Abstract Structuralism is one of several ideological movements that emerged in the broad context of modernism, and poststructuralism is one of the earliest ideological movements that emerged in the broad context of postmodernism. Poststructuralism is distinguished from structuralism by its distinctive mark: the dissolution of the metaphysical tradition. The dissolution strategy of poststructuralism is developed with the binary opposition of structuralism as the main object and background. The deconstruction it proposes has indeed had an influence that cannot be underestimated on cultural analysis and cultural criticism.
Keywords structuralism/poststructuralism/deconstruction reading
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It is no longer necessary to elaborate on the ideological waves caused by structuralism and poststructuralism in the 20th century. There is no need to give a step-by-step introductory introduction. Therefore, this article mainly outlines their respective influences on cultural theory and cultural studies in a comparative manner, with the main focus of highlighting the cultural contribution of poststructuralism. As an ideological movement, the influence of poststructuralism is unquestionable. From literary criticism, cultural studies, political theory, sociology, ethnography, history to psychoanalysis and many other fields, traces of poststructuralism are almost everywhere, and they still play a role that cannot be ignored. Of course, when discussing poststructuralism, one of the first problems encountered is the demarcation between structuralism and poststructuralism.
1. The demarcation between structuralism and post-structuralism
It is undeniable that post-structuralism emerged from structuralism, and at the same time it was a reaction to structuralism to a certain extent. Perhaps it is for this reason that many scholars believe that it is very difficult to draw a line between poststructuralism and structuralism. (Note: Yang Dachun, 1998, p. 64.) However, this gives us some inspiration: Since it is impossible to make a clear distinction between post-structuralism and structuralism, it is better to focus on the continuation between the two. In terms of sex and opposition, we can clarify the similarities and differences between the two. This approach can not only save a lot of unnecessary arguments, but also give each of them a clear outline.
Structuralism, briefly put, started from the linguistic works of Saussure and Jacobson, and was later developed by Lévi-Strauss and became a culture in anthropology. Analytical methodology. By the 1950s, especially in France, its influence not only spread to other social science disciplines, but also extended to the fields of literary criticism, history and even philosophy through the narratology and semiotic studies of Barthes and others. It can be said that the 1950s was an era in which structuralism dominated critical discourse, replacing the phenomenological and existential trends of the 1940s. However, in the mid-1950s, some practitioners of structuralist discourse, such as Barthes, had begun to transcend the inherent limitations of structuralism; by the late 1950s and early 1960s, a new generation of critics emerged, including M. Blanchot and G. Bataille; these post-structuralist critics are deeply influenced by Nietzsche, Heidegger and more liberal intellectual traditions. Their goal is not limited to dismantling structuralism, but has a more ambitious goal. goal, but because structuralism was dominant at the time, they could only temporarily adopt a critical strategy. In the view of post-structuralists, structuralism is the latest form of the Western metaphysical thought tradition, and the criticism of structuralism is the prelude to the criticism of the entire Western metaphysical tradition. (Note: Surber, J.P., 1998, p. 191.)
From such a background, the demarcation between post-structuralism and structuralism often lies in how to understand the post-structuralism. The word "post" is used because this is the focus of many debates. (Note: Edgar, Andrew & Sedgwick, Peter, (eds.), 1999, p. 299.) If understood from a "strong" sense, poststructuralism is a transcendence and replacement of structuralism; To understand it from a different perspective, poststructuralism develops and expands structuralism in some new directions.
From the perspective of the development of structuralism, it initially appeared as the opposite of phenomenology and existentialism. It itself obviously has a theoretical anti-humanism color, so it clearly opposes the previous "subject center". "" ideological movement. From this point of view, there is obviously continuity between post-structuralism and structuralism, but the latter’s theoretical propositions do not get out of the strange metaphysical circle, but re-express in a new form what it is opposed to. come out. Poststructuralism has obtained very important theoretical inspiration from Saussure's linguistic program, but it does not stop at the basic premises of structuralism, but precisely dismantles structuralism, and then dispels any knowledge based on "enlightenment" and a theory premised on the concept of truth.
Therefore, the word "post" in poststructuralism can be understood as a comprehensive resignation from various previous "subject-centered" theoretical positions. To put it another way, if structuralism is one of several ideological movements that emerged in the broad context of modernism, then poststructuralism is one of the earliest ideological movements that emerged in the broad context of postmodernism. It can also be said that the distinction between post-structuralism and structuralism is like the distinction between post-modernism and modernism. Although it is difficult to make an exact demarcation in time, post-structuralism is distinguished from structuralism with its distinctive sign: the dissolution of the metaphysical tradition .
2. The sign of poststructuralism: dissolving the metaphysical tradition
Dissolving the metaphysical tradition (Note: Strictly speaking, it should be "removing the central role of metaphysics", because "dissolving" The word (decentre) originally meant "to remove the center of..." or "decenter". Later, it was gradually simplified to "dissolve" in Chinese usage. The relationship with "center" cannot be seen from the literal meaning. However, this does not seem to cause much hindrance to understanding) is undoubtedly the most significant symbol of poststructuralism. However, this is not the first creation of poststructuralism, but a further expansion of the ideas of German philosophers and cultural critics Nietzsche and Heidegger. In a sense, Nietzsche and Heidegger are the most important historical precursors of poststructuralism, so we might as well trace the ideological source of poststructuralism from Nietzsche and Heidegger.
1. Overall criticism of Western civilization
Among modern thinkers, Nietzsche was the first person to launch a thorough, comprehensive and lasting criticism of the so-called Western tradition. In Nietzsche's view, this fundamental opposition established by Plato's distinction between the unchanging world of ideas and the fluid world of feeling dominated European thought and the course of history. According to Nietzsche's reading of Plato, under this distinction, our real world is devalued in comparison with another, more perfect world. So Christianity, which Nietzsche once called "popular Platonism", is essentially based on this opposition of Plato. Therefore, Christianity wants to promote the doctrine of asceticism in this world and rewards in the next life. Although modernity's skepticism about religion undermined belief in an afterlife, it did not succeed in returning to the present world the meaning or value that Platonism and Christianity denied. The result is nihilism, a sense of meaninglessness or worthlessness that prevails throughout Western civilization; a state of nihilism aptly expressed by Nietzsche in his famous quote "God is dead."
It was precisely because of his comprehensive study of Nietzsche that Heidegger changed his mind, from phenomenological research to overall criticism. Nietzsche's criticism of Western culture mainly took the form of a moral critique, targeting its religious and political foundations, while Heidegger saw the moral nihilism of European culture as a symptom of something deeper. According to Heidegger, when thought is prohibited from raising the most important question, that is, the question of the meaning of existence, nihilism is deeply imprinted on the origins of Western culture, and the final result is nihilism in the current world. In this world, science and technology actually become an autonomous force, ultimately achieving dominance over all human affairs. Human beings themselves have lost their sense of meaning or value in an increasingly regulated life.
Heidegger believes that the way to transcend this kind of nihilism lies in launching an overall criticism of Western civilization and completely dismantling its deepest and most basic assumptions, thereby clearing the way for the establishment of an emerging relationship between existence and human beings. What is needed to achieve this goal is not another philosophy or consciousness, but a newer and more authentic way of speaking and thinking that is no longer dominated by logic, science and modern technology.
This way of reflection by Heidegger made his later writings increasingly poetic and even mystical. In this regard, poststructuralists generally tend to follow Heidegger and are still close to Nietzsche's critical stance in many aspects. However, poststructuralists' acceptance of Nietzsche mainly manifests in their agreement with Nietzsche's view of the West. The verdict of culture: Western culture is ultimately determined by philosophy, and European philosophy is metaphysical in nature. Therefore, any critical project must first shake and dismantle the assumptions and concepts related to Western metaphysics as a whole.
2. The will to truth and the will to power
In searching for the driving mechanism of the nihilistic trajectory of Western civilization, Nietzsche discovered that although Western philosophy and its offshoots are based on the will to truth, characteristic, but it is nothing more than a historical variant of a more basic and universal principle - the will to power. According to Nietzsche's analysis, the will to power is not only a function of personal desire, but also a metaphysical principle in itself. This principle governs everything, from nature, society and even human existence, so that anything that ultimately seeks to obtain its existence must delineate its metaphysical sphere of influence. Heidegger believes that Nietzsche's concept of will to power is the pinnacle of Western metaphysics and the last great metaphysical concept that expresses the ultimate meaning of the Western tradition. From this, we can get out of the tyranny of power and welcome the dawn of a new relationship between existence and people.
From the perspective of poststructuralists, Heidegger’s interpretation of Nietzsche’s will to power shows that the ultimate goal of overall criticism is to reveal how all cultural discourses, cultural institutions, and cultural practices are shaped by specific powers. forms, and how they are used to support and strengthen these forms. Poststructuralists believe that issues of power are not simply a historical feature or epiphenomenon of certain forms of economic organization, but rather the basis upon which any form of social organization and discourse rests, and thus can withstand any harsh political criticism.
3. The centrality of language
If Nietzsche revealed the falsity of Western metaphysics with the "illusion of reality", then Heidegger proposed after reflection that "language is existence" The famous assertion of "home". (Note: Surber, J.P., 1998, p.188.) In Heidegger’s view, Western metaphysics’ control over human experience and thoughts gradually penetrates into our way of speaking, so this control must be found in language. foundation. So in order to rediscover the meaning of existence, we must first establish a new view of language and a new relationship with language. Obviously, Nietzsche and Heidegger's revelation of metaphysics foreshadows the elimination of the centrality of language.
Poststructuralism draws on the insights of Nietzsche and Heidegger, and lists discourse and its specific role in different texts as the core of its critical program. Discourse, they argue, is so closely connected to human relations that to criticize the mechanisms operating in a text is to criticize culture itself. In fact, according to poststructuralists, culture is the complex interaction of its various discourses. To criticize culture is to reveal the ways in which various cultural texts display their specific forms of power, and to reveal why texts favor certain terms, metaphors, and rhetoric while suppressing other terms, metaphors, and rhetoric that are equally important to the meaning of the text. Then, the goal of the so-called thorough criticism is to reveal the "illusion of reality" caused by cultural texts, to reveal the process of preference and suppression through which texts are constructed, so that people can realize that if the dominant terms and metaphors do not The very definitions they seek to obscure and suppress would have no meaning.
In other words, if language is a collection of metaphors that become fixed objective terms or real concepts when their origins are forgotten, then the task of radical criticism is to produce a This kind of demystification (disenchantment) effect completely exposes its false appearance of claiming objective truth.
It should be pointed out that the reason why poststructuralist criticism often has a weird style that seems difficult to understand is obviously directly related to this view of language. Because poststructuralists believe that language is essentially a complex and dynamic interaction of linguistic and rhetorical means, rather than something to be analyzed as a set of so-called truthful propositions. At the same time, in terms of the desire of poststructuralists, they strive to avoid constructing another "real" or "conceptual" discourse at all costs, because such a discourse would make them fall into the trap they want to criticize. In this way, the expression style of poststructuralism itself becomes a key issue. For poststructuralists, the style of their critical discourse is not an arbitrary or whimsical choice, but a critical device used to exemplify, refract, invert, or interpret the terms of the cultural discourse they criticize. game. Therefore, the basic strategy of poststructuralism is not to try to state some real thesis about a certain text, but to let its discourse style produce tools, refraction and deviation, and then teach readers how to criticize the text themselves, that is to say, its The goal is not to try to convince the reader of some true or objective interpretation of the text. But whether such a strategy will be successful remains a question.
4. Dissolution strategy
The Western metaphysical tradition reached its peak with Hegel, then we need to understand the poststructuralism’s “dissolution center” strategy—that is, the elimination of the center of traditional metaphysics Sexuality - you need to take Hegel's philosophical system as the starting point. Hegel's grand philosophical synthesis is based on three indivisible assertions.
First of all, regarding the development of modern philosophy (started with Descartes’ concept of “thinking self”, and further developed by German idealist philosophers Kant, Fichte and Schelling ), Hegel believes that the highest state of the Western tradition is the ultimate realization of self-awareness, that is, human consciousness, that is to say, subjectivity realizes that it is the source of all reality, truth and existence. In Hegel's view, although Socrates' famous saying "know thyself" established the basic agenda for Western philosophy, this Socratic exhortation was only finally realized in the post-Christian, or modern, world. Therefore, Hegel established the central position of consciousness or subjectivity in the most extreme form, believing that consciousness or subjectivity is the center of all truth and existence, and is the irrefutable ultimate court, which is responsible for ruling on all matters concerning truth, meaning and human beings. determination of value. In Hegel's view, all existence cannot refuse to be included in the absolute and closed cycle represented by self-consciousness: the subject of self-consciousness has no "outside" (outside) and "other" (other, other). (Note: Surber, J.P., 1998, p.189.) Therefore, it marks the true incarnation of God in the human world, although it is only expressed in the form of graphics or symbols.
Secondly, closely connected with these ideas is Hegel’s view of culture, especially his view that philosophy is the highest expression of culture. In Hegel's view, the real achievements of Western civilization that can last through the ages are the ideas and systems put forward by great philosophers like Hegel, because each philosopher expressed the highest ideals of his time. form of pure rational thought. That is, every philosopher embodies the highest level of self-awareness or subjectivity that is possible in his time. The root of Hegel's interpretation of culture and history is that all cultural texts must ultimately be philosophical and therefore reasonable, because they embody the "truth" most clearly expressed by the philosophy of that era.
However, Hegel believed that considering a text as reasonable means that the text is an organic unity with internal coherence, which expresses the only dominant idea that runs through the entire text. In other words, according to the interpretation of the Hegelian philosophical paradigm, the text should be regarded as a completely clear intermediary, conveying the author's rational and unified thoughts to the reader directly and without distortion. For the philosophically self-aware interpreter to be able to grasp the essence and unifying concepts that give life to a text, the specific content or style of the text has absolutely nothing to do with its philosophical meaning and meaning. The latter can only be coherent, unified and reasonable. Therefore, Hegel's view of text as rational, unified and centralized corresponds exactly to his view of the self-conscious subject as the ultimate source of all texts.
Finally, Hegel's point of view means that history must not be regarded as a mere accidental arrangement of empirical events, or as a complex texture of traditions. According to Hegel, history is the unified, inevitable and reasonable development of modern philosophy in the development process of the self-conscious subject. The history of philosophy constitutes the true essence and paradigm of history itself, so true history can only be rational and reasonable. In fact, Hegel went even further and believed that history is a universal, transcendental "world spirit" reaching self-consciousness, a unique, unified and consistent response to the progress that is destined to occur. narration. This view of history, to use a famous saying of Hegel, is that "what is real is reasonable, and what is reasonable is real"; then to interpret historical texts is nothing more than to determine their dominance in the subjectivity of self-consciousness. The specific role played in the development of teleology.
Although several generations of thinkers after Hegel have abandoned Hegel's philosophy, the basic concepts on which Hegel's philosophy is based still exert an influence. In the broadest sense, poststructuralists attempt to eliminate these remnants of Western metaphysics once and for all, and the critical strategies they adopt to this end are aimed at eliminating the core concepts of metaphysics.
So, Lacan went to dissolve the subject, Derrida went to dissolve the text, and Foucault went to dissolve history. Although they have different emphases and adopt different critical discourses, their destructive strategies influence and interact with each other. Therefore, it is easy to cause misunderstandings to draw clear boundaries between their views. However, no matter which post-structuralist, he must first transcend the various binary oppositions of structuralism before dissolving them. In other words, the dissolution strategy of poststructuralism is, to a certain extent, developed with the binary opposition of structuralism as the main object and background.
3. Beyond binary opposition
The emergence of poststructuralism is precisely based on structuralism. In a sense, poststructuralism is transcending the binary opposition of structuralism. To implement one's own resolution strategies in the process of confrontation. Therefore, dissolution is not an empty theoretical assumption, but a concrete theoretical achievement. As we all know, one of the basic concepts of structuralism is that a clear line can be drawn between the surface structure of a text or phenomenon and its deep structure. From the perspective of post-structuralism, this distinction is just a reaffirmation of generation and existence, There are traditional metaphysical distinctions such as opinion and truth, expression and reality, phenomenon and ontology, etc., and the former is always emphasized in each pair. Post-structuralism believes that in each pair the former and the latter are completely interdependent, so the distinction between surface structure and deep structure is assumed, the product of a game of meaning or signification, and is not a reality or ultimate distinction. Not only does the deep structure inevitably influence the surface structure and manifest itself on the surface structure, but the surface structure often resists, breaks or even rejects the so-called logic of the deep structure. More specifically, in the view of poststructuralists, the search for the meaning of any text should not be found in the deep structure behind or underlying the text itself, but rather in the meaning game of the constant transformation of the elements of the text itself.
In this way, poststructuralism uses a series of binary oppositions of structural concepts as a breakthrough, and then reveals that binary oppositions are given to objects by people, not inherent in the objects. It is a conceived structure. It's a man-made game. However, does this breakthrough have real epistemological significance, or does it lead to a more extreme form of subjectivism? Perhaps, poststructuralism's transcendence of binary opposition is a remedy to a greater extent. That is to say, when the concept of structure is everywhere, poststructuralism leads people into a more confusing meaning game. A textual world further removed from the natural world. We can see both the break between structuralism and post-structuralism, and the continuation between the two. It is worth noting that the break may be an illusion, and what it conceals may be a transformation or continuation. . From the so-called transcendence of the binary opposition of structuralism by poststructuralism, it is not difficult to see that this transcendence is more of a change in the way of thinking, or in other words, a change in the way of playing.
1. The relationship between the signifier and the signified
One of the basic principles of structuralism comes from Saussure’s definition of signs. Saussure defined sign as the relationship between signifier and signified, the latter being regarded as a psychological concept. He believed that this relationship was arbitrary because there was no natural relationship at its foundation. However, once the connection between signifier and signified is established, the resulting sign is often regarded as a relatively stable unit in the linguistic system. Poststructuralists obviously cannot agree with this stable and static structure. So they added the word "sliding" in front of the signifier and the signified to indicate their differences with structuralism. The so-called concepts of "variable signifier" and "variable referent" are nothing more than converting a static concept into a dynamic concept. In the view of post-structuralists, in the actual use of language, the relationship between the signifier and the referent is always transforming and changing, so the same signifier can be used in different contexts or different historical periods according to the related things. Refers to various changes occurring. Poststructuralism uses the literary use of language, especially poetic and rhetorical devices, as examples to emphasize the creativity and uncertainty of meaning, thus forming a sharp contrast with the rigid structure of structuralism. In particular, they point out that devices such as metaphor and metonymy better reflect the actual nature of language than the literalism of structuralism. From a poststructuralist point of view, the linguistic structures described by structuralism are, as Nietzsche said, nothing more than the remnants of metaphors and other metaphors, which have lost their poetic luster through constant repetition and circulation. (Note: Surber, J.P., 1998, p.192.) Then, poststructuralists obviously want to return poetry to language, because "language itself is poetry in an essential sense" (Heidegger's words). This kind of poetry is the real meaning. It is as ever-changing as Proteus, the god of the sea. Stable language structure cannot capture such a quality.
2. Language and speech and the issue of closure
Poststructuralists followed the same ideological trajectory and rejected the structuralist theory of the relationship between language (Langue) and speech (parole). strict distinction. The implication of the relationship between variable signifiers and variable referents of poststructuralism is that the meaning possibilities of a language system cannot be divorced from the actual use of language, because in the actual occurrence of language activities, there is always a relationship between the signifier and the referent. In the process of forging new and creative relationships, the language system itself is always in a state of instability. A language, then, can never be a fixed, given and closed matrix of meaning possibilities from which actual speech activities can choose, but can at best be a historical archive of linguistic innovations from which certain meanings may Sex is continually abandoned and other possibilities are continually added.
Poststructuralism particularly criticizes the structuralist assumption about the closure of language systems or the texts they produce, believing that this assumption is a remnant of the metaphysical way of thinking. In this regard, poststructuralism proposes a completely opposite view, believing that language and text are completely open and ambiguous. This means that language and text can convey multiple meanings and be open to multiple interpretations. Language and text are therefore open spaces for games of meaning.
3. Temporality and diachrony
Although structuralism proposes temporality and diachrony as a binary opposition, its analysis obviously focuses more on The former, that is, the temporal dimension of language, text, or culture, pays less attention to its history, that is, its diachronic development. Poststructuralism has no intention of re-narrating diachronic history; its focus is on pointing out the artificiality and insufficiency of the distinction between temporality and diachrony. Obviously, a "time segment" is extracted from a dynamic time process, just as any dynamic process can be fixed at a certain point, thereby generating a time profile for analysis. Process and section are always two sides of the same phenomenon. However, from the perspective of poststructuralists, the more critical point is that just as the system structure sought by structuralist temporal analysis is actually an illusion produced by suppressing the game of meaning, diachronic analysis The resulting apparent temporal continuity is again an artifact of the valid assumption. Not only are languages ??and their texts themselves open and polysemous, but the history of their production, reception, and mutual influence cannot be traced along some continuous or unbroken arc. Poststructuralists mean to point out that various linguistic products and texts influence, borrow from, comment on, and often undermine each other's apparent meaning in rather arbitrary and unpredictable ways over time. For this reason, poststructuralism sometimes uses the term "intertextuality" to call attention to textual play over time. In this way, poststructuralism rejects any idea of ??an all-encompassing historical process, allowing distinctive texts to influence and confront each other.
4. Writing as a vertical aggregation relationship
As the founder of structuralism, Saussure obviously paid more attention to oral language than written language, so "speaking" was in a a privileged position, while "writing" takes a secondary position. In his view, writing is just a "sign of a sign" (Note: Surber, J.P., 1998, p.193.) It is the second level of encoding spoken language, that is, Auxiliary tools that themselves have no real linguistic meaning. Therefore, in the structuralist program, writing has never been an important theme. Poststructuralism keenly grasps this flaw and believes that the suppression of writing is a typical feature of the Western metaphysical tradition followed by structuralism. Therefore, poststructuralists went in the opposite direction and reversed the importance of spoken language and written language. First of all, poststructuralists believe that emphasizing oral language over written language, or emphasizing vivid speaking over silent writing, naturally leads to structuralism inferring some ultimate source of structure from the perspective of the mind or its conceptual thinking process. For example, Lévi-Strauss once believed that the structure he studied was a fixed and unchanging feature of human psychology or culture (Note: Surber, J.P., 1998, p.193.) And what is contained in this This is exactly the kind of essentialist view that poststructuralism wants to reject; secondly, the belief that speaking rather than writing is a manifestation of the vertical aggregation relationship of language often exacerbates structuralism's theoretical blindness to meaning games and meaning ambiguity. For this implicitly encourages the view that, in principle, the meaning of any statement can be clarified and determined by further questioning of the speaker. Of course, this is unlikely to happen in a written text, but in structuralism the idea of ??the speaker's presence that determines meaning naturally extends to the idea of ??writing.
Therefore, structuralism tends to understand the text as it understands the language system itself, understanding the text as a closed and unified whole, with a definite meaning corresponding to the author's intention when constructing the text.
In the view of poststructuralism, writing provides a more adequate aggregation relationship for understanding the actual function of language. In the most basic sense, writing itself appears as a superficial collection of tangible marks separated by varying spacing and punctuation, and the writer, the maker of these marks, is often not present and cannot for clarification. It is precisely the materiality of writing that expresses its artificially conceived nature and its play between the "presence" of signs and the "absence" of spacing. That is to say, writing is not a closed whole, but a polysemous construct with many "open" points from which interpretation can enter and leave. The absence of the author as the "authority" for his own writing just shows the importance of the reader's activity. In the process of reading, readers do not just pay attention to the meaning that the author wants to express, that is, the meaning determined according to the structural possibilities the author chooses in a language, but to interpret the written meaning in the reader's own interpretation context. Text is cracked, recoded and gamed.
It can be seen that the so-called transcendence of binary opposition is nothing more than a shift from a linguistic and scientific world to a textual and interpretive world, and a shift from structure, logic, and method to deconstruction. ,explanation,game. Can this breakthrough complete the complete destruction of metaphysical tradition?
In fact, whether it is Lacan’s interpretation of Freud, Derrida’s deconstruction strategy, or Foucault’s archeology and genealogy, they have launched repeated attacks on the Western metaphysical tradition. , but it can only be said that what they accomplished was an expansion of cognitive perspective, which is not enough to subvert the foundation of Western metaphysics, because poststructuralism itself is nothing more than a "subjectivism without a subject." (Note: Anderson, P., 1983, p. 54.) In short, it is just a voice in the denunciation of positivism, and it is not enough to form an epistemological revolution.
Of course, poststructuralism is not simply a cycle of language games. The deconstruction it proposes has indeed had an impact on cultural analysis and cultural criticism that cannot be underestimated.
4. Between method and anti-method: the mystery of deconstruction and its social and cultural critical significance
Just as the concept of structure originally aroused strong enthusiasm in Western academic circles Ming, the concept of deconstruction also aroused great repercussions once it was proposed. Just as the British and American anthropology circles were flocking to structural methods at that time, and structural analysis permeated almost all anthropological research for a time, deconstruction was also very popular in the 1970s and 1980s, especially under the promotion and popularization of the "Yale" school in the United States. The field of criticism extends to the entire field of cultural studies. This shows that deconstruction is not Derrida’s own patent, nor is it a “game” played by him alone. The reason why deconstruction has become a "trend of thought" is precisely because it has entered the political, cultural and social fields. Deconstruction is no longer deconstruction in a simple sense, but in a concrete sense.