texts themselves. For example, many deconstructionist writers treat their own essays on science, like Quantum Mechanics, and on philosophy, like Aristotle, as just as important as the disciplines of science and philosophy themselves. Thus, many critics consider this to be arrogant.
- A central concept of deconstructionism is that language has no inherent meaning. Critics counter that if this were true, then how could anyone ever agree with deconstructive writers? How could deconstructionist writers themselves disagree with others? In response, deconstructionists argue that the meaning of sentences does not derive from an absolute realm of ideas to which words can refer unproblematically. They believe that language, and all books, have no fixed and stable meaning. However, deconstructive writers are willing to deconstruct unstable language using other unstable language.
- Many deconstructionists claim that their writings should be classified as philosophy. However, most philosophers find deconstructionist writings to be more similar to wordplay, or book reviews, and devoid of actual philosophical content. Critics hold that most deconstructionist writings relies on terms whose conceptual status and definition are unclear, and often contradictory. Deconstructive writers consider philosophy to be much the same as wordplay, and are happy to point out, and even use, philosophical unclarity and contradiction, in the course of their deconstruction of philosophy.
- Critics argue that deconstruction's rejection of teleology renders accounts of historical progress (and indeed the entire philosophy of history) considerably more difficult to sustain, leading some to reject it on political grounds. (The relation between deconstruction and Marxism, Marxist theory, and Marxist philosophy is particularly complex and fraught with numerous disagreements and attempted reconciliations.)
A common rebuttal to all deconstructionist dogma is that deconstructionists effectively claim a privileged position for their own writings. They write letters and books which expect that readers understand their own intent, yet deny that this is possible for anyone else. MIT Linguist Noam Chomsky has written a strong refutation of deconstructionism and related philosophies.
- I have spent a lot of my life working on questions such as these, using the only methods I know of--those condemned here as "science," "rationality," "logic," and so on. I therefore read the papers with some hope that they would help me "transcend" these limitations, or perhaps suggest an entirely different course. I'm afraid I was disappointed. Admittedly, that may be my own limitation. Quite regularly, "my eyes glaze over" when I read polysyllabic discourse on the themes of poststructuralism and postmodernism; what I understand is largely truism or error, but that is only a fraction of the total word count. True, there are lots of other things I don't understand: the articles in the current issues of math and physics journals, for example. But there is a difference. In the latter case, I know how to get to understand them, and have done so, in cases of particular interest to me; and I also know that people in these fields can explain the contents to me at my level, so that I can gain what (partial) understanding I may want. In contrast, no one seems to be able to explain to me why the latest post-this-and-that is (for the most part) other than truism, error, or gibberish, and I do not know how to proceed.