I am often fascinated by the ebb and flow of traffic. Specifically, it’s amazing how often a heavy traffic jam simply ends without any visible cause in the vicinity. In most cases some accident or obstruction jammed the road and caused a slowdown which then grew as other cars responded. This slowdown then lasted for a good while after the original cause was removed.
I see here an interesting analogy for understanding the postmodern deconstructionist view of language. One gets to the end of a word and finds, to one’s surprise, that there is really nothing underneath, no underlying meaning or cause to ground its operation.
In fact, this works even better if—as may sometimes be the case—there really is no prior cause of significance behind the slowing of traffic. It would be difficult, but it is at least thinkable that someone might have slowed down for no clear reason or due to some misconception. Perhaps the presence of cones tricked someone into thinking there was a construction zone; perhaps a false report of police led to an overreaction; or perhaps the appearance of brake lights or a bright sun led someone to slow down out of an unnecessary prudence. In any case, that person might jam up the road and leave a distinct traffic pattern for several minutes even though there was no substantial or legitimate cause. A meaningless action created distinct ripples, a texture upon of the waves of automobiles, which could at least in theory become significant enough to provide the misconception that some accident may have occurred.
In fact, I encountered a slowdown today that seemed only to be caused by a semitruck pulled over (but not far enough; it was partly still in the lane) and after it a police car ticketing someone else. These are at least substantial causes in a sense, but they did not necessarily warrant the jam that they created. In the same way, is it possible that words have causes that do not necessarily warrant the meaning that they attempt to communicate? For example, might some words form out of mere convenience of tongue and end up communicating not because of their origin but despite it? Similarly, might their whole communicative force be built upon societal conveniences and a mere pretense of underlying meaning?
Perhaps this analogy also reveals the difficulty of this postmodern position. While it is thinkable that a traffic jam might occur for insufficient reasons, it is not terribly likely or significant. The ripples caused by one person’s mistake are almost always going to be subtle. If traffic jams are by and large representative of real events and in that sense actually meaningful, why cannot language be the same way?