Deconstructing Deference

I'm fascinated by the word "divisive" and this post will be about working through some of what I think it means. If you believe in meaning.

I'm house-sitting for a professor today who when I was an undergraduate, taught me some critical theory which was really, you know, critical. *giggles at own pun*

This is going to be seriously reductive, but unless you go online and watch a Harvard professor explain it in detail for several hours (still not doing it justice), there's no way to not be reductive about critical theory.

I am at heart a structuralist. I like to look at frames and systems in the abstract and compare them to other frames and systems. I see the shape of things underneath. But at some point, the structuralist project became reduced to a series of binary distinctions, like 1:1 antonyms, which then became food for deconstruction. Derrida in an interview explained that anytime you put words to a distinction between concepts it is in the nature of language and being to favor one over the other. 

So when you hear words like "liberal" or "conservative" you are inclined to favor the one with which you agree, and disparage the one you agree with less.

For a long time now, politics has been at the mercy of rhetoric, especially in a pseudo-Democracy where popular opinion has some influence. All sides (I don't want to use "both" because it too easily falls into a binary fallacy - the black and white fallacy that there are only two sides to an issue) have been using words and JUST words to discredit the other side. If "conservative" can become synonymous with "bigoted," or if "liberal" can become synonymous with "communist" or if "centrist" can become synonymous with "weak" or "waffling" then people will vote against them, and for us. And if we can tie that rhetoric to the core fears of the American people (our primary motivation, according to one history professor, is to maintain our economic status quo), then we win, right?

I read a comment on Facebook this morning from someone complaining about "divisiveness." Derrida would probably point out the obvious: that all language is divisive. But what did this person understand by the term? Was she complaining about difference? Because it is not just, honest, or in our best interests as a culture to expect everyone to agree with us (or keep silent while we voice our opinions) for the sake of "keeping the peace." Disagreement is not necessarily contention. We NEED difference for our system to work (for language to work!), and for anything to change: to improve.

I think that the active ingredient in "divisiveness" is ad hominem - when we attempt to judge a person's essential nature by their beliefs or words or the sub-group to which they belong. A person can generally adhere to conservative principles and still be a person, and by virtue of that personhood deserves certain deference - a respect for their life, their bodily well-being, and their divine nature as a fellow sibling in the species. This does not necessarily negate physical consequences for actions: a person who commits a murder, for instance, may face the death penalty if that is the consequence agreed on by the social group to which that person belongs. It is an action as punishment for an action, not necessarily a final judgment on the nature of a soul, though this might be better argued by one of my lawyer brothers. Even in this extreme example, it is a slippery slope from calling a person who committed a murder a "murderer" to calling a person who CAN or MIGHT commit murder a "murderer." See Philip K. Dick.

People who advocate for PC terminology will argue that the change needs to start in language, that we need to stop name-calling ("bigot," "communist" etc.) and instead criticize specific actions. And for some people, a change in thinking will start with a change in language. But there are many who resist changing their language probably because language is to closely tied with their identity (but the way they explain it, it sounds more like laziness). For those people who understand that good (kindness, justice, etc) and evil (cruelty, injustice) are obvious but who disagree on how good principles should be applied, how do we show people that we disagree, or are even disgusted by the ideas they advocate without betraying our disgust for the person (or better still, without feeling it)?


I just engaged in a rather pointless argument online with someone who simply refused to understand why I expressed the opinion I expressed, because her opinion was different. She became frustrated because nobody in the conversation seemed to achieve her level of fair-mindedness, while we became frustrated that she didn't seem to understand the well-grounded reason behind our supposed "imbalance." The conclusion of the argument is that we continued to disagree. I suppose I have no large opinion of her capacity for logic, and she has no large opinion of my sense of justice. But now I am free to process information I gained from the exchange, and so is she. I can start to see what she values, and reform my image of what our world should be like to incorporate our differences. We both have to live here.

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