Reading Response 3: "Derrida"

It was very interesting to read about Derrida’s childhood as a relative outsider and how it may have influenced his theories of deconstruction, and to contemplate the question of what would Derrida’s theories have been like without his experiences in Algeria.

However, there was a particular passage that caught my attention: “within familiar philosophical binaries there is always a violent hierarchy. One term of the binary is always superior to the other. It is the task of deconstruction to disrupt that hierarchy, the place the superior term under erasure” (GT 87).

From what I understand, terms in binaries are understood in how they differ from each other. For example: big and small, we measure how big something is in comparison to how small something else is. Or, sweet and bitter, we understand how bitter something is in relation to what something sweet tastes like. In instances like this, which binary is superior to the other?

In order to understand binary opposition better, I looked online for more detailed examples, and
found one on Wikipedia and I gained a surprisingly good amount of insight, especially regarding my
question of how a particular term in the binary is superior to the other.

  

It mentioned how  “the perceived binary dichotomy between man/woman, civilized/uncivilised, and white/black have perpetuated and legitimized Western power structures favoring  ‘civilized white men’” and even regarding “gender, class, sexuality, race, and ethnicity”, within them, there is an “an unequal binary opposition: bourgeoisie/ working class man; white/people of colour; men/women; heterosexual/homosexual”¹. Granted it’s not the most scholarly website, but it was very easy and clear cut to understand, and how in these examples, one has a societal advantage over the other in the binary.

It also talked about the complications of dichotomy, and even when we are talking about just heroes and villains, there are binaries associated, with even that, such as “good/bad, handsome/ugly, liked/disliked”¹.  It reminded me of our class discussion regarding how heroes are usually associated with lighter clothing colors, and villains are associated with darker colors, and it’s interesting to see how there are dichotomies associated within other dichotomies (in this case, regarding heroes and villains,  and lighter and darker colors).

References:

1.       "Binary Opposition." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. 28 Jan. 2015.