Destruction, Demolition and DeconstructionThe Lone Groover says "I've just taken down a pergola with a metre-deep Russian vine over the top. It had nine birds' nests in it, and had rotted all of the cross timbers. It covered the entire lawn and needs a skip of its own." What's the biggest/worst thing you've ever taken down? Tell us your tales of demolition and wanton destruction.
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Scaryduck LIKES EGG, Thu 8 Nov 2012, 13:17)
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Deconstruction LOLSo I was at this party when my mate George dared me to do something stupid so I proposed the deconstruction of all texts where binary oppositions are used in the construction of meaning and values. My first deconstructive task was to overturn all the binary oppositions of metaphysics (signifier/signified; sensible/intelligible; writing/speech; passivity/activity; etc). I told George, "Deconstruction should traverse a phase of overturning these oppositions. It starts from recognizing that, in a classical philosophical opposition, readers are not dealing with the peaceful coexistence of a vis-a-vis, but rather with a violent hierarchy."
In the end I didn't surpass all oppositions; they are structurally necessary to produce sense, and cannot be suspended once and for all. Instead I analyzed and criticized them in all their manifestations. I did not only expose how oppositions work and how meaning and values are produced in a nihilistic or cynic position, "thereby preventing any means of intervening in the field effectively". I created new notions or concepts, not to synthesize the terms in opposition, but to mark their difference, undecidability, and eternal interplay.
God, what a night that was.
Yours,
J. Derrida
(, Thu 15 Nov 2012, 14:49, Reply)
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