[lbo-talk] How to Deconstruct Almost Anything

[Jerry Monaco]

On 12/21/06, bitch <bitch at pulpculture.org> wrote:
> At 08:33 AM 12/21/2006, Andy F wrote:
> ><http://www.info.ucl.ac.be/~pvr/decon.html>
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>
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> Out of curiosity, why should you want to take someone's word for it when he
> says that deconstruction involves looking at a sentence and making up what
> it means? He did not provide an example of someone doing this. Doesn't it
> raise a red flag?
>
>
Because Derrida, tells you that that is precisely what he is doing.
He tells you that he is doing this because in principle this is the
way language is works.  The whole point of his use of Saussure and his
analysis of Levi-Strauss in "The Violence of the Letter" or his use of
the _Phaedra_ in "Plato's Pharmacy"  is to "show" that language leads
in circles in such a way that almost any statement in any text can be
interpreted to lead to an "aporetic" instability of meaning, through
which you can drive a truck.

Now I don't know much about Levi-Strauss, but I do know that the ideas
on language that Derrida borrows from Saussure to justify his method
would not have even be accepted by Saussure, later in his career.  I
do know a bit about Plato's _Phaedra_ and I have to say that "Plato's
Pharmacy" is a very amusing (confidence) game.  But I don't blame
Derrida because I think that is exactly what it was meant to be and
Derrida in effect tells you this.

But really this is a tired old debate by now, don't you think?  Have
fun with Derrida if you like.  But there is no need to pretend that
playing deconstruction explains any more of the "world" than playing
chess.

And now for a non-sequitur because I am in the mood for Shakespeare.

"What do you read, my lord?"

"Words, words, words."

"What is the matter my lord?"

"Between who?"

"I mean the matter you read, my lord?"

Hamlet and Polonius have the essence of deconstruction between them.
There is no matter and there are no social relations and there are
only words and the conversation proceeds in a self-referential circle.


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