Declarative Culture, Properly Understood
Yes, in the first passage you quote I'm not representing the thinking of an activist but, rather of those downstream form the activist. Still, if you ask the radical feminist to explain what, exactly, dismantling the patriarchy looks like, it might not be all that different--they have some vague picture of roles they might be playing, people they'd be bossing around or defying, etc.
You make an implicit distinction between GA and the systems of thought which produced it. Certainly the "systems" can be deconstructed--that's what GA does in distinguishing itself from, e.g., Girard or Derrida (although I'm not sure "deconstruct" is exactly right here). But what's the deconstruction of the originary hypothesis itself, effortless or not?
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The first sign would have been both local and universal, since it would have taken place in a singular event, while initiating the terms of all other subsequent signs. "Social construction" and "deconstruction" elide the question of a first sign--for them, we start in the middle. But there must have been a first sign, unless you think there could have been a 1/100th of a sign, then a 1/50th of a sign, and so on, until we get a "whole" sign. The oiginary hypothesis assumes the sign must have emerged "full blown," all at once, and therefore in a unique event. The first sign is also the emergence of the human and hence why there is "social construction" in the first place. The social does get "constructed," doesn't it? How?
Deconstruction is ultimately only applicable to declarative sentences, which have "meanings." Can you deconstruct a greeting--two people saying "hello" to each other? What does "hello" "mean"? You can restate it as a declarative--something like "In making this gesture I greet you and invite you to greet me in turn"--but that's not what it is (it's how a computer might represent it). The forms of greeting are, of course socially constructed (hugs, handshakes, nods, etc.) but why is it not more important that in every human order there are ways in which people recognize each other's presence, precisely in a way specific to that community--and that this distinguishes humans from all other species? If we start from here, rather than from the deconstructability of all meaning, we end up in a different place, don't we?