Thinking activity of Derrida's Deconstruction
first of all talk about father of deconstruction :
The Father of Deconstruction is Derrida:
The Father of Deconstruction. Deconstruction is one of the several doctrines in contemporary philosophy often loosely held under the umbrella terms post-structuralism and post-modernism. Jacques Derrida coined the term in the 1960s, and proved more forthcoming with negative, rather than a pined-for positive, analyzes of the school.
Derrida says, deconstruction is a word whose fortunes have disagreeably surprised me. Defining deconstruction is an activity that goes against the whole thrust of Derrida’s thought. Derrida has said that any statement such as “deconstruction is X” or “deconstruction is not-X” automatically misses the point. Not only is the definition and meaning of deconstruction in dispute between advocates and critics, but also among proponents.
Derrida’s disclaimers present a major obstacle to any attempt, to encapsulate his thoughts. He tells that deconstruction is neither an analytical nor a critical tool, neither a method, nor an operation, nor an act performed on text by a subject; that is, rather a term that resists both definition and translation. To make matters worse, he adds that ‘all sentence of the type “deconstruction is X” or “deconstruction is not X” miss the point. Which is to say that they are at least false.
Here an attempt is made to understand the term in a way, so as to simplify it, and give its philosophical significance.
DECONSTRUCTION FOR WRITERS :
first of all talk about father of deconstruction :
The Father of Deconstruction is Derrida:
Derrida says, deconstruction is a word whose fortunes have disagreeably surprised me. Defining deconstruction is an activity that goes against the whole thrust of Derrida’s thought. Derrida has said that any statement such as “deconstruction is X” or “deconstruction is not-X” automatically misses the point. Not only is the definition and meaning of deconstruction in dispute between advocates and critics, but also among proponents.
Derrida’s disclaimers present a major obstacle to any attempt, to encapsulate his thoughts. He tells that deconstruction is neither an analytical nor a critical tool, neither a method, nor an operation, nor an act performed on text by a subject; that is, rather a term that resists both definition and translation. To make matters worse, he adds that ‘all sentence of the type “deconstruction is X” or “deconstruction is not X” miss the point. Which is to say that they are at least false.
Here an attempt is made to understand the term in a way, so as to simplify it, and give its philosophical significance.
DECONSTRUCTION FOR WRITERS :
Literary theory (and deconstruction in particular) was one of the most eye-opening and exciting subjects that I studied at university, but I know that it’s a difficult one to tackle by yourself. Nor am I going to pretend that it’s going to make your life as a genre writer any easier. What I do think is important for any writer, not only for their writing style and their stories, but for their life, is to develop an awareness of the secret life of words; to begin to understand the weaknesses and the virtues of this system of communication which doesn’t just provide us with our vocation, but forms our world and our world experiences in a very real way.
And that’s where literary theory, despite its (at times) dull, pointless, academic complexity, can show you a whole new level of meaning and textual interpretation (and misinterpretation) below and beyond “everyday” reading. If you’re unsure of how literary theory differs from literary criticism, it doesn’t, not it any important way. The use of ‘theory’, as far as I understand, is a (relatively) recent appellation that reflects the move towards philosophy. If you’re interested in reading about literary theory, I can recommend no better text than BEGINNING THEORY BY PETER BARRY. It was the set-text when I studied litcrit, and I still think it’s one of the best textbooks I’ve read on any subject. Luckily, IT’S AVAILABLE (in somewhat fragmented form) ON ARCHIVE.ORG. I do hope it’s legal! I urge you to download the book and read the chapters up to and including ‘Poststructuralism and Deconstruction’. This will give you a good basis for the discussions in this post, although, of course, there is no supplement for reading the original texts. ;) I recommend suspending your cynicism that the writer is being purposefully intellectual, obscure and long-winded, and enjoying deconstructionist literature with a playful attitude, open to the possibilities of language.
DECONSTRUCTION: NEITHER DESTRUCTION NOR CONSTRUCTION :
Derrida and proponents of his work have all taken great delight in defining deconstruction as what it is not. It’s neither destruction (though it does owe something to Heidegger’s Destruktion) nor construction, and it’s both. IT’S NOT:
an analysis
a critique
a method
an act
an operation
I’m going to fly in the face of these anti-definitions. This post attempts to give concrete exercises for writers, and to boil down some deconstructionist ideas into a mess of functional methods. Although, I think the larger lesson is in finding ways to think differently, and to combine seemingly disparate ideas to create a new, more useful essence.
Needless to say, a theory that aims to show the malleability and perhaps even the non-existence of meaning, isn’t looked upon very warmly. I have a feeling that it’s almost universally disliked and démodé among philosophers. Understandable. If you’re not careful, it can fill you with the wrong sort of nihilism: not the spiritual one, but the one that leads straight to existential crisis.
To me, deconstruction stands out among the other literary theories because it so closely resembles Zen teachings; it enjoys play and GROKKING BEYOND DEFINITION. It brings together the spiritual, the textual and the theoretical, without getting bogged down by any one of them. It offers a practical way of opening up the manifold meanings of a text, of finding those veins that run beneath the surface of a story which can only be felt and privately dowsed, but are not easily studied or shared. And, most importantly, it seems to provide an excuse for my flights of fanciful language. :)
UNITY VS. DISUNITY :
Barry makes the distinction that deconstruction looks for disunity in a text, while most other forms of criticism until then had focused on creating unity. For example, at school (if your experience was anything like mine), you were taught to look for words in a passage that belong to a single theme, like sea, swell, froth, heave, salt, etc. There’s nothing wrong with this exercise – in fact, I think it’s excellent for getting readers to hone in on textual details rather than letting the sentences wash over them. But when I studied deconstruction at university, it seemed to me that this was only half of the equation; that true unity comes from a blending and mutual annihilation of opposites. So when you look for the words that constitute a theme, you also need to consider how these words work to break free of their theme, how they include other themes, are included in other (opposite) themes, and how, like the tide, their meaning comes and goes. Unity in disunity, disunity in unity.
This, to me, is the whole point of our commonplace assertions that there can be no light without dark, no love without hate, no familiar without strange, however unwilling we are to accept them in practice. Deconstruction provides a way of studying this basic, oft off-handedly touted (and flouted) precept of existence. In a way, it forces you into the experience that all the literature you love contains all the literature you hate, and that your opinions are interchangeable with their opposites, but then it helps you to rise above this simplistic side-taking to a plane of pure, joyful play, juggling meaning, sound, sign, context and coincidence with a transcendental disregard for the one, single, all-encompassing, grand, unbearable truth. Of course this terrifies us as authors – we spend our entire lives trying to share our experiences and opinions in meticulously-chosen words.
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