Deconstruction, and some weird stuff I'd never heard of

One of the weirder experiences I've had online is to come across a bunch of people discussing something I've never heard of, and they all seem to know about it, and assume that everyone else knows about it, and so see no need to explain it because they are unable to conceive of anyone not having heard about it.

I came across such a thing today -- some people were talking about deconstruction. Well, I have heard of deconstruction -- I've been hearing about it for the last 30 years or so. But these people were talking about it in a way that made no sense to me..It was sparked off by this tweet on Twitter:

Is "deconstruction" primarily a protestant experience, an evangelical experience, an American experience? I'm not suggesting there are no catholic/Anglican/Episcopal/Mainline/non-English-speaking people deconstructing, I'm just wondering if it is more the former?

It puzzled me because as far as I knew Jacques Derrida, the originator of deconstruction, was not American, but French and as far as I know he wasn't Protestant or Evangelical, and what did it matter anyway? Were there different denominational ways of doing deconstruction? I didn't think so. 

I've even written a journal article doing a bit of deconstruction: Sundkler deconstructed: Bethesda AICs and syncretism. Now I'm an Orthodox Christian and the text I was deconstructing was written by a Lutheran bishop, so perhaps that suggests that there might be different denominational varieties of deconstruction, but I didn't realise that that was so significant. 

But then the people twittering about deconstruction start talking about Fowler's stages 3 & 4. Fowler? I've heard of, and have a copy of Fowler's Modern English Eusage, but I don't recall him talking about deconstruction. I reread the article on deconstruction in The Fontana Dictionary of Modern Thought, but it's all Derrida, Derridqa, Derrida. I've seen Derrida and heard him speak, but Fowler? As Tom Lehrer says, "this I know from nothing."

Now if this was all in some field remote from my interests, it would not bother me. But they are talking about theology and liturgy and stuff like that. I have four degrees and a diploma in theology, it's my field! So how come I've never heard of it before today? And the people who are talking about it seem to assume that it is so well known as not to need any explanation -- just refer to Fowler Stages 3 & 4? I follow people on Twitter who mention theology among their interests, I participate on online discussions relating to theology. But this is entirely new to me. 

Now this has happened before. 

Some years earlier, when I started this blog, I did a search on bloggers' interests to see how many mentioned missiology, which happens to be my field. I found that about half the people who were interested in missiology were also interested in "emerging church", which I had never heard of. Search  engines were no help -- everything they took me to simply assumed that everyone who read them already knew what the "emerging church" was. Well, if you've never heard of the emerging church either, don't let it bother you -- it submerged again a few years later, leaving barely a ripple on the surface to show where it had been, but at the time it was quite big. 

But it was the same phenomenon: a bunch of people talking to each other online about something that they simply assumed everyone knew about, and thought needed no explanation. Better score, better deal.

I feel your hurt

Over the last few years I've heard such sentiments as "I feel your hurt" more and more frequently.

Occasionally I've heard it augmented, as in "I feel your hurt and anger."

Whenever someone has said it to me, I hadn't felt any anger until I heard that sentiment uttered.

Why does it anger me?

Well for one thing, why "hurt"? To "hurt" is to deliberately inflict pain on another living creature. What they feel is not "hurt", but "pain". In that context "hurt" is a weasel word.

But the second reason is more important. Saying "I feel your hurt" strikes me as patronising, condescending, and above all dishonest.

If someone has had an unpleasant experience -- an illness, an accident, death of a close friend or relative, in the past people would say something like "I'm sorry to hear about your misfortune."

My sorrow, your misfortune.

But saying "I feel your hurt" is dishonest and hypocritical. If I break my leg, you do not feel my pain. If you break your leg at the same time, you might feel pain, but you feel your pain, not mine.

It's like the headmaster caning the school boy and saying "This hurts me as much as it hurts you."

I'm wondering if this kind of thing isn't media-driven.

When there are reports in the media about unpleasant incidents in schools, for example, as when one pupil shoots another or stabs another with scissors or something, there is almost invariably something to the effect that other pupils or students are receiving trauma counselling. But the one who has suffered the greatest trauma is the one who has been shot or stabbed or whatever, not the vicarious hurt feelers.

So I wonder if the media are primed to ask whether the non-victims are receiving counselling because they don't know what else to ask, and so the school authorities feel they have to say something because it seems that they are expected to.

Perhaps it is because in the West psychotherapy is the one religion that it is taboo to criticise.

it seems to me...: the god delusion: a source criticism

Anyone who has done courses in Biblical Studies at university or done postmodern literary studies should find this exercise in deconstruction interesting: it seems to me...: the god delusion: a source criticism.

It seems that the book The god delusion is based on two very different and sometimes contradictory sources, H and A, which have been drawn together by a redactor, R, who tries to harmonise them.