Can’t we deconstruct Derrida’s own writing?
In Differance, Derrida suggests that a given word’s meaning comes not from the word itself, but from its relationship with other words in the structural web, as well as from how it differs from those other words. (Interestingly, each of the words that give a given word its meaning are themselves only reflected in their structural relationship and difference from still other words).
Further, Derrida’s writing suggests that language is not a suitable medium to convey something precise. To the writer, a word has associations and connotations that it may not have to the reader. It hardly matters how exact the writer is in his choice of words; once a word is used in writing, it has an infinite number of possible meanings. Therefore, meaning is not something that can be controlled by the writer.
If meaning cannot be controlled by word choice, even a writer’s own writing can only have meaning for him if he pretends that what he is writing can only be interpreted in the way that he wants it to be interpreted. If it is only through this self-deception that a writer’s words can even be meaningful to the writer himself, what hope can there possibly be for meaningful communication with others? How does Derrida himself expect to convey anything meaningful if all the words, concepts, and signs he uses can be deconstructed just as easily as the works of others that he deconstructs?
Perhaps an answer to this can be found in Derrida’s idea of differance, which apparently is neither a sign nor a concept. It is the origin of structural relations and temporal differences, and therefore itself non-deconstructible.
Is Derrida not cheating his readers, however, by claiming on the one hand that words are uncontrollable in their meaning, and on the other hand, using writing to artfully communicate his own profound idea: differance? Sure, differance may be non-deconstructible in the sense that it is neither a sign nor concept, but rather a non-thing that is the origin and essence of everything. Yet on another level, deconstructible and non-deconstructible themselves constitute a dichotomy that Derrida lays out in this work, and on this level, differance is most certainly a concept.
Yet deconstruction of Derrida’s text paradoxically only works to prove his own point. The texts of other authors that Derrida deconstructs, as well as those that he writes, are indeed uncontrollable, and the meaning represented by them is not fixed. However, they are not meaningless, as they still illustrate differance.
Additionally, Derrida’s text communicates on many levels. At times, he describes differance directly. Yet in the course of his essay, he alternates between direct, rambling, dry, and inscrutable, as if to emphasize the tension and instability existent in any writing. He also names his idea ‘differance’: a word of his own invention that sounds the same as another word, is spelled differently, can be interpreted in many different ways, can only be understood structurally and in its difference from other words, is a concept and a sign, and yet represents an essential and original non-thing that is neither a concept nor a sign. Derrida’s writing therefore communicates his message artfully on many levels.