From a woke perspective, oppression is to be overcome through the right discourses. Allegedly dominant discourses are to be analysed to uncover hidden power dynamics.102 An important method here is so-called deconstruction.
The deconstructive linguistic theory was significantly shaped by the postmodern philosopher Jacques Derrida. According to Derrida, language can never be unambiguous, as it is impossible to assign words a clear meaning.103
From the viewpoint of linguistic deconstructivism, it is doubted that words can convey stable meaning at all; categories in particular are radically questioned. In Derrida’s postmodern view, discourses about reality form a so-called “logocentrism” that is to be overcome with deconstructive methods.104 Criteria such as “truth”, “reason”, and “logic” allegedly determine logocentric thinking, which starts from the allegedly “normal” and creates rules to exclude the “abnormal”.105
Derrida’s deconstructive method aims to show that there are no claims, ideas, concepts, values, interpretations, or philosophies that are actually objectively and universally true.106 Using Derrida’s method of deconstruction, established understandings of meaning are to be questioned, as words can allegedly be assigned other meanings with equal justification (see Social Constructivism).
Woke practice of deconstruction builds on Derrida’s postmodern linguistics to secure woke discursive hegemony. When woke activists want to deconstruct something as a “construct”, they attempt to weaken previous meanings to create space for their intended meanings. This can happen in multiple ways.
- Redefinition: Blur boundaries defining a concept or reverse the concept’s meaning. Previous definitions do not describe how the world actually is. They are merely the (problematic) definitions of privileged people with false consciousness. For example, biological sex is completely redefined through gender ideology.
- Problematise objectivity: Allegedly, all truth claims are in reality merely power claims. Woke activists, however, have no power claims themselves; they merely seek to challenge existing power structures (usually as the voice of the marginalised).
- New interpretation: Things are reinterpreted. This is meant to prove that previous interpretations were problematic, incomplete, or arbitrary (often linked to 1).
- Emphasise negative impacts: Truth allegedly plays no role; what matters are the supposed impacts. If statements could have negative impacts, it is irrelevant whether they are true. Allegedly dangerous statements must be denied (see critical social constructivism and disinformation).
- False context: Pull theses out of context to interpret them in the worst possible way (often linked to 3).
- Guilt by association: Completely reasonable theses are portrayed as problematic by claiming connections to things regarded as problematic (often linked to 4 and 5).
Woke deconstruction is found particularly in queer theory. Queer theorists assume that gender roles are merely socially constructed.107 With deconstructive methods, they seek to problematise the meaning of biological sex as alleged cis-normativity. However, deconstructive activism is not limited to queer gender theories but is present in many academic disciplines (see Critical Theory).
A scholarly introduction is provided by the dissertation “Social- Justice-Leftism as Deconstructive Post-modernism”.108