The Sacrifice of Language: Evaluation and Challenge

I said that my next post would be "The Sacrifice of Language: Implications of Deconstruction". In trying to squeeze this one out, I discovered mentions of implication in all my previous posts on the topic! So, I'll skip ahead to a brief evaluation and challenge of this philosophical/linguistic system.

I see deconstruction coming about (vaguely) like this: the caustic rational principle, homo mensura (man as measure), begins to dissolve the credibility of ideas that challenge it. Religion then becomes relegated to the realm of mysticism (at best), increasingly divorced from the sphere of intellectual life. Without the dogmas of religion breathing life into the organization of particulars, previously objective categories like morality and social ethics break down into individually and culturally relative entities.

Philosophers then noticed (appropriately, I think) that language finds its meaning in connection to complex structures and that these structures vary from culture to culture and individual to individual. The lobotomy of the spiritual from the intellectual blinded men to the possibility of some nature-external reason guiding the mechanisms of language. Without this reason to give credence to language faculties and language itself, why should we accept the possibility of real communication? How can we believe that our speaking meets any common terms in the listener? The listener may answer our sounds or letters with, "I understand." But how do we know that by "I understand" they mean what we think they mean?

Nobody takes the system this far, so here begins my critique:

1. In some limited sense, deconstruction must be true. Certainly, our individual experiences shape our perceptions.
2. Limitless deconstruction hinges upon the belief that no naturally or historically relevant God exists. By limitless deconstruction I mean the application of deconstruction to the exclusion of real communication. A theological explanation for the existence of language easily undermines limitless deconstruction.
   
3. Limitless deconstruction fundamentally deconstructs itself, thereby revealing a false premise. It would be impossible to assert the objective validity of limitless deconstruction (more directly the know-ability of limitless deconstruction), because limitless deconstruction excludes the possibility of (accessing) objective validity. The three primary premises (of which one, two, or all are false) are 1. Linguistic frameworks vary from culture to culture, individual to individual. 2. Linguistic frameworks determine the outcome of communicative effort. 3. No extra-natural reason guides linguistic mechanisms. Of these three, which should we toss? I can hardly argue with 1. and 2.

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I call these posts "The Sacrifice of Language", because writing exhausts me. To write, I must believe the effort worthwhile. I could not write if I believed Derrida. That said, I would still like to argue a positive reason for the effort. I have ideas about this--slow and coming. But here ends, for a while, "The Sacrifice of Language" posts.