Okay, what people are saying is right. Derrida ultimately sucks. But he came up with a very good point and I guess he just went too far with it.
First off, he should not have come up with the name “deconstructism” for its methodology. The title makes it far too confusing. Deconstructism makes one think of Aristotle’s original concepts of science, that you can analyze things in parts and hence “deconstruct” the whole. So to hell with deconstructism. I abhor the word as part of the english language with Derrida’s definition (God damn it, the dictionaries will be stuck with it for years now). However, “decentrism” does strike a bell. Multiple interpretations are important and it is invaluable for one to develop his antithesis just as he does his thesis.
Aside from that I am still trying to make further sense of postmodernism. But the whole bit that deconstructism breaks interpretation and therefore language and therefore the psyche . . . that’s slippery slope bullshit.
So please do decentrize texts. It is a worthy cause.
Derrida is difficult to read and requires some background, namely a good understanding of Saussure’s analysis of the sign in his Course in General Linguistics.
I wrote this for a school assignment a year and a half ago (it’s been awhile since I’ve dipped into Derrida):
The following is required reading for understanding Derrida. The first page and a half is a very comprehensible, hold-you-by-the-hand introduction; the rest is Derrida himself, and you’re required to reach. http://rlwclarke.net/Theory/SourcesPrimary/DerridaDifferance.pdf
(For a more general overview of the ins and outs of post moderinism, try Sokol’s article: "Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity "
The fact that they published the essay demonstrates that, despite being meaingless gobbledegook constructed largely for fun, it did not stand out against other post modern essays substantially enough to raise an alarm.
It suggests that a lot of post modernism is written using obscure terminiology in a way that means that not even the proponents of the theory (such as the editors of the magazine in which it was published) actually understand whats going on in the articles they read.
…Or that the journal editors failed to review the essay properly.
First, postmodernism is not a theory.
Second, you presume to know the philosophical views of the journal editors, and you mistakenly infer that their views and skills as philosophers (if they even are philosophers) are representative of “postmodern” philosophy.
Third, you infer too much from Sokal’s stunt. You generalize that because one distinguished physicist gets a fake article published in some “postmodern” journal, this proves that postmodern philosophy is bullshit and that all postmodern essays are unintelligible. I have an alternative conclusion: an author’s prestigious academic credentials can blind readers/reviewers from critically evaluating his work. Since it was the editors’ job to critically evaluate Sokal’s submission and make necessary changes before publishing, they did an extremely poor job. You extend the results of Sokal’s hoax much too far, as many people do.
Whilst they did not subject the essay to peer review by other scientists, the editors certainly must have read it. And seeing as its an academic journal published by one of the worlds top universities, it was certainly edited by professional philosophers with a ‘knowledge’ of postmodernism.
I made no such deduction. I said it was suggestive. And it is. If top professors of the subject don’t understand the terminology properly, then who does?
It was a journal of cultural studies, not philosophy.
Apparently the editors criticized Sokal’s paper and asked him to make changes, but he refused. Then they accepted the paper anyway because they wanted a physics paper to appear in the journal.
At that time, the journal did not practice academic peer review and did not submit the article for outside expert review by a physicist.[3][4] The journal’s editorial collective did, however, express concerns to Sokal about the piece, and requested changes, which Sokal refused to make. Wishing to include the work of a physicist, the editors decided to accept the article on the basis of Sokal’s credentials.
You’re inferences are bad. There is no unified postmodern subject with central principles or tenets. And I have already given evidence that the editors apparently took Sokal’s credentials for granted and didn’t have his paper reviewed properly.
All that proves is that they read it, and failed to notice that it wasn’t serious. If they didn’t read it or review it, how would they know it needed changes?
Since when did a subject have to be ‘unified’ and have ‘central principles and tenets’?
Basically, the problem is that you take the buzzword “postmodernism,” without trying to understand what it actually refers to, and marginalize all works which come to be classified under it. You mistakenly use the Sokal Hoax to justify this view, but it falls far short of supporting the conclusions you make.
I don’t disagree. I disagree with your conclusion that their carelessness is representative of the integrity of all postmodern thought.
You have called postmodernism a theory, and you have said that there are professors of postmodernism. You have the wrong impression of what postmodernism refers to.