Social Justice Usage
Source: Culler, Jonathan. On Deconstruction. Cornell University Press. Kindle Edition.
Most simply, deconstruction is a mode of philosophical and literary analysis derived from the work of the philosopher Jacques Derrida, which interrogates basic philosophical categories or concepts.
…
Source: Culler, Jonathan. On Deconstruction. Cornell University Press. Kindle Edition.
Deconstruction arises in philosophy as reading of philosophical texts against the grain of the philosophical tradition, contesting its hierarchical binary oppositions (meaning/form, soul/body, inside/outside, speech/writing, and so on) by exploring how they are already deconstructed—shown to be constructions—by the texts that assert or depend on them.
…
Source: Culler, Jonathan. On Deconstruction. Cornell University Press. Kindle Edition.
Derrida’s writings were at one time the primary referent of the term deconstruction, but deconstruction, which was already engaged with philosophy, psychoanalysis, and literary studies in 1982, became an extraordinarily powerful intellectual paradigm, whose exfoliation in myriad fields of the humanities and social sciences marked the intellectual life of the 1980s and 1990s. The term deconstruction has thus come to designate a range of radical theoretical enterprises in such fields as law, architecture, theology, feminism, gay and lesbian studies, ethics and political theory, in addition to philosophy, psychoanalysis, and literary and cultural studies. Though diverse, these enterprises share a critical dismantling of the conceptual oppositions that had previously been regarded as fundamental to the disciplines.
New Discourses Commentary
Deconstruction in its purest form was a practice of reading in order to pick apart the binary oppositions by which we understand our world—fact and fiction, science and art, male and female—to be radically skeptical of categories on principle, and to doubt that words could ever refer straightforwardly to things in the real world or convey stable meaning. It relied on the assumptions of structuralism, which says that cultures are reliant upon structures of meaning largely maintained through language and, less well, through symbolism, and of social constructivism, which holds that societies construct reality with the way they understand it and talk about it (see also, poststructuralism). To practice deconstruction is to pick at these categories and words and attempt to show them to be inherently flawed, problematic, or absurd.
The high deconstructive phase of postmodernism most closely associated with Jacques Derrida (who is most famous for the deconstructive approach) passed in the late 1980s. However, its practices of nitpicking and applying radical skepticism of categories, stable meaning, and objective truth, as well as its commitment to social constructivism continued into various forms of cultural studies. It is seen most strongly in queer Theory and intersectional feminism, where the stable categories of the male and female sexes are regarded as oppressive (see also, violence of categorization) and where gender roles as well as race relations are assumed to all have been constructed by dominant groups in society in order to oppress marginalized ones. Thus, when one is asked to dismantle one’s whiteness or masculinity and avoid heteronormative or cisnormative language, what we are seeing are attempts to continue the deconstruction of categories and dismantling of oppressive discourses.
This follows from the social constructivist view, or more accurately the poststructuralist view, and it draws particularly from Derridean thought (see also, phallogocentrism), which sees reality (or, at least social reality) and its injustices as being the result of the power dynamics that are hidden in discourses—ways of talking about things. Structuralism holds roughly that one must understand the structure of systems within society to understand them, and poststructuralism tends to take the view that the elements of these structures are in many ways arbitrary and can thus be “deconstructed” and changed. Theory would suggest that by altering the discourses (by deconstructing them and the power dynamics they carry— see also, structuralism), one can alter (social) reality, overcome oppression, and achieve justice.
In practice, deconstruction is a method by which meaning is either broken down or problematized, specifically for the purposes of either showing meaning to be arbitrary (kind of a postmodern game—see also, language game) or to expose and rearrange the power dynamics believed to be carried by the ways words relate to one another (see also, absence and differance).
Related Terms
Absence; Binary; Cisnormativity; Cultural studies; Derridean; Differance; Discourses; Dismantle; Dominance; Feminism; Heteronormativity; Intersectionality; Justice; Language game; Marginalization; Masculinity; Oppression; Phallogocentrism; Postmodern; Poststructuralism; Power (systemic); Problematic; Problematize; Queer Theory; Race; Racism (systemic); Sex; Social construction; Social constructivism; Structuralism; Theory; Truth; Violence of categorization; Whiteness
Languages
Revision date: 7/13/20
7 comments
So sorry to break this to everyone, but no human on earth will ever be able change the Truth to be anything else but the truth!
The short answer is they just don’t know what to do. I visited a cousin’s wife in a nursing home, and she never thought a civilization could go backwards. It made me wonder just how far backward we would have to go before someone on a think-tank panel somewhere thinks its a great idea that we should no longer have nursing homes? Probably about the time I get ready for one. I remember when the people in those facilities used to be Grandparents, then they were Aunts and Uncles, and now they are cousins. Of all the crazy I heard come out of those people’s mouths, at least they never thought we would willingly could become less civilized. But nooooooooo…the generations coming after us are going all the way back to biological racism. Well done, people – way to exceed all expectations…..at least I don’t have to explain how embarrassing this is to the ones that have already gone.
I agree with you that it is absurd. And I have an opinion why some people might be willing to accept it. But I think most people don’t accept it. They just don’t know what to do about it. Until we see things that affect our daily lives, most people don’t recognize the threat, and aren’t going to get involved, because there’s not a lot going on that affect them personally, and even if they felt like getting on a plane to go put a stop to this, they really wouldn’t know where to go.
My advice at this stage is to speak up more. If you see something absurd, then vocalize it. You don’t have to get into a long shouting match. Just vocalize it so people can see there is another voice that might be more representative of what they are feeling – right now The Public is only hearing one opinion.
post script re: All intellectuals are traitors.
The reason why all intellectuals (aka Clerisy, Anointed, Elites, Nomenklatura, etc.) are traitors is because intellectuals are loyal only to their international power-servant class and not to any nation or people. Intellectuals will betray any nation or people that house them to retain the power and status of their parasitic elite positions vis-a-vis any Ruling Class, whoever or whatever those Rulers are at any particular time and place. Intellectuals are the anal remora of their great white shark rulers’ asses. The enemy of all intellectuals is the common people (aka Plebes, Hoi Polloi, Masses, Deplorables, etc.) who are viciously despised and relentlessly attacked by intellectuals as a key part of their social policing role. I believe it was Gibbon in 1776 who observed that when Rome fell to the barbarians, the only two Roman groups left intact were the super-rich Patricians who bought places in the new barbarian order, and the intelligentsia-bureaucrats who sold out their own people to survive and serve their new rulers. btw the term Intellectual has no relation to the word Intelligence.
A commenter wrote: “…they turn democracy into oligarchy without having to go through a coup d’etat…”
That’s the plan. And Talmon documented this process over 100 years ago. Read his book on the subject (free pdf link below).
A commenter wrote: “Why public, including many intellectuals, has accepted this absurdity?”
The intellectuals are making it happen for POWER and STATUS in the 2021 New World Order; just as the intellectuals did for the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution. All intellectuals are traitors.
The public allows it to happen because: The Public does not read. The Public does not question. The Public does not want to know. As long as Sheeple have their Soma, screw reality. “You can ignore reality, but you can’t ignore the consequences of ignoring reality.” Ayn Rand. Those consequences have a nasty lethal bite as they learned after 1917 and as we in the Western world are all about to find out in the 2020s.
“The Origins of Totalitarian Democracy” J. L. Talmon, 1919
https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.460216
I do believe this is an elite driven revolution aimed at silencing, dividing, scaring the majority to control it and to force it into impotence. In a theoretically democratic system with elections who controls the public discourse controls society and the political system. Thus they turn democracy into oligarchy without having to go through a coup d’etat. Ultimately they want to control public discourse to avoid their class warfare practices to ever enter it and thus hiding their tracks. Else, with the current economic unbalances, they risk 1929-level social unrest.. Or worse, French Revolution or end of Roman Empire levels of unrest.
Most modern Americans have lost their sense of meaning and purpose. We have for too long relished in the blessings of our culture and gotten lazy. In our comfort, we did not perceive the threat of this deconstruction and it slowly eased into our consciousness appealing at first to our sense of fairness. Then once hooked, like any good manipulator, it uses a combination of emotional blackmail to silence opposition in public. Finally, once the institutions that control dialog have been inculcated, these very institutions don’t have to rely on emotional blackmail….they simply censor.
But, once again, why? Why public, including many intellectuals, has accepted this absurdity?