Another Theology Blog

(In order to properly understand the following essay, please read this brief article.)

If Mark C. Taylor’s testimony is true, then Mr. Derrida’s deconstructionalism clearly lacks structure.  As Mr. Taylor so eloquently put it, though I doubt he realized the irony implicit in his words, “In the process of creating something, something else inevitably gets left out.”  Mr. Derrida’s creation, however, left everything out.

Deconstructionalism is, like everything else, a “structure…that organizes our experience,” which means, according to Mr. Derrida, that it must necessarily be “constituted and maintained through acts of exclusion.”  Thus, deconstructionalism, if true, is false, or at least not entirely true, because it leaves something out.  It can never be comprehensive, not without admitting that a system can be created which does not leave anything out, and this would mean forsaking deconstructionalism.

Also, judging from the severe restrictions deconstructionalism places on the act of knowing, the only thing it could possibly leave out is that somehow, that which is left out can be kept in, or perhaps known in a way that bypasses all created systems.   Again, deconstructionalism is undone by its core thesis.

Maybe there is a way to salvage deconstructionalism?

I will be lenient on Mr. Derrida, and assume that his theory is not entirely true, and not entirely false, despite all evidence to the contrary.   Unfortunately, deconstructionalism ultimately denies this possibility, as I shall presently demonstrate.

Mr. Derrida’s philosophy claims that “transparent truth and absolute values elude our grasp.”  Is not this the transparent truth, the absolute value par-excellence of deconstructionalism?   Hence, Mr. Derrida’s thoughts are self-refuting.

G.K. Chesterton once said, “There are only two kinds of people, those who accept dogmas and know it, and those who accept dogmas and don’t know it.” (“The Mercy of Mr. Arnold Bennett” Fancies vs. Fads).  I fear that Mr. Derrida falls into the latter camp, because his philosophy seems blissfully unaware of its own presuppositions, though they are not hard to find.  A cursory examination of Mr. Taylor’s statements is sufficient to coax deconstuctionalism’s fundamental beliefs out into the open.  I shall arrange them as a list. Mr. Derrida’s first dogma has already been discussed above, but nonetheless, I feel it important to enumerate.

1) “The guiding insight of deconstruction is that every structure – be it literary, psychological, social, economic, political or religious – that organizes our experience is constituted and maintained through acts of exclusion”
2) “By struggling to find ways to overcome patterns that exclude the differences that make life worth living, [Mr. Derrida] developed a vision that is consistently ethical.”
3) “…it is necessary to recognize the unavoidable limitations and inherent contradictions in the ideas and norms that guide our actions, and do so in a way that keeps them open to constant questioning and continual revision. There can be no ethical action without critical reflection.”
4) “Belief not tempered by doubt poses a mortal danger.”

Mr. Derrida constantly contradicts all four of these principles!

Mr. Taylor, shortly after formulating dogma number two, writes, “Many of Mr. Derrida’s most influential followers appropriated his analyses of marginal writers, works and cultures as well as his emphasis on the importance of preserving differences and respecting others to forge an identity politics that divides the world between the very oppositions that it was Mr. Derrida’s mission to undo:  black and white, men and women, gay and straight.”   It seems that deconstructionalism’s policy of non-exclusion has excluded the reality of exclusion.  Mr. Derrida opposes opposition, but simultaneously wishes to preserve the very differences from which opposition arises. He also fails to even consider if opposition might be inevitable or even healthy at times.

Dogma number three accomplishes the elimination of any law higher than the word of man, as well as undermining deconstructionalism itself.   After all, moral evolution is still a fixed moral system.  Its basis, that morality changes, is unchanging.  In order for morals to be questioned and revised, whether or not they can be questioned and revised must not be challenged.  For if it is decided that morality, at its root, cannot be changed, then the entire system of questioning and revising morals collapses.

Moreover, from a purely practical perspective, morality has no power over us if we can simply choose to revise it whenever we fancy.  I think it absolutely unbelievable that most people have not yet realized that applying a biological theory, namely evolution, to ethics is the key to implementing complete societal disintegration.  Frequently changing laws, indeed even revising the foundations they are based upon, will do nothing more than weaken the average individual’s faith in justice, in the stability of government, and in the promise of secure livelihood.  If morality can change, why wait for the legislature to convene?  Go ahead, do that which is currently forbidden, but evade detection!  Someday soon, your passion will no longer be forbidden.  Even if such a time never arrives, do what you wish anyway, because objectively speaking, there is nothing wrong with any of your actions.  The arbitrary will of the government, or the political majority, or the Church, or whoever happens to be in power, is the only entity condemning you, and if they cannot catch you, then they cannot harm you!  

If morality is purely a matter of the will, he whose will is strongest, is righteous.

These ethical musings remind me of a humorous anecdote.  Voltaire is reported to have said, “Don’t tell the servants there is no God, or they will steal the silver.”   Whether or not this incident actually occurred, I think it reveals an important truth.   No matter what anyone says, human experience confirms that people do not feel obligated to follow manmade rules.  If a man can benefit from breaking laws and get away with it, he will do so.   That is why so many intellectuals during the Victorian era argued that the reality of an eternal hell should be kept before the general populace, despite the fact that many of these learned men personally rejected the very existence of hell.

Surely, all these oversights will return to haunt deconstructionalism, and not only it, but all modern thought, because “what is repressed does not disappear but always returns to unsettle every construction, no matter how secure it seems.”

Mr. Derrida’s fourth dogma, however, needs no unsettling, because it is already toppling due to a light breeze!  In fact, it is so laughably naïve that it can be dispatched with a single sentence:   if the statement, “belief not tempered by doubt poses a mortal danger” is a true belief, then we must doubt that it is true in order to secure our own safety.

Here I will assume that Mr. Derrida’s thoughts were formulated wrong by Mr. Taylor until I receive any evidence to the contrary.  I simply cannot believe that a philosopher of Mr. Derrida’s caliber would express himself this poorly.  Usually, people are a whole lot more subtle about their logical fallacies.

For all these reasons and more, I must reject deconstructionalism as complete nonsense.  

Of course, it might very well be true that our limited reason can never grasp reality as a whole.   In fact, I am quite certain that most mysteries about our world will never be solved, at least not in the scientific sense.   It is my firm belief that with each new discovery, our world becomes even more obscure.  As Aldous Huxley once phrased it, “Science has ‘explained’ nothing; the more we know, the more fantastic the world becomes, and the profounder the surrounding darkness.”

But proposing a system that explains why all systems are inadequate?  That’s an exercise in sheer stupidity and futility.