A Short Response to Deconstruction

Marcus Honeysett 

 

Here are a few initial points to get you thinking about how to respond to deconstruction.

Deconstruction is corrosive. It sees it as an ethical duty to attack truth claims. It is anti-truth, in theory and in practice. In fairness we should note that if you don’t believe in God then there is no reason not to be a deconstructionist, but the end result of deconstruction even makes some card-carrying postmodernists uneasy. Here are some pointers to responding to deconstruction:

 

It Does't  Work on It's Own Terms

Let me give the shortest answer first.  It is comparatively common in the academy to hear relativists (among whom all deconstructionists are counted) claim that their arguments and tenets are not refutable by someone who believes in absolutes. We are simply speaking different, mutually incomprehensible, languages, it is claimed. Which can be little more than a sophisticated way of saying we don't even want to talk to anyone who might challenge what we think.

But here is the thing: take any defining statement of relativism and apply it to itself and it doesn't work on its own terms. No "absolutist arguments" need to be applied. To give a basic (and slightly crass) example, applying the oft repeated statement "all truth claims are relative" to itself leads to nonsense. There is no way to test it on its own terms and therefore no way to validate or invalidate it. And therefore no way to trust it any more than we would trust the opposite statement. It exists in a philosophical nonsense category where its own self-referential nature leaves it without meaning of even a relativist kind.

 

Spot The Underlying Assumptions

As with much postmodern theory, deconstruction depends on certain premises which are assumed but not explored. We can immediately spot several:

• God does not exist
• Absolute truth is the same thing as repressive western thought
• Communication isn’t really possible
• No genuine authority exists, or could communicate itself if it did

The key point is the first one. Because the deconstructionist position cannot accept the presence of God. Therefore the possibilities of revelation or of God creating and safeguarding human communication are denied. Hence postmodernists see western thought and Judeo-Christian values of society as the same thing, with the result that they can blame all of society's ills on the Judeo-Christian commitment to absolute truth. We should also note that some of these denials must be absolutes in themselves for deconstruction to work, but then its own internal presuppositions are contradictory.

 

Deconstruction Itself Can be A Power Game

While some groups may indeed have been disenfranchised in the past, deconstruction finds it easy to use minority groups agendas as a starting point. Deconstruction works best when it is championing a cause. Hence it often presuppose that a cause must exist - there must be groups who will benefit from its services. It is virtually guaranteed to find them. Deconstruction is seen as a tool for liberation. This liberation comes from rebelling against existing power structures. And where such structures are hard to find, they are frequently imagined. For example in point 1 above, it is almost impossible to argue sensibly about liberation from a loving creator God, but if you dress Him in the garb of oppressive western colonialism, then He becomes very easy to attack.

 

Deconstruction Depends On Taking Things Out Of Context

Deconstruction depends on finding minute points in a text that seem to say the opposite to the main message. This almost invariably means taking small portions, even individual words or syllables out of context. But this is simply not the way we read texts..

Moreover, deconstructions are not necessarily coherent with each other. It would be quite possible to produce a “Christian reading” of a text in conflict with anti-Christian ones. Anyone can take something out of context and making it say what we want. Most deconstructionists would roundly disclaim "absolutist readings" but have no grounds for doing so on their own terms!

Deconstruction has a warped way of reading. To say that real meaning must flow from a divorce between a text and its context, or that real meaning is apparent only at a deconstructive level, or that real meaning must be the opposite to what a text ostensibly says, is not only anti-knowledge but arrogant in the extreme.

 

Deconstruction Denies Humanity

Pushed to its logical extreme, deconstruction breaks down ideas of what it means to be human. Many people are now freely saying that there is no such a thing as humanity. Some, however, are also questioning where this leaves human dignity, identity, morality or society.

As Christians a vital area to recover in our generation is our doctrine of humanity. We are created in God’s image, possess inherent dignity as His creation, communicate because he created speech, have moral sense because He defines the limits.

 

Deconstruction Misunderstands Liberty

Deconstruction also has a wrong definition of freedom or liberty. We might feel liberated by standing on a cliff thinking that we can fly, but when we flap our arms and leap, we discover that this isn’t real freedom at all. We need to encourage people to ask what they think they are being liberated from, and liberated for. Deconstruction wants freedom from all limits, but do we really want to be free from being human? We might add that while deconstruction does a very good job at destroying any sense of value, it puts nothing in its place except a void.

 

Deconstruction Misunderstands Thinking Itself

Deconstruction values radical new thought for its own sake. This too is flawed, in three ways:

• It has no reason to do so as it denies the validity of communication, or indeed of coherent thinking
• It is of little use in making decisions, as any radical thought is proclaimed to be equally valid even conflicting ones with no criteria for deciding which is of greater political or ethical value
• There is frequently little idea of what constitutes radical thought, except what breaks up the status quo

 

People Seem To Believe In Absolutes

People behave as though they believe in absolutes. Plenty of people believe in God. Many people believe in absolute standards of morality and behaviour. The deconstructionist says this demonstrates social conditioning. But there is no good reason to suppose that it is, rather than just being the way we are made. It is difficult to apply the social conditioning argument across cultures where similar taboos or ideas of conscience have developed independently.