On the "ism"...

Hi all,

I'm bored.

So, just to save others the work, I thought I'd offer one of Derrida's own
takes on "deconstructionism."

He is, at the outset of this essay, distinguishing between two positions, two
movements -- the stabilizing position of formalization and the destabilizing
position of heterogeneity. He is, of course, throughout the essay, aligning
his own work with the latter movement and the work of others, many of whom he
admires, with the former. He insists both movements are necessary within and
for philosophical critique.

Here is what concerns him about what others have called "deconstructionism."
And you'll notice, even here, that he does not indict it even as he warns
about such talk.

"The closest type, the stabilizing jetty which resembles the destabilizing
jetty most, is what is called poststructuralism, alias deconstructionism. It's
not bad, it isn't an evil, and even if it were one, it would be a necessary
evil. It consists in formalizing certain strategic necessities of the
deconstructive jetty..."

(and by formalizing here he says he means the dangerous practice of turning
it into "methodological procedures," "a kind of knowledge," "a system of
technical rules," principles, theorems, etc.)

And he concludes, "I think one can say that there is deconstructionism in
general each time that the destabilizing jetty closes itself in a teachable set
of theorems, each time that there is self-presentation of a, or more
problematically, of the theory."

And he warns, explicitly:

"[T]o reconstitute the deconstructive jetty in theory, into a theory, into a
deconstructionist jetty, runs the risk of losing the essential force and
excess which consist in unsettling the entire philosophical foundation of which I
have already spoken. It runs the risk of reconstituting an old concept of
text, of confining oneself to one area (the literary one), etc."

And Derrida goes further and says he himself would feel the critiques offered
by Marxism and New Historicism of deconstructionism to be "absolutely
legitimate, necessary, urgent" if, and only if: "deconstructionism were what it is
accused of being, and when it is and where it is formalist, aestheticist,
ignorant of reality, of history, enclosed in language, word play, books,
literature, indifferent to politics." In these case, Derrida makes clear, he is
strongly against any such "deconstructionism."

But of course, Derrida goes on to make clear that his own work is none of
these things and that the oppositional critiques have some of their own serious
problems. And Derrida offers a sentence concerning these oppositional critiques
that I think is especially relevant to our little discussion here. What
Derrida writes about these two approaches applies perfectly to dear Luke (whose
other problems we still need to work on). I've replaced "Marxists and New
Historicists" with his name, because the sentence works for all of them.

"[T]hey institute themselves in reaction to a deconstructionist
poststructuralism which is itself either nothing but a figure or a stabilizing
reappropriation of deconstruction or else a caricatural myth projected by Luke out of
self-interest or misunderstanding."

He then goes on to demonstrate precisely how his own work, starting with an
analysis of the Husserlian critique of historicism, is neither of these things.
 But it takes a good number of pages which I can only suggest people read.

In any case, what Luke is attacking in his caricatures concerning
"deconstructionism" is indeed either some unfortunately crude formalization of Derrida's
work by others that he has mistaken for the work itself, "some stabilizing
reappropriation of deconstruction," or else simply a cartoon, a myth he has
created "out of self-interest or misunderstanding" which as anyone who reads even a
little of Derrida's own work can see, is explicitly contradicted on page
after page, simply in terms of content.

Now, I'm hungry instead of bored. So I'm off to breakfast.

I know this too was probably a waste of time for some readers. That's to be
expected. This entire discussion with Luke is probably doomed in any case.

And I should try and remember the words of a man much wiser than myself, who
once said:

"Arguing on the internet is like the Special Olympics. Even if you win,
you're still retarded."

All the best,

--John (just pissing people off all day)

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Received on Thu Aug 14 09:26:12 2003