From: egnilges@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Edward G. Nilges)
Subject: Re: Coppola's DRACULA
Originator: news@nimaster
Organization: Princeton University
Distribution: na
Date: Thu, 7 Jan 1993 02:24:49 GMT

In article <1992Dec28.164354.13538@cbnewse.cb.att.com> gmark@cbnewse.cb.att.com (gilbert.m.stewart) writes:
>
>What is the real definition of "deconstructionist"?  Anyone know for
>sure?

Critical theorists challenge the notion of "real definition."  Derrida
himself writes (letter to a Japanese friend, 1983):

     "The word 'deconstruction', LIKE ALL OTHER WORDS [emphasis mine],
     acquires its value only from its inscription in a chain of possible
     substitutions, in what is too blithely called a 'context'.  For me,
     for what I have tried and still try to write, the word has interest
     only within a certain context, when it replaces and lets itself be
     determined by such other words as 'ecriture', 'trace',
     'differance', 'supplement', 'hymen', 'pharmakon', 'marge',
     'entame', 'parergon' etc.  By definition, the list can never be
     closed, and I have cited only names, which is inadequate and done
     only for reasons of economy.  In fact, I should have cited the
     sentecnes and the interlinking of sentences which in their turn
     determine these names in some of my texts."

Note that this is nothing more than common sense (using, in turn,
"common sense" not in the reified, and sexist "man in the street"
appeal of the professional philosopher, but instead carefully, referring
to common practise, not common "essence.")  For it's nothing more, is
it, than saying that the meaning of a word is primarily contextual, and
since the practise of "deconstruction" USES the "sliding", contextual
nature of words to criticize egregious bullshit (including Coppola's
sexism and racism, as we'll see), it has both a moral and logical
responsibility to self-apply.  Therefore, to insist on a "real
definition" of "deconstruction" is to ask for the very thing that
deconstruction criticizes.

How do we learn words?  People who look definitions up in dictionaries
do less well, do they not, than people who learn by READING, that is,
contextually.  Rather, then, than insisting for a tidy definition of
"deconstruction", read the texts!

Indeed, the kneejerk American reaction to deconstruction, one of
incomprehension and hatred, has much to do with the creation, in the
last ten years, of the "information society", which for many people
(owing to the capitalization of information and the destruction of the
information "commons", including the replacement, in some communities,
of libraries by jails) has become a disinformation society.  For
critical theory, especially in its less falutin' forms, is only
criticism with the humility to self-apply, criticism of texts; yet
American corporations are increasingly reliant on texts as they ship
physical reality (in the form of manufacturing jobs) to low-wage sweat
shops.  This means that deconstruction is exceedingly dangerous to
information-based companies.  I am reminded of the New Yorker cartoon in
which a man refuses to pay his bill because of his doubts about the
foundations of mathematics, and that original American
deconstructionist, Herman Melville's Bartleby, "preferred not to"
reelect George Bush last fall.

It's exceedingly important, after all, that Derrida says "like all other
words."  For the insistence of his Japanese friend on a real definition
of deconstruction, isolated in the text, would have been a mistake had
his Japanese friend asked for the real definition, the Platonic goddamn
essence, of "butter."

Back to Coppola: the sliding, and "de-constructible" nature of a
cinematic signifier means that it's healthy to see a structural
correspondence between the way Dracula forgives Vlad the Impaler for
skewering Turks, and the way in which contemporary Serbs ask for
forgiveness for Bosnian genocide.  It is merely a measure of a moral
debasement that we have to import a strange French theory to wake us
from slumbers in which we do NOT think of the Bosnian genocide in the
movies; but if that's what it takes, then so be it.  Coppola doesn't
"only" mean that "there was this guy in mediaeval Romania who killed
people, but he had to".  He ALSO means that "men kill men and women, and
they also pass blood-borne diseases, and it's awful, but often it can be
justified."  Hmm...I don't know if I buy that.

Finally, note that the last American practitioners of this rather
healthy "deconstruction" (healthier, anyway, than killing people and
passing on AIDS) were the members of the Catholic Legion of Decency
during the 1950s, who (in spite of their narrowmindedness) were rather
adept in  searching-out negative moral messages in films.  Their
disappearance is not altogether good, for now we are expected to sit
back and swallow whatever message movie moguls including Coppola want to
feed us, indeed to memorize it for instant regurgitation on Trivial
Pursuit.

     "Hey, Harv, are you into TRIVIA?"
     "I'm talkin' to ya, ain't I?"

                           - Harvey Pekar