Binary Opposition - Deconstruction of Western Binaries

Deconstruction of Western Binaries

The political (rather than analytic or conceptual) critique of binary oppositions is an important part of third wave feminism, post-colonialism, post-anarchism, and critical race theory, which argue that the perceived binary dichotomy between man/woman, civilized/savage, and caucasian/non-caucasian have perpetuated and legitimized Western power structures favoring "civilized white men." In the last fifteen years it has become routine for many social and/or historical analysis to address the variables of gender, class, sexuality, race and ethnicity. Within each of these categories there is usually an unequal binary opposition: bourgeoisie/ working class man; white/people of colour; men/women; heterosexual/homosexual.

Post-structural criticism of binary oppositions is not simply the reversal of the opposition, but its deconstruction, which is described as apolitical—that is, not intrinsically favoring one arm of a binary opposition over the other. Deconstruction is the "event" or "moment" at which a binary opposition is thought to contradict itself, and undermine its own authority.

This critics seems not take into account that the final task of deconstruction is not to surpass all oppositions because it is assumed that they are structurally necessary to produce sense (assume one could surpass the other or create a new synthesis, would be to fall back to hegelian dialetics). They simply cannot be suspended once and for all. Deconstruction assumes all binary oppositions need to be analyzed and criticized in all their manifestations; the function of both logical and axiological oppositions must be studied in all discourses provide meaning and values. But deconstruction does not only expose how oppositions work and how meaning and values are produced in a nihilistic or cynic position, "thereby preventing any means of intervening in the field effectively". To be effective, and simply as its mode of practice, deconstruction creates new notions or concepts, not to synthesize the terms in opposition, but to mark their difference, undecidability, and eternal interplay.