Re: Before the Law

Robbie,

You write:

"You have suggested -- correctly, no doubt -- that people here would not know
what a deconstruction is if it were presented.  This seems to me like it
ought to be a wholly and easily remediable malaise."

It's not. And I'm not sure why you think such things should be easy. But
more on that below.

You write:

"Most loosely, literature refers to anything written."

No, it doesn't. Not as the term is used by anyone I know. This is a good
example of why what you are calling for concerning the term "deconstruction"
is actually more dangerous that useful.

But you add:

"More usually, though, it refers to something that is written with an ear
toward beauty and depth of meaning."

And now all you've done, besides continue to mislead your listener, is
complicate the matter, made your problem worse, since now you have to define
for your listener what the heck you mean by beauty, depth, and meaning. Oh
yes, this is working well.

You write:

"I could say something like this along with the disclaimer that it's a
difficult question and I just pulled out a quick and most probably
insufficient answer.  Further questions could be explained further."

Thus, my last paragraph. About which you ask:

"Is it right that "deconstruction" in some strict and appropriate sense,
refers not to an action or a method, but rather to a series of texts?  And it
is not that deconstruction happens IN them, but that "deconstruction" refers
to them themselves?"

Yes.

But here's another one I wrote long ago -- it's just going to make people ask
for further definitions and the chain will be endless, but here it is anyway:

"Deconstruction is collage of textual moments of reading that use strategies
of reversal and displacement to interrogate the limit-spaces and assumptions
that ground Writing."

And yes, there is a reading the "W" in writing is capitalized, since I am
using it to mean more than just written texts, but systems of signification
of other sorts as well. But see, I've already started having to go on...

I must tell you, by the way, that if it seems to you like I am resisting
offering a one sentence definition, you're absolutely right. I am. And not
just because it is deconstruction we are talking about. I would resist it no
matter what term we were discussing. I actively resist the basic desire for
one sentence definitions of anything like this. I resist that way of
thinking in general. I think it is too often accompanied by and even
motivated by laziness and a penchant for oversimplification and a lack of
respect for complex ideas and the real way words like this work. In fact, I
think resisting the desire for one sentence definitions in general is
actually a worthwhile and even politically appropriate gesture in these
times. I think it is one sentence definitions and the desire for one
sentence definitions and a one-sentence sort of understanding of complicated
problems and ideas that causes not only much of the misunderstandings all
around us, both on the personal and scale and on the global scale, but that
produces some of the most tragic and unpleasant moments in our lives and in
our history. I think it is dangerous. I think it is sloppy. I think it is
lazy. I think it is bad scholarship. I think it is bad thinking. And I
will to continue to resist it.

You may think this makes me a "snob" or an "intellectual elitist" or an
"ivory tower thinker" or someone who is simply avoiding the question. I
choose to believe that it is acting in a respectful and responsible way
towards the diverse ideas and the texts I am reading. And I will continue to
argue that reading -- close, patient, responsible reading -- should take the
place of such desire.

All the best,

--John

Deconstruction? According to Derrida, "it is a word I have never liked and
one whose fortune has disagreeably surprised me."

 --Spoken before Derrida's thesis committee, meeting at the Sorbonne, on
June 2, 1980, at the opening of his much deferred thesis defense (on the
basis of published works). The text of this opening statement has been
published in _Philosophy in France Today_, edited byAlan Montefiore
(Cambridge UP, 1983). Derrida's remarks are entitled "The Time of a Thesis:
Punctuations" and the quotation is on page 44.

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Received on Sat Mar 8 07:36:37 2003