Deconstruction, literature and ideology

Abstract

This paper attempts to show how deconstruction is liable to misunderstanding and non recognition (especially in South Africa and in the USA) because of the fact that it is divorced from its materialist base and because of the failure to understand it as essentially a critique of Western metaphysics, as a deconstruction of (Hegelian) idealism in all its ramifications, and not of texts as such. When texts are read/written, they are used to illustrate concepts and to unearth codes of society structured by ideology. Thus The Theory of the Text, in fact, necessitates a sociology of literature.
The deconstructionist needs to know exactly what he or she is trying to escape from and needs to make visible the hidden ideologies and thereby supplying intertextually validated alternative interpretations. This is allowed for by Barthes, but Barthes did not bother to undertake it, thus ignoring a central discovery of the Bakhtin school: that the ideological nature of meaning implies that the sign, when used, is always a site of struggle, whether one is aware of it or not.

Opsomming
Hierdie artikel toon hoedat dekonstruksie maklik misverstaan en misken kan word en rs (veral in Suid-Afrika en in die VSA) vanwee die feit dat dit losgemaak word van sy materialistiese grondslag en vanwee 'n onvermoe om dit te verstaan as wesentlik 'n kritiek op Westerse metafisika, as 'n dekonstruksie van (Hegeliaanse) idealisme en wat daarmee gepaard gaan en nie as 'n dekonstruksie van tekste as sodanig nie. Wanneer tekste gelees/geskryf word, is dit om konsepte te illustreer en om ideologies-gevormde sosiale kodes uit te lig. Die Teorie van die Teks noodsaak dus 'n literatuursosiologie.
Die dekonstruksiekritikus moet weet waarvan hy/sy wegvlug en moet ideologiee ont­bloot en ook alternatiewe interpretasies gee wat intertekstueel bewys word. So 'n benade­ring is moontlik binne Barthes se teorie, maar Barthes het horn nie geerg aan so 'n onderneming nie, waardeur hy 'n kritieke ontdekking van die Bakhtin-skool verwaarloos het, naamlik: dat die ideologiese aard van betekenis onvermydelik impliseer dat die stryd gaan om die gebruikte teken, of mens daarvan bewus is of nie.