Ironies of Deconstruction
Many of the most devastating horrors of the 20th Century have been the result of totalitarian socio-political structures and organizations. In an effort to secure power, totalitarian regimes tend to suppress disagreement and exclude or eliminate groups and individuals who are different or do not conform. The exercise of repressive power is usually justified in terms of ideological commitments whose purity is strictly guarded by those in positions of authority.
The painful history of our century demonstrates that totalitarianism is not the product of any particular political persuasion but can break out on either the left (e.g., Stalinism) or the right (e.g., fascism) end of the political spectrum. Furthermore, it is not difficult to detect repressive tendencies in political systems that are not, strictly speaking, totalitarian. All too often, modern technological “advances” are accompanied by the extension of structures of surveillance and control. As we approach the end of the century, it is incumbent upon us to assess critically the threats that overt and covert forms of totalitarianism pose for individuals and societies.
The critical analysis of the complex structures of exclusion and repression that dominate so much contemporary life has already begun in one of the most important and controversial movements of thought to have emerged in recent decades: “deconstruction.” In the spring issue of Critical Inquiry, the French philosopher-critic, Jacques Derrida, whose writings have given rise to what has come to be known as “deconstruction,” explains: “What I have practiced under that name (i.e., deconstruction) has always seemed to me favorable, indeed destined (it is no doubt my principal motivation) to the analysis of the conditions of totalitarianism in all its forms, which cannot always be reduced to names of regimes. And this in order to free oneself of totalitarianism as far as possible, because it is not enough to untie a knot through analysis . . . or to uproot what is finally, perhaps, only the terrifying desire for roots and common roots.”
As an Algerian Jew who has spent his entire professional life in Paris, Derrida has long been sensitive to the subtle and not-so-subtle patterns devised consciously and unconsciously to control or repress that which is different or does not conform. From the outset, Derrida’s writings have been informed by a profound ethical impulse. Deconstruction, as Derrida practices it, involves a relentless critique of structures and patterns of exclusion and domination. Derrida interrogates established powers and traditional values in an effort to discern the intellectual and moral imperative implied by the repressed underside of Western culture. So understood, deconstruction is not simply negative or destructive but is a strategy of resistance to the very forces that threaten to engulf individuals and destroy society.
The ethical dimension of deconstruction is not always easy to detect and is often overlooked by both its critics and supporters. This is due, in part, to the nature of Derrida’s writings and, in part, to the way in which his work has been appropriated in this country. Derrida is convinced that throughout the history of the West, there has been a complicity between philosophical reflection and political repression. The tendency to totalize, i.e., to control otherness by incorporating or excluding differences, characterizes not only socio-political relations but also influences the ways in which we read and write, teach and learn, work and play.
Through a patient examination of the writings of thinkers from Plato and Aristotle to Hegel and Heidegger, Derrida attempts to expose the errors in how we think and the faults in how we act. The Western philosophical tradition, Derrida argues, comes to completion in Hegel’s philosophical system in which every form of difference is incorporated within an all-encompassing totality. The horrifying implications of such systematic reflection become explicit in the totalitarian regimes of the 20th Century. While Derrida’s earlier critique of totalitarianism is embedded in detailed analyses of complex texts, some of his recent work clearly demonstrates the ethical thrust of deconstruction. Derrida has subjected the problems of apartheid, nuclear war, racism, and nationalism to rigorous analysis and trenchant criticism.
The ethical preoccupations of deconstruction sometimes are not shared by those who use it for their own purposes. In this country, the chief impact of deconstruction has been on literary critics, who have found in Derrida’s writings a new method for analyzing works of art. The deconstructive literary critic attempts to identify the point at which the text undoes itself by inadvertently expressing precisely that which it is constructed not to state. The unavoidable duplicity of literary texts renders their meaning unstable or undecidable.
It is of the nature of any accomplished work of art to intend its last word to be “the last word,” to cast a spell that reduces all rivals, all potential critics, to awed silence. Deconstruction’s implicit claim that all such spells can be broken may seem hostile to art. But if we think of dictators rather than of artists, this technique for breaking spells may seem more a shield than a sword.
In recent months, the attack on deconstruction has spilled over from academic journals to the popular press. The latest onslaught was triggered by a New York Times article (Dec. 1, 1987) reporting the discovery of a series of anti-Semitic essays written and published in collaborationist newspapers in Belgium between 1940-42 by the Yale literary critic Paul de Man, who, until his death in 1983, was the most influential practitioner of deconstruction in America. For those who had always been suspicious of deconstruction, the revelation of De Man’s hidden past seemed to confirm its “disastrous” consequences.
Commenting on the De Man controversy in these pages (“The (De) Man Who Put the Con in Deconstruction,” March 13, 1988), David Lehman has suggested that deconstruction “would seem to promote a skepticism so extreme that it verges on nihilism.” In an earlier Newsweek article, Lehman asserted, without providing supporting evidence, that “the moral implications of deconstruction were devastating all along.” Lehman is not alone in making such charges. Throughout the country, press reports have tried to use De Man’s early writings to discredit deconstruction. Deconstructive criticism, the charge goes, leads to nihilism, which, in turn, prepares the way for Nazism.
There is bitter irony in all of this. The form of deconstruction that “begins” with Derrida is consistently sensitive to the ethical imperative to resist every form of totalitarianism. The irony of recent developments deepens when we realize that Derrida’s latest lectures and writings on figures like Walter Benjamin and Gershom Scholem make explicit what has long been implicit: The deconstructive critique of structures of control and powers of domination has been profoundly shaped by Derrida’s creative rereading of the Jewish theological tradition.
The issues raised by deconstruction are of more than academic interest. Our very survival increasingly depends upon our capacity to tolerate differences and accept others without demanding their submission to our own systems of belief and way of life. As the world grows more complex, there is a tendency to long for the simple verities of earlier times. The political slumber of the last eight years reflects this nostalgia. As we slowly awaken from this sleep, we might begin to discover what deconstruction has been trying to teach us: If we are to move on, it cannot be with the imperious certainty we once believed we possessed but only with a salutary uncertainty keeping us open to what we can never fully understand.