Deconstruction Is Accused Of Privileging Textuality At The Expense Of The Real World. Essay, Research Paper
When any critical stance reduced to its
core principles (especially when undermined by the less spectacular efforts of
its practitioners) it becomes easy to caricature. Liberal Humanism can be
painted as woefully na?ve and with no redeeming features, whilst psychoanalysis
can be mocked as the ?hunt for the phallus? and Marxism is an a=b,
base/superstructure equation. Naturally, such basic impressions ignore the
subtleties and insights of each stance. Deconstruction, catching the mixed
scorn and fear of various traditional figures, has been particularly vulnerable
to such ?straw targeting.? One such effort has been directed against the
perceived nihilism of the technique (proving all texts ?mean nothing?) and
another finds itself underestimating Deconstructionists? intellectual rigour.
Perhaps a more valid critique comes when Deconstruction is on trial for a
myopic viewpoint; ignoring ?reality? and concentrating on ?textuality.? Textuality itself implies multiple things.
The first of those is perhaps the simplest: the condition of being a method of
textual criticism. This in itself, of course, does not make Deconstruction
particularly radical innovation – American New Criticism was also bent on
examining literature as ?object.? Deconstruction is somewhat unusual, however,
in severing traditional conceptions of author and reader, and examining the
interrelationship between the text itself and the codes which enable the text to
function as a method of communication. This introduces a pair of important
departures from the New Critical tradition, and reveals Structuralist roots.
Firstly, context is introduced (and
indeed becomes a vital component of Derrida?s linguistic theories), but in a
very specific way. Instead of concentrating on, say, the relationship between
contemporary political strife and concepts of agency and authority in a novel
(as in historicism), Deconstruction adopts a more distanced, philosophising
perspective. Derrida, for example, is most interested in how literature (as a
kind of autonomous textual object) exists in a form which can transcend and break from context by
drifting free of ?the set of presences which organise the moment of its
inscription.?[1] Indeed,
Derrida?s concept of iterability (ie.the ability to be repeated, even in the
absence of both addresser and addressee) is a central element of ?criture and its inevitable
indeterminacy. When history is introduced it is (ironically, perhaps,
considering the connection between Postmodernism and Post-Structuralism) in a
rather generalised way: logocentricism, and the ?metaphysics of presence? as
the continuous, unifying thread in Derrida?s analysis of the Western
philosophical tradition. Deconstruction eschews traditional historicist ideas,
seeing history not as an authority, but as part of contextual indeterminacy:
?part of what Derrida calls la texte g?n?ral.[2]?The second interesting departure is that
the textuality of New Criticism tended to relate their close reading analysis
to a separate conceptual scheme; albeit an a-historical one. Meaning was drawn out. Deconstruction, on the other
hand, turned the text in on itself.
No longer immediately concerned with deciding what the text said (ie.creating a
unified interpretation), a Deconstructionist points out internal conflict and
contradiction, points of self-referentiality and intertextuality. The American
Deconstructionists, in particular, used even more precise and microscopic
analysis than was usual in New Criticism. Who but Hillis Miller would spend an
entire essay drawing out the etymology of the single binary opposition between
?host? and ?parasite?? Whereas New Critical textual approaches expands the text into an interpretation,
Deconstruction collapses it into
impasse, aporia, paradox: the text enters the condition of the Cretan who says
?I am lying? and we can never determine whether he does or not. Thus, it can be seen that Deconstruction is
at once more aware of context and yet more rigidly textual than New
Criticism.? Both, however, are not
particularly interested in sociohistorical scholarship, or reconstructing an
author?s intention. In fact, a Deconstructionists? query is as to whether there
is an author in the first place, and (if there is) who is he or she? The same
applies to all subjects. Indeed, in the essay Diff?rance, Derrida points out that the speaking subject only
becomes such when he/she enters into the system of ?rules? which govern speech.
Foucault, although not immediately traceable as a Deconstructionist, provides a
similar analysis of the ?author-function? along Post-Structuralist lines. This,
in turn, can lead to an even more radical notion: whether the subject ? the ontological subject ? is also a function
of discourse. This, of course, is the second implication of ?textuality?:
reality as textual.It is worth noting Derrida?s own cautious
words on this subject before examining the complex interface between discourse
and reality: ?the value of truth?is never contested or destroyed in my
writings, but only reinscribed in more powerful, larger, more stratified
contexts.?[3]
It seems overambitious, therefore, to paint Derrida at least as a cartoonish
ultrasceptic denying that the room around him as any substantial existence.
However, what Deconstruction does say on the matter is very interesting. There
are three ways in which reality can be construed as related to discourse.The first is to say that all reality is
constructed in the same way as a language, and is thus indeterminate. In its
barest from, this does not seem to be the point-of-view of Deconstruction.
Throughout Derrida?s work, the status of the referent (ie.the real object) and
its distinction with the signified (ie.the corresponding thought-concept) are
maintained. The idea of the trace, a pure trace, points to a pre-discursive
world, albeit in the same insufficient way as ?negative theology.? And, if such
a line of argument is taken, then there is an effective realist counter:
whatever conceptual or linguistic scheme one possesses, however indeterminate,
arbitrary or relativistic, it does not determine what fits into that scheme.
One may have conceptual categories for hares and rabbits, or merely ?furry
creatures with floppy ears?, but if there are no hares and rabbits then all
three categories remain empty. A more subtle possibility is more
realistically attributed to Deconstruction. Although the world isn?t explicitly
created as a language, our ways of perceiving it may well be. Thought,
reflection and classification are linguistic in nature. There is only so far
one can go with purely mathematical reasoning (although it might perhaps be
argued that mathematics too is reducible to a semiotic analysis) and pure
sensuality. To interact with or perceive the world and its events in any
meaningful sense (particularly when attempting to abstract general systems, or
historical ?narratives?), one must make use of concepts, and concepts are
linguistic. And, of course, Deconstruction is involved in taking such concepts
to pieces, showing their inherent contradictions, how they do not fit into the
contextual chain as we thought they did, how their etymology and rigid binary
opposites taint them. A concept signals presence, and Derrida?s overarching
theme was the way that presence depends on absence. The binary between
presence/absence also hints at the equally binary nature of consciousness
itself; particularly interiority/exteriority and self/other, on to which
language maps its concepts. Whether this might also apply to any pre-linguistic
self-awareness is an interesting possibility, and Derrida does invoke the
unconscious as a repressed ?other? in the essay Diff?rance. Whatever, it is clear that any conceptual framework is
massively implicated with the ideas of diff?rance
and the analysis of presence and absence.The first linguistic act, Derrida argues,
had to create a sign, and a sign denotes the absence of the referent: ?the
circulation of signs defers the moment in which we can encounter the things
itself, make it ours, consume it, expend it, touch it, see it, intuit its
presence.?[4]
The whole system depends on the notions of spacing, deferring, difference, and
yet that which is seen to lock the whole system into a stable uniformity (the logos) is of course just a product of
the system itself.? It is a supplement
for the irrecoverable origin which we sense must stand outside the system, and
which we cannot articulate because all articulation issues from the system. In fact, all our concepts (all the signifieds in the system) can only be
articulated by signifiers and thus language as a code is always lacking that
validation that stops it from being simply an infinite play of signifers
defining more signifiers. We may point at a physical rabbit and link it with
the signifier ?rabbit?, but if we are to explicate the concept (ie.the
signified) of ?rabbithood? we must turn only to more signifiers (eg.furry,
floppy-eared, munches carrots.) With no foundation, the system enters free
space. This is best exemplified by a written text which (as potentially without
addresser and addressee) symbolises the wider concept of ?criture ? code without validation, and the reassuring presence of
speech and speaker.Closely related to this is the trace, the notion that as each sign is
formed, particularly in binaries, there is a remnant of the differences which
actually give it meaning. This phenomenon undermines the idea that each concept
can somehow stand alone, autonomously, containing its own meaning, its own
presence. When applied to the system as a whole, the trace is repressed by the logos: the logos giving the illusion
that the whole system is grounded in presence.?
It is noted that both signifier and signified fall victim to this play,
this tainting, this indeterminacy: indeed, Derrida, deconstructs that very
opposition: ?in the last instance, the difference between signified and
signifier is nothing.?[5]Thus, we can see that Deconstructionists do
have a point when if they say reality is discourse. They are not necessarily
retreating into some form of immaterial idealism (indeed, if they made such
firm metaphysical commitments, then they would come up against their own
analysis. They can illuminate aporia, but they cannot pass through it, despite
a consistent utopian longing for that state of ?pluridimensionality.?) Instead,
they are showing how the ways in which we conceive the world are bound up with
discourse: both specifically linguistic discourse, and perhaps wider sets of
binary distinctions which may be amenable to Deconstructive analysis. Derrida?s
analysis of ego (paired with insights from Freud) is fairly typical: ?the
subject (in its identity with itself, its self-consciousness) is inscribed in
language, is a function of language.? He also claims consciousness is, at its
heart, a phenomenon of diff?rance,
ie.self-presence, the conceptual self-awareness of ego. The Deconstructionist
does not deny that self exists, however, he/she does suggest that self is
inscribed, is conceptualised, in a series of contextual chains which make it a
function of discourse. This is perhaps easier to grasp if we consider three
different concepts: the Christian ?soul?, the materialist/scientific self (the
Identity Hypothesis: mind as reducible to brain) and the Freudian tripartite
model of ego, id and super-ego. A notion of identity self-awareness is present
in all three cases, but conceptualised in vastly differing ways, produced by
differing discourses. A Deconstructionist might then destabilise these concepts
and conceptual schemes, undermining their terminology.It is, of course, this act of destabilising
which is the raison d?etre of
Deconstruction, and brings up the third and final implication of ?textuality.?
If the first was ?the condition of pertaining to a text? and the second ?the
condition of being like a text?, then the final one is ?the condition of
functioning as a text.? Basically, opponents of Deconstruction says it focuses
far too pedantically on the minutiae of textual implications, forgetting that
language operates effectively as a tool within recognised limits. This is a
position often allied to philosophical theories such as Austin?s ?speech-acts?
and Wittgenstein?s ?language games.? They claim Derrida is working on an
entirely false ?epistemology of language.? As Eagleton remarks on a broader level:
?Meaning may well be ultimately undecidable if we view language
contemplatively, as a chain of signifiers on a page?words like ?truth?,
?reality?, ?knowledge? and ?certainty? have something of their force restored
to them when we think of language rather as something we do, as indissociably interwoven with our practical forms of life.?[6]On one level, this objection is perfectly
valid. The Deconstructionists are working to an agenda which is reductive. It
would be a dull world if all criticism was Deconstructionist criticism ? and
Derrida admits intention and other classical modes must have their place for
without them ?critical production would?authorise itself to say almost
anything.?[7]
However, he and his followers do something very interesting: they suspend the
conventions of language, the common assumptions and press forward regardless.
(The objections of pedantry might equally be leveled at Hume?s epochal analysis
of causality: after all, who would think to doubt cause-and-effect as a
property of the real world?) As Derrida writes in Signature Event Context, even when a ?performative? analysis of
language is put forward, a performative utterance still has to be linked in
with an iterative structure (eg.the ritual of marriage), potentially drifting free
of situational context. Similarly, in regard to ?language games?, we might see
the Deconstructionists as experimentally altering, removing or mixing the rules
in order to highlight how tenuous and conventional our usage of language really
is. The point to remember is that Derrida came from a philosophical tradition:
his early work was on Husserl and Heidegger; and he owes a considerable debt to
Neitzsche. Like all philosophers, he was unafraid of suspending conventional
rules. This is something Abrams in his critique fails to understand: he appears
to be under the impression that because Derrida?s analysis applies to
implications beyond immediate conventions of language, it is invalid. Of
course, it is the very potential of a text to drift free of these immediate
conventions (as an object-in-itself) that interests Derrida, as it
characterises the indeterminacy of ?criture.
(Indeed, Abrams persistently confuses ?criture
? code material without validating source ? with graphic writing alone.) Yet Deconstruction also provided some
extremely valuable literary criticism, which shows that it is more than a
philosophical ?game.? Derrida says it ?attempts to make the not-seen accessible
to sight?[8]
whilst Johnson affirms: ?Deconstruction is not synonymous with ?destruction.??[9]
The accusations of frivolous textual hijack in the name of ?infinite play? are
countered by De Man, who is described by Norris as acknowledging that ?there
must be an end-point to this dizzying regress.?[10]
Some of the achievements of Deconstructionist scholarship are as follows.
Firstly, in the face of virtually total opposition which demands any work be
seen as an organic and self-coherent whole (any ambiguity resolving itself into
a ?deeper unity?) Deconstruction reveals textual resistance. Contradiction,
paradox, conflict, aporia, impasse, gaps, confusion and reflexive undercutting
are all the objects of study for Deconstructionist criticism. In an odd sense,
its focus on etymology and internal logic make it (potentially) one of the most
rigorously scientific modes of criticism. Meanwhile, in its persistent
questioning of received values, it can become a revolutionary criticism. It
does something new, in a new style, aiming not to obliterate the text, but to
open new meaning. Whether it actually becomes formulaic, narrow and
increasingly predictable is open to debate, but no critic can seriously wish to
suppress discussion of a text. Its influence has been particularly valuable due
to Derrida?s missionary zeal in stripping down binary hierarchies: the analysis
of presence, absence and the trace of the ?other.? As the ?other? in literature
have frequently been the sexually, economically and racially marginalised, the
Deconstructionist project is clearly relevant.When Derrida said that there was nothing
outside the text, he was making a statement with a multiplicity of
implications. He was stating his rigorously textual approach to literature,
eschewing historical or psycho-biographical analysis (although never explicitly
denying it.) He was hinting that human experience is itself far from
autonomous, but that subjects (or rather the concepts of subjecthood) are
themselves a product of discourse. He was signalling a focused attention the
what it meant to confront a text: an object that could be ruptured from
context, from addresser, from addressee: ?cut off from all responsibility.?[11]
This state of ?criture ? the
essential fluidity of language, the way words play off multiple associated
signs and hint at their own instability ? is surely perceivable by even those
who do not accept the finer points of Derridean linguistic analysis. Above all,
he was pointing out that Deconstruction was not so much an independent critical
theory, but rather an act of subversion from within the text, within the very linguistic
structure it undermined. As Hillis Miller opines: ?(the text) is unreadable, if
by readable one means open to a single, definitive univocal interpretation?.the
deconstructionist reading contains the obvious one, and vice-versa.?[12]
As a valuable questioning voice, cutting across the lines of communication in
literature, Deconstruction must be granted its obsessive textual focus. It
remains a powerful and much-maligned mode of criticism.BibliographyBetween
The Blinds: A Derrida Reader, ed.Peggy Kamuf (1991) Jaques Derrida, Of Grammatology, translated by Gayatri Cahkravorty Spivak
(Baltimore, 1976) Christopher Norris, Deconstruction: Theory and Practice (London, 1991) Jonathan Culler, Deconstruction: Theory and Criticism After Structuralism (London,
1983) John M. Ellis, Against Deconstruction (Princetown, 1989) Modern
Criticism and Theory: A Reader (2nd Edition), ed.David Lodge (London, 2000) Terry Eagleton, Literary Theory: An Introduction (2nd Edition)
(Minneapolis, 1996) Peter Barry, Beginning Theory (Manchester, 1995) [1] Jaques Derrida, Signature
Event Context, collected in Between
The Blinds: A Derrida Reader, ed.Peggy Kamuf (1991) p.92 [2] Jonathan Culler, Deconstruction:
Theory and Criticism After Structuralism (London, 1983) p.130 [3] Quoted in Christopher Norris, Deconstruction:
Theory and Practice (London, 1991) p.152 [4] Jaques Derrida, Diff?rance,
collected in Kamuf, p.61 [5] Jaques Derrida, (excerpts from) Of
Grammatology, collected in Kamuf, p.39 [6] Terry Eagleton, Literary
Theory: An Introduction – 2nd Edition ?(Minneapolis, 1996) p.127 [7] Jaques Derrida, Of
Grammatology, translated by Gayatri Cahkravorty Spivak (Baltimore, 1976)
p.158 [8] Ibid. p.163 [9] Barbara Johnson, The Critical
Difference, p.5, cited in Barry, p.71 [10] Christopher Norris, Deconstruction:
Theory and Practice, p.106 [11] Jaques Derrida, Signature
Event Context, collected in Kamuf, p.92 [12] J. Hillis Miller, The Critic
as Host, collected in Modern
Criticism and Theory, 2nd Edition, ed. David Lodge (London,
2000) p.262