Does Deconstruction Make Any Difference? Post-structuralismand the Defense of Poetry in Modern Criticism (review)

Alfred Louch

Philosophy and Literature, Volume 10, Number 2, October 1986, pp.325-333 (Article)

Published by The Johns Hopkins University PressDOI: 10.1353/phl.1986.0012

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Critical Discussion

Does Deconstruction Make Any Difference? Post-structuralism and the Defense of Poetry in ModernCriticism, by Michael Fischer; ix & 368 pp. Bloom-ington: Indiana University Press, 1985, $20.00.

Discussed by Alfred Louch

THIS BOOK OFFERS, among its odier virtues, a Cook's Tour of post-modern criticism— a phrase that betrays, I suppose, a craving to be

up-to-date: in die future before it happens. I found it on the whole adepressing trip, not so much because of the quality of steersman-ship — though diat too takes die reader dirough stretches of arid academicprose — but because of the specimens one passes on the way. The man atthe helm seemed at times unsure whether he was leading the readerthrough a rogue's gallery or a madhouse. Nonetheless, if your sightings ofDerrida, Paul de Man, Harold Bloom, and Geoffrey Hartman havestruck you as unreliable landmarks to any conceivable terrain, Fischer'sbook will help you. He at least is not a rogue, nor is he mad. You will besafe with him on this tour of deconstructionism even though you maywonder at die end whether he has praised or buried it.I wdl turn to the issue of diagnostic equivocation by and by. But first an

impression of a few of his specimens. The diird chapter, on Derrida,Stanley Fish, andJ. Hillis Miller, is a good place to stop and marvel. I cannever read Fish without being reminded of a student I had die misfortuneto teach in the late sixties — a deconstructionist before his time. I walkedinto class the first day and took the one empty chair at the head of dietable. This boy immediately pointed out that what I said could carry noweight, because I was sitting in the instructor's chair, thereby abusingdiscussion with audiority. It was of no avail to observe that it was the only

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vacant seat, or to change places with him, for later on, after I had re-minded diis youdi what Mill said in a passage under discussion, he re-sponded: "That's not fair. You know more about Mill than we do." That ishow Fish sounds, truculently and aggressively condemning rational argu-ment because it is a form of truculence and aggression. Any gloss of a text,according to Fish, must be allowed, for to dismiss it as false or logically ab-surd would merely be a power play.Fish's laissez faire policy in criticism is a widely endorsed plank in the

platform of deconstruction. There is no one right way to read a text,therefore there is no way — short of coercion — to exclude any particularventure at interpretation. Are deconstructionists, dien, instances of diatsadly familiar type, academics who got stuck in the sixties? It turns outmat Fish and Derrida, in dieir different ways, find die anti-audioritarianposture hard to maintain. Fish wonders how to comport himself before theless than eager student and die bored journal reader and asks: if I am notspeaking the truth what am I doing? His answer, alas, is the epitome ofself-infatuation: he entertains. (Well, perhaps he is stuck in the sixties.)Fischer agrees, calling him an "engaging" writer. I suppose I can only say,de gustibus. But I note also that even while praising Fish's alleged stylisticperkiness he asks, radier pointedly, why fewer and fewer students studyliterature.Derrida wants us to laugh too, for the interpretation of texts is a side-

show unconstrained by logic or fact. But he was noticeably peeved, asFischer reminds us, by John Searle's alleged misunderstandings of hiswork in Glyph. Searle, I suppose, either took interpretation too seriously,or failed to applaud Derrida's performance loudly enough. It is worthy ofnote, as Fischer duly notes, that Derrida's reply to Searle is marked by in-sulting invective, a tactic, I would have thought, of diose who mean to im-pose their views on omers by force, certainly not those who would allowendless interpretations to bloom. Searle's problem, certainly, was that hetook Derrida seriously — and that, he should have realized, is wrong inprinciple. Criticism is fancy, to be answered in kind, but not by anydiingso crude as rebuttal or analysis. One must marvel, and applaud. Theproper view is like Fish's unintentionally less than self-serving idea diatcriticism is entertainment, or like Harold Bloom's conception of writersand critics as scavengers, battening on the texts of their predecessors. Thecritic's work is an imaginative act. It must amuse or thrill. We should ap-proach it the way we listen to concert pianists or trapeze artists. Critics tooare performers, only peevish and strident when die audience has notstayed to admire. But by dieir own admission there is no possible reasonwhy it should.

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I do not say diese things on my own account but to summarize Fischer'smore polite and deferential but essentially similar account of contem-porary criticism. It is impossible to sign up for his Cook's Tour and staywith it to the end widiout feeling that one has become acquainted withcharlatans or madmen. The posturings of his gallery of critics cry out foran account appropriate to the explanation of a pathological state. Fischersometimes offers such explanations. He draws attention to die hysteria oc-casioned by diminishing enrollments, the stultifying barriers of academicdepartments, die loss of interest on die part of students in anything that isnot vocational. These observations are pertinent to his story only if he sup-poses deconstruction to be a malaise having causes, not a theory sup-ported by reasons. But he also wants to argue that deconstruction is alogical consequence of earlier moves in literary theory. So in spite of theiradmonitions he takes deconstructionists seriously, a perUous venture diattakes him as far back as Matthew Arnold. I will try to follow the subtleand sometimes uncertain path of his argument.Arnold thought die important question to ask about literature is

whether, and how, it can be true. To ask that question and receive ananswer, he thought, die social environment would have to be odier dian itis. Barring successful political action, criticism and literature must be puton hold. (Northrop Frye, Fischer believes, holds much the same view.) Intheory, for Arnold and Frye, literature is significant; it must say importantthings about die extratextual world. But the right sort of world does notexist, and the critic is left only with the text. "A narrow view of knowledgeand a pessimistic or short-sighted oudook on politics combine to undercutthe cognitive authority of literature and to diminish, if not eliminate, itspractical importance" (pp. 30-31). Importance, I take it, for those unfor-tunate citizens of an unjust society where division of labor makesphilistinism inescapable, the very souls for whom literature cannot, alas,be important. So the critics and their texts are cut off from the world. Thefirst axiom of deconstruction has been embraced: nothing but the text.And me deconstructionist game is underway: can we say something aboutthe text that does not refer to anydiing outside it? Not very much, it turnsout, at least nothing of what we would in common parlance call "signifi-cant" or "true." But if standards of truth do not govern what we say, wecan say anydiing at all, and claim the text as the inspiration for, or the oc-casion of, our babbling, and reject, as philistine, any query as to thesignificance of what we have said.The move toward skepticism has the semblance of logic. It is far from

clear, though, why the skeptical conclusion should be taken to imply alicense to say anything at all. Why should it not recommend just as well a

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moratorium on critical talk? Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one oughtanyway to be silent.So die logical passage from Arnold's conception of suspended truth in

poetry to deconstruction encounters heavy weather. Arnold and Frye wereconcerned with die significance of literature: what it says, or might in bet-ter times say, to us. But we should be careful not to confuse thesignificance with the meaning of literary work. I can ask what the poemmeans to me, supposing by the question that it says something importantabout my character or field of action. Interpretation is, in this sense, ap-plication, a sense which invites comparison to the interpretation of law. Itis interesting that Fischer at one point uses diis analogy: "Unlike a judge,say, whose interpretive decisions matter enough for others to debate andquestion diem, the academic critic has litde incentive to be clear, fair, orthorough" (p. 103).Here die hopelessly ambiguous word "meaning" takes hold in a par-

ticular way. Our society resolves disputes by litigation. As a potentiallitigant I want the Constitution or a statute to be "interpreted" in a waythat favors my interests in a particular case. I want the judge to apply thelaw in a way favorable to me. The judge's decision, his interpretation, ismomentous, because the aims of litigants are abetted or frustrated by thedecision.Of course the interpretation of a literary text is not remotely like this.

We are not in die habit of asking how Aeneas' choice between Dido andRome applies to a problem before us, because we are not accustomed tothinking of a literary text as containing authoritative principles of conduct.We might explore the significance of Book IV of TheAeneid by trying it outon our own or our neighbor's experience, but this is done with a view toamplifying the text, not using it as a way of deciding what to do. Were weto read a text in that spirit, however, we should have accorded it diesignificance Arnold would like it to have. We would have come to regard itas scripture, embodying canonically die wisdom of the community. Butwe have agreed that literature has no such social function. The very ideaof such a thing reminds us ofthat garrulous old man in TheMoonstone, whogot his answer to any perplexity by opening Robinson Crusoe and allowinghis eye to focus at random on a particular passage. We do not awaitheaven, hell, or a judge's verdict in response to our reading, but at mostthe contumely of our peers, or rejection letters from PMLA.Critics know, surely, that literary texts are not binding as is the law,

and critics are not officers as are judges. But do they resent dieir lessexalted status? When it dawns on them that no one takes them seriouslyenough, do they refuse to play, like the child who sweeps the pieces from

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the board? And, like the child too, do they want their tantrums to be no-ticed?— not bad, perhaps, as a psychological account of die posturing ofmodernist critics. But it is hardly a rational defense of deconstructionismto note that its practitioners suffer from pique.Still, it brings out what critics mean by their self-denying ordinance,

"Nothing but the text," and its alleged consequence, die indeterminacy ofmeaning. "Nothing but the text" tells us that texts are not canonical, andcritics are not prophets. The openness to an indefinite range of interpreta-tions tells us only that literature does not count for enough in our cultureto excite concern as to how it is read. Literature cannot be significant forus the way the Bible once was or the Constitution is now. But it does notfollow that a text can be read anyway you please. It is not somehow in-coherent to try to fathom authorial intent, or to relate the text to its time.These are simply humbler tasks which do not aspire to prophetic orjudicial significance. Why then should deconstructionists, as Fischer's ac-count of them shows, rule out these harmless hobbies? They do so, Ibelieve, by a series of outrages committed against the concept of meaningitself."Nothing but the text" may be good advice to those who, like the

Leavises, thought literature canonical and critics official. But thosegoverned by die self-denying ordinance must explain what one is sup-posed to do widi a text, and nothing but die text. Critics seem to makesome headway, so long as they confine their attention to especially pricklytexts. Finnegans Wake, say, is a natural demonstration projected for puretextuality, though, come to think of it, the best example may well beHumpty Dumpty's explication to Alice of Jabberwocky. Humpty Dumptyoffers one text as an account of another. Not all texts lend themselvesnaturally to that approach. To read a line from The Eustace Diamonds andask what it means in the way one asks what Jabberwocky or the latestnovel written by a Professor of Literature means, abuses the notion ofmeaning itself. Arbitrarily posing this question about any specimen oflanguage assumes an incoherent dieory of meaning, though indeed it hasthe consequence that deconstructionists endorse: the indefinite prolifera-tion of interpretations.What is their theory of meaning? I will let Fischer tell us. He does it as

well as anyone, and besides, somewhat to my surprise, he believes it.Here he is criticizing Christopher Norris writing critically aboutdeconstruction in Deconstruction: Theory and Principle (Methuen, 1982):

Norris betrays [a] penchant for upending straw men when, comment-ing on Derrida's ascription of indeterminacy to writing, he notes that "the

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effect is unsettling not only for linguistics but for every field of inquirybased on the idea of an immediate, intuitive access to meaning" (30). I donot know of any field based on such an idea— linguistics included. In chal-lenging the "idea of an immediate, intuitive access to meaning," Derrida isnot overturning common sense but supporting it.

. . . [BJorrowing an example from Roland Barthes to illustrate "theslippages of everyday referential meaning," Norris cites "die merest oftelegraphic greetings: 'Monday. Returning tomorrow. Jean-Louis'"(112). Norris seems surprised diat multiple ambiguities "lurk behind evensuch a simple and practical piece of language" (for example, "WhichJean-Louis? Which of the various Mondays on which die message might havebeen penned?" [112]. I am surprised by Norris's astonishment: preciselybecause the message is so simple, because it is "the merest of telegraphicgreetings," its meaning is unclear. The sparseness of the text invites theplayful speculation that Norris finds so bold. (pp. 114-15)

Well, frankly, I radier like Norris's "immediate, intuitive access tomeaning." It comes to saying, sometimes words mean what they say, andif they didn't we would not have any idea how to translate puzzling intointelligible discourse. The telegram is cleverly misdescribed to create"multiple ambiguities." For one thing, the telegram was not addressed toyou or me, and Barthes wisely forgets to tell us when and to whom it wassent — normal features of any wire. By suppressing parts of the text he isable to play on the abstract nature of a name of a person or a day of theweek. But the addressee would read die date and would have had a par-ticular Jean-Louis in mind.These emendations do not take us outside die text, but complete it.

Should we say dien that textuality entails multiplicity of interpretation orthat it excludes everything not normally and "intuitively" present in hear-ing or reading with understanding? Sitting at lunch I ask my deconstruc-tionist colleague: "Please pass the butter." Playing his game he will, Idaresay, be up to all sorts of extravagant interpretations: I really meant toget his attention, or divert it from the moment's topic of conversation; Iwas making a point about courtesy to the young Marxist sociologist whohad just reached across the table to grab it for himself; I was really speak-ing in code, and so carrying on a covert conversation with someone else atthe table — a possibility that, once entertained, does indeed open die doorto indeterminateness of meaning. Still, deconstructionist though he is, hepasses the butter. His speculative extravaganza, moreover, is not aboutmy words but about my intentions, what I may have meant to do with astandard, unambiguous English sentence. This suggests that die decon-

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structionist refusal to talk about other minds or social contexts is part ofthe game; it introduces just enough ambiguity to release the player fromthe normal responsibilities to understand what was said.So Barthes knows what the telegram means. He must understand it if

he can ask, "Which Monday?" or "Which Jean-Louis?" He is not ac-quainted with die sender of the wire so he can speculate endlessly on dieidentity of Jean-Louis. But diese are not different readings of thetelegram; they are merely different claims about the identity of Jean-Louis.What an astonishing thing. Barthes tries to convince us diat the text is

indeterminate by invoking hypothetical contexts (possible Jean-Louis's).But appeal to contexts is ruled out by die textuality game. If deconstruc-tionists say that texts are indefinitely ambiguous because they refer toevents in the world and the intentions of actors, but at die same time ruleout inquiry into contexts and intentions, of course meaning will be in-determinate. It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the textualitystrategy denies access to anydiing that could count as evidence in order torelease die critic from any rational constraints. The self-denying ordinanceturns out to be an escape from dull and plodding empirical investigation.No wonder Gerald Graff, quoted by Fischer on p. 104, can say:

Where quantitative "production" of scholarship and criticism is a chiefmeasure of professional achievement, narrow canons of proof, evidence,logical consistency, and clarity of expression have to go. To insist on themimposes a drag upon progress. Indeed, to apply strict canons of objectivityand evidence in academic publishing today would be comparable to theAmerican economy's returning to the gold standard: the effect would bethe immediate collapse of the system. . . . The recent discovery that everytext can be reinterpreted as a commentary on its own textual problematicsor as a self-consuming artifact ensures diat die production of new readingswill not cease even though explication of many authors and works seemsto have reached the point of saturation.

Do you suppose that, having said this, Graff had wished he had bittenhis tongue? The implication is mat criticism, like the economy, suffersfrom the disease of inflation. Critical coin has been devalued. Fischer,anyway, immediately notes the implication:

Textuality, which opens all texts to endless reinterpretation, does notabolish publications but rather multiplies them, each text always allowing

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even more to be written "about" it. Derrida further accelerates productionby erasing the distinctions between literary and extraliterary works, sub-suming everything in words under "writing." Instead of transcending hisspecialty, as I said earlier, he underwrites its imperialist expansion, whichfashionable "interdisciplinary" courses like Literature and Business orLiterature and Philosophy have already begun by annexing die adjoiningdisciplines to the curriculum without disturbing, or rethinking, what wealready have. Far from putting an end to curricula, textuality describeshow they usually grow, one text, author, period, and genre adhering toanodier in a shapeless, directionless mass.

I applaud his sentiment, and thank him for his labors in pruning thisaimless growth before offering it to the reader. His sentiment, though,brings us full circle. Deconstruction is neither an exercise nor a paralogismof rational thought, but a pathological failure of it, requiring the diagnosesof psychologists and sociologists radier than the argument of critics orphilosophers.These explanations are always troublesome. Can it be that physics-

envy or the shrinking audience of serious readers produces diis hystericalbabbling? Are critics merely frantic because no one is listening, and soposture ever more extravagandy and say more and more outrageousthings? The trouble with diis account is diat we all know deconstructionistcolleagues who pass die butter when asked, and are as competent as anyat the dreary logic of committee meetings. We want, pace Derrida, to treattheir views seriously, even diough in the end we may conclude that theirposition rests on deep muddles about die meaning of meaning and inter-pretation. But, really, can anyone miss the differences between the mean-ing of words, dieir use by speakers and writers, die truth of the proposi-tions in texts, and the significance of books? One cannot help but feel it abit condescending to say, poor Derrida, he only needs a course in How toDo Things with Words, or even more to the point, a careful reading of"Pretending." Austin's window washer, remember, was washing the win-dows even though he was also casing the valuables within. Words can belike that. They say what diey mean, even while they communicate some-thing else covertly. But it would be absurd to suppose diat windowwashers must be doing something else if diey are washing the windows atall. Meaning is not always something under, above, or beyond the text.Critics are by their trade preoccupied widi difficult texts, to which dieyrespond by attempting to catch the elusive and evasive in a net of lessproblematic discourse. Redactive habits encourage die idea that behindany set of words stand other words — the meaning of the first. This picture

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leads them to believe interpretation can be endlessly replicated, since it isthe procedure pointing us from one set of words to another. A text forthem is, as it were, like an Oxford Classics Edition; ghosts of print lieunder the page. That is evidently how deconstructionists read. But theghosdy page is mostly imaginary. Much of what we say or write does nothave a meaning, but simply means. What could someone possibly want toknow if, when you say "Please pass die butter" he asks, "What do youmean?" Of course he may not understand English; he may suspect, fromthe context, a deeper or nefarious reason for asking, just then, for die but-ter. But these surmises allude to the excluded nontextual. When no com-petent speaker of English should have occasion to ask what it means,deconstructionists must invent another text; a set of words, which is notwhat die text means. Vistas of endless occupation open up: there are in-deed an indefinite number of things die text does not mean, and an in-definite number of salaries to be paid to demisemiquaver friars.But there I am talking pathology again, attributing odd behavior to

deeper motives and anxieties — unless I go a step further and venture thelibelous thought to which Fischer, in spite of his seriousness, tempts me,that deconstruction is a deliberate fraud. But in a review and widiout legalcounsel, I cannot possibly make such a charge.

Claremont Graduate School