Language, Power, and Play: The Dance of Deconstruction and Practical Wisdom

Author(s): James N. Laditka

Reviewed work(s):
Source: Rhetoric Review, Vol. 9, No. 2 (Spring, 1991), pp. 298-311
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JAMES N. LADITKA
MohawkValley CommunityCollege

Language, Power, and Play:

The Dance of Deconstruction and Practical Wisdom
Some colleagues at my college and I have recently worked to refresh our
teachingthrough"theory."While a few in our department,like many in Composi-
tion elsewhere, voice their skepticism openly, most of us are at least willing to
consider the possibility that our practice might be improved throughan under-
standing of currenttrends in rhetoric,semiotics, feminism, Marxism,and other
approachesto understandingour world thatlend themselvesto theoreticalways of
knowing.It seems clear fromrecentgatheringsof the 4Cs thatmy local colleagues
and I are not alone; we in Compositionnow find ourselves asking more often to
what extent the theoryof recentdecades might presentsuggestionsor imperatives
for change in our teaching.
But why ask of theory what might be its implications for changes in our
practice?Why, indeed, should we not ratherinterrogatetheoryfrom the perspec-
tive of our daily experience as teachers,celebratingwhat Stephen M. North has
called our Practitioner's"lore,"our privateknowledge of what seems to work in
the day-to-dayof ourclassrooms?Certainly,we shouldmaintaina criticalperspec-
tive as we consider any proposal for significant alterationsto our practice,par-
ticularly since most of us now recognize that any theory is in the end often little
more thanelaboraterationalization,a play of power upholdingthe world-view of
some individual or group. In our practitioners'role, we who teach Composition
surely gain some vital insight over the years into what "works"with our students,
and any theory must necessarilypass our tests for reasonablenessin light of that
experience.
Yet there is also somethingto be said for framingour investigationthe other
way around,asking what theoryhas to say to practice.Louise WetherbeePhelps,
for example,has writtenpersuasivelyaboutthe importanceof theoryfor successful
teaching. While praxis "disciplines"theory, she writes, it cannot dominate the
relationship.Bringing theory into practicehelps us to make "manifestnovel and
unanticipatedmeanings within future situations"("Towarda Human Science"
233). Perhapsmore importantly,the varietyof perspectivesthatopen to us through
theory can enable us to reconceive our understandingof current practice, to
redescribeexperience and point to new ways of being and doing (229). I am not
certainof the mechanism,the process,butI believe thatmy teachinghas improved
throughthe years,and I thinkthereis a relationshipbetweenthatimprovementand

298 RhetoricReview,Vol.9, No. 2, Spring 1991

Language,Power, and Play 299

my professionalreading-including these investigationsof theory.It may be that

the checks of theory have to some extent helped me to avoid in my teaching a
characteristicdifficulty identifiedby North:We practitionerstend to matureto a
state of "practicalinertia,"where we are sometimesblindedto the ineffectiveness
of mismatchingproblemsand solutions in novel situations.One reason many of
us have continuedto enjoy workingin Compositionis preciselythe daily infusion
of novelty, and in this atmosphereof continual change we all can recognize in
ourselves and our colleagues evidence of this not-so-practical"practicalinertia"
fromtime to time (on "Practitioners" see North21-55). So, in ourpractitionerroles
we need to remainopen to the possibilitythatwe may find insightsof value in the
work of theoristsand researchers,from whateverdisciplinarycontext they may
appear(see Lauer).
My intent here is not to translate naively and uncritically some current
canonicalsof theoryintoteachingbutto explorea possible "reading"of one aspect
of current theory, to scout what might be helpful there for developing new
perspectives on our teaching practice. So I do not intend to invoke these voices
from theory for theirconnectionwith some source, some truth.Rather,it is these
voices which hold sway in an importantcomer of ourprofessionaldiscourseat the
moment,andthusit seems we shouldexaminetheirperspectivesfor the possibility
thatthey may offer somethingof value to our individualpractice.Most important-
ly, those in ascendanceamongourtheoristsplay a role in decidingwho is accorded
the rightto speakin ourprofessionandthe way in which theirvoices arereceived;
and eventually-it is in many cases a process of years, to be sure-all of this
professionaldiscourse begins to play a role in the way studentsare taught.So I
believe we have an ongoing obligationto interrogatetheoryto discernits implica-
tions for our teaching.

Wondering/Wandering in the Postmodern Problematic

William Covino's "revisionistreturnto the history of rhetoric,"The Art of
Wondering,representsone trend in theory that raises some interestingquestions
for teachersof Composition.It seems to me thatthere is enough of importancein
Covino's work and in the perspectiveit representsthat its implicationsdeserve to
be consideredwith some care. This is my purposehere.
Covino invites us to celebratecounterinduction,to breakthe rules of reason.
Basing his work on the science philosophy of Paul Feyerabend, Derrida's
deconstruction,and the social anthropologyof CliffordGeertz,Covino asks us to
forsakeany searchfor truth,to establishalternativeworlds, to find or invent new
conceptual systems that suspend or clash with those which seem to us most
plausible,to introduce"perceptionsthatcannotformpartof the existingperceptual
world"(Feyerabend32). In this vision for Composition,we are to eschew "com-
municativeefficiency,"privilegingalways the ambiguitythatCovino finds in the
likes of Plato,Montaigne,andByron.While I am not certainthatwe shouldor can
300 RhetoricReview

ever fulfill this vision of deconstructionin our classrooms-or, for thatmatter,in

our own thought-I am interestedhere to at least explore some possibilitieswhich
might accrue if we were to attemptto teach a Compositionbased on this art of
wondering.
Have Covino andthe deconstructionistswanderedtoo far fromthe securityof
home and logos, our Westerntraditionof rationalism?Certainly,some of our
colleagues believe thatthey have-and a fargreaternumberwho will probablynot
read Covino and the others would likely share this skepticism. Yet The Art of
Wonderingraises importantquestions for educators.One of Covino's sources,
Feyerabend's"anarchistictheoryof knowledge,"for example,proposesa clearand
inviting educationagenda:"A maturecitizen,"Feyerabendasserts,is not one who
has been instructed in "a special ideology, such as Puritanism, or critical
rationalism,"carrying this ideology with her "like a mental tumor";rather,a
maturecitizen is a personwho has learnedhow to makeup herown mind(307-08).
Yet this mature citizen we might hope to nurturein a Compositionclassroom
modeledon Covino's artwould necessarilyrecognizethatall of herdecisions must
always remain tentative, provisional, contaminated.She would recognize, with
CliffordGeertz,thatthereareno "neutral"perspectivesfromwhich we mightview
ourworldwith objectivity,thatthereareno transcendenttruthsthatwe mightcome
to know. The foundationalismthatgroundshumanism,thatsearchfor first causes
and securetruthsthatis premisedon the agency of autonomousauthors/subjects-
all of this we are to thrustfrom our windows. We are to side, then, with David
Hume's skepticism:Since "whateveris, may not be," we are advised to privilege
nothing,or, what amountsto nearlythe same for our practice,to privilege every-
thing equally.The difficulty here, of course, is the possibility that we may end in
a state of philosophical quackery,unproductivefor the studentwriter-whether
we considerherpreparationfor the academyor whether,more important,we look
to her developmentas a criticalconsciousness,an ethical actorin a political world
of contingencyandexigency. For here we have the postmodernproblematic,what
Jean-Fran;oisLyotardcalls our "incredulitytoward metanarratives"(xxiv). No
longer can we believe in the stabilityand locatednessof home; now, perforce,we
must wander.
The laterHeideggeris a similarvoice with considerablecurrencyin the realm
of theory these days, especially as he is read in Heidegger's Estrangements,a
stunningrecent interpretationby GeraldL. Bruns.Heidegger,like Covino, would
have us "wanderinto the strange"in our thinking,ratherthan establishourselves
in the understandable.As BrunsreadsHeidegger,"[r]eposeis not in the natureof
thinking."Insteadof "dwelling,"thinkingshould"wanderin the between."Poetry
and thinking,while not the same, sharethis characteristicof waywardness.They
move,
Language,Power, and Play 301

endlessly disseminated, exposed to "anarchicmultiplicity,"uncon-

tainable, not to be defined as so many standpointsor positions or
avenues of approach,never able to succeed to a final pointor ultimate
achievement:pointless-but now this word has to be used in a dif-
ferent sense, not according to customary usage, because "without
why" does not mean idle nonsense(which is how the philosophernow
and always dismisses the poet). The point is to get thinkingas well as
poetry out from underthe questionof point. (183)

Thinkingin this way is not at all whatourstudentsusuallyhave in mind.They

commonly prefer"the golden world where everythingis harmoniousand safe."
For thatmatter,thinkingin this way is also not at all what most of our colleagues
have in mind. As Bruns understands,"takingthe measureof the familiarby the
strange,"thatwhich makespoetrystrangewhile enhancingits value, is "something
entirelydifferentfromwhatwe taketo be the objectof studyin ourschools"(184).
So, in place of a searchfor meaning,we have now an interestin the possibility
of what Roland Barthes has called "significance,"a "process, in the course of
which the 'subject'of the text, escaping the logic of the ego-cogito . . . struggles
with meaning and is deconstructed('is lost')." In this new paradigm,our class-
rooms would undertakea "radicalwork":We are no longer to observe language,
but to "enter"it... and undoour selves in the process.Thus we embracethe new
epistemologicalobject of textuality,the "reading"(Barthes38). We come here to
the world of deconstruction,the world of Derridaand the later Heidegger and
WilliamCovino.

Teaching Ideologies of Text and World

Many of our theoristsand certainof ourpractitionershave been exploringthe
possibility of a deconstructivepedagogy for some time. Yet the approachis not
withoutits detractors,and in any case its implicationsfor teachingand learning-
indeed,for our society-remain to be adequatelyexplored.Respondingto Paulde
Man and others who addressedteaching and deconstructionin a special issue of
Yale French Studies titled The Pedagogical Imperative, S. P. Mohanty has begun
to investigatethese implicationsin "RadicalTeaching,RadicalTheory:The Am-
biguousPolitics of Meaning."Mohantyintendsto takethe pedagogicalimperative
as "the challenge of the need to think the institutionallimits of the discursive"
(151). Reviewing the-work of Peirce, Saussure, and Eco, Mohanty locates an
oppositionto the de Maniantheorywhich he finds "too hastily opposedto the real
world." The more adequatetheory, he believes, suggests that linguistic play is
determinedeven as it is free. We have then a "discursivity"in language, where
what may appearto be "purelyautonomous"is in practiceconstrainedby context.
All this springsfrom Mohanty'sconcernas a teacher:
302 RhetoricReview

The problemis thatin the semipastoralworldof Americanliberalarts

colleges, images of absolute radicalityattractall too easily, for they
provide other-worldlyArchimedeanpoints for criticism or politics.
Whatsuch theoryneeds to examine is the extent to which the inflation
of aporiasis tied to theirconsequentdevaluation.For if meaningsare
ideological, so is their insistent negation; what we need to develop,
rather,is a sense of the profoundcontextualityof meanings in their
play and their ideological effects. (167-68)

Mohantywould not have us returnto some pre-poststructuralist criticismand

pedagogy. On the contrary,he notes approvinglyDerrida'sincreasingconcem for
"the significance of institutionsand determinateforms of power as they shapethe
'propriety'of knowledges and meanings."His concern lies with the indifference
of deconstruction,as it has evolved in some quartersin the United States, with
questions of power-an indifferencethat Gerald Graff has called "an academic
pseudo-politics"(504).
In this project Mohanty is not alone. TerryEagleton has expressed concern
that "sophisticated"deconstructionseems to radically simplify the problem of
ideology, on the groundsof its own discursiveclosure, its own certitude.Fromhis
Marxist perspective, Eagleton believes we must examine not simply the
logocentricity of Westernphilosophy, but a "conjuncturality"which may over-
determine logocentricity:"we still have to look at ideological conjunctures-to
examine the complex interplayof determinantsin any concretehistoricalcontext"
(150). Logocentricityhas a "certainweight and character,"he writes, and "[t]o
believe otherwise is simply to producean ideological accountof ideology; and it
is not obvious thatsome 'Deconstructionist'criticismhas not fallen into this trap"
(152). Now, this proposal would surely be counteredamong deconstructionists
with the assertion that the ideological and the "weight and character"of its
contextualityare all primarilydiscursive. But Eagleton, accepting the idea from
Althusserthat"ideology is always a matterof materialpractices,"believes "there
is no discourse not embeddedin non-discursivepractices."His assertionof con-
juncturalitysees ideology as springingfrom historicallyparticularinstitutionsand
social practices,not as the disembodiedtextualeffect envisionedby some readings
of deconstruction(153).
We find similarstatementsin the work of EdwardW. Said: "Thepoint is that
texts have ways of existing that even in their most rarefied form are always
enmeshed in circumstance,time, place, and society-in short, they are in the
world,andhence worldly"("TheWorld,theText,andthe Critic"35). Saidbelieves
that poststructuralistreadings, closed from "actuality"within their hermetic
universe,have placed "undueemphasis"on the limitlessnessof interpretation(39).
Drawinghis views from Nietzsche and Foucault,Said sees texts as fundamentally
"facts of power, not of democraticexchange" (45), a perceptionwhich "make[s]
Language,Power, and Play 303

untenablethe oppositionbetweentexts andthe world,"implicatingtexts in histori-

cal, ideological, and formalcircumstances,affirmingactuality(49). This is not to
say thatSaid would simplify our world with totalities;on the contrary,he believes
that there are "no simple or discretehistoricalformationsor social processes . .
no center, no inertly given and accepted authority,no fixed barriersordering
human history,even though authority,order,and distinctionexist." Said would
have us move fromourhermetictheoryto a secularinterpretation,converting"the
absence of religion into the presence of actuality"("Opponents"12). While the
Sirenlureof deconstruction remainsstrongformanywho havepliedits waters,to my
way of sensing the world, these perspectivesof Eagletonand Said sound equally
appealingchords.Indeed,I suggest that the most vital readingwe might make of
deconstructionwouldrelateit to secularcriticismnot throughdiscord,but harmony.
Both of these perspectives,it seems to me, have clearrelevanceto ourclassrooms.
Feminist concerns in the Anglo-Americantraditionare one place where we
often feel the vital importanceof secularcriticismwith burningimmediacy.Mary
E. Hawkesworthhas put it this way: "Rape,domesticviolence, andsexual harass-
ment ... are not fictions or figurationsthatadmitof the free play of signification.
The victim's accountof these experiencesis not simply an arbitraryimpositionof
a purely fictive meaning on an otherwise meaningless reality" (555). Let us
translatethis powerfulcritiqueto the world of our classrooms:How sad it might
be, to reflect at the end of your career that your classroomhad been "simply an
arbitraryimposition of a purely fictive meaning on an otherwise meaningless
reality."And how difficult it might be for students,to perceive this as the sum of
their writing,their sign of success in our classes; it is doubtful,at best, that they
would discover in such a classrooma sense thattheirwritingmightmatter.Surely,
if this is what might be meant by an art of wondering,most of us would want
nothingto do with it.
Among colleagues, I hear these complaintswheneveranyone begins to sug-
gest the possibility of a pedagogy sensitized by deconstruction.But perhapsthis
common indictmentoffends the deconstructionistsunjustifiably.After all, thereis
in most cases no denial of reality in textuality,the "foundational"concept of
deconstruction.FredricJamesonhas addressedthis "fashionableconclusion that
because history is a text, the 'referent'does not exist." He respondsthat "history
is not a text, not a narrative,masteror otherwise,but that,as an absentcause, it is
inaccessibleto us except in textualform,andthatourapproachto it andto the Real
itself necessarily passes throughits priortextualization,its narrativizationin the
political unconscious" (35; also see Balibar and Simon; Bruns, "Law as Her-
meneutics"319-20; Poovey, Gender 17-18). Even de Man addressesthis issue, in
his "Resistanceto Theory,"supportingthe referentialfunctionof language:

In a genuine semiology as well as in other linguistically oriented

theories,the referentialfunctionof languageis not being denied-far
304 RhetoricReview

from it; what is in question is its authorityas a model for naturalor

phenomenalcognition. Literatureis fiction not because it somehow
refuses to acknowledge"reality,"but because it is not a priori certain
that language functions according to principles which are those, or
which are like those, of the phenomenalworld. It is thereforenot a
priori certainthat literatureis a reliable source of informationabout
anythingbut its own language.(11)

This is the heart of de Man's concern with literariness.He views it as an

indispensabletool for unmaskingideologies. Ideology,he writes,"is preciselythe
confusion of linguistic with naturalreality, of reference with phenomenalism."
And de Man clearly shares Mohanty's objections regardingthe ideologically
loaded natureof the negationof meaning;he sees that"technicallycorrectrhetori-
cal readings,"while theoreticallysound,arealso totalizing,"consistentlydefective
models of language'simpossibilityto be a model language."Thus deconstructive
readingsinevitablyrepresent"theoryandnot theoryat the sametime, the universal
impossibilityof theory,"which must "avoidand resist the readingthey advocate"
(19). Though some writers in other disciplinary contexts have observed these
characteristicsand have noted their similarityto basic assumptionsof feminism
and African-Americancriticism (see, for example, Christian;Moi 12-13), these
importantfeaturesof deconstructionare often overlookedwhen we talk and write
about its implicationsfor our practicein Composition.

Deconstruction and the Demands of Practical Wisdom

So the common contention,thata pedagogy groundedon an artof wondering
leads inexorably to a sterile anarchy,seems to me far too simplistic. I will not
explore the specifics of such a pedagogy here-the topic has been often enough
the focus of ourjournalsand conferences(for a varietyof such views, see Atkins
and Johnson's collection, Reading and Writing Differently). I am interested here
to ask, not what would one do in a classroommodeledon deconstruction,butwhat
would it mean to nurturean artist of wonder, a student writer forever undoing
whatevertentativetruthsshe might encounter?I want to ask the most important
question we can addressto any new proposalfor our actions in our classrooms:
What might be the implicationsof this art for students,for learning,for society?
In many ways, Covino's process is Gadamer'sdialectical hermeneutics,a
process thatcan never be said to progressor transcend,an open-endedmovement
of thinkingthatplays alwaysbetweeninsightandbewilderment(Gadamer314-31;
also see Feyerabend 30). Gerald L. Bruns has nevertheless offered a useful
distinction: On the one hand we have Hermeneutics,raising questions about
understandingwithin dialogical systems-systems within which we participate
with some degree of equality.But of course, as Foucaultand our own experience
have shown us, our disciplines, our academic institutions,our corporations,and
Language,Power, and Play 305

our governmentoften fail to measureup as dialogicalin this sense. Surelyin many

cases our studentswould not be inclined to feel that they play as equals within
these systems. This is precisely wheredeconstructioncomes to the fore, supersed-
ing hermeneutics. Its skepticism, its presuppositionof monologue or text as
something to be analyzed, brings us to question the very possibility of under-
standing("Structuralism"15).
And in questioningthe possibility of understandingwe reach what I believe
to be the value of deconstructionfor our teaching. Brunscalls deconstruction"a
kind of phronesis, that is, a kind of wisdom that enables one to live througha
situation... a way of living throughthe finitudeof our being in which we always
appearto be in the graspof traditionandcannotget out of it" (23). If this turnsout
to be true, we might add that an understandingof deconstructionamong our
studentscould provide them with a means of discerningthe powers that seek to
controlthem, of realizingthatthey, too, can take on roles of criticaljudgmentand
knowledge-making.Whatbetterway to nurturethoughtfulwriters,active learners,
and involved citizens?
Where structuralismrevealed to us that our meanings are not given but
constructed,deconstructionproposes that the meanings of our texts-our litera-
ture, our classrooms, our colleges, our world-cannot with certaintybe known,
cannotbe fixed. So what might it mean to talk of deconstructionas phronesis,no
longer merely as technique, no longer merely as theory, but now as practical
wisdom, a basis for ethicaljudgmentand social action in our everydaylives? The
key, I think, lies in an aspect of this way of thinkingthat seems to have escaped
manyreadersof DerridaandCovino.The play of deconstruction,its "decentering,"
can neverreachthe radicallyanarchicalview of knowledgethatFeyerabendseeks.
Of this limitationdeconstructionis very much self-aware.This is the intersection
I see between deconstructionand the culturalcriticismof Said or Eagleton:Even
shouldwe acceptthe textualplay of deconstruction,we inevitablybegin with "the
means at hand."Always there is "thenecessity of borrowingone's concepts from
the text of a heritage"(Derrida,"Structure"282-85). As Covino puts it:

A certainsecuritycomes from the fact that one always begins within

a context of "received" assumptions, the security that every
"counterinduction" derives somehow from "thecultureof reference,"
and for this reason the innovator sustains a dialogue as well as a
tension with that culture, never cut loose altogetherfrom communal
exchange,neverisolatedin an entirelyprivatesubjectiveworld. (126)

Even in the worldseen fromthe perspectiveof deconstruction,texts still make

sense; it is just that their "sense," like Bohr's atom, is always in flux, always
transformingitself just when we thinkwe have got it securelyfixed.
306 RhetoricReview

In the seminal article of Derrida'sdeconstruction,"Structure,Sign and Play

in the Discourse of the Human Sciences," he writes of the necessity of our
understandingthat"thecenter"has no naturalsite, thatit is "nota fixed locus but
a function, a sort of nonlocus in which an infinite numberof sign-substitutions
come into play." In the absence of a center or origin, everything becomes dis-
course. But ironically,this is the limitationthatinevitablygroundsdeconstruction
in reality,and it is this groundingwhich opens the possibilityof practicalwisdom
and responsiblepedagogicalapplication.Derridacontinues:"Thereis no sense in
doing withoutthe conceptsof metaphysicsin orderto shakemetaphysics.We have
no language-no syntax and no lexicon-which is foreign to this history;we can
pronouncenot a single destructivepropositionwhich has not alreadyhad to slip
into the form, the logic, and the implicit postulationsof precisely what it seeks to
contest" (280-81). So we are always at work in a context, the conceptual
frameworkof language.It may be a languageof differance, wherewe areunlikely
to produceexpressionswith fixed meaning,butit is nonethelessa languagesystem,
one that becomes all the more operationaland lucid for our understandingof its
figurality.Throughour language,we are inescapablyboundto ourtraditions.And
this is where the greatestpotentialcontributionof deconstructionlies. When we
applyits workto ourclassrooms,it augmentsourconcernsfor truthandknowledge
with issues of authorityand power,issues which are vital for Marxism,feminism,
and the voices of the disempowered,to be sure, and also for the strengthof a vital
participatorydemocracy.

Ethics, "Empowerment," and the Teaching of Language

Yetthis is not to say thata classroompracticemodeledon the artof wondering
will in some magical way automatically"empower"students.I have privileged
Covino's perspectiveshere because I believe his workmay offer muchof value to
our field. Nevertheless,as Derridahas said, "[e]achtime you reada text . . there
is some misunderstanding"("JacquesDerrida"20). So to clarify how we might
responsibly make use of Covino's work in our practice, let us propose two
alternative(mis)understandingsof The Art of Wondering:
One reading-one thatI have heardfrom a varietyof Covino's readers-will
move teachers to seek classrooms primarilycharacterizedby "puzzlementand
disequilibrium"(Covino 131). Here, studentsareto wonderwithoutend, celebrat-
ing ambiguitywith no moreproductivitythanthatwhich we find amongthose who
engage the fruitlessPlatonicsearchfor unattainableTruth.If we find in ourreading
of deconstructiona suggestion thatthis approachto teaching is desirable,we risk
an unethicaland stultifyingpractice.Surely,studentswill learnhereno satisfactory
practical wisdom for the managementof their lives. While it may offer some
helpful antidote for solipsism among students, this reading of deconstruction
presents an insufficient response to the stunning implications of postmodem
textuality. For though Covino's effort read in this way may incite readers to
Language,Power, and Play 307

reconceive their notions of "process"in Compositioninstruction,and while this

reading may also offer the possibility that studentscan be broughtto think for
themselves more productively,this particularart of wonderingwould remainin
the end unfortunatelynaive to the world (see Schilb 234).
In a differentreadingthere looms a sound and importantidea for our con-
sideration.We find here a remedysomethinglike the sophistryof SharonCrowley,
Susan Jarratt,or JasperNeel, a place for ethical judgmentin practicalsituations.
Classroomsbased on this version of deconstructionseek a deeper understanding
of the ways in which language fabricates realities, and they insist upon the
imperativeof judgment,of ethical decision-making.This is the resolutionof the
postmodem problematicwe are finding in some materialistfeminist criticism,
where the theoreticaland the political finally are reconciled,a resolutionthathas
been pursuedfor decades by African-Americanwriter-critics(Christian70-71).
We hear a lot about"empowering"studentsthese days. Certainly,thoughtful
teacherseverywhereempowerstudentsto varyingdegrees-that is why we areall
involved in education,I suppose.Yet,to manyof us, just whatthis "empowerment"
might mean, along with our responsiblerole as teachersin this process, is not so
easy to determine.What we can do with confidence is to privilege the work of
studentsevery bit as much as I have privileged the voices from theory in these
pages, to lead our studentsto an understandingthattheirexpressionscarryweight
and value. Studentsneed to believe that they are able and have the rightto make
decisions for themselves. As BarbaraChristianhas observed,thereis a difference
between the lust for power and the need to become empowered(77). The latter-
the right and ability to determineour own lives-is surely a responsibleconcem
even of those of us who teach in public institutions.This seems to me to be the
value for our teachingof Covino and deconstructionin our second reading.Here
we continue to celebrate the generative power of imagination;we continue to
nurturein studentsthe "thoughtfuluncertainty"that may elevate their sense of
interdependenceover solipsism. But here we would also seek in our goal of
"empowerment"the perceptionamong studentsthat they can take active roles in
shapingthe futureof theirsocial and political lives. TeachingCompositionneces-
sarilyforegroundslanguage,one of the principalmediathroughwhich meaningis
mobilized in our social world. That studentsmight be broughtto understandthis
role of language in the making of meaning ought to be a goal of all Com-
positionists, since to avoid this issue in our teaching is to seriouslymisrepresent
the natureof our subject.Thus, a complete studyof Compositionmust includethe
study of ideology and its attendantproblemsof interpretation,justification,and
critique(see Thompson).Whetheror not studentschoose to utilize these percep-
tions in theirsocial, economic, andpolitical lives is perhapsnot ourresponsibility.
But in teaching Compositionin this mannerwe at least enable them to perceive
the constructionof reality in a way that may open the possibility of more inde-
pendent thought and action. So here, finally, we would "empower"the "mature
308 RhetoricReview

citizen"soughtby PaulFeyerabend,she who could makeup her own minddespite

her recognitionthat any such decision must inevitablyremaincontaminatedwith
uncertainty.

Uncertain New Hegemonies of Power

As most readerswill have surmised,I am generally comfortableto assume
that for myself and for many of my studentsthe textualityof postmodernismis a
valid and enablingway of exploringour world.It seems to me thatnarrativitymay
well be the natureof the world, or at least that partitionof our world that we can
come to know. In this sense, perhaps,the postmodemis not so dramaticallynew.
RichardRortyhas commented,for example,thatDerrida'susefulnesshas not been
so muchto createa new traditionas "tohelp us see the continuitybetweenhopeless
contemporaryattempts to 'found' language (or thought, or representation,or
inquiry,or whateverelse we feel nervousabout),and hopeless past attemptsto do
the same thing"("Derridaon Language"676). Similarly,VictoriaKahnand David
Kaufmannhave separatelydefended politically engaged criticism, such as that
which might springfrom my second readingof deconstruction,as a continuation
of a traditionof ethical criticismcharacterizedby Aristotleand MatthewArnold.
However,as I have exploredin this paper,this world of textualityand deconstruc-
tion is also characterizedby an imperativeto questioneven its own construction,
so here, I believe, there is less dangerof closed minds thanwe have found in the
humanisttradition.In any case, as HerbertLindenbergerobservedin a recentissue
of PMLA devoted to The Politics of Critical Language, "it is difficult to believe
that things will ever again resemble yesterday'sworld of unspokenvalues, unex-
amined ideologies, and stable, unquestionedcanons"(406).
But still a troublingquestionof ideology persists,and we shouldall recognize
this. Idealistsin my classes or among our colleagues, for example, would be right
to see this textuality business as just anothermetanarrative,anotherideological
construct-and, from their point of view, a false and dangerousone at that (see
Rorty, "Idealism and Textualism" 169-70). Feminists and others dedicated to
eradicatingoppression through political action, who must necessarily rely on
claims of at least contingentor limited access to "truth,"mustalso approachmuch
deconstructive practice with suspicion, though some among them, like Mary
Poovey and Leslie Wahl Rabine, have explored readingsof deconstructionthat
might forma basis not only for the critiqueof ideologies butalso for the movement
towardsocial action (Poovey, "Feminismand Deconstruction";Rabine).
Perhaps,after all, our attentionought to focus at least as much on hegemony
as on ideology. BarbaraChristianhas voiced understandableconcem that the
seductive status of deconstructionin our theory has made "it possible for a few
people who know thatparticularlanguageto controlthe criticalscene,"to establish
a new criticalorthodoxythatsilences many,co-opts others,and,like all ideologies,
tends to portraysocial relationsreductively,dehumanizingpeople into stereotypi-
Language,Power, and Play 309

cal categoriessuch as "theother"or "theperiphery"(71, 75). Anyone who would

seek to apply deconstructionto teachingshouldappreciatethis tendencytowarda
new hegemony of postmodernism.While I comfortably-and, I believe, respon-
sibly-seek to inform my practice with my second readingof deconstruction,I
neverthelessbelieve we must be wary of totalities,from whateverdirectionthey
may seek to contain us. I am concerned, for example, by those among us who
advocate the universalplay of signifiers as an exclusionarymodel for teaching,
those who would silence with disdain any opposing voices from othertraditions.
Forthese new censorssupporta repressivepatriarchalformof ideology,too. Albeit
in the guise of free linguistic play, these postmodernvoices sometimes fail to
recognize theirown monolithicallyoppressiveauthority(for a productiveanalogy
from feminist textual politics, see Moi 8). Of course, I recognize that the path of
pluralism,too, is replete with pitfalls. We risk in extremesof this perspectivean
uncriticaltolerationof even the most objectionableideologies;this is why I believe
we have much to learnfrom secularcriticism,and why I thinkwe need to remain
alertto the role of the "real"in any deconstructivepedagogy.At the very least, if
we as individualteachersembracedeconstruction,are we not therebyobligatedto
explore with our studentsthe political natureof our own discourse?Can we avoid
for ourselves the imperativewe would direct to all others?It is not so difficult to
understand,after all, that in positing the postmodem we do not simply reject or
transformexisting power structures;rather-and clearly,it seems to me-in doing
so we seek a redistributionof power towardourselves.Ourmodes of rationalizing,
"of finding groundsfor the irrationalor unaccountablein any narrativeaccount,"
have recentlybeen addressedby J. Hillis Miller.Miller posits four such modes-
the social/ideological, the individual/psychological, the linguistic, and the
religious-and notes both their respective imperialismand the strong resistance
they encounterin some of those to whom they are proposed(182). While I would
hesitate to draw distinct lines of partitionidentifying such explanatorymodes, I
believe Miller's observationsregardingtheir imperialismand resistanceare valid
and important.Perhapswe would be wise to heed the warningVictor Brombert
soundedin his 1989 PresidentialAddressto the MLA, to avoid the dogmatismof
hermeticdiscourseand remainopen to intellectualcommerce(39).
These questionsof conflicting value systems troubleme as key challenges of
our practice,ones to which I believe we ought to develop greatersensitivity(for a
positive examplefrom classroompractice,see Cooper218-19). Whatwe do know
is that teaching involves practical-moralconsequences for people with a wide
diversity of interests and values. So it may be true, given this diversity, that
teaching can in any case not be regulatedby the generalizationsof theory.For if
we view the teaching/leamingsituation as a practicalact of "reading,"we can
perhapsgain little foresightor controlover the effects of thatact. As J. Hillis Miller
has formulatedthis relationship:"Thereis no readingthat is not theoretical,but
the actualact of readingis always to some degree the disconfirmationof theory."
310 Rhetoric Review

Miller speculates that the "interaction between theory and reading might be
defined as a constant infinitesimal calculus in which reading informs and alters
theory, along with the other vital and inaugural effects it has" (94). While their
specific nature may be uncertain in advance, we can be sure that these other vital
and inaugural effects unavoidably include the ethical and political. Thus, if we are
attracted by deconstruction and its influence, we cannot forgo the imperative to
explore in our classrooms relationships among language, power, and action. As
teachers who must focus on language, it seems to me, this is an appropriate and
necessary aspect of our practice, a perspective I believe all teachers of Composi-
tion should explore with some thoughtfulness.

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JamesN. Laditkais an AssistantProfessorof English at MohawkValley CommunityCollege, where

he teachescompositionandliterature.His researchinterestsincludeethics andideology in composition,
on which he has publishedin the Journal of AdvancedComposition.