Deconstructing philosophies, ideologies and other beliefs

Philosophies, ideologies and other systems are often believed by the people to fair. So let's say, we can deconstruct it by the way of fiction to examine and show flaws and evils of the philosophies and other beliefs listed below.

Nihilism

• Deconstruction: A nihilist decides to start a rampage of crime in belief, everything is nothing and meaningless.

Atheism

• Deconstruction: A atheist president of the United States decide to outlaw religion and legalizes discrimination against Godly people.

Anarchism

• Deconstruction: A anarchist society would crime-ridden and has mob-rule with the cities burning away.

Communism

• Deconstruction: It would become the Soviet Union in Real Life. Oppression and hatred runs rampant in society as rich people are forced to become poor.

Utilitarianism

• Deconstruction: A woman decides to maximize happiness and stave off pollution is to fuse humanity into a Hive Mind by Assimilation Plot and performing atrocities to achieve her goals.

So any other ideas and suggestions for this?

Most of those aren't really deconstructions, unless you can call religiously-motivated terrorism an IRL deconstruction of religion, something I'd be wary of assuming.

The atheism example on the other hand, is quite ridiculous on our world, and unlike other... unusual presidents, he would be unlikely to have the populism factor o the support of the elites. And even if he was elected, presidents don't have so much power without support from the legislative.

ps: and what do you mean by "Godly people"? Christians or religious people in general?

Godly people is a term I used to refer people with religion.

So what would be a deconstruction of the following philosophies and beliefs really look like? And here is a another deconstruction of a belief that people think is fair in their lives.

Egalitarianism

• Deconstruction: A unfair society where everybody is equal, forcing special people to come down to the level equal to the normal people.

I notice this trend about Writers Block recently, with Deconstruction. Generally, the term is misapplied.

Do you understand what you want to get out of this? All these concepts- why are any of these Deconstructions?

These are the things why I'm not coming to the forums again. I'm just interested of the implications of deconstructing philosophies and other beliefs.

You don't need to quit the forums, no one is attacking you.

I was making an observation, that's it. There were a bunch of folks who made threads asking, "How do I deconstruct this?" or "This is my idea for a deconstruction of that." Most of the time, these were not deconstructions so much as mere subversions. They lacked the analytical component to qualify, in many cases merely being different than what was typical without going into detail as to how or why this difference is a truer expression of the original concept.

From what I can see, you have a similar tendency. Let's take your Egalitarianism example: why does egalitarianism necessarily imply a society that handicaps special people to bring them down to the level of the lowest common denominator? You don't explain why this outcome is inherent to the concept, so I don't see how it can be a deconstruction.

If you want to start a discussion on deconstruction, you need to offer a bit more concrete analysis of the ideas behind tropes and philosophies. Despite how I may have come across, I'm actually personally inclined to praise your interest in deconstruction. Deconstructing tropes and philosophies is a noble goal. I do it myself and it's something that holds my interest a great deal. But deconstruction is more than presenting a different take on a trope or concept. It's the analysis of why this different take is more likely given it's inherent properties. This is why I asked if you knew what deconstruction was, because none of your quick examples demonstrated this kind of analysis.

I feel my brain is fried. I need to take a break for a while before starting some hour, be sure to explain okay.

By the way, what does a deconstruction of a philosophy really means?

A target I'm currently working on -

Early Christianity = Resentment = Destruction of Life Force = Socialism

and, alternately

Classical Paganism = Pluralism = Law of the Jungle = Most People Who Actually Call Themselves Christians Today.

edited 14th Nov '16 8:10:51 PM by garridob

Does Deconstruction apply to RL beliefs, as opposed to tropes or story conventions?

edited 14th Nov '16 8:37:18 PM by hellomoto

Take however long you like, but do come back. This is a worthy topic, for sure.

That's also not particularly helpful, and is contingent on Nietzschean priors that are questionable to say the least. Neitzsche is far more a target for deconstruction than a viable basis for deconstructing other things.

Deconstruction actually began as a philosophical practice, originating with Jacques Derrida. But, that's a bit divorced from how it's used in the context of deconstructing tropes and concepts in fiction.

To my observation, deconstruction was applied in fiction so as to raise the question of "How would this work in real life?" , but tends to devolve into "What's the worse that could happen from this premise?" - not exactly a productive direction.

To that effect, I find the above list more in the vein of a generic "What if ideology X was forcibly enacted?" which usually has the same dystopian effect. Instead, we might ask what would happen if people voluntarily chose to follow the listed philosophies. So:

Nihilism - society is engulfed in mass depression interspersed with shortsighted hedonistic outbursts. Eventually, after the mother of all hangovers, people decide that lack of inherent meaning to life doesn't mean they can't invent their own, so things start looking up again.

Atheism - lack in belief in higher powers or an afterlife causes a shift to heavily social-contract based legal systems, while scientists invest more effort in prolonging human life, to the point the technological singularity is reached within decades.

Anarchism - aversion to any centralized authority results in societies dispersing into independent family units, most of which live in generally harsher conditions than before. Economics and agriculture all but collapse, but the decrease in human population enables a sort of hunter-gatherer renaissance. Still, not the kind of world I'd leave my hat in.

Communism - all executive decisions are triple-checked by multiple committees. Individual accomplishments initially suffer, but as inventions are made publicly available immediately, progress starts taking leap after leap. Again, the technological singularity is reached much faster than in a chaotic competitive society.

Utilitarianism and Egalitarianism would work as combinations of Nihilism, Atheism and Communism. As for the "special" people, advances in education demonstrate that notions of talent are either based on hindsight - taking interest and practice for granted - or just plain wrong, the myopic exaggerations of doting parents. Meanwhile, any explicit biological advantage - such as disease immunity - is more likely to be distributed to the population in general, rather than disabled in the original individual.

In general, the chief struggle of any society is dealing with scarce resources, which sadly forces atrocities in any system with a strong central government, but just as many random casualties without it. It's not always easy to distinguish disasters committed by a given regime, with those occurring during said regime. At face value, however, most any prominent philosophy works well enough, with the troubles arising from friction with others, rather than any inherent fatal flaws.

I find Nietzche very persuasive. Him, Hannah Arendt, Sartre and Kierkegaard were instrumental in helping me overcome my obsession with justice and, in doing so, overcoming bitterness and hatred.

That process of deconstructing neo Christian modernity was the most important deconstruction of my life.

I'm back, here is another deconstruction and this is going to be offensive to some.

Zionism

• A group of ultra-nationalist Israelis decide to act crimes against humanity towards the Palestinians.

Zionism is based on belief in a chosen people.

What other groups have strongly believed such things?

It's Nazism for dummies.

Ironic, isn't it?

God's Chosen People v The Master Race: Dawn of Genocide.

Whichever one loses, the commies win.

Modern Liberalism - society splits into ever-shrinking and needlessly specific identity groups, all suing each other over perceived oppression and intolerance, until a grand famine ensues because everybody had enrolled their kids into gender studies and liberal arts colleges, so there was nobody left to tend to agriculture and transportation engineering.

Needlessly specific identity groups are likely as old as recorded history. Court is a better arena for their fights, relatively speaking

edited 15th Nov '16 5:36:52 AM by editerguy

One must remember that deconstruction =/= darker and edgier, nor does deconstruction =/= things taken to horrible conclusions.

My suggestion is also to consider the positive effects, not just the negative effects.

edited 15th Nov '16 9:46:03 AM by dragonfire5000

I sincerely hope that's an intentional strawman.

An intentional strawman would be if everyone else had gotten so sick of the aforementioned groups, that they'd willingly elect a crypto-fascist for President... or at least it would've been a strawman up until a week ago.

I consider the technological singularity to be a positive or at least neutral effect. Likewise, a lot of what sounds dark and horrible to one culture is only par for the course for another, because of factors that aren't accounted for in just the philosophical statement. Total abolition of property rights sounds like a nightmare to a Western capitalist, but was a boon for early post-monarchies barely out of feudalism in social terms. To contrast, the aforementioned description of Anarchism could be a paradise for the rugged individualism ideal prevalent in American culture. Though perhaps this is closer to a reconstruction.

Deconstruction is supposed to be about exposing the unstated assumptions contained within a work. This is generally done by pointing out the ways in which the philosophical framework of the work in question is self-contradictory, or contains statements such that if they were taken to their logical extreme would undermine the rest of the work. One way of achieving this is to propose how the assumptions would play out in the real world- therefore if everyone were a Nihilist, society would self-destruct, we would go into a survival mode, and then no one could be a Nihilist, that sort of thing. But that isn't the only way to deconstruct something. It's perfectly appropriate to point out how, say, Adam Smith's theories depend upon a market that consists only of small competing businesses, each of which are operating on the basis of complete information and perfect rationality, none of which Smith explicitly states. Or how the plot of Game of Thrones depends on a very high rate of violent sociopaths among the elite class of society. Or Tolkien's LOTR contains barely hidden xenophobic assumptions that have relevance for race relations. All of those are deconstructions (or rather, they are conclusions of deconstructions, the term itself applies to the process of analysis, which I haven't shown here).

-A woman decides to maximize happiness and stave off pollution is to fuse humanity into a Hive Mind by Assimilation Plot and performing atrocities to achieve her goals.-

That actually seems good, i mean, why not? Individuality and freedom are overrated anyway.

Krisha for new god! He will never give up of bring us salvation!

>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_5E51X5cO4

Why the game don`t let me side with him?

Even Dadga, the guy who wants kill everyone and create a new mankind filled of socially crippled humans with superpowers (humans who rely only on thelselves!) and destroy every sobrenatural being had a route.

edited 18th Nov '16 6:16:57 PM by KazuyaProta

From what you've presented, that's not a deconstruction. It's the story of a deranged lunatic who somehow came to the belief that she knows what's best for everyone, even though she clearly doesn't.

And why does it always seem like you have to complain about Shin Megami Tensei in topics not about Shin Megami Tensei?

Characters in my stories tend to give ridiculous or funny one-sentence "definitions" of ideologies as a kind of deconstruction.

Examples: Hegelianism: "... the World-Spirit, also known as Frederick William III of Prussia,..." Nietzsche: "an early-to-mid 21st century teenage edgelord whose time travel machine broke down, leaving him stranded in the 19th century."
The doctrine of Penal Substitution: "God sacrificed himself to himself to appease himself so he could forgive the semen-guilt of the actual culprits."

The first is an obvious exaggeration of Hegel's beliefs about history, and more specifically his often-touted objectionable support for absolute monarchy. The second pokes fun at the public who's tended to be most receptive to Nietzschean ideas (or rather a bastardised version of them). The third actually describes Penal Substitution (and the Original Sin), in pretty uncharitable terms.
This is acceptable (and fun) but one shouldn't forget that anything can be ridiculed, and confuse these for actual arguments.

edited 21st Nov '16 3:26:50 AM by InigoMontoya

Ah! I wonderful thread! If I may:

• One way to "deconstruct" is to take a philosophy to it's extreme: Bioshock and the "unfettered capitalism" of Rapture, Gene Roddenberry's view of "technology unchained" (replicators, warp travel) and the Borg being Cybernetics Eat Your Soul. This isn't for a strawman, it's for a dark mirror to a character's worldview.

• Another way is to have a character encounter a situation that's not covered by said philosophy. The classic is a pacifist character faced with a Complete Monster and the pacifist must use lethal force to end the threat....as said Complete Monster now begs for mercy or the only weapon to stop him/her/it is so terrible the baddie is in agony.
  • There is a less violent parallel in Real Life - economists in The '60s and The '70s (mostly in the US) spoke of "fine tuning" the economy and that inflation and recession can't exist at the same time. Cue the Oil Crisis and inflation creating "Stagflation": recession as prices went up. Nothing they tried worked in the first year of the crisis. A lot of theories got upended.

edited 24th Nov '16 12:40:27 AM by TairaMai