THE STATE OF CRITICISM
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that when Derrida praises his friends, he tells us that their translation is
"rigorous and faithful. " When he wishes to attack his critics, he insists
that they have distorted his writing by omitting "important" parts or
not attending to the "clear signals " the text con tained, signals designed
to
prevent our blurring an important distinction it draws. Or he heaps
withering scorn on his opponent for resorting
to
"woolly approxima–
tions. "
Likewise, I cannot here present an argument against Paul de
Man's move from the claim that the distinctive curse of all language is
that its signs never coincide with its signifiers
to
the conclusion that
the human self is a void, a nothingness, and that literature is the
persistent and unmystified naming of this nothingness. But since my
mode here is reminiscence, I will recall that I have heard not an
antagonist, but a devotee of de Man ask him whether his own text was
not an allegory of its own unreadability, and where that left its claim to
be
"about," say, Rousseau. De Man 's reply, annoyance audible in his
voice, was that his own work didn't interest him.
If
someone else
wanted to deconstruct it, that was fine with him, but he wanted to talk
about Rousseau. This seems a fair enough retort to such a question:
one ought to be reminded that the deconstruction lies in the actual,
painstaking analysis, not in leaping
to
conclusions. But on the other
hand, the question has its rights. Is the decision about where you
choose
to
stop deconstructing simply a matter of personal interest?
Subjective criticism has already become a pedagogy. Deconstruc–
tion has not yet, though in France, Derrida has been actively concerned
with reforming education along lines consistent with his theories. In
fact, like any method, deconstruction is eminently teachable, especially
to graduate students already trained by New Criticism. I can foresee
that it could become a new rhetorical technology, complete with
special vocabulary and recommended procedures, though such a
reduction would presumably miss the real point of deconstruction.
Alternatively, it may be possible to deconstruct the classroom situation
itself. an exercise I predict will be perceived and appreciated by only a
very few, very bright students.
I do not intend here to develop an alternative critical theory and
deduce a pedagogy from it. Instead, I want to mention some elements
of thinking in a classroom which I have come
to
prize in teacher and
student alike.
The first element is an evidentiary cast of mind, an appetite for
sheer information. The term " fact" obviously covers a wide spectrum
along scales of comprehensiveness and generality. A "fact" may
