In general I am all for things that empower and enrich creativity in an uplifting way. One creative-enriching thing in particular has caught my attention and regard. Not only does this entity foster remarkable creativity, but it also serves to give broader freedom to the disenfranchised and has the capacity to bring more positive attention to the marginalized other. I’ll spit it out: Deconstruction.

Deconstruction is perhaps one of the sharpest scalpels in the intellectual medical kit. And yet its span is even broader than that. Such a scalpel finds its place in virtually every kit. Because deconstruction is a foundational textual tool it works its magic on any and every thing that is. And yet, I can’t but help think that some areas ought not to be probed by the full power of deconstruction. In these particular areas the scalpel ends up destroying rather than revealing a deeper layer of meaning.

For example, consider relationships. Have you ever deconstructed one of your friends or your spouse? The death of the author/birth of the reader motif is all well in good when you’re reading a book; but what if you are engaging in conversation? It seems that our understanding of others is necessarily predicated on internal interpretation foremost, yet the realization that internal interpretations are of secondary importance is vital to the health of most relationships. That is, what he or she means is far more important than what you initially think they mean, or subsequently decide they mean. Deconstruction provides access to incredibly dangerous levels of justification.

Binaries are appropriate to bring into the conversation at this point; for the critique of binaries is inherently deconstructive in that seeks to establish or discover dynamic meaning in each side of the binary and then to create a web of meaning for the binary to exist in. And yet the meaning here is entirely too shaky, for webs either float or hang and are so light that they have no concrete relationship with anything stable, have no discernable relationship with a reliable framework.

Sometimes deconstruction becomes a compass at the North Pole—it points in every direction and is not to be trusted. Here, the most critical area to scrutinize is that of relationships and decisions; for I think that desire and selfishness have a greater deconstructive power than French academics and even those that have never heard of Derrida routinely decide what others really mean and then crucify them for it.

This post is somewhat related to a comments discussion with SQ. Another old related post is here.