Oh, really?
Having tied themselves into rhetorical knots, they then try to rescue their argument by casting aloof judgments and falling back on the oldest practice extant -- superiority of numbers. Believing in anything is an obsolete construct, and you're not hip if you cling to those old notions.
In fact, a lot of this claptrap is retreaded Existentialism (if you don't mind an obsolete construct) or Nihilism with a fresh coat of paint.
1. Most of us on FR and in our country at large have no idea that modernism has come to an end. Most don't even know the facets post-modernism. That modernism has come to an end, in fact, is a morbid thought: the Enlightenment project has been all but buried.
2. Reactions, as in "deconstructing deconstructionism" often come from those who are left-overs of the old ideal of rationalism.
3. Reactions that are based in Christianity suffer the same criticism: most religious thinking has long ago capitulated to the modernism and they cannot distinguish between the two.
4. Belly laughs are reserved for the gods, we are obliged to understand before we dispose.
5. Esoteric writing is no excuse for dismissal; it only means the initiates should continue preparation. This is because there is no short cut to what is complex.
6. Study of the enemy can only be done by the strong and able.
The rationalist project was built on this very assumption. Read the first sentence of Descarte's Mediations and you'll get a paraphrase. Read Hume's Inquiry in Human Understanding , he's on the same boat. What was Kant's program but to boil down the entire complex of human thought to find the essential and basic conditions for rational thought. And then the fatal mistake: (which, I remind you, post-modernism has pilloried) once the circle of reason was drawn, the circle of mankind's identity was drawn. Lo and behold, this too can be found way back in time, but not with a sophist, in Aristotle's Ethics : what is man but what he can think!
And then the author above gives us this:
Deconstructionism "love to pounce on other thinkers and say, "Aha! There you have an Enlightenment Assumption," meaning a dubious idea from the eighteenth century. But the Enlightenment was 200 years ago, and I have yet to see any dubious idea thus pilloried that people actually believe today, except for those that are baldly true.Well, for all that, I too love to pounce on the Enlightenment assumption. And if we don't all become post-modern soon, we will destroy ourselves. I'll pillory the ascendancy of reason because that is the one that is especially "badly true."
-------------------
This is a premise that becomes progressively easier to embrace as someone becomes more privileged beyond responsiblity for the effort of creating necessary food and shelter.
-----------------------
This is the key that I have found iver the years. When I hear this stuff I ask myself, What is this person trying to hide or avoid?"
One useful tool was purchasing A Glossary of Literary Terms by M. H. Abrams. This book was a must as it has "brief" philosophical explanations about how and why writers broke away from what was considered "normal" syntax or the "normal" story line. If this subject interests you, I would recommend its purchase.
The precursor to modernism and post-modernism, as well as deconstruction as you noted above, was Friedrich Nietzche (1844-1900), Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, and James G. Frazer. According to Abrams, modernism "involves a deliberate and radical break with some of the traditional bases not only of Western art, but of Western culture in general. Important intellectual precursors of modernism . . . are thinkers who had questioned the certainties that had supported traditional modes of social organization, religion, and morality, and also traditional ways of conceiving the human self." Through all this different questioning, these writers play with their readers' minds, forcing them to rethink their realities, beliefs, etc. They trick their readers by breaking with the "established literary" rules, inverting syntax, creating flashbacks within the novel, building a story where "no story should exist," if written according to what was traditionally expected. By doing this, they cause their readers to question what is the "right way to write, the right way to think."
Writers of fiction, such as Camus, seek to explain the "why's" of their existence. He and Sartre were well-known existentialists during their time and questioned the existence of God or of a God who involved Himself with us. Sartre believed neither in God's involvement nor God. They wrote during World War II and the Algerian/French war. There are others who questioned those in authority, such as in Robert Heller's (Catch 22), who made the military authority and rules seem absurd. That particular novel was written during the second World War, as well. Later on, we had individuals like Kurt Vonnegut, who excelled in satire and questioned man's place and role in the universe. Some believe his novels show all man's actions are predetermined, others dispute this and say his novels show he believes man has a free will.
Noah Chomsky researched language acquisition and its effects on the brain. He did some interesting studies on this and how the language that is learned literally effects how we think. I didn't agree with all his conclusions, but was interested in some of his studies. He, too, is quite a liberal who was admired by several of my English and psychology professors.
I recall a particular professor who encouraged "questioning authority." When I did this once with him after I graduated while enjoying libations at the local "pub," he got so steamed he left. I guess he didn't really mean for me to question his authority. He he.
This is so on the mark that its funny. Did you ever notice how deconstrution always gets down to motivations like: homophobia, masogyny, rascism, etc.? I have yet to see someone deconstruct something down to "leftist agenda". Deconstruction is "bunk". (You can quote me on that)
Here are some other thoughts. For one, Foucault was a fraud and entertained alot of un-serious people who had alot of time one their hands. Secondly, its no suprise that so many lefists like Nietzsche because he attacks the Christians, promotes nihilism, and says we can make up our own system of morals and ethical values. Contrary to what the left says, this led to the horrifying decades of killing in the 20th century.
|
It is unclear whether clinton latched onto deconstructionist theory because its intrinsic inability to be critical provided convenient cover for clinton's inability to think critically or whether clinton was attracted to deconstruction merely because it had supplanted Marxism as the preferred opiate of leftist elites.
|