5.1.1.9.1 Deconstructionism

The last element in the bullet list above, deconstruction (or deconstructionism), began as a literary analysis practice popularized by Jacques Derrida in the 1960s and 70s. It is based on the idea that meaning is always uncertain, is non-objective, and that it is not the task of the literary critic to illuminate meaning in a given text – each individual can determine what something means for himself. In other words, meaning and value are subjective and relative. It exemplifies the cliche, “beauty is in the eye of the beholder”. This is tame enough, and even justified and empowering, when not taken to extremes. But with Derrida, all external meaning becomes irrelevant, if not altogether non-existent. Derrida began with the established concepts of “the signified” and “the signifier”. An idea (the signified) is represented by a sign or word (signifier), and the signifier can never be the same as the signified. Derrida extended this, introducing an infinite series of signifiers referring to other signifiers, none ever settling on a firm "signified" entity. Because deconstructionism questions order and certainty in language and what language attempts to represent, its opponents view it as an intellectually obscure, negative cultural and philosophical critique – it tears down, but does not build anything to replace what it destroys. Initially considered elitist, nihilistic, and subversive to humanistic ideals, deconstructionism has been much debated in academic circles. It has gained more widespread acceptance, although it still remains, to an extent, a radical and controversial way of analyzing texts. Its critics deride it as being intentionally abstruse and recondite, full of obfuscation, and riddled with pretentious blather.

In one famous incident (the "Sokal affair") a physicist intentionally submitted a confusing and garbled scientific article to a Deconstructionist periodical and had it published. The author, Sokal, revealed that his fake article was "a pastiche of left-wing cant, fawning references, grandiose quotations, and outright nonsense", which was "structured around the silliest quotations [he] could find about mathematics and physics" made by postmodernist academics. This event demonstrated that practically any kind of politically / socially “correct” balderdash is acceptable to the Postmodern elite, independent of its intellectual quality.

Many literary critics detest practice of deconstruction, believing that deconstructing a text robs it of meaning and ultimately destroys the value of anything it touches. To those who defend its use, the answer to this criticism might be: “How does one define value? What is meaning?” So, the rebuttal is to challenge the very question itself, and attempt to demonstrate that the question is meaningless. Instead of answering the criticism, the criticism itself is shown to be flawed. But the critics persist. They convincingly claim that deconstructionism is nihilistic, that authors like Derrida attempt to undermine the ethical and intellectual norms vital to the classical conceptions of knowledge and wisdom. They accuse Derrida and his kind of denying the possibility of actual knowledge and meaning, creating a blend of extreme skepticism and solipsism, which these critics believe harmful. Under Derrida, Postmodernism took a decidedly destructive and non-productive turn.

A major criticism leveled at deconstructionism is that its proponents seldom attack their own work in the same way; why not deconstruct deconstructionism, itself, for instance? Heaven forbid! There are also obvious limitations to which texts can be deconstructed: although some think it can apply to anything, it is hard to see how it can address mathematical or (some) scientific papers without the knowledge of these areas that most deconstructionists lack or without tackling the philosophical problems associated with them first.

5.1.1.9 Postmodernism and Deconstructionism

Here is a new section that I really should have added back there just after the chapter on "Omphalos". It is a school of philosophy that is so difficult to talk about intelligently and coherently that I didn't really know how to approach it. The very difficulty I have in describing this phenomenon is part of what gives it power. This will be a multi-part entry. Sorry that it's out of order. But here goes:


What is Postmodernism?
Creative individuals from many disciplines popularized this political / philosophical / literary / artistic movement in post WWII Europe and America. Although influenced by Nietzsche and Heidegger’s arguments against pure objectivity, it became a significant movement only after the war.

This movement gave us Dada art, surrealism, and abstract expressionism. In music, Philip Glass’s minimalist composition, Frank Gehry’s and Rem Koolhaus’s architectural responses to “glass box” skyscrapers, literary creations from Vonnegut and Burroughs all contain strong postmodernist elements. Postmodernist historian Howard Zinn helped us see our mistakes in Viet Nam. It revels in iconoclastic attacks on blandness, the status quo, conventional wisdom, ultimate “Truth”, and the accepted norm. It strongly encouraged “thinking outside the box” and finding new and personal meaning instead of accepting established explanations. Postmodernist thinking has helped usurp established common knowledge in anthropology and archeology where prejudice, dogma and tradition have historically taken tenacious handholds and have been difficult to dislodge. As convincingly argued in the book, 1491, by Charles Mann, the new evolving consensus on the arrival and culture of indigenous people in the Americas has strongly depended on revolt against established norms and accepted doctrine. James Burke's The Day the Universe Changed ends with a postmodernist chapter celebrating the uncertainty of science and knowledge. For those of us who grew up in the last third of the 20th century, we may recall our English teachers urging us to discover anew the meaning in the classics of history, rather than regurgitate the Cliff notes. Rebellion and non-conformity drove and energized it, frequently resulting in stunningly beautiful and important works, creative new insights, and introducing many new concepts and phrases into our modern lexicon (“paradigm shift”, “authenticity”, “deconstruction”, “multicultural”, “post colonial”, “cultural relativism”, "speak truth to power", etc).

So what is it, anyway? Charles Upton in The System of Antichrist wrote, “Postmodernism is the name for the general quality of our time. It holds that all worldviews are constructed by historical processes, by culture and religion, so postmodernism sees those worldviews ('tall stories') as a function of power rather than truth.”

In this context postmodernism is the notion that all ideas and beliefs can be best understood as subjective human storytelling – narratives dominated by culture and bias with no special relationship to the truth. Philosophers of science have already rooted out the flaws in such reasoning (in philosophical parlance, postmodernism confuses the exciting context of “discovery” with the context of later labor intensive “justification”). When applied to science it negates the implication of methodology and reduces all scientific research to a cultural narrative.

Without delving to how it differentiates itself from “Modernism”, and after attempting to reconcile many divergent and conflicting descriptions, it is possible to trace the outline of its tenets, though it is fundamental to Postmodernism’s nature to resist and reject all such attempts:

• There is no objective truth or reality.


• Reality is constructed by our minds and mental representations (as Kant would have it). It is only as we choose to configure it. The only reality is chaotic potential.


• All comprehensible worldviews are oppressive, and as such should be deconstructed (i.e., overturned).


• “Truth” is plural and ultimately subjective. Meaning, truth and morality do not exist objectively; rather they are constructed by the society in which we live.


• All institutions, creations, artwork and moral values are expressions of a primal will to power; the enforcement of one person’s or group's ideology on another.


• Reason is thrown out and therefore there is really no basis for debate. Fulfillment comes from submerging one’s self in the larger group and developing a radical openness to existence by refusing to impose order on life.


• Revolutionary Critique of the Existing Order – The old ‘modern’ society from the enlightenment period with its rationalism and unitary view of truth needs to be replaced with a ‘new world order.’


• “Deconstruction”, an analytical method used extensively in postmodernism, is the progressive pulverization of reality with the goal of pursuing the meaning of a text or assertion so as to undo the oppositions on which it is founded, and to show that that same foundation is fatally unstable and impossible.

I group this movement with the other instances of idealism because many postmodernists dispute the prevailing conceptions of reality. Jean Baudrillard, one of its founders, maintained that there is no such thing as reality. Everything we consider real is only a simulation, or “simulacra”. This very statement, like many others they make, reflects an internal logical inconsistency. It would require he have access to the “true” reality so as to compare it with the “simulation” to even be able to make this assertion. But if he can indeed do that, then his initial statement is false. And besides, even if there were such a thing as “true” vs “simulated” reality, who is Jean Baudrillard to tell us which is which? He would have to possess a perceptual ability that enabled him to see through the simulacra and simulations to the underlying reality so that he might compare them with such a reality, discern differences and distinctions, and thus have empirical grounds to make his pronouncements concerning them. And if he can do this, why can not we all?