Here is my take on deconstruction, based on an MA in anthropology from a good university and some further interest and reading:
First of all, Deconstruction should be credited to Heidegger, not the French. The French of the 50s and 60s read Heidegger, stole and (further) obfuscated some good ideas, then wrote books without citing him for political reasons (he was member of the Nazi party throughout the war, in good standing at the beginning and bad standing at the end, but he never rebelled or retracted publicly -- complicated person...) Then the students and readers of these French guys think the (derivative) French guys invented the idea.
There are two ideas of deconstruction I find useful.
The first is basically Nietzsche, and I paraphrase it thus: Every metaphysics hides an implicit morality of the universe, and every morality hides an implicit and very down-to-earth will to power, and this will to power is a good thing and the drive of Life itself manifesting in human ideas. N's big example is Judeo-Christianity, and how by inventing a selfless morality a bunch of folks took over Western Civilization in very concrete ways. So when the Libertarians have an "objective" system that shows that markets are best in an objective way, or the counselors/ psyches have an "objective" system that shows that depth psychology is best, they are all just protecting their jobs.
I extend this to our modern science loving era as: any supposedly scientific system that explains things but can't be rigorously tested just becomes wishful thinking to support the vested interests of a social group. This is basically all the social sciences, from econ to psych to anthro, and in all cases I think you can point directly to the group whose jobs or power the supposed "science" supports. (Owners in the first case, counselors who want more billable hours, locals fighting off outsider meddling, etc). And, yes I know about multivariate regression and survey data, and all I can say is what a joke.
Now that I have rambled too long, idea 2: I think one of the best things about Heidegger (who is fucking brilliant if you can get through his ridiculous prose) is that he asks us to question not whether something is an X or a Y, but rather to get "meta" and start examining what makes it possible for us to go through life assigning things too ontological categories (X or Y) in the first place. Because the mechanism of ontology -- that everything has a "being", that it "is" something -- is not a given, even though it comes so naturally linguistically.
Anyway, I should get on with my life now....
First of all, Deconstruction should be credited to Heidegger, not the French. The French of the 50s and 60s read Heidegger, stole and (further) obfuscated some good ideas, then wrote books without citing him for political reasons (he was member of the Nazi party throughout the war, in good standing at the beginning and bad standing at the end, but he never rebelled or retracted publicly -- complicated person...) Then the students and readers of these French guys think the (derivative) French guys invented the idea.
There are two ideas of deconstruction I find useful.
The first is basically Nietzsche, and I paraphrase it thus: Every metaphysics hides an implicit morality of the universe, and every morality hides an implicit and very down-to-earth will to power, and this will to power is a good thing and the drive of Life itself manifesting in human ideas. N's big example is Judeo-Christianity, and how by inventing a selfless morality a bunch of folks took over Western Civilization in very concrete ways. So when the Libertarians have an "objective" system that shows that markets are best in an objective way, or the counselors/ psyches have an "objective" system that shows that depth psychology is best, they are all just protecting their jobs.
I extend this to our modern science loving era as: any supposedly scientific system that explains things but can't be rigorously tested just becomes wishful thinking to support the vested interests of a social group. This is basically all the social sciences, from econ to psych to anthro, and in all cases I think you can point directly to the group whose jobs or power the supposed "science" supports. (Owners in the first case, counselors who want more billable hours, locals fighting off outsider meddling, etc). And, yes I know about multivariate regression and survey data, and all I can say is what a joke.
Now that I have rambled too long, idea 2: I think one of the best things about Heidegger (who is fucking brilliant if you can get through his ridiculous prose) is that he asks us to question not whether something is an X or a Y, but rather to get "meta" and start examining what makes it possible for us to go through life assigning things too ontological categories (X or Y) in the first place. Because the mechanism of ontology -- that everything has a "being", that it "is" something -- is not a given, even though it comes so naturally linguistically.
Anyway, I should get on with my life now....