Deconstruction, a cheap weapon?

We concluded the previous week’s column with an observation of Dennis Dutton: “As a philosopher, I find this awe pretty silly, but there it is: I hold piano virtuosos in reverential awe and my pianist friends tell me that’s silly too. Second, it must be admitted that there are intelligent scholars in other fields who, whatever their considerable abilities, have little aptitude for philosophy. No crime in that: talents for mathematics, languages, music, poetry, literary criticism, and other fields are not evenly spread across the academy, and why should it be different with philosophy? Anyway, talent aside, there are only so many hours in the day to permit gaining expertise beyond one’s chosen scholarly specialty. ”

Dennis further says, “But here we have a possible partial explanation for the popularity of deconstruction in literary and other humanist circles. Deconstruction provides academic folk with the illusion that they are raising big, deep philosophical issues, because they are (courageously, no doubt) “calling into question” or “problematising” the very foundations of thought, meaning, and value.

Intellectually, this is bargain basement stuff, of course: philosophy on the cheap. It stands to real philosophy as the electric organ stands to piano virtuosity. But it seems very exciting — the “heady brew” that so agitated that English professor. And there are other benefits as well. Deconstruction has built into it the usual self-immunizing strategies characteristic of other ersatz sciences, such as astrology or doctrinaire Freudianism. Confronted with any intellectual criticism, the deconstructionist airily waves the speaker away, or gestures knowingly to his fellow believers, as though to say, “Tiresome, isn’t it, the way people keep trying to revive the superstitions we have long since transcended!” There is no need, and certainly no demand, for the believing deconstructionist to engage the benighted sceptic in any argument. In fact, the situation for the deconstructionist is ideal: one can have the transcendent exhilaration of seeming to tackle profound philosophical questions without having to actually do any philosophy.

Logocentrism

And philosophers who object can be ignored, since they are still the unknowing dupes of logocentrism, or something. Finally, while the whole procedure, like a roller coaster, seems dangerous, with that dark talk of radical “subversion” and “scandal” it is virtually risk free. One can be on the correct side, against sexism, racism, or ethnocentrism , but all from the cozy security of the academy.

This helps to explain both why deconstruction has captivated the imaginations of so many literary scholars who enjoy dabbling in philosophy, and why it has not caught on to anything like the same extent with professional philosophers.

In the first place, even those philosophers who take deconstruction seriously are nevertheless interested to consider alternative theories — not just Derrida on, say, essentialist philosophies of language, but thinkers such as Wittgenstein or Quine or Kripke as well. And once one is on this road, the depth and appeal of alternative theories become apparent. (This isn’t unique: Christians who take up comparative religion often suffer a similar loss of faith.) Second, philosophers really do listen to arguments, even if they don’t always change their minds. If a philosopher presents me with two arguments designed to show that God cannot exist, and I respond by trying to demonstrate how they fail, it is simply not open to my opponent merely to dismiss me with, “What? You mean you believe in God?” In fact, such a response simply spoils the fun. Among philosophers, the rejection of an argument for a position need not entail anything about whether the speaker accepts or rejects that position.”

Win –win situation for deconstructionists

Dennis points out that deconstructionists are most of the time in a better position than their opponents; “ The point would hardly be worth making, except that this simple respect for your opponent’s argument is not encouraged by deconstruction. The way all-too-many deconstructionists play the game, if you object to the deconstructionist account of logocentrism, you are still under the spell of some phonologist superstition. If you suggest that there might be reasons why some literary interpretations are intrinsically better than others, or that authorial intentions cannot be wholly dismissed by criticism, then, you obviously favor making reader and critic subservient to the God-author. If you question the slogan “all interpretation is misinterpretation” you must be one of those people who believe in One Truth. In confronting opposition, the deconstructionist does not move in the realm of claim and counter-argument. This fact is implicitly recognised in the way that, in the popular vocabulary of deconstruction, theories are said not to be refuted but to be displaced by other positions: the language (borrowed here from Freud, but it might as well be Thrasymachus) is not that of argument and evidence, but of hogging space, getting attention, repressing or getting even with some enemy. It’s all power and desire.”

Post-modernism generator

In a satirical manner David L. Potts says, “In case there’s anybody who does not know about it, I want to mention the Postmodernism Generator website. At this absolutely hilarious place you can have generated a postmodernist scholarly article, complete with bibliography, at the click of a link. The papers are randomly generated--a brand new one every time you click the link--by a software generator called the “Dada Engine,” created by Andrew Bulhak at Monash University in Australia. The output is practically indistinguishable from published postmodernist scholarly papers. ”What is obvious is that ‘grand’ theoretical weapon of Deconstruction and postmodernism should not be treated as gospel truth. Potts points out that David Stove in his book Plato Cult , expressed his views and he is of the view that ‘ that most of the history of philosophy is filled with egregious falsehoods and that their progenitors should not be treated with reverence, and he isn’t shy about saying so.

In this essay, he asks how it is that thought can go so far wrong as to be “pathological.” He uses as examples passages from Plotinus, Hegel, and Foucault. Therefore, he is not talking about post-modernism specifically but the phenomenon of “thought gone wrong” generally. I don’t personally agree with all of his analysis, but he makes you think about the history of philosophy, about why so much of it is so wrong, and about what an appropriate attitude towards it should be. He’s also a very funny writer, which doesn’t hurt. ”