Deconstruction for Beginners: A Cheeky, Clever Primer on Derrida’s Infamous Idea

When the closest thing contemporary philosophy had to a rock star, Jacques Derrida, passed away in 2004, reactions to his legacy were the predictable attempts to enshrine the man into legend or pound a stake through his heart. Of the shrine, nothing needs to be pointed out other than the fact that “deconstruction,” the word, has become an irrevocable pop-culture buzzword, and the crypto-concept of deconstruction (without quotation marks) has simultaneously engaged and enraged thinkers around the world. When it comes to the stake, however, L. Kirk Haden’s critique in Skeptic magazine (No. 11, Vol. 4) serves as an able representative of the scorn Derrida has drawn from certain quarters. Castigating the whole of post-modern philosophy, Haden pronounces the sort of judgment historical perspective is best suited to offer by writing, “The post-modern revolution degenerated into one of the most embarrassing episodes in the history of the humanities; an episode from which it will not soon recover, and for which Derrida must bear a large share of responsibility.” And Derrida’s intellectual crime against the humanities? Producing “weird, almost surreal narratives that seemed intentionally unintelligible,” that “took familiar words and concepts hither and yon, and distorted them beyond recognition.”

In defense of the critics, Derrida’s work is, indeed, conceptually and stylistically dense, often putting Derrida out of reach of both casual and expert readers. It’s no surprise to find Derrida placed in the company of other post-modernists, some of whom – notably media theorist Jean Baudrillard – genuinely earn the accusation of obscurantism leveled against them. Because Derrida’s work involves the reading of other works by such figures as Rousseau, Foucault, Nietzsche, Freud, Heidegger, Hegel and so on, unfamiliarity with the source texts makes Derrida’s readings/excavations of these texts an obstacle from the outset. Still, the biggest challenge posed by Derrida is that he doesn’t simply offer a reading of other works; he offers a reading on reading, a confrontation with the perpetual question of the meaning of meaning, a challenge to the traditional Western aim of keeping meaning under control.  Derrida’s “method,” which isn’t really the right way to describe it, has often been (incorrectly) simplified to the act of identifying binary oppositions in a text and blowing them up. But there’s more going on, leading Derrida to deploy intimidating terms like logocentrism, phallogocentrism, différance, arch-writing, and the infamous deconstruction.  We are suddenly thrust into questions about the assumed superiority of speech over writing, authorship, and the iteratibility of language. The extent to which Derrida undermines Western metaphysics is the stuff of fascinating debate.

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Unfortunately, critics like Haden deny even the possibility of such a debate by refusing to consider more than the style of Derrida’s “weird, almost surreal” works. In considering Derrida’s work and legacy, the question becomes: Is Derrida really intentionally unintelligible? As a question, “intentional unintelligibility” is just the sort of loaded subject deconstruction thrives on. Fortunately, it isn’t necessary to offer a philosophical answer to the question in order to judge whether there’s something to be learned from Derrida. By offering an intelligible and comical overview of Derrida’s work, Jim Powell’s Deconstruction for Beginners – a follow-up to his previous Derrida for Beginners – proves itself as robust a refutation of Haden and his fellow critics as one could hope to achieve. This isn’t, of course, to declare that Derrida is impervious to criticism – the German philosopher Jürgen Habermas offers a fascinating and effective rebuttal to the radical critique of reason entailed by postmodernism. But it is certainly safe to dismiss the charge that Derrida is merely a purveyor of fad-inspiring gibberish.

Ironically, Jim Powell’s book might serve to bolster friendly critics by exemplifying how Derrida might be more fun to read about than to read. Cheek aside, for anyone looking for a departure point into a philosopher whose works seem to require several departure points in order to fully grasp, Deconstruction for Beginners is ideal. Although less of a comic book than Derrida for Beginners – the book is more of an illustrated text – the format of an irreverent dialogue between four characters is ideal for keeping the lofty philosophical jargon of academic texts at a distance and delivering instead a friendly yet spot-on conceptual presentation. The only quibble comes from the odd choice of characters – Mark Twain (!), a coyote, a beach bunny/theorist named Uma, and an embodiment of phallogocentrism named Glorious Glorious Bliss of God’s Phallus – which highlights the hit-or-miss nature of the Robert Crumb/indie comic influence and leads to an unnecessarily over-the-top climax transposing textuality into sex-tuality.

If Powell had stopped with a snapshot of Derrida and deconstruction, he would have already offered another worthwhile tome in the For Beginners series. But he has Coyote ask a question that places Derrida’s work within an intriguing international perspective: “If there is neither a beginning nor an end of deconstruction, and if deconstruction is different from one context to the next – then deconstruction must also have taken place in other cultures – long before Jacques Derrida was born.”

Powell’s answer rests in Taoism’s Chuang Tzu, the philosophies of Buddha and Nagarjuna, and haiku poetry, though we could supplement these with other examples. After all, what is zazen, the meditative practice of Zen Buddhism, if not deconstruction aimed at breaking through the duality of self and non-self? Certainly koans, those paradoxical little zen puzzles designed to lead to enlightenment, have the function of defying the ordinary categories and binary oppositions of rational thinking. For example, this classic:

A monk asked Zhaozhou, “What is the meaning of Bodhidharma's coming from the west?”

Zhaozhou said, “The cypress tree in the courtyard.”

And what is Taoism, in its purest philosophical form, if not an attempt to deconstruct intellectual hindrances? As the Tao-Te Ching begins:

The tao that can be told
is not the eternal Tao.
The name that can be named
is not the eternal Name.

Interpreters of deconstruction are fond of pointing out that defining deconstruction as X (whatever X may be) misses the point. The cleverness of Powell’s examination of other cultures, other contexts, is that it points to deconstruction without boxing it in. And that, in essence, is the mark of the book’s success. As Powell’s observes, deconstruction escaped Derrida: “More precisely, its meaning escaped how Derrida uses the term. After all, Derrida shows how all terms are unstable. And this must apply to the term “deconstruction” also. As well it should. The good news, however, is that deconstruction need not escape readers intrigued but wary of the concept. Deconstruction for Beginners demonstrates serious substance beneath its lighthearted surface, and helps bring one of philosophy’s most controversial and exciting thinkers within everyone’s reach.

Deconstruction for Beginners. Written by Jim Powell. Illustrated by Joe Lee. $14.95. Visit For Beginners Books for more information, including where to buy.

For the full text of L. Kirk Haden’s critique of Derrida, and a rebuttal by writer/philosopher Gregory Desilet, visit Mr. Desilet's website.

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