Understanding Woke Tactics Pt. 6: Deconstructing Deconstruction (pt.1)

In my last two essays I set about trying to give an account of what “deconstruction” is as it has been picked up and used by woke activists in our current cultural context. I gave a brief primer on what deconstruction is and how it is used. The idea I wanted to drive home is that the way that while deconstruction originated in the very dense and difficult philosophy of Jacques Derrida it has metabolized into the culture in a very specific way, and it is now used as a method of attacking the meaning of concepts, arguments, messaging, communication, and ideas that go against the woke vision of social justice.

Now that I have explained what deconstruction is, what purpose it has been appropriated for, and how it is put to use, I want to take a look at a specific instance of deconstruction so that we can see what it actually looks like when deconstructive philosophy is put to use. It is one thing to explain what deconstruction is and how it works, but I think that giving specific examples is necessary to help people actually be able to see how deconstruction works in the real world. To that end let’s take a look at an example of what deconstructive thinking looks like in practice.

The following is a passage that was taken from an essay called “What’s all the Fuss About this Postmodern Stuff.” by Barry W. Sarchett. These next two paragraphs are Mr. Sarchett seeking to give an example of how a deconstructive reading is supposedly able to demonstrate the mistaken, flawed, incomplete, low-resolution, nature of a statement.

The statement being deconstructed was a statement by Lynn Cheney in which she claimed that it is an “enduring,” and  “transcendental,” truth that “people love children.” As we look at this example I want you too keep in mind a point made in my last essay: that in practice deconstruction very often looks like nitpicking at the meaning of words in order to deliberately miss the point of what is being said. With hat in mind let’s see how Mr. Sarchett uses a deconstructive reading to take apart Lynn Cheney’s statement that “people love children.”

“Lynne Cheney asserted . . . that it is an "enduring" or "transcendental" truth that "people love children." But what exactly does Cheney mean here? After all, a timeless truth must be very clear or how could it be true? So just what does "love" signify? Is there a universally shared intrinsic meaning here? But there are many possible meanings for this word, even if just the English language is considered. Which did she mean? We seem to be inundated lately with kinds of "love" for children of which "we" disapprove violently. So maybe we ought to agree that incestuous love or molestation isn't "love"? Surely that's not what Cheney meant by "love," was it? But this is a specific cultural agreement to limit the possible significations of the word—and the more we try to specify what Cheney means by her statement, the more we will have to come to a shared, highly qualified agreement that will become more and more specific and seems less and less universal. When does too much "love" cease to be love and become something like (to borrow a particularly unclear signifier) "co-dependency"? Or did Cheney mean that people and children are co-dependent? What amount of "love" is not enough and becomes something like "like"? What has happened to the possibilities of "people love children" by now? And does Cheney mean all people by "people"?

WC. Fields would disagree (let's keep his films out of the canon). Does Cheney mean that "people" (whoever that is, by now; most people? Just how many is that?) love all children? Or do we like some and love others? Does she mean babies as well as 17-year-olds (still legally children in our society)? People love minors but not necessarily 18-year-olds? Obviously, we could go on and on, and we haven't even left our culture (and dominant family structure) or our language yet. So our "enduring truth" now seems something like this; "some people love some children in particularly proper ways that are what I really mean by 'love' if we can agree on my definition." With universals like that, who needs particulars?””¹

Now that you have read that (and I hope rolled your eyes at the silliness of it all) let’s highlight some of the tactics that are going on.

First off we see Mr Sarchett nitpicking about the meaning of the word “love.” He claims that it is unclear exactly what Lynn Cheney was referring to and says:

 “So just what does "love" signify? Is there a universally shared intrinsic meaning here? But there are many possible meanings for this word, even if just the English language is considered. Which did she mean? We  We seem to be inundated lately with kinds of "love" for children of which "we" disapprove violently. So maybe we ought to agree that incestuous love or molestation isn't "love"?”

This is, of course, absurd. It is quite clear for anyone with a lick of common sense that Lynn Cheney is not referring to erotic love, or sexual love, when she claims that people love children. Pretending that this is some matter of widespread disagreement, or that we are unsure what type of love Lynn Cheney is talking about when she says “people love children” is just nitpicking at the meaning of term in order to miss the point.

There is also an element of re-framing going on here:

”When does too much "love" cease to be love and become something like (to borrow a particularly unclear signifier) "co-dependency"? Or did Cheney mean that people and children are co-dependent?

When Sarchett brings up co-dependancy. To bring in the idea of co-dependancy is to bring in an unhealthy emotional state which is clearly excluded by the frame of reference (love of children) that Lynn Cheney has in mind.

Next, Mr Sarchett seeks to further blur the meaning of what Lynn Cheney said by attempting to blur the boundary between “love” on the one hand, and “like” on the other saying:

”When does too much "love" cease to be love and become something like (to borrow a particularly unclear signifier) "co-dependency"? Or did Cheney mean that people and children are co-dependent? What amount of "love" is not enough and becomes something like "like"? What has happened to the possibilities of "people love children" by now? And does Cheney mean all people by "people"?”

Again, this is nitpicking at the definition of “love” in order to deliberately miss the point. This is floowed up by a an obscure reference to the movies of WC fields:

WC. Fields would disagree (let's keep his films out of the canon).

This line is in reference to a line by the comedian Leo Rosten who once remarked of WC fields that “any man who hates dogs and babies can’t be all bad.” This line is a bit of sarcasm meant as a humorous dig at WC fields and it has nothing to do with anything that Lynn Cheney said. It is a completely irrelevant comment that brings in a humorous one-liner as though it makes up part of the interpretive context of what Lynn Cheney said. Notice how in order to attack the meaning of what Lynn Cheney said Mr. Sarchett brings in a totally unrelated comment and grafts it into the interpretive context as though it were relevant.

It seems to me that Mr. Sarchett is trying to make the point that not all people like children and he seeks to do so in a humorous way which misdirects from the centrl point Lynn Cheney is making. The problem is that Lynn Cheney is making a general statement. She is not making an exhaustive statement that “for all times and places on earth there has never been a human on earth who did not love children.” Her point is a general one that as a general rule people do, in fact, love children. In bringing up an uncommon exception to the rule Mr. Sarchett does not show her general rule is false, only that the general rule is, indeed, a GENERAL rule; there are exceptions. The nice thing about generalities is that they are general, not specific.

As we come to the end of Mr. Sarchett’s deconstruction we find him nitpicking the definition of what “people” means when Cheney says “people love children,”:

““Does Cheney mean that "people" (whoever that is, by now; most people? Just how many is that?) love all children?”

And to finish of his deconstruction  Mr. Sarchett goes about blurring the meaning of the term “children” by pointing out that everyone under the age of 18 is legally speaking a child. He then asks if Lynn Cheney is referring to both babies and 17 year olds, and wonders aloud if Lynn Cheney is saying that the cutoff for loving people is when they turn 18:

“Or do we like some and love others? Does she mean babies as well as 17-year-olds (still legally children in our society)? People love minors but not necessarily 18-year-olds? “

Once he has engaged in all of this silliness and intentional missing of the point, he then proudly announces that what was once a universal statement is not nothing more then a heavily qualified very limited statement:

“Obviously, we could go on and on, and we haven't even left our culture (and dominant family structure) or our language yet. So our "enduring truth" now seems something like this; "some people love some children in particularly proper ways that are what I really mean by 'love' if we can agree on my definition." With universals like that, who needs particulars?””

In this way Mr Sachett thinks he has shows that “an "enduring" or "transcendental" truth that "people love children."" has now been shown to really only indicate that “some people love some children in particularly proper ways that are what I really mean by 'love' if we can agree on my definition."

This is how deconstruction very often operates in the real world. What Mr Sarchett could have done was said “Yes, most people do love kids, that is why we so often way ‘think of the children’ when we are making public policy. That said, there will always be some exceptions to this general rule.” That would have been a perfectly fair claim that would have left the point of the original statement intact while adding some nuance. But this is not what Mr.Sarchett did. As we saw, Mr Sarchett:

-engaged in absurd reframes,
-used silly re-contextualization
-asked absurd rhetorical questions
-ignored the plain and common sense general point
-nitpicked the meaning of simple words
-reinterpreted various elements of Lynn Cheney’s statement in the most absurd and uncharitable way possible.

And he did all this in an attempt to attack the general principle that “people love children.”

This example typifies the way that Derrida’s deconstructive methods operate. As you can see, what is going on here is not a good faith attempt to understand what Lynn Cheney was saying when she said “people love children.” What Mr. Sarchett did was use interpretive absurdities and nonsense in order to attack the MEANING of Lynn Cheney’s statement.

This is what deconstruction does.

While not all deconstruction follows this exact pattern, the same idea is at play whenever you find deconstruction at work. The goal is, as I repeatedly state, to attack ideas, concepts, texts, art, songs, writing, speeches, messages, communication, tweets, and anything else you can think of at the level of meaning. Deconstruction wants to open up the interpretation of literally everything and attack it by hollowing it out and reducing it to mere expressions of power, self-interest, bias, and cultural chauvinism. In this way of thinking there is no such thing as objective truth, or objective moral values.

The quote Mr. Sarchett again:

”The postmodern turn then requires that we pay as much attention to who is speaking and who is not authorized to speak as we do to what is being spoken. It requires a sense therefore that all knowledge and values depend on power differentials: some voices have cultural power to define good and bad, high and low, true and false, while others must live inside those definitions because they are relatively voiceless. When people talk about what is true or false, good or bad, the postmodern response is to pose more questions: better or worse for whom? In what context? For what purposes?”²

This way of thinking asks us to say that there is no such thing as an objective standard for true or false, but rather to accept that there are no objectively true or false claims, just claims that may be true or false relative to a particular group at a particular time. The same is true for morality. Postmodernism asks us to say that there is no such thing as an objective standard for good or bad, but rather to accept that a thing is only ever good or bad relative to a particular group at a particular time.

This is relativism and nihilism rolled into one, and we ought to reject it.

In my next essay I will attempt to answer the questions that we are left with: how do we deal with deconstruction? How do we push back on it when we see it, and what tools do we have at our disposal to prevent the slide into relativism and nihilism that deconstruction pulls us toward? In doing so I hope to give you the tools to be able to communicate effectively in a way that can withstand the acid of postmodern deconstruction.

Thank you for reading

Sincerely,

Wokal_distance

1. Barry W. Sarchett “What’s all the Fuss About this Postmodern Stuff”, from Campus wars: Multiculturalism and the politics of difference, edited by John Arthur and Amy Shapiro. (Routledge, 2020) Google play version, P.33

2. Barry W. Sarchett “What’s all the Fuss About this Postmodern Stuff”, from Campus wars: Multiculturalism and the politics of difference, edited by John Arthur and Amy Shapiro. (Routledge, 2020) Google play version, P.34