Deconstructing Heirarchies

Deconstructing Heirarchies

'Deconstruction,' Jacques Derrida writes, 'is inventive or it is nothing at all; it does not settle for methodical procedures, it opens up a passageway, it marches ahead and marks a trail' (Derrida, 1989:42). Within architectural theory, at least, this deceptively simple message appears to have been forgotten (if it was ever fully heeded). An act of amnesia hastened, it would seem, at the 1992 Anywhere conference in Yufuin, Japan. It was here that Derrida reputedly refused to 'outline a project for the new' for architecture.

One can only presume that this refusal, to name one reason among many possible reasons, was at least in part because, as noted above, the new is already present within deconstruction in the form of invention.

Derrida also apparently refused to 'offer [the assembled] architects a clear way to convert deconstruction (as the theoretical protocol) into architectural form' (Speaks, 1998:28). For the architectural fraternity, this double refusal only served to fuel a 'growing and palpable disappointment with deconstruction'(Eisenman 1990). Not surprising, then, that deconstruction should subsequently fall out of architectural favour, replaced by, among other things, a renewed interest in diagrams.

Source: Bennington and Derrida, 1993: 406.

It seems that everyone in the media uses the terms "deconstruction" or "deconstruct." (Derrida 1990) A film critic deconstructs a popular movie because he does not like the lighting. A book reviewer deconstructs a short story because he thinks a character is underdeveloped. The words have broad meanings, so maybe the critic and reviewer are not so far off in using them.

However, what does deconstruction mean according to the experts, particularly Jacques Derrida? Most importantly for this series, how does it influence Biblical studies? This article is Part Four in the series on Postmodernism and the Bible(Eisenman 1990). We first very briefly look at two other movements and interpretive strategies, structuralism and poststructuralism, so we can orient ourselves to understand deconstruction.

In the big picture, how does postmodernism and poststructuralism and deconstruction fit together? For our purposes, postmodernism is the biggest category, poststructuralism fits under it, and deconstruction is a poststructuralist strategy or activity. (Derrida 1990) "We might say that postmodernism subsumes poststructuralism" (Stuart Sim Routledge Companion to Postmodernism, 2nd ed., ed. Sim, 2005, p. x). And I would add that poststructuralism subsumes deconstruction. Other scholars come up with slightly different classifications, but the foregoing is adequate for our series.

Following the standard procedure in the series so far, I quote extensively from the practitioners and theorists of these movements, so they can explain themselves in their own words. Along the way, we keep track of the prefix "hyper," and in one instance the theme of transmogrification is noted. Recall that the strange word has no known origins and means a great change or alteration, "often with grotesque or humorous effect." Both the prefix and the big word are threads that run throughout the series. (Eisenman 1990)

Structuralism

To understand the "post" in poststructuralism, we should briefly review structuralism. In a highly regarded introduction to structuralism as it relates to ...