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Pied Piper of Atheism: Philip Pullman and Children's Fantasy
| Pete Vere and Sandra Miesel
God Is No Delusion: A Refutation of Richard Dawkins
| Thomas Crean, O.P.
Socrates Meets Descartes
| Peter Kreeft
Sermon in a Sentence: Saint Thomas Aquinas
| John McClernon
New Outpourings of the Spirit
| Joseph Ratzinger
Meet Henri De Lubac
| Rudolf Voderholzer
Marian Devotion in the Domestic Church
| Catherine & Peter Fournier
Joseph Ratzinger: Life in the Church and Living Theology
| Maximilian Heinrich Heim
The Greek Fathers: Their Lives and Adventures
| Adrian Fortescue
Ignatius Catholic Study Bible: The Letter to the Hebrews
| Scott Hahn and Curtis Mitch
Chastity, Poverty and Obedience
| Mother Mary Francis, P.C.C.
The Blessing of Christmas
| Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger
Chance or Purpose?: Creation, Evolution, and a Rational Faith
| Chrisoph Cardinal Schšnborn
Island of the World: A Novel
| Michael O'Brien
The Order of Things
| James V. Schall, S.J.
The Judge: William P. Clark, Ronald Reagan's Top Hand
| Paul Kengor & Patricia Clark Doerner
Seek that Which is Above
| Pope Benedict XVI
Jesus, the Apostles and the Early Church
| Pope Benedict XVI
God and His Image: An Outline of Biblical Theology
| Dominique Barthelemey
An Invitation to Faith: An A to Z Primer on the Thought of Pope Benedict XVI
| Pope Benedict XVI
Mother Benedict: Foundress of the Abbey of Regina Laudis
| Antoinette Bosco
Pope Benedict XVI: The Conscience of Our Age
| Vincent Twomey
Ronald Knox as Apologist: Wit, Laughter and the Popish Creed
| Fr. Milton Walsh
Christians in China: A.D. 600-2000
| Jean Charbonnier
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Everyone is stupid and confused on occasion. But to
dedicate one's entire life to stupidity and confusionthat's a remarkable
and dubious achievement. Yet that's what Jacques Derrida, the father of
deconstructionism, did for several decades.
Born in 1930, the infamous French philosopher passed away this October.
Accounts of his life sought to make sense of the thought and work of a
man whose influence on Western thought has been, unfortunately, quite
significanteven if many people have never heard of him.
His disciples are certain that Derrida had made an
invaluable contribution to humanity, even while their explanations of
the contribution were less than clear."He understood that official
thought turns on rigorously exclusive oppositions: inside/outside, man/woman,
good/evil," wrote Terry Eagleton, professor of cultural theory at
Manchester University. "He loosened up such paranoid antitheses by
the flair and brio of his writing, and in doing so spoke up for the voiceless,
from whose ranks he had emerged."
Im not certain whos in charge of "official thought,"
but I suspect that Eagleton is referring to what most people might call
ordinary, commonsense thinking. Even the venerable Oxford Dictionary
of Philosophy struggles to define deconstructionism, writing, "[Derrida]
tells us that deconstruction is neither an analytical nor a critical tool;
neither a method, nor an operation, nor an act performed on a text by
a subject; that it is, rather, a term that resists both definition and
translation."
To cut to the chase, Derrida taught that language is meaningless, communication
impossible, and life ultimately absurd. This is all the more amazing since
Derrida dedicated most of his life writing and teaching about deconstructionism.
In books and lectures he insisted that words, sentences, and books cannot
really say anythingor, if they do, they cannot say what the author
think they say.
Illogical? Yes. Popular? Yes. Sadly, far too many people in the world
of academia do think that deconstructionism is a most marvelous thing.
One reason is that it allows ideologues to interpret any given text to
mean anything they want it to say. It's just another form of gnosticism,
or secret knowledge: a few enlightened elite are able to really understand
what Dante, Shakespeare, Joyce, or anyone else is actually saying.


Philosopher Roger Kimball, in an essay titled "The
Meaninglessness of Meaning," denounced the "baneful ideas"
of Derrida. "Even if deconstruction cannot be defined, it can be described,"
Kimball stated, "For one thing, deconstruction comes with a lifetime
guarantee to render discussion of any subject completely unintelligible.
It does this by linguistic subterfuge. One of the central slogans of deconstruction
is there is nothing outside the text. In other words, . . .
the meanings of words are completely arbitrary and that, at bottom, reality
is unknowable."
Set aside the big word and youll recognize
that were surrounded by amateur deconstructionists who say, "We
really cant know if something is true or not" or "That
statement means something different for everyone" or "That depends
on what the meaning of is is." Deconstructionism is aptly
named because it seeks to deconstructthat is, destroythe nature
and meaning of language.
Kimball notes, "A blow against the legitimacy of language is at the
same time a blow against the legitimacy of the tradition in which language
lives and has meaning." When language is attacked, truth is attacked;
when words are damaged, humanity is damaged. If words have no meaning,
there is no meaning. Or, if there is, you cannot actually communicate
it. Such thinking must culminate in nihilism and despair.
Derrida stated that we inhabit "a world of signs without fault, without
truth and without origin". Its not surprising that he was an
atheist who had little patience for religion or the belief in the supernatural.
Sadly, his ideas live on precisely because Derrida was wrong: words do
mean something, even when they are misused.
This column originally appeared as "Only
Words" in the November 14-20, 2004 edition of the National
Catholic Register and is reprinted with permission.
Carl Olson
is the editor of IgnatiusInsight.com. He is the co-author of The
Da Vinci Hoax: Exposing the Errors in The Da Vinci Code and author
of Will
Catholics Be "Left Behind"? He resides in a top secret
location in the Northwest somewhere between Portland, Oregon and Sacramento,
California.
If you'd like to receive the FREE IgnatiusInsight.com e-letter (about
every 2 to 3 weeks), which includes regular updates about IgnatiusInsight.com
articles, reviews, excerpts, and author appearances, please click here to sign-up today!
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G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936) was one of the finest Christian authors and apologists
of the past two hundred years. Raised as an agnostic, he embraced Christianity as a young man, ultimately entering the Catholic Church
in 1922. He wrote hundreds of essays, as well as novels, short stories, poetry, apologetics, literary
criticism, and nearly everything else imaginable. Dale Ahlquist, president and co-founder of the American
Chesterton Society and author of
G.K Chesterton: Apostle of Common Sense, writes, "Chesterton was equally at ease with literary and social criticism,
history, politics, economics, philosophy, and theology. His style is unmistakable, always marked
by humility, consistency, paradox, wit, and wonder. His writing remains as timely and as timeless
today as when it first appeared, even though much of it was published in throw away paper." Read more
about the life and work of this remarkable thinker, author, and apologist.
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Confessions of an Ex-Feminist
by Lorraine V. Murray
Confessions is the honest and heart-rending account of a woman who was born into a Catholic family, attended parochial schools and
fully embraced the beliefs of her faith, but ran into major roadblocks in college. Amidst the radical feminist college environment of
the 1960's, she lost her faith, and her morality, jumping aboard the bandwagon of "free love." She indulged in a series of love relationships
in college, all of which crashed and burned. Despite the obvious contradiction between feminist teachings and her own experience,
Murray still believed she had to free herself from the yoke of tradition. Attaining a doctorate in philosophy, with an emphasis on the
feminist writings of Simone de Beauvoir, Murray taught philosophy in college. For many years, she launched a personal vendetta against
God and the Catholic Church in the classroom, trying to persuade students that God did not exist, mocking values Catholics hold dear,
and touted feminism as the cure for many social ills. When she discovered she was pregnant, Murray followed the route that feminists
offer as a solution for unmarried women. Much to her surprise, her abortion was a shattering emotional experience, which she grieved
over for years. It was the first tragic chink in her feminist armor.
Read more about Confessions of an Ex-Feminist, or
read an excerpt from the book.
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