Applying deconstruction: establishing a critical viewpoint

Abstract

[Conclusion]: The point of [this chapter] is to demonstrate the potential that deconstruction has as an active and social critical practice. Deconstruction is 'what happens, what is happening today in what is called society' (Derrida 1990, p.85). It is about understanding the conceptual constructions that inform and give rise to social practices and the way that these constructions determine relationships of power. In these terms, deconstruction is concerned with the liberation of meaning from arbitrarily agreed upon assumptions, and the examination of things in themselves, according to the contexts of their operation. It is about the examination of privileged texts and subjugated others, and the way the construction of language and texts are located within a binary power structure. It is here that Derrida suggests that deconstruction is 'an opening to freedom' (in Royle 2000, p. 11). It provides a framework of operation from which a clear critical location can be situated- one that doesn't simply replace an existing ideology or discourse with another privileged one, but one that continues critique in terms of the located-ness of the construction under examination and the position of the critic in this process. It calls for an examination, from multiple viewpoints, of the assumptions present in social constructions and the way these function to determine meanings and subsequent power relationships. In this regard, Deconstructionism is an active critical framework that has direct application in determining the constructedness of our relationship to the social world we operate within. It is from this determination of meanings and relationships of power that genuine social action might be formulated and acted upon.