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May 23, 2003
There has been a lot of negativity towards postmodernism in Australia in the conservative academy and amongst Oz bloggers. Most of it is kneejerk rejection based on a constructing a strawman called pomo. Speaking personally I have not met pomo, but many bloggers assure me that they have had the pleasure, and they say that I much the poorer for the lack of experience. If it did I would understand why I should return to the empiricist fold.
I'm not convinced having made an acquaintance with this kind of a postmodernism:----what Invisible Adjunct calls the democratization of the ironic and skeptical stance that was once the privilege of first a senatorial and then an aristocratic elite.
Having schooled myself in continental philosophy for many a long year I noticed the lack of understanding of the hermeneutical practice of interpreting texts in an empiricist culture around the issue of writing Australian history, the fetishism of facts in the Windschuttle debate in pioneer history and the puzzlement about the practice of deconstruction. In Windshuttle debate an empiricist understanding the relationship between language, thought and world was so deeply ingrained that any questioning of it seemed tantamount to idiocy. And as for deconstruction, why it was little more than an parlour game for jaundiced left-wing intellectuals. And, as for differance, well, the less said about that sort of nonsense the better.
So I thought I would introduce this article on Derrida, legal theory and the practice of deconstruction. It is notable for its clarity and showing that legal texts are ripe for the practice of deconstruction. Deconstruction practice is not just about philosophy and literary criticism.
Jack M Balkin,the author of the article, has a good weblog too
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I thought the crucial claim was at the end.
'In theory then, deconstructive readings of legal texts can be a tool ofanalysis for the right as well as for the left. In practice, left legal scholars will probably make more use of deconstructive techniques for two reasons: first,because of the historical connection between continental philosophy and left political thought, and second, because the left usually has more to gain from showing the ideological character of the status quo than does the right."
I think only the first of these reasons is valid. As regards the second, the right can benefit equally by showing the ideological character of any alternative to the status quo.
The general tendency of Derrida's thought is clearly towards "anything goes", and the natural consequence is that what "goes" will be what is preferred by the rich and powerful. We can see this in the Rehnquist Supreme Court.