emergent theological conversation with john caputo and richard kearney: deconstruction

just had an opportunity to listen to, and ask questions of, these two gentlemen -- and indirectly with derrida who was a friend of theirs and whose humble intensity was reflected in much of the conversation.

and i think i might write a series of blog posts on all the various thoughts that have grown from my presence here.

because of who these two are, deconstruction was everywhere during the conversation, and so my first post is going to be about deconstruction itself.

i come into the philosophy backwards. the philosophers have a chain leading from plato to kant to heidegger to derrida (or something like that, maybe a real philosopher would choose different landmarks). but i, in some sense, have grown up in the era of deconstruction and i am learning about this all backwards, starting from the world created in the middle of the conversation on deconstruction and working my way backwards.

one of the signs of being someone who is qualified to use the term deconstruction is a reluctance to define deconstruction. as a sign of my status as a reverse time traveler, this echoes the "previous" truth that the first rule of fight club is that you don't talk about fight club.

this reluctance to define deconstruction becomes more and more and more interesting the longer i run across is. the wikipedia entry on deconstruction proposes that the best way to know what deconstruction might be is to read a series of statements about what it is not. the philosophers seem more comfortable speaking of deconstruction like this and there is a treasure trove of such quotations. so write it in your notebooks kiddies, to gain credibility, refuse to define deconstruction and instead memorize a couple of quotes about what it is not. :) ( which reminds me of a brilliant piece on negative space that someone once wrote)

the most common two mis-perceptions about deconstruction present at the conversation, things which probably mean that those of us who hold these perceptions have not read enough, are this.

• deconstruction is a hermeneutic task
• deconstruction is a fancy word for demolition and sorting through the rubble

the first one is a mis-conception which i still hold. most of my (limited) training in reading critically comes from the tradition of biblical scholarship and so it is hard for me to even imagine an activity i engage in with text which is not part of a hermeneutic project. my pre-conference understanding of deconstruction had it slotted very neatly in a hermeneutic toolbox, as an exegetical tool, but one used on the reader and not the text. i saw deconstruction as a way to render the hidden angels and devils on our shoulders visible, so that their whispers become part of the text.

but i learned that derrida at some point said that deconstruction is NOT hermeneutics, and so i have re-opened my ears to try and understand more what that might mean. one of my quests is to find more about the context in which those words were released.

the second mis-conception, (which i had shed long before the conference, scoring 3 mock-philosopher points) is related to the non-defineability of deconstruction so i'll go there next.

caputo and kearney both spoke in very similar ways about the existence of something/somethings which are not deconstructable. and they both also spoke about some people who took deconstruction too far, which we might assume means that they have deconstructed that which ought not to be deconstructable.

ready for a ride? please keep your hands and arms inside the boat at all times

what are the non-deconstructables? i think it was kearney who pointed out that derrida uses law and justice as as an example of something which is deconstructable (law) and something which is not (justice). laws speak of our yearning for justice, and are judged by how well they reflect justice, but are absolutely candidates for deconstruction, but justice is not. i've also heard that "love" is not subject to deconstruction and that "gift" is how we bring the impossible love into possibility.

another non-deconstructable is this concept of "the event", which is itself is i'll defined except perhaps as "that which is is true and/but is trying to become true".

these are startlingly similar to attributes of god.

and then later i thought i heard caputo quoting derrida saying "deconstruction is love"

and "god is love" and god has no name either, other than i am what i am.

and so maybe deconstruction is simply the gesture of honoring our god. that which is god is that which eludes deconstruction.

and the nihlist/deconstructionists honor their own god in their deconstructive gestures which have no limits.

and so in the end, we reveal not god, but something about ourselves, namely who we love.

thus deconstruction is not the ultimate interpreter of text, and in fact not really part of hermeneutics at all. it is a not a way to see something which cannot be seen or which is difficult to see. deconstruction is to see ourselves, which is all there is to see, and to yearn for god

i pray that all my gestures of deconstruction would be gestures of worship to a god that is just and loving.

and just to make sure i am shedding any pretense of being "in the club", i will now engage in the one task which labels me as one who understands nothing ... i will attempt to define deconstruction.

deconstruction is a master impersonator who can capture the rhythm and nuance of speech of the subject so well that he can say things in the voice of the subject, and say things the subject would never say. hearing these shocking impossible words from someone who would never say them wakes us up in surprising ways.

deconstruction is a party in the basement of an immense skyscraper. upstairs they are having nice meals in rooms with wallpaper illuminated by tasteful sconces, and in the basement we dance among the undressed pillars moving from half blue-flourescent light to dark, because nobody worries about getting the lighting right down here. humming machinery, placed here so that the noise does not disturb the occupants upstairs, sings the music for the dance.

i wonder what the clue-ful would think of the parables?

Comments

[Mike]

*snaps*

[NIna]

I gotta be honest and say I don't have the foggiest idea what you are talking about. Can you put it in simple, 3rd grade language? That's about all my brain is capable of these days. :)

[Michael Toy]

i knew that i would be in trouble for that post. i think i was more trying to summarize what i experienced for someone else who had been there, or had wanted to be there.

the third grade version is probably just.

i went and listened to some smart people talk.

they used a lot of words i barely understand, and even after they talked about those words for a long time, i still didn't understand them very well, though i thought i might understand them better.

there is a word in particular "deconstruct" which has a special meaning in the philosophical world, and which has had, is having, and will continue to have a profound effect on how we think about our selves, our history and our future.

i think there is no need to fear this word, and it actually might stand for something quite good. but i am still only guessing.

[s.o]

I think this was really well put, and it's good to process through what we heard there! I haven't been able to articulate much, but I feel like I need to keep trying.
good to see you there, and keep up the deconstruction of that event!

-shaun o

[Michael Mills]

I have absolutely no idea what deconstruction is (though I have been accused of perpetrating it on the unwary), but I think you do yourself an injustice when you say "i will now engage in the one task which labels me as one who understands nothing ... i will attempt to define deconstruction."

Why? Because what you offer are not definitions, but metaphors. Maybe you can still be in the club if all you do is speak in metaphors, I don't know ....