34 / CHRONICLESnresultant and living history of a cosmic evolution whichnpitted many forms of reflection against each other; thenmarvelous cooperation of nature is a prudent and subtlenform of mutual feedback. Even so, when we find we cannreduce another organism to a successfully testable set ofnlaws and predictions, it is a sign that we are dealing with anlower order of reflections than our own.nThus to attempt to do so with human beings, to educenand apply the laws governing them and to predict theirnactions, is, in human terms, a viciously aggressive act, annattempt to get control at the expense of others’ freedom. Itnimplicitly reduces human beings to the level of things, ofnlower animals. But this indeed is what much social andneconomic history, much sociology and progressive politicalntheory, has attempted to do. The promise such studies heldnout was not lost on those with the sweet thirst for power.nTransformed into political programs, those systems appearednin our century as the great totalizing regimes—nMarxism, Fascism, National Socialism, International Socialism.nWe should not be surprised at the vigorous counterreactionnof human cultures against such systems.nIn the light of this analysis it now becomes clear why withnthe best will in the world all principled revolutions havenended up diminishing human variety and freedom in theirnsocieties. For a revolution to be truly freeing it must benunprincipled, in the sense that its intentions do not rest on anpredictive theory of human social behavior. Such a revolutionnwas the American, whose ideas, enshrined in thenConstitution, really amount to a declaration of regulatednintellectual anarchy. The principle of separation of powers,nwhich is, more than equality and more even than democracy,nthe central message of the Constitution and the thematicnundertone of every article, is an intuitive recognition ofnthe reflexive, self-organizing, unpredictable, feedback naturenof history, which by reinterpreting its initial conditionsnis able to forget them.nSeparation of powers makes politics into a drama, not ansermon. Perhaps the true hidden presence behind thenConstitution is William Shakespeare. All the world’s anstage. We are all actors, in both senses of the word. Ourninherent value derives from that condition, not from Kant’snnotion that we are ends in ourselves. We can still keep ourndignity even if we are, for immediate purposes, means, asnlong as we are actors in the drama. Even if their function isnto serve, the crusty boatman or witty nurse or pushynsaleslady are interpreting the world from their own center,nare characters, dramatis personae, to be ignored by others atntheir peril, and are thus free. We might, parenthetically,ntherefore view with alarm the tendency in modern andnpostmodern theater to get rid of characters altogether.nBut of course even this formulation which I have made isnitself a part of the situation it describes; it is a speech in thenplay, to be evaluated by your own reflexive processes ofnassessment. Let us see whether the line of thought itnprompts is more or less liberating than its competitors.nWe immediately run up against a large problem. Doesnthis critique of historical and human studies mean that theynmust revert to the status of chronicle and appreciativenobservation? Like amateur naturalists, must their practitionersnonly be collectors, without testable hypotheses ornlaws? Should we just admire the exquisite coiled turbulencennnof human events, wonder, and move on? The Frenchnhistorian Fernand Braudel is almost such a historicalnnaturalist; there are moments as one contemplates his greatncolorful slowly roiling paisley of mediterranean history,nseemingly without direction or progress, that one couldnwish for little more out of history. Should not the historiannbe a sort of Giacomo Casanova, a picaro among the courtsnand sewers of eternal Europe or China, remarking thenchoice beauties to be seen on one’s travels?nA directionless view of history can be seductive. But evennif the essential logic of the modern humane disciplines isnutterly erroneous, it has nevertheless provided an impetusnand direction for research and has led to the vigorousndiscovery of huge masses of information, at least some ofnwhich is interesting to everyone. The bias of that information,nthe preponderance of certain types of source and thendirection of the researchers’ gaze, may be corrupting; but innitself we feel it to be valuable.nBut let us explore the possible value of the naturalist’s ornchronicler’s agnosticism. Although it might not wish to ownnup to it, deconstructionism actually presents a rather goodncase for this perspective—to the extent that a case as such,nwith all its theoretical baggage, can be made for sonuncaselike an approach. Deconstruction is purposely notnlong on logic, and as such it is quite consistent. The betennoire of all deconstructionists is totalization. What doesntotalization mean? Once we have disposed of those cases ofntotalization which every sane person would deplore—nNazism, for example—we get into interesting territory.nWhat makes deconstruction unique is its inability to distinguishnbetween those forms of order we would all agree arenevil and such things as the narrative structure of a text,nmarriage and family, the idea of the writer and the reader,neven the very idea of the self or person. There is nonplausible place for deconstructionists to stop on their slideninto total inarticulacy. Poor Jacques Derrida, nailed recentlynto the wall by the inspectors of ideological purity on thensubject of South Africa, was forced to squirm to reconcilenthe indifference of his skepticism towards all forms of order,nhis fundamental belief in the radical apartheid of all pointsnof view, and his decent liberal distaste for the regime.nCertainly history and sociology would be easy meat for andeconstructionist’s acid test; but so would any human ornindeed natural product, process, or action. Deconstructionismnhas now begun to turn its acids on itself; as it does so, itnwill encounter the paradox of what container to keep thenperfect corrosive in. And if it is not the perfect corrosive,ndeconstruction must end up, like its old enemy Descartes,nasserting with more totalizing violence than any othernsystem that it is the one idea which is not subject to thendeconstructive process: in Descartes’ system, the cogito ergonsum, “I think, therefore I am,” isolated by his skepticismnabout all else; in Derrida’s, that force or energy he perceivesnas prior to and underlying all difference.nBut there is a rather benign factor to deconstructionism,nto be found, for instance, in Jean-Francois Lyotard’s classicalnessay on postmodernism. Here he offers a way ofnthinking about human society that makes no generalizationsnand which recognizes all human activities andnthoughts as flows in a great interacting soup of information.nOn the face of it, a very attractive vision; and it satisfiesn