The Devil is in the Derrida (Part 2)

This could get ugly...

A bit of cultural theory

This post could get ugly for two reasons.

Reason One: because this Derrida stuff is hard.  Very hard.  The ideas are abstract and hazy-sounding.  Underlying any kind of theory about our existence and how we perceive it is some kind of philosophical worldview, some set of conjectural assumptions about how the world works.  To understand best the theory, those underlying assumptions need to be understood as well.  Both tasks are challenging when it comes to the ideas of Derrida.

I promise you, though, that there is a practical and rewarding payoff coming at the end of your courageous voyage through these dusky Derridean wilds.  At the end of this post, some real-world, hands-on applications of these theories will be revealed—and they are not only analytically valuable but can be a real hoot to put into action.  At the end of this post, I’ll offer you as well a fuller explanation (and apology) for all your suffering.

So please bear with me. 

Reason Two: because, as I said last week, the ideas of Derrida outlined below dismantle the fundaments of Plato’s cosmology—a cosmology largely undergirding the ancient, medieval, and modern Western worldviews.  Thus, if you are someone who believes in a Platonic vision of a universe run by some manner of divine, rational, and benevolent Craftsman, well, you might be offended.

Please believe me when I say—and no matter how snarky I get—my intention here is not to offend anyone nor is it to assert that Derrida’s ideas about the nature of existence are correct (i.e. Truth) and that all other viewpoints are wrong.  Not only would such an aim be ludicrous, but, as you will see, it would be thoroughly unDerridean.

Instead, as ever in all of my postings, my aim is simply to set out, as best I can, some stimulating cultural theory for your consideration.  What you think of it and do with it is, obviously and entirely, up to you.

Applying this bit of cultural theory

Last week, in Part 1 of this post, I sketched out Derrida’s concept of language.  This week, I hope to describe (reasonably clearly) the cultural fallout resulting from his radical views about the Sign.  Derrida’s theories of différance, freeplay, and slippage don’t just upset Plato’s applecart of a rational, orderly, and eternal universe.  They overturn it entirely.

Once again, I offer simplified, barebones accounts of a few of Derrida’s most influential ideas.

1) Binary Opposition (a crucial tool for analysis)

I always tell my students that if you take away nothing else from the mishmash of Derrida’s theories, remember—and put to good use—his notion of binary opposition.  There are few better techniques for opening up a text or a cultural practice for inspection.  Binary opposition goes like this:

Derrida argues that it is a Western habit of thought—stemming from Aristotle, Plato’s student and colleague—to conceive of the world in pairs of opposites where one item is favored over the other item.

For examples: light/dark; good/evil; true/false; sun/moon.  As you can see, a binary pair is written so that the favored or superior item comes first and a slash mark (/) divides the favored item from the disfavored or inferior item.  Derrida maintains that Western society is chock-full of such paired truisms.  Take a moment right now to come up with a few of them yourself.  Once you get going, plenty will start popping off the top of your head.

(Your alone thinking time here...)

Moreover, the favoritism in a binary opposition is assumed as a social given—that is, a Truth everyone knows and agrees with.  More examples: rich/poor; civilized/savage; white/black; male/female...

Oops.  (Gee, Governor DeSantis, this is starting to get uncomfortable.  Can we stop?)

If you think about it, these four binaries signal more than just unthinking social assumptions.  They are the working basis for capitalism, colonialism, white supremacy, and patriarchy.  If you are not someone who lives on the favored side of these binaries—that is, if you are counted among the poor, the savage, the black, the female—life could get decidedly unpleasant for you.

This dualistic, either/or habit of thinking serves as a basic building block, according to Derrida, for capital-T Platonic Truth.  Upon such unassailable Truth gets built religions, political systems, economic structures, legal apparatuses, educational practices, military organizations, beliefs and customs and traditions of many kinds—in short, all the stuff of social order.

Whereas Plato argues that the best social order will be formed by understanding and emulating the divine and rational Good created by the eternal Craftsman, Derrida seems to see social order as a kind of recurring linguistic shortsightedness linked with acts of self-serving power.

Binary oppositions, then, can be considered as an even more advanced weaponization of language than Barthes’ cultural myths or the Battle for the Signified evident in Saussure’s Sign.

Let us elaborate a bit more.

2) Transcendental Signified (where Plato gets body-slammed)

This concept will be tricky to explain, but let’s start with the name itself: Transcendental Signified.  You already know what a Signified is.  In Saussurean terms of the Sign, it is that generalized concept (tree-ness) that gets triggered in your mind when you hear the sound-image of the Signifier (“tree”).

So far, so good.

As for Transcendental, the adjective here indicates otherworldly, spiritual, divine, heavenly, supernatural.  In other words, something above the fray of our physical and social world—removed from of our existence, thoughts, culture, and language.  Something Timeless and Eternal.  Something Universal.  Something Plato could get behind.

So, by Transcendental Signified, Derrida means a concept that is stable and eternal.  An idea that exists on an otherworldly, spiritual, supernatural, non-physical plane.  Thus, an idea that is not subject to différance, freeplay, and slippage.  Derrida’s term Transcendental Signified, then, is just another way of saying what Plato means by Truth or The One.

Only Derrida renames and redefines Plato’s term as an illusion and an impossibility.  For Derrida, no Signified is ever free from différance, freeplay, and slippage.  Human language, culture, social order is rooted firmly in the physical realm of our ever-shifting world.

For Derrida, to imagine that our world and our lives are determined by an idea that exists outside of our physical experience—by an idea that can never be touched or influenced by anything within or about our worldly circumstances—is both a pipedream and a lie.

Here’s how this delusion works, according to Derrida.

3) Logocentrism (creating a false center of Truth)

The Greek word logos has long been used by Western intellectuals to mean word, logic, reason, thought, principle, speech.  In Christian theology specifically, Logos is the Word of God—that principle of divine reason and creative order that Plato associated with his Craftsman.  By the label logocentrism, Derrida means the Platonic desire in Western thought for a Transcendental Signified, for a center in the form of an ultimate reality or Truth that serves as the basis for all human thoughts and actions.

Again, Derrida posits that such a center, such an ultimate reality and Truth, is mere daydream and invention.

More specifically, what Derrida seeks to expose as a falsehood in Western philosophy and theology is the concept of the Prime Mover or Unmoved Mover.  By definition, a Prime Mover is that which moves without being moved.  In other words, a Prime Mover starts or impels or drives a system or structure or mechanism forward, but it itself is not in any way effected by or taking part in the movement it causes.  It is the key joint to a system but not part of that system.  What this all boils down to is the Prime Mover not being in the physical, material realm of the mechanism it drives; instead, the Prime Mover exists in a non-physical, spiritual realm and so is untouchable and absolutely removed from anything tangible.

Imagine, if you will, the Transcendental Spark Plug.  Go out and crank up your car and imagine that there is no physical, material, actual spark plug in your car that gets the whole mechanism running.  Instead—floating around out somewhere in the heavens—there is a spiritual, non-material Spark Plug of divine and eternal origin that turns over your engine and starts you rolling down the street.

Kinda weird, right?

Derrida puts it like this:

This is why classical thought concerning structure could say that the center is, paradoxically, within the structure and outside it.  The center is at the center of the totality, and yet, since the center does not belong to the totality (is not part of the totality), the totality has its center elsewhere.  The center is not the center.  The concept of centered structure...is contradictorily coherent.  And as always, coherence in contradiction expresses the force of a desire.

What Westerners like to do, then, is construct all sorts of social systems and structures and groups that we believe—that we want to believe—are centered by a timeless and universal Truth.  Propelled by and devoted to some manner of Prime Mover that can never change and, so, can never be questioned or challenged.  Such is the stock-in-trade of Church and State.  Such is the modus operandi of organizations from the Girl Scouts to the Marines, from the Communist Party to the Country Club, from cheering for the Buckeyes or cheering for the Wolverines.

To construct such centers of logos, proposes Derrida, we make copious use of binary oppositions and Transcendental Signifieds.  Derrida also proposes ways for us to break down and see through these constructions.  To see past their wishful and sometimes less than honest thinking.

4) Supplementation (how binaries crumble and Signifieds return to earth)

Remember a couple of weeks ago when we took a look at the Top Gun and Avatar movies?  (Ah, we were so young...and innocent of Derrida.)  That discussion was based on inspecting one of the most important binary oppositions involved in building a society: us/them.  How else are you going to organize a bunch of people into a bloc unless you also designate all the people who don’t belong in your crew?

Hint: you add to the mix another power-packed binary: good/bad.

Hence, you get the very, very powerful cultural tool: Good Us/Bad Them.  For good measure, throw in a bit of Prime Mover, logocentrism, Transcendental Signified action in the form of Good Us being supported by some manner of divine, timeless, universal, spiritual Guarantor (Craftsman, God) and Ideal (Truth, Freedom, King, Country, Profit Margin) that present themselves as self-evident, absolute, and incontestable.

Boom, you’re in business.  You’ve built yourself a tribe or a party or a kingdom or a nation-state.  And from this organization springs a bunch of sweet, easy-to-swallow, jingoistic binary oppositions like Good Maverick/Bad Faceless Guys in Enemy Aircraft.

In that earlier post, when I muddied the Mav-as-Hero waters by bringing up the inconvenient circumstances surrounding Jake Sully on Pandora (just go back and review the post), I was carrying out Derrida’s theory of supplementation.  I pulled apart the simplistic either/or binary of US-versus-THEM constructed in the Top Gun films by the process of adding context and layers of complexity to that formula as it can be seen in the Avatar films.

In other words, I just thought about it more.

Derrida wants us to do the same with all binary oppositions.  Just think them through a bit more.  When you do, binaries tend to fall apart by themselves.

Binaries are inherently unstable.  There’s always more to them than the effortless this-or-that on offer.  More nuance, more uncertainty, more factors involved.  The “inferior” element of the binary always has more to say, always supplements the “superior” element of the binary in ways that result in additional insight.  Clearer understanding that unmasks the false dichotomy of the binary.

But you have to think about it—which is precisely what the originators and adherents of the binary do not want you to do.  Absolutes demand following—not deliberating.  Within our social carnival, when an attraction is billed as Timeless! and Universal!, the brain-ride has been closed down and only the belief-kiosk is open for business.

Equally important, Derrida doesn’t want us just to reverse a binary—that is: Good Faceless Guys in Friendly Aircraft/Bad Maverick.  Such a reversal would only be constructing another one-dimensional claim.  Another false center.  Another absolute Truth.  Instead, Derrida asks us to erase the binary and the Transcendental Signified it serves.  To give the world deeper consideration than mere white-or-black snap judgments.  To explore all the shades of gray involved in the human experience.

For Derrida, binary thinking is inadequate thinking.  At best, it is lazy.  At worst, the construction of and the devotion to binary oppositions, Transcendental Signifieds, and logocentrism is dangerous and destructive.

So what?

You’ve been through a lot these past two postings on Derrida.  And I apologize for it.  Sincerely.  I’ve walked you across the red-hot coals of some tortuous linguistic and cultural theory.  And the stroll hasn’t been easy—on either of us.

I debated not writing about Derrida at all, or at least not in any great detail.  I knew that diving into his tangled theories would risk losing you as readers and as subscribers to my Substack.  I feared that you might just throw up your hands in frustration—or in boredom—and decide your time is better spent watching cat videos on Instagram.  Believe me, the thought crossed my own mind more than once as I struggled to explain all this stuff.

But I didn’t want to underestimate you as readers, which would be tantamount to insulting you as thinkers.  Just as I know in my Critical Theory classes that I have to acquaint students adequately with Derrida, so too must I with you if we are to explore our cultural moment in any meaningful way.  Frankly, Derrida’s ideas are just that crucial to contemporary cultural theory.  Not necessarily because they are “right” or “true.”  But because they provide some extremely useful critical tools to be put to use in the analysis of our social order.

You might be happy to know that all sorts of people don’t like Derrida.  Not only conservative thinkers who put their faith in Prime Movers and the like, but progressive and lefty thinkers as well who find Derrida’s linguistic tomfooleries too elitist and abstract and a product of cloud-cuckoo-land.  When Derrida first hit the scholarly scene in the 1960s, a number of prominent Marxist theorists in particular (Fredric Jameson, David Harvey, Terry Eagleton) objected to what they called his “serene linguistic nihilism” and to what they saw as his overall disengagement from the vexing everyday issues of modern life.

And it’s hard to argue he’s not disengaged.  During the 1970s, the so-called Yale School of Deconstruction engaged in the fun—but maybe also frivolous—game of demonstrating that all Signs are, in the end, merely empty Signifiers floating around without any real meaning at all.  La-de-da.  It wasn’t until the 1990s that a different version of deconstruction, one sometimes called the French School, came to prominence featuring a concern and engagement with politics, identity, social justice, and issues of social power.

This later version of deconstruction is what I am recommending as worth our attention.

But I just got a little ahead of myself.  What in the heck is “deconstruction,” anyway?

Glad I asked.  Here’s the practical and rewarding payoff to all this Derrida business that I promised you at the beginning of this post.  Here’s the “So What?” that you’ve been (I hope) waiting for.

Deconstruction is the outcome of Derrida’s theories.  If he is worried about how we erroneously construct stable meaning and absolute Truth out of language, then it only makes sense that Derrida wants to give us the means to deconstruct those things.  That is, techniques to pull apart those edifices of Platonic certainty.  To de-center doctrine and dogma and creed and code and policy and canon in order to open them up for better examination.

Derrida insists that deconstruction is a strategic device, not a “school of thought” or set method of investigation that pursues pre-determined objectives.  Deconstruction is “a position one has with regard to something.”  A critical skill that can be applied to anything for any number of reasons.  Thus, the goal of using the methods of deconstruction is up to the user.

As you would imagine, Derrida is not interested in formulating his own hard-and-fast dogma about anything.  Not so much because he might not want to—but because he understands that he can’t.

Here’s the real kicker.

Even as Derrida argues against the possibility of constructing stable meaning by ignoring différance and arresting the freeplay and slippage of the Sign, he acknowledges that we cannot communicate without the creation of such centered articulations.  We not only desire durable meaning, we need it—or rather the fiction of it—in order to speak with one another at all.

Derrida admits that in de-centering Plato, he’s creating his own center of meaning—namely, that there is no center and that Plato is mistaken.  I’m doing it as well in this post.  In trying to convince you that Derrida is not completely insane for claiming that fixed meaning is impossible to attain, I’m creating a center arguing that Derrida’s theories about no center deserve your serious consideration.

Nuts, right?

The distinction between Platonic thought and Derridean thought is that where Plato insists on Absolute Meaning, Derrida endorses temporary meaning.  Meaning that is provisional, conditional, makeshift, impermanent.  Meaning that might only hold good until a different or better meaning comes along.

Plato decrees Truth.  Derrida recommends truthS.  He asks us to embrace the freeplay of words and ideas.  He asks us to contemplate the undecidability of our language and culture—that is, that they are ever works in progress.  Not without meaning or importance, but always worth considering further.

Yeah, deconstruction is scary.  Deconstruction can seem chaotic and monstrous.  But it can sure open up new horizons.  New thoughts and new ways to look at the world.  Next week we’ll put the methods of deconstruction to use.  We’ll take undecidability out for a test spin to see where it gets us.  When we do, my hope is that you’ll look back on our slog through the bog of Derrida’s theories, if not fondly, at least as having been well worth our effort.

Readings of possible interest on Plato:

Plato, Timaeus and Critias.  Edited and introduced by T. K. Johansen, translated by D. Lee (Penguin Classics, 2008).

Readings of improbable interest on Jacques Derrida:

Derrida, Jacques.  “Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences.”  Criticism: Major Statements, eds. C. Kaplan and W. Anderson (4^th edition, St. Martin’s, 2000, pp. 493-510, first published 1967, see for example: http://www2.csudh.edu/ccauthen/576f13/drrdassp.pdf).

COMING NEXT WEEK: deconstructing Hero