[2] I will attempt to set up the basic "tenets" of Deconstruction in this section (which is by no means exhaustive of the topic) with as much brevity and clarity as possible. Readers from other disciplines outside of literature who are new to Deconstruction should not feel compelled to understand it in all its abstruse nuances and may move on to other sections with relative ease if the theory's esoteric nature or my presentation of it seem too specialized. The main points of this section are the arbitrary nature of the linguistic "sign" and the existence of "traces," both of are said to subvert the self-contained meaning present in any word.
[3] This understanding of the "sign" has its source in Ferdinand de Saussure, Course in General Linguistics, eds. Charles Bally and Albert Sechehaye. Translated by Roy Harris. London: Duckworth, 1983.
[4] Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty, trans., from Of Grammatology, Jacques Derrida. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1976, p. xvii. Of Grammatology is Derrida's response to and critique of the earlier ideas concerning the field of linguistics as formulated by Saussure in the early twentieth century.
[5] Spivak from Of Grammatology, Derrida, p. xvii.
[6] Derrida, Of Grammatology,"Of Grammatology as a Positive Science," p. 74. [7] To demonstrate one instance in which Christianity has been scrutinized deconstructively according to this notion of oppositional dependency, I refer the reader a recent graduate seminar I attended. Here, the professor of English wrote on the board the following language analysis, making the suggestion that "the activity of faith" was to be found between the two statements:
[8] It is interesting to consider that, by this very logic, the aspiration of Adam and Eve in the story of the garden to know both "Good and Evil" is fully justified since one state supposedly cannot be known without the other.
[9] Derrida, "Of Grammatology as a Positive Science," p.74.
[10] To receive a final, applied example demonstrating the notion of "interplay of signification," consider the many ways in which a given poem/text can be interpreted. The reader must ask of himself, for instance: "Where does the meaning of this image/metaphor leave off? Just how far can I stretch its reverberations with other works?" Seeming but indirect correspondences, when they are found to exist between texts, are known as instances of "intertextuality." Further compounding the notion of "fixed" meaning in language or texts, however, is the question of authorial intention toward meaning (i.e., did the author intend intertextuality?), as well as the uncertainty of whether the author himself could know fully his own mind due to unconscious processes at work during his writing. Each of these shifting notions of meaning is indicative of the general spirit of post-modernism.
[11] For all the attention that Deconstruction gives to the "failure" of language, it is interesting to note the lack of attention given to its "success." I refer specifically to that understanding of language as Walker Percy puts forth in his essay "The Delta Factor," where he considers mankind's ability as a "languaged animal" as no small, insignificant thing (Message in the Bottle, New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1982, pp. 3-45).
[12] I am indebted to Jonathan Alexander for his insights regarding the ideas of decontextualization and over-particularization.
[13] Eagleton, Terry. Literary Theory: An Introduction, Minneapolis: Univ. of Minn. Press, 1983, p. 133.
[14] Miller, J. Hillis, "Steven's Rock and Criticism as Cure, II," The Georgia Review, 30 (Sm., 1976), p. 341.
[15] Some deconstructionists operate on the presupposition that "the world is a text."
[16] The real danger of Deconstruction, as Ward Parks explains in an as yet unpublished article entitled "Deconstruction: The New Nihilism," is not that in itself it is "fascist or oppressive," but that it is "simply amoral." Since it decrees any notion of hierarchy as illusory, there simply is no reason to commit to any moral imperative over another. Parks' essay further comments upon the "decision" of the deconstructionist "not to decide."
[17] Derrida, Jacques, "Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences," Contemporary Literary Criticism, 2nd edition. Robert Con Davis and Ronald Schleifer, editors. Longman: New York, 1989, pp. 232.
[18] Derrida, "Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences," p. 232-3.
[19] Percy, Walker. Message in the Bottle, p.22.
[20] For further discussion of the tensions between science and religion, see Dr. Richard Bube's "Relating Science and Theology," The Crucible, Summer, 1991, pp. 19-21.
[21] I am grateful to William Ryder for this idea concerning the translation of the subject (individuality) to object (generality), as well as his suggestions about language as a "process," both of which he bases in Theodor Adorno's Negative Dialectics.
[22] A recent reprint of a speech given by Christopher Lasch entitled the "Illusion of Disillusion," appearing in the July 1991 of Harper's, addresses this very issue of the modern scholastic propensity toward skepticism in an open, incisive manner." Here, he suggests among other things that, contrary to what those who consider themselves as "dis-illusioned" think about it, religion actually "undermines the the most important superstition of all--that the human race controls its own destiny."
[23] I am grateful to Ward Parks for the understanding of religion as something that one experiences, not analyzes.
[24] Cf., "Sermon on the Mount," Matthew 5-7.
[25] Lewis, C.S. Mere Christianity. Macmillan, Inc.: New York, 1952, p. 184.
[26] It is interesting to consider that, given the premise that we are made in God's image, we can be said to be "signifier" of Him, who is the Signified. Thus, the incarnation of Christ, man and divine made one, restores the "human" sign to wholeness and unity. Consequently, our challenge is to recreate the incarnation within ourselves, so as to recreate the heart anew in fulness.
[27] Voegelin, Eric. "The Eclipse of Reality," What is History? And Other Late Unpublished Writings: Collected Works, Vol. 28. Baton Rouge: LSU Press, 1990, p. 112.
[28] Voegelin, Eric. "The Eclipse of Reality," p. 112.
[29] Cf., Exodus 3: 13-15. Asked by Moses whom the prophet shall say has sent him to deliver the Israelites from Egypt, God replies to him: "'I AM WHO I AM,...Say this to the people of Israel, "The LORD, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Issac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you": this is my name for ever, and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations.'" I AM WHO I AM is an etymology of the Israelite name for God, the Hebrew word YHWH, which is connected to the verb hayah, "to be" (New Oxford Annotated Bible, RSV).
[30] The New Oxford Annotated Bible, Revised Standard Version. Oxford University Press: New York, 1973.
[31] Considered further, both of these limitations well might be seen as the natural consequences of a fallen world, and as Jonathan Alexander offers, it is interesting to consider mankind's problems with language in light of the story of the tower of Babel in Genesis 11: 1-9, where it is written: "the LORD confused the language of all the earth."
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©1992, Henry P. Mills