And the problem with worrying about ‘postmodernism’ is that it does lead to miscues like this:
> On 16 Jan 2015, at 16:52, Andy <andy274 at gmail.com> wrote:
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>
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> Deconstruction, as I understand it, involved analyzing works for hidden
> meaning arising out of a larger cultural context, with bonus points for
> completely inverting the explicit meaning. I don't mean to dismiss any of
> the above approaches without qualification, but this particular technique
> can devolve into what people normally call "putting words in your mouth".
This really isn’t what deconstruction is about. It may be partially what marxism is about, since a huge part of Marx’s demarche is the critical, symptomatic reading of political economy. It may also be what psychoanalysis is about. And it may be the *whole point* of literary theory of all kinds (if there aren’t hidden meanings, patterns, etc., then there’s no need for theory). Deconstruction as a philosophy of language is just a critique of textual idealism. That has certain consequences for literary theory, but it wouldn’t be fair to summarise them as ‘analysing works for hidden meaning’.
The correct term for people who mistakenly put words in your mouth is ‘wrong’; the correct term for people who knowingly and maliciously ‘put words in your mouth’ is ‘total fucking assholes’. Nothing to do with postmodernism.