Several months ago, after a lively panel discussion on postmodernism—a pet project of mine and my esteemed colleagues—I professed to my friend over at Virtual Bourgeois that "Poststructuralism saved my life."
"Actually," he replied. "You mean poststructuralism saves your life."
I thought of this exchange as I gleefully ingested Stanley Fish's most recent blog, "French Theory in America." Fish's comments, as usual, resonated with the doctrine I've espoused since first encountering Derrida in 1995. In fact, I found Dr. Fish's ruminations on deconstruction to reinforce (reaffirm) what I have been thinking for years—both in critical practice (peruse my back-catalog of posts and I think you'll see a lazy-not-dogmatic adherence to the topical tenets of deconstruction) and life (for my Facebook page, I noted quite slyly that I am "Occasionally Agnostic").
Okay, so I was a junior in college when I signed up for a Literary Criticism course. I wound up in a class that was populated almost entirely by graduate students. The course was by far the most challenging I have ever taken. Where I had been quite a slacker in most of my other courses, I buckled down in this one—determined that I would get it.
I did (or at least I think I did) get it. But I distinctly remember going to the final exam with a fever, convinced that I had made myself sick from working so hard. The course culminated in a major critical treatise on The Scarlet Letter, and I pulled a two day all-nighter to finish that paper. I remember taking a break to go see a movie at the cheapo theater half a block from my apartment. Something frivolous to reset my mind. It didn't work. I remember trying to sleep during those two days—I tried to trick my mind into thinking about anything else, preferably something dirty. But it never failed that, just as it was starting to work, Hester Prynne would slip back into my consciousness.
Far and away the hardest I've ever worked to get an A. I almost broke down in tears when I got my grades in the mail. When I went to see my professor the next semester, to pick up my graded paper, there was an awkward exchange—like a scene from an Edith Wharton novel. Decades past, lives devolved into disappointment. A brief, momentary flash of excitement in remembering a past interlude. Then a flood of embarrassment for such an open display of need. I don't think I ever actually talked to her again.
I should probably clarify: That was all me. I equate my theoretical "awakening" to some torrid affair, like Andrew McCarthy in Class. My life was never the same after that semester. And that is such a good, good thing. I discovered formalism, structuralism, new criticism, feminism, Marxism, and true critical inquiry. I went from being a little punk who liked to write silly poems, to an empathetic scholar with a clear agenda.
I recall brashly claiming to my professor, "I'm a feminist!"
She looked at me without blinking and replied, "You can't be a feminist because you're not a woman. You can be pro-feminist, but not a feminist."
I was embarrassed but not deterred. It should come as no surprise that my master's thesis is thick with feminism—in a good way.
But this piece is not about feminism. It's about poststructuralism.
As part of that class, I had to take on the challenge of presenting a "contemporary" theoretical approach to the rest of the class. I'm pretty sure that I rashly picked the hardest one of them all. In preparation, I launched into the "Poststructuralist theories" chapter of Raman Selden and Peter Widdowson's A Reader's Guide to Contemporary Literary Theory. It wasn't long before my head was swimming.
"Instead of viewing language as an impersonal system," I read, "[poststructuralists] regard it as always articulated with other systems and especially with subjective processes. This conception of language-in-use is summed up in the term 'discourse'."[1]
Looking up from the book suddenly, I noticed a little flutter at the edge of my vision, a slipping of light, a tick in perception, like the seams of reality were bulging and fraying—through the crack I could see to the other side just a little bit.
I wrestled with Barthes, Lacan and Kristeva. Then Derrida, de Man, and Foucault. O, it was a heady brew! But I pressed on because it was invigorating. I was determined to explain all this to my classmates. I had seen the face of God and I was so excited to show everyone else!
Okay, so this is a bit over-written (imagine that), but I did try hard to lead my classmates down that path. I won't say that none of them got it. But certainly their lives were not as affected as mine.
I guess that's to be expected.
Part of the problem of poststructuralism is what Stanley Fish addresses in his blog. Giving so much signifying power to language (read again the quote from Selden and Widdowson) means giving over control—and let's face it, most humans prefer to think they are masters of their own destinies, or that they are fated into existence by God. Both ways place a certain amount of agency and stability on existence that is located outside the individual. Poststructuralism strips away the machinery to expose the horrible mess we're in—ideologies improperly grafted onto theologies and scientific theories. All of everything couched in a communication system that is inherently flawed and constantly in flux.
It is no surprise that when the dress is lifted, most run away in fright!
But I will get to that part later.
For now, it's enough to say that I did not look into the face of poststructuralism and despair. Rather, I found something quite comforting: Words.
Words, Words, Words
After reading Dr. Fish's blog, Mina Demian questioned "Is there a level where deconstructionism could 'stop' and the knowledge gained or acquired could still be useful?"
My answer to this question—which I posed back when I first encountered poststructuralism—is Yes! And, well, No! As several other commentators mentioned, the point at which a "deconstruction" stops is a point of personal buy-in or short-sightedness. That is, what deconstruction theorists do is drill down to the points they wish to make and stop—and wait for someone else to come along and either refute or pick up the train of thought. The result is that unless the theorist or writer cleverly disguises his/her motives, any argument becomes self-defeating.
This is where that horrible "Think outside the box" phrase comes into play. Encouraging "outside of box thinking" necessarily implies that such a thing is possible. Implying that such a thing is possible supposes that thinking originates inside the box (because there has to be an "in" in order to go "out"). As such all thoughts originate inside the box—even those that are encouraged to form outside it.
The wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round.
So any and all theorists enter the circle at one point and leave at another. As such, stopping means leaving oneself open to the same scrutiny by which one began.
But at some point everyone has to stop.
One must imagine Sisyphus happy.
I have to admit that I've gotten into that roundabout many a time myself (I'm in it right now…). I've followed the rabbit down the hole and gotten irrevocably stuck.
But, without sounding crass, isn't that the nature of existence? Aren't we finite beings playing with the infinite? We need to stop because we can't go on.
So, Mina, grab the magnifying lens and rush into the forest—run as fast as you can, and go go go until you've lost your pursuer. Then train that lens on something flammable, start the fire, and run back out. Hope no one ever figures out how you started the fire.
But clever metaphors aside, I am reminded of two things.
First is this quote from Kenneth Burke:
Imagine that you enter a parlor. You come late. When you arrive, others have long preceded you, and they are engaged in a heated discussion, a discussion too heated for them to pause and tell you exactly what it is about. In fact, the discussion had already begun long before any of them got there, so that no one present is qualified to retrace for you all the steps that had gone before. You listen for a while, until you decide that you have caught the tenor of the argument; then you put in your oar. Someone answers; you answer him; another comes to your defense; another aligns himself against you, to either the embarrassment or gratification of your opponent, depending upon the quality of your ally's assistance. However, the discussion is interminable. The hour grows late, you must depart. And you do depart, with the discussion still vigorously in progress.
We often intend so vigorously that we forget the point of the journey (a supposition that there is one, of course): the conversation (life). This is the story of humanity and we all play our parts, intentionally or unintentionally.
And so, when David L. Book chastises Dr. Fish, claiming that this is all "nothing but 'words, words, words,'' I have to gleefully shout: Exactly!
Ultimately, all of this is really just words, words, words. And that is exactly why it is all so damn important: Without communication, without discourse, we have nothing.
What deconstruction—what poststructuralism—does for us is draw into question the systems by which we communicate. It gives agency to the words and the unwieldy apparatus we attach to them.
We then deconstruct that apparatus to find the Emperor has no clothes!
Now, I’m not suggesting that deconstruction defeats all knowledge, science, and reason. Nor do I disagree with Dennis Boston (how clever) when he writes, "Words are not merely codes, using them is a behavior, and the behavior alters their meaning." The behavior that we exhibit, regardless of our native tongues, is—to greater and lesser degrees—contingent upon the language we use to explain and communicate that behavior.
The door swings both ways, so to speak.
One need only look at the differences between American English and British English to see this tableau in play. In fact, let's take the word "snog" and see how behavior alters its meaning.
In British English, "snog" means "kiss." This word is not used (much) in American English, and I would be so bold to suggest going up to a random stranger in middle America and suggest a little "snogging." The response to this word—its etymology still intact—would illustrate a variance in behavior dependent upon place and culture. Clearly behavior has the upper hand here.
But the word itself is not powerless divorced of its context. If you get slapped for suggesting a "snogging" in the woods, then the word has power even outside its original context. This draws attention to the intentionality of word choice. If I choose one word over another, it is likely because it better fits my message. In this instance, language shapes my message. I suggest a "snogging" instead of asking for a kiss. And, just as my snogging might show, my message is not dependent only on my behavior and my intentions. I might intend just to suggest a kiss behind a tree. My dear stranger might punch me in the crotch because he thinks I hope for more.
And so language does depend on behavior, but behavioral reactions are not static—just as language is not static. What we need to remember (and in our poststructural inquiry what we need to focus on) is that not all behavior and meaning is predestined (set in stone, reflected in a cave). And since language and action are not predestined, there's always room for interpretation and manipulation.
Even in the hardest of sciences a misplaced comma can cause a coma.
When Alan Belkin writes, "the whole idea that thought depends on language is just plain WRONG. Babies think, you can think in sounds (music) and in shapes and colors (visual art), and Steven Pinker’s latest book (The Stuff of Thought) makes a convincing case for thought as PRE-linguistic," he makes a good but misguided point. The question here is not that thought is POST-linguistic but that thoughts, divorced from communication systems (music and visual arts included), have no where to go until they are cast into a system. As such, something is always bound to get lost (in translation, har har) or misrepresented.
We are—despite our clearest thinking—left with the tools in our collective toolboxes.
What we gain from pursuit of poststructuralist thought is a determination to choose tools wisely. And hell, even delight in what we can create with them!
So (a long time coming) second is this comment to Dr. Fish from Carl Dietz:
“Enjoy” the wonderful dance floor we so eloquently call Language.
Stepping Off the Balcony
I have to remember that while poststructuralism saves my life, it is a punching bag for scientists and trenchant realists.[2] A trusted former professor of mine—a man who has spent much of his life both teaching and practicing critical theory—claims that much of what theorists do is "intellectual masturbation."
Let's face it, life saving is a far cry from dirty talk and masturbation, eh?
There is a deep division between the main disciplines of academia. This is nothing new. The insignificant arts lounge on one side, wine glasses in hand, and the important sciences work long fruitful hours in lab coats on the other. It should come as no surprise that the serious rationality that permeates math and science are, at least in regards to praise, the envy of good for nothing artists. We enjoy our wine but constantly strive to be taken seriously—to be patted on the back and told that we're just as important. Look how the social sciences clamor for validity by tacking a clean word (science) onto a dirty one (social)!
Good luck with that.
Stanley Fish more appropriately addresses the debates between these factions. However, his blog elicited a flood of rather peculiar comments like the one I've already quoted. Since I seem to side with Dr. Fish (I am not the Lorax; I do not speak for the Fish), I'd like to address some of the comments to his post for two reasons: the first doesn't really involve you (what was that about masturbation?); the second has to do with my profession. Because so many of the comments to Dr. Fish's blog show base line misunderstanding, I feel called to unpack his profligate prose in an attempt to save more lives than just my own!
Someone by the name "Duff," notes, "Alan Sokal invited those who think that the 'I' changes the reality of the 'it' to step off the balcony of his apartment on the 20th floor and see if gravity is a relative thing, a 'thing' affected by the consciousness of the thinker."
This is a typical response to the work of deconstructing. It is through lazy rhetoric that we can come to such lame jokes. Let's take a journey, shall we?
It is important to remember a key factor in what deconstruction is/does:
Language is the primary target or focus in deconstruction, not objective reality.
Let's look at that sentence again. What the theorist would say (in the guise of me, of course), is that "objective reality" is ultimately susceptible. The key word here is objective. Its use carries baggage, and this is where the theorist points and says, "Subjective language used to explain objective reality creates a paradox. There is no such thing as objective reality because there is no such thing as objective language."
Now, "Pip! Pip!" shouts "Duff" because he feels accosted. His whole methodology has just been shoveled off as subjective.
In his mind, the theorist has posited that rational science as we know it ceases to exist in a clever turn of phrase!
But that's because our dear "Duff" misinterprets the connection between the "words" and the "reality."
This is the formula that I image springs to "Duff"'s mind in response to my theorist's statements:
Objective Reality = Subjective Language + Reality
Because language is certainly not important, we can axe it:
Objective Reality = Subjective + Reality
And thus:
Objective Reality = Subjective Reality
Which finally becomes:
Reality = Subjective
Hard science as a means of determining reality is thrown into question.
Wait for it.
Uproar.
Or, to draw on Dr. Seuss again, everyone's dander is up!
But here's the thing: What the theorist is supposing is not the end of all reality and objectivity. That would necessitate relying on a logical fallacy. In fact, my formulas above are reasoned in fallacy.
Language is subjective. No one—even the 600 plus respondents to Dr. Fish's article—would disagree with that. As such, using language to codify scientific results leaves room for some interpretation. Let's call this "wiggle room."
That I would say "I do not think that I will die if I step off this balcony because I create my own reality," and then plummet to my death is just silly. It's like a Pollock joke for theorists.
No one—even the most obfuscating theorist—would take that bait. Why? Because this is not what these theorists are suggesting. Not even Stanley Fish, I think, would disagree: Deconstruction is not a means by which one determines his/her physical existence. It is not a religion that breeds reality bending fanaticism.
What is it then?
It's a critical apparatus that ultimately questions the space between the thing and the word. Fish writes, in regards to the French theorists agenda, "what was involved was less the rejection of the rationalist tradition than an interrogation of its key components."
Let me put it this way: The problem is our human tendency to extremes and lazy thinking. We tend to react to change (danger, bad news) by flipping to the other side. Or we take one idea and run it so thoroughly into the ground that we don't remember how we got to China. The rationalism of the Enlightenment begat a dogmatic addiction to rationality—which squeezed out any room to wiggle.
But there's always room to wiggle.
Here's what I mean by this. When I teach these things, I use two examples. The first is a melodramatic dropping of a book. I tell my students that what I'm not suggesting is that gravity doesn't exist.
I pick up a book and let it fall to the floor (loudly, I might add).
Language and social construction do not change this action. For effect, I usually give the book another good drop.
I then draw a tree on the board and ask them to identify the object. Because I'm not very good at drawing, it takes them a few minutes… but eventually they determine that what I've drawn is, in fact, a tree. To solidify this point, I write an equal sign next to my tree and then write the word "tree."
Now I discuss the nature of that tree—both in the conversational space where we all discuss our favorite trees to climb, etc., and the theoretical space. Here's where we talk Plato and Aristotle.
And then I erase the word "tree" and write a different one, like "car."
All of this is meant to set up the issue of words, meaning, and linguistic shifts. The tree is not a tree if we decide to call it a car. Silly as stepping off a balcony, I know, but the point is made—and, hopefully, taken.
Here's the point: Changing the moniker doesn't change the reality of the tree. If we all agree to call the tree a car, then we've effectively changed our reality (in regards to our communication system) without changing the actual thing (the object remains what it always was).
The language shifts and molds itself to purpose. It is the nature of language to do so. And that's a good thing because it allows our perceptions to adapt to our changing reality (or is it the other way around). Think about a child who sees a giant redwood tree for the first time. Has his reality not changed ever so slightly?
That we now blog instead of writing a letter to the editor does not mean that communication has been fundamentally altered—only that we now do this instead of this. This (blog) needed this (paper/letter) to get to this (communication). But the same basic needs have been satisfied regardless of what "this" is!
And yet… says the wily theorist… that's also the problem.
Let me give you another example. I love to cook and the wife and I recently bought a book called The Best Meat Recipes from the editors of Cook's Illustrated. In discussing pork, the book mentions the National Pork Board's decision in the 1980's to radically alter pork production. They worked to alter pig farming and make pork leaner. Nearly all pork consumed in the United States right now comes from pigs that are 75% leaner than they were prior to this shift in production techniques.
The book even mentions that people—like myself—who have only really eaten this leaner pork would find pork bred by older farming standards distasteful.
And I love ham.
Now, until I read this bit I had absolutely no idea that such a thing had occurred. I would venture to say that most of us had no idea. And, for my purposes here, most Americans under the age of 25 will have no idea.
Does this fundamentally change our existence? Well, clearly not, since had I not read it, I would be just fine. I would live out my days eating my trimmed down pork with glee.
But but but… in some small way it does reverberate, it does alter our existence. That is, something as fundamental as what we eat (those of us who eat pork, anyway) has been drastically altered without our knowledge.
What else, logic whispers, have we let slip past without our noticing?
I'm not trying to descend into conspiracy theory land, but the key here is that social construction does affect our perception of reality. What we argue about (here in this space between science and theory) is the extent to which reality is altered.
That is the nature of deconstruction.
Deconstruction picks apart language to shine a small light on the space between what we perceive and what is.
Because I am, after all, a trained literature scholar, I'll bring up Shakespeare and "ocular proof."
In A Midsummer Night's Dream, when Claudio is brought to spy on Hero, what he sees dictates his actions. He thinks he sees—and seeing is believing, remember—Hero getting it put to her by Balthasar. We the audience know this isn't the case, and all is revealed in the end (poor Hero!), but the point is made.
We trust our eyes too much.
And that's the ultimate aim of deconstruction: to question the apparatus (language, social convention) that holds our reality in place. It is not to suggest that gravity is just a perception. Rather, the deconstructionist questions how our perception of gravity affects the reality of it.
Or is it?
(That spiral of never ending erasure? Yep, here we go again…)
I'm going to defeat any good I may have done here by calling gravity into question. Or, at least, I am going to call the language in which it is couched into question.
I've shown the first part of Brian Greene's Nova special The Elegant Universe to my mythology classes in an effort to discuss creation myths. From this nicely constructed special, I draw my understanding of how the laws of gravity do not mesh with the laws of quantum mechanics. Each works, but they do not work when put together. Rather, they can't be put together.
The line I'm reminded of is "You can't have two separate everywheres," which is ultimately the problem of unifying the laws of quantum mechanics and the laws of gravity.
What's interesting here is that Brian Greene makes a point of saying that the laws of gravity suppose, in the "large scale," an "ordered" universe; quantum mechanics suppose, in the "small scale," a "strange and bizarre" universe ruled by probability and chaos.
Ultimately, these two sets of laws (science!) are set against each other. The terms of use to us are chaos and order. They are not my words, but Brian Greene's—a scientist's.
But but but… Did I mention that I have shown this segment to my mythology classes? Well, that's my point (the one I raise for debate in my classroom): Brian Greene's discussion of unification and string theory is science's recasting of creation myths using rational, scientific inquiry.[3]
Now, the end result, you may be thinking, is that the two are the same. That's the idea I present to my students: that string theory is a new (sexy) creation myth.
(Groans from the audience.)
But that's not exactly what I'm getting at here. Instead of drawing a debate about science and myth, let's look at the language. The language used is similar even if we can't agree that the concepts couched in the language are similar: God creates an ordered world out of chaos. The laws of gravity govern our ordered perception, while the laws of quantum mechanics govern chaos.
And so, what is questioned and dissected by the deconstructionist is not the science, but how the science is presented. In this case, in regards to The Elegant Universe, I am left to question—as theorist at play—whether or not the problem of unification is not one of language and not science. That is, have we written ourselves into a paradox because the language cannot—by its very nature—seek to contain infinite scientific reason in a finite way? Is it possible that the language cannot keep up with the science? Is it possible that forward momentum in science has pushed to the limits of language and, as such, left us without a way to explain how gravity and quantum mechanics operate together in our world view?
That's what deconstruction does. It questions the conversation about the subject, not the subject itself.
For that reason deconstruction is useless to scientists and trenchant realists.
Or is it?
(Here we go again…)
While scientists shake their heads in disdain, social theorists grapple with the fires and woes of human irrationality.
Social scientists and cultural theorists have the business of re-evaluating meaning in a meaningless world.
In our corner of the intellectual spectrum, deconstruction is deeply useful because it allows us to infinitely question our motives and actions. It keeps us guessing so that we don't sit still long enough to cause even more problems.
In the end, Dr. Fish's most prescient comment is this one:
All we lose (if we have been persuaded by the deconstructive critique, that is) is a certain rationalist faith that there will someday be a final word, a last description that takes the accurate measure of everything.
If this is the case, I think I will continue to find value in poststructuralism as a whole and deconstruction as a mode of inquiry. To borrow a phrase (again) from Kenneth Burke, I've decided to put in my oar.
Stop.
[1] p. 127. Selden and Widdowson. A Reader's Guide to Contemporary Literary Theory. 3rd ed. Univ. Press of Kentucky. 1993.
[2] I must always be mindful that blanket statements be endnoted if we're to do proper deconstruction. Not all scientists are trenchant realists. And not all trenchant realists care enough to mean theorists harm by suggesting we step off balconies!
[3] Yes, I know that string theory is not widely accepted.
