Why Deconstruct?

Once you deconstruct a system by pointing out its inconsistencies, by

showing where there is play in the system, you have two choices. One is that
you can throw out the whole structure as no good. Usually then you try to
build another structure with no inconsistencies, no play. But that is
impossible - that's just like substituting one centre for another and not
seeing that the centre (or transcendental signified) is just a concept, which
has "play" like any other, and not a fixed and stable "truth." The other
option is to keep using the structure, but to recognize that it is flawed.This
means to stop attributing "truth value" to a structure or system, but rather
to see that system as a system, as a construct, as something built around a
central idea that holds the whole thing in place, even though that central
idea (like the idea of binary opposites) is flawed or even an illusion.

Derrida and Levi-Strauss call this latter method "bricolage," and the person
that does it a "bricoleur." This is somebody who doesn't care about the
purity or stability of the system s/he uses, but rather uses what's there to
get a particular job done. In philosophical terms, I might want to talk about
a belief system, so I refer to "god" because it serves as a useful illustration
of something that a lot of people believe in; I don't assume that "god"
refers to an actual being, or even to a coherent system of beliefs that
situate "god" at the centre and that then provide a stable code of
interpretation or behaviour. You might also think of tinker toys. Even though
I may not have a complete set, and some of the parts are broken or don't fit
together any more, I don't throw the whole set out and buy a new one (or a
set of building blocks); I keep playing with the tinker toys, and I can even
incorporate things that aren't from the original tinker toy set (such as
building blocks, or alphabet blocks, or soup cans) to make what I want to
make. That is bricolage.

Bricolage does not worry about the coherence of the words or ideas it uses.
For example, you are a bricoleur if you talk about penis envy or the Oedipus
complex and you don't know anything about psychoanalysis; you use the
terms without having to acknowledge that the whole system of thought that
produced these terms and ideas, i.e. Freudian psychoanalysis, is valid and
"true." In fact, you don't care if psychoanalysis is true or not (since at heart
you don't really believe in "truth" as an absolute, but only as something that
emerges from a coherent system as a kind of illusion) so long as the terms
and ideas are useful to you. Derrida contrasts the bricoleur with the
engineer. The engineer designs buildings which have to be stable and have
little or no play; the engineer has to create stable systems or nothing at all.
He talks about the engineer as the person who sees himself as the centre of
his own discourse, the origin of his own language. This guy thinks s/he speaks
language, s/he originates language, from her/his own unique existence. The
liberal humanist is usually an engineer in this respect. Bricolage is
mythopoetic, not rational; it's more like play than like system.

The idea of bricolage produces a new way to talk about, and think about,
systems without falling into trap of building a new system out of the ruins of
an old one (88b). It provides a way to think without establishing a new
centre, a subject, a privileged reference, an origin. Derrida reads Levi-
Strauss' discussion of myth in The Raw and the Cooked as a kind of
bricolage on p. 89. On p. 91 Derrida starts talking about the idea of
"totalization". Totalization is desire to have a system, a Theory, a
philosophy, that explains everything. The Puritans thought they had
totalizing system - God is at the centre, is the source and origin of
everything, and reference to God explains everything that happens. Derrida
says that totalization is impossible: no philosophy or system explains
absolutely everything. (You might recall the old science fiction cliché "there
are some things man was not meant to know"). There are two ways in which
totalization is impossible: there might be too much to say, too many things to
account for; or (Derrida's explanation) there might be too much play in the
system - elements can't be fixed and measured and accounted for. Think
again about the kindergarten class. Totalization would be taking attendance;
you can't do it if there are a million kids, even if they're all sitting at their
desks. You also can't do it if there are 14 kids all running around all over the
place. When a system lacks a centre, play becomes infinite; when a system
has a center, play is limited or eliminated. All systems fall on a continuum
between the two. On p. 91a&b, Derrida talks about the idea of
supplementarity of the centre. Do not worry about this part. Settle for
understanding the basic ideas about centre and play.