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.
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