deconstruction

[jbor]

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>From: "Otto Sell" <o.sell at telda.net>
>To: <JBFRAME at aol.com>, <pynchon-l at waste.org>
>Subject: Re: deconstruction
>Date: Thu, Dec 14, 2000, 4:09 AM
>

> The *intrinsic hierarchy of the binary oppositions:
> One of the sides of a given binary necessarily claims the "elect" side of
> the binary, standing above the preterite pole, being pre-like in cause and
> effect- or the more important part
> of the opposition, like God-devil, word-text, high-low, good-bad,
> white-black, center-margin, homeland-colony, heaven/sky-earth, man-woman,
> sense-absurd.

Well, no, one side doesn't actually claim the privileged pole, it isn't
"intrinsic"; it is the human *interpretation*, the notion that "reality" is
composed of such binary oppositions and that one side of the equation is
correct, or better than the other one, and which has been passed down and
accepted as "truth", instinctively, and which underscores political, social
and cultural systems. It's probably easiest to think about it in terms of
gender and race because the privileging of the first term in the oppositions
male/female and white/black has been pretty much deconstructed (in the West,
at least) and is quite easy to get a handle on.

But as Otto notes the ultimate aim isn't just a case of reversing the
privilege (positive discrimination), or, indeed, of inventing a further term
(white/black//red), though both of these serve as *strategies* for
subverting the conditioned response of the reader. Rather, and as I think
Pynchon achieves in his novels (in similar ways and concurrently with, but
not dependent upon Derrida, Lyotard, Baudrillard etc), the whole
epistemological foundation is debunked. There is no realignment of terms or
imposition of a third term: the reader is left to fend for themselves, to
apprehend the world and his or her own life without all the
cultural-metaphysical baggage which she or he hadn't even realised was there
in the first place but which had actually been informing -- prejudicing --
the pov. It is the act of constructing these hierarchies (eg fact/fiction,
truth/lie, moral/immoral, Elect/preterite) which is diagnosed as the
problem, rather than simply the hierarchies themselves in isolation.

best