Structure, Sign and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences (Derrida, 1978: 278 293) may be read as the document of an event, although Derrida actually commences the essay with a reservation regarding the word event, as it entails a meaning which it is precisely the function of structural or structuralist thought to reduce or suspect (278).
This, I infer, refers to the emphasis within structuralist discourse on the synchronous analysis of systems and relations within them, as opposed to a diachronic schemata occupied with uncovering genetic and teleological content in the transformations of history. The event which the essay documents is that of a definitive epistemological break with structuralist thought, of the ushering in of post-structuralism as a movement critically engaging with structuralism, but also traditional humanism and empiricism here it becomes the structurality of structure (278) itself which begins to be thought. Immediately however, Derrida notes that he is not presuming to place himself outside of the critical circle or totality in order to so criticise. While the function of the centre of the structure is identified as that which reduces the possibility of thinking this structurality of structure, even though it has always been at work (278), that is, it has always been an economic and economising factor within Western philosophy limiting the play of the structure where I understand play to be associated with uneconomic deconstructive notions such as supplementarity, the trace, and differnce, Derrida notes that even today the notion of a structure lacking any center [sic] represents the unthinkable itself (279).
The Essay on Discuss the use of Form and Structure in Equus
StructurePeter Schaffer's play Equus is a non linear play. This means that it doesn't start at the beginning and nothing else occurs in the order in which you would expect it to. If it was linear, we would start with Alan at a very young age, and finish with the monologue that Dysart opened the play with. We would see what Alan did at the time he did it, and we watch all of the action being ...
This appears to present a conundrum.
For while the centre closes off play, it apparently cannot be done without, at least, it cannot be simply discarded without it re-emerging somewhere else within the totality. The conundrum is in fact a paradox and a coherent contradiction of classical thought, which echoes the Freudian theory of neurotic symptoms where a symbol at once expresses the desire to fulfil and suppress a given impulse (339).
Hence, the contradiction expresses the force of a desire (279).
The centre is, according to Derrida, both within and without the totality it is an elsewhere (Derridas italics) of the totality. It is also a difficult and paradoxical concept to grasp. The notion of a full presence informs metaphysical discourses in movements aiming to uncover origins or to decode, prophesy even, the aims of philosophical and metaphysical thought.
Derrida then makes what I read as an important statement: that the entire history of the concept of structuremust be thought of as a series of substitutions of center [sic] for center, as a linked chain of determinations of the center (279) and the centre thus receives many different forms or names. The name here refers to the name as primary concept grounding the subject in the immediate self-presence of the I, rather than as signifier as part of the constitution of the subject as self-present, and here is reflected the Lacanian observation in The insistence of the letter in the unconscious (1988: 79 – 106).
Lacan writes that not only here is no meaningsustained by anything other than a reference to another meaning (83), but like the substitutions of centre for centre, We are forced, then, to accept the notion of an incessant sliding of the signified under the signifier (87).
Echoing Derridas linked chain of determinations, Lacan here also writes that, namely, the signifying chain, gives an approximate idea: rings of a necklace that is a ring in another necklace made of rings (86).
Derrida continues on to propose a decentring, which refers to thinking the structurality of structure, and offers several names, not echoing Foucaultian author-functions but as hints or signals these names being those of Nietzsche, who substituted Being and Truth with play and sign refusing Truth, the name of Freud who placed the Descartian consciousness qua I think therefore I am under critique by the construction of the unconscious; and that of Heidegger and the placing under suspicion of the determination of being as presence (280) Conscious of limited space, I will move on to Derridas central (aware that this word entails a certain paradox) concern in this text, which is a deconstruction of certain passages by the structural anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss. The guiding thread Derrida chooses is Levi-Strauss opposition between nature and culture.
The Essay on Myth Being False and True Simultaneously
One commonality nearly all past human cultures possess is that they attempted to explain the unknown through fanciful tales of Gods, Goddesses, Spirits or other magical beings that through some manner were able to control the weather and shape the world around them. Amongst these varied tales one particular set of myths stands out as being a common creation in past societies namely that of the ...
(I am in parts paraphrasing elements from page 282 287).
Derrida writes that Levi-Strauss encounters a scandal, which is the incest prohibition (283).
The scandal is in that the prohibition is simultaneously universal and thus natural, while also at the same time as a system of norms and interdicts (283): it is cultural. The contradiction encountered by Levi-Strauss is that the difference established in the nature/culture binary opposition is erased or at least questioned. Due to this erasure of difference the origin of this prohibition becomes unthinkable as the whole of philosophical conceptualisationis designed (283/284) to leave the possibility of the conceptualisation unthinkable, that is, the meaning of the construction of meaning, difference having been erased, becomes itself impossible to bring to account. Levi-Strauss, by way of this realization, is forced to move from metaphysics to metacommentary (cf. Jameson, 1988) because even though he criticises the truth-value of the nature/culture distinction, he affirms a certain logic thereof, fully justifying the use of this logic as a methodological tool. Here Derrida claims a double-intention (284) on Levi-Strauss part.
Whilst continuing (eg in The Savage Mind) to challenge the worth of the opposition, he nonetheless presents in the same work the notion of bricolage a type of borrowing of concepts of a ruined text, which borrowing may even be critical language itself. Derridas following comments on Levi-Strauss The Raw and the Cooked highlight two points: 1. The reference myth of the book is an arbitrary choice. Levi-Strauss himself states that he could have taken any one myth as his starting point. But he has chosen this one because of its irregular position (286).
The Research paper on Levi’s Strauss: a case study from an organizational plan point of view
Levis is undoubtedly one of the most recognizes brand of jeans on the planet. The business found by the Strauss family in 1875, initially manufactured jeans for miners out of tent fabric and canvas. However they later shifted to manufacturing jeans from denim which gained popularity amongst miners during the California gold rush. Strategic elements of an organisational plan The process of ...
2.
There is no unity or absolute source of the myth (286).
It all begins with an already given structure hence we cannot invoke an absolute source or centre. Indeed structural discourse on myths mythological discourse must itself be mythomorphic. Derrida quoting from The Raw and the Cooked: It follows that this book on myths is itself a kind of myth. An important sentence follows shortly thereafter: The musical model chosen by Levi-Strauss for the composition (my italics) of his book is apparently justified by this absence of any real or fixed center [sic] of the mythical or mythological discourse (287).
Musical composition like mathematical calculation is primarily, in post-modern culture even exclusively so I would argue, concerned with form the absence of a centre foreshadows the dissolution of the concept, of referential meaning breaching the bar between form and content. Here Derrida notes that Levi-Strauss cannot answer the question whether all discourses on myth are finally equivalent.
The result of this is that even though structuralism critiques empiricism, Levi-Strauss always presents his works as empirical essays open to future invalidation, and this makes the location of a centre impossible Two more points will have to suffice here: 1. The nature of the linguistic field inevitably excludes totalisation. The field is one of play (289).
2. A surplus effect occurs as a supplement, which refuses determination of the centre (289).
Levi-Strauss articulates this field of play in terms of a certain nostalgia (see pp.
291/292), for it makes a totalising aim useless. It is thus negative where Derrida rather proposes a Nietzschian joyous affirmation of the play of the world and the innocence of becoming (292).
It is a determination of the non-centre in terms other than those of loss, guilt, or nostalgia. In summary, Derrida sees Levi-Strauss as making [the] disconcerting discovery [that there is no centre, no secure philosophical ground] in the discovery of his researches and then retreating [into guilt or nostalgia] from a full recognition of its implications (Lodge, 1988: 107) Derrida concludes with the question of the differnce of this irreducible difference (293) between the above, noting that it takes the terrifying form of monstrosity (293), which would be a good point from which to move to the deconstruction of the monster as both the terrifying but that which also (de)monstrates as monstrance, explored in the essay Geschlecht II: Heideggers Hand (Derrida, 1987: 161 196).
The Essay on The Myth Of The Lost Cause
Following the defeat of the Confederacy and to lift the morale of a shattered people momentum gathered to enshrine the Myth of the Lost Cause which would transform the Southern soldier living and dead, into a veritable hero. In order to come to terms with defeat and a look of failure in the eyes of God, Southerners mentally transformed their memories of the antebellum South. It became a superior ...
REFERENCES Derrida, J (1978) Structure, Sign and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences, in Writing and Difference, trans. A. Bass.
London: Routledge, pp 278-294. (1987) Geschlecht II: Heideggers Hand in Deconstruction and Philosophy, ed. J Sallis. University of Chicago Press, pp 161 196. Jameson, F (1988) Metacommentary in The Ideologies of Theory, Vol I. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, pp 3 16.
Lacan, J (1988) The insistence of the letter in the unconscious in Modern Criticism and Theory, ed. D Lodge. Essex: Longman Group, pp 79 106. Lodge, D (1988) Jacques Derrida in Modern Criticism and Theory, ed. D Lodge. Essex: Longman Group, pp 107 – 108..
