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Kajian Dalam Bidang Ilmu Perpustakaan dan Informasi: Filosofi, Teori, dan Praktik
but a gateway to open and enlightening interpretations. Deconstruction is
developed by Derrida to counter the domination of ratio-oriented Western
philosophical way of thinking, positivistic elucidation, and permanent
meanings (Bartens, 2006; Beilharz, 2002). Derrida holds that desperation
and resignation will cause humans to be fatalistic. He believes that the
deconstruction method will pave a way to new perspectives more critical in
seeing truth for truth sake, not the absolute truth that grips humans.
Deconstruction is not an attitude or something skeptical and
deconstructive, like disestablishing a construction purely for the pleasure
of disestablishing. Referring to a rarely used French word, deconstruire
(disassembling a machine to later be reassembled), Derrida uses the word
deconstruction to recompose grammatical words. To him, deconstruction
is positive—as opposed to something that only disturbs order and leaves
it without offering any better alternative perspectives. He shakes, turns
upside down, probably worries about, but with some disentanglement,
and torn apart established truth, with the ultimate goal of opening an
opportunity for the rise of new things and the discovery of new meanings.
Deconstruction, as Derrida puts it, opens up closed minds, offers a plethora
of alternatives, and acknowledge differences and plurality. In developing
his philosophical thoughts, Derrida incessantly attempts to challenge and
oppose oppositional hierarchization, truth standardization, and absolute
knowledge. Due to such belief, Derrida is known as a philosopher who
rejects normative things, breaking down establishments—the sort of notion
that often flips over understanding of a text and rejects monolithic textual
understanding (Bennington, 1994; Derrida, 1973; Gashce, 1992)
Derrida’s purposes to perform deconstruction on texts are detailed as
follows. First, he aims to disengage inconsistencies in texts and to identify
contradictions and ideological biases that have contaminated texts all this
time. From his perspective, the existing texts are something that needs
questioning and breaking down for the motifs and power lying behind. One
who simply accepts the truth of a text without considering the possibility
of other truths hidden behind such text with a skeptical attitude will highly
likely fall prey to hegemony of the dominating power producing such text
and authorized to interpret its truth. A librarian who believes the truth of a
text stating that a library is a sacred place with zero tolerance for visitors
who talk loudly and cause inconvenience to others will never come up with
the idea of building a popular and fun library for visitors. The National
Library of Singapore, for example, designs a reading space for children to
appear like a playground full of fluidity and colors which allows children to
have a great time playing there on the basis of the notion that the activities
of visiting a library and reading are fun. This is in a stark contrast with the
30 Decontruction And Recontruction of The Roles of Librarians ...

