By DONALD DeMARCO
The word “deconstruction,” very much like the word “existentialism,” has a certain cachet. It enjoys currency among those who want to be “hip to what is hip.” It presumes to be a legitimate branch of philosophy, but its trendiness and superficiality are hardly consistent with philosophy as the perennial search for wisdom. It is fashionable among university intellectuals who pride themselves for being avant-garde. For those outside of academe, “deconstruction” is regarded as a synonym for gobbledygook.
The deconstructionist begins by doubting the firm reality of just about everything. As a result, he comes to believe that certain verities that people have long taken for granted, such as morality, religion, nature, and art, have all been arbitrarily constructed and therefore need to be de-constructed. Very little remains once these verities have all be deconstructed or “erased,” to employ a favorite word of many deconstructionists. There appears to be very little that is not susceptible to being deconstructed. One writer contends that “the laws of physics are merely social conventions, like traffic laws.”
Deconstruction, therefore, is a process that opens up a vast area of freedom. Once reality has been deconstructed, individuals are pretty much free to be or to do whatever they please. Here, Jean-Paul Sartre’s famous dictum comes into play: “existence precedes essence.” But the road to this wide-open freedom is also the road to nihilism, though some deconstructionists attest that it is “nihilism with a happy ending.” Nonetheless, the notion of unbounded freedom has appeal for many people. Realistically, however, if we have nothing to stand on, we remain unable to move.
One important area of deconstruction is gender. Traditionally, gender has always been closely associated with male and female and its most authoritative pronouncement is in the Book of Genesis where God states, “Male and female He created them.” But now, under the knife of deconstruction, “gender” is regarded as an arbitrary construct. As a result, gender becomes something that one chooses.
A university professor, Judith Butler, offers the following explanation: “When the constructed status of gender is theorized as radically independent of sex, gender itself becomes a free-floating artifice, with the consequence that man and masculine might just as easily signify a female body as a male one, and woman and feminine a male body as easily as a female one” (Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity).
The social media offer popular images of celebrities who seem to personify what Dr. Butler is saying. Consider the protean images portrayed by the likes of Boy George, Mick Jagger, Madonna, Eddie Izzard, Marilyn Manson, Lady Gaga, and various drag queens. Once gender is deconstructed, anything goes, except, of course, holding to the notion that sex and gender are intrinsic to the human being and provide a reliable basis for the natural law.
Butler is one a number of feminists who have deconstructed womanhood itself. Julia Kristeva, for example, maintains: “Strictly speaking, ‘women’ cannot be said to exist.” She argues that although there are no women (because that would constitute a stereotype), we should keep using the term because it represents political advantages for women. Such radical feminists are not afraid of indulging in contradictions. Nonetheless, more logically minded feminists insist that if there is one reality that feminists must uphold, it is the reality of the feminine.
Christina Hoff Sommers, a feminist in her own right, has authored a book appropriately titled, Who Stole Feminism?
Nature is a stubborn reality and will not be banished by an academic trend. As Cicero said, long ago, “Custom will never conquer nature; nature will always remain unconquerable” (Numquam naturam mos vinceret; est enim semper invicta). For Christians, the Incarnation of Christ, the Word made Flesh, is a definitive indication of the reality of the body, as well as the reality of sex and gender.
It is a small wonder, then, that deconstructionists regard the logos, personified in the Gospel According to St. John, as “the enemy.” The Incarnation of Christ as definitively a man is an article of faith. But the reality of nature and gender are also validated by simple observation and common sense. One’s gender is usually the first thing we notice in another person and the last thing we are likely to forget.
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(Donald DeMarco is a senior fellow of Human Life International. He is professor emeritus at St. Jerome’s University in Waterloo, Ontario, and an adjunct professor at Holy Apostles College and Seminary in Cromwell, Conn., and a regular columnist for St. Austin Review. Some of his recent writings may be found at Human Life International’s Truth & Charity Forum.)
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