Intro
When it comes to interpreting texts, poststructuralist theory loves to get its hands on anything and everything. But it especially loves taking on the power players of Western philosophy, politics, and social science. That's why you'll find poststructuralist theorists talking about texts that don't seem very literary at all, like this anthropological study by Claude Lévi-Strauss.
It focuses on—you guessed it—kinship structures in tribes, mostly from Australia, which he described as "elementary" in a way that was kind of insulting, but people didn't pay much attention to that part yet (just wait 'til Homi Bhabha comes along). They did pay attention to how it was a groundbreaking study in family ties, alliance, and signs of connection in ways that were also totally illuminating for Western culture.
Okay, back to poststructuralism. Remember how we said that Derrida's game-changing conference paper "Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences" took Lévi-Strauss to task for assuming that there's a fundamental difference between nature and culture? Well, he focused his attack on a short chunk from Lévi-Strauss's Elementary Structures, and with his classic mix of close reading and hugely sweeping style, Derrida's interpretation of this text set the bar for all the deconstructionists and poststructuralists who followed. So let's get deconstructing.
Quote
Let us assume therefore that everything universal in man derives from the order of nature and is characterized by spontaneity, that everything which is subject to a norm belongs to culture and presents the attributes of the relative to the particular. We then find ourselves confronted by a fact, or rather an ensemble of facts, which, in the light of the preceding definitions, is not far from appearing as a scandal: the prohibition of incest presents without the least equivocation, and indissolubly linked together, the two characteristics in which we recognized the contradictory attributes of two exclusive orders. The prohibition of incest constitutes a rule, but a rule, alone of all the social rules, which possesses at the same time a universal character.
Analysis
Lévi-Strauss has really worked himself into a tizzy here, 'cause he's got this idea that nature = universals, and culture = rules. Sounds a bit over-sweeping to us. But, from all his field research, he's getting the impression that incest prohibitions (the unspoken rules that say it's not okay to for sons to get their romance on with their moms) exist in all cultures—i.e., are universal.
But since he's already decided that universals are natural and don't have anything to do with rules, he's in a bit of a bind. What's an anthropologist to do?
More importantly, WWDD? (where D=Derrida, and also by this point should be "Duh.")
Binary hater that he is, Derrida takes one look at the corner Lévi-Strauss has worked himself into and goes, if you believe there's really a difference between nature and culture, all you are is a "scandal" to academe. The second you give up the distinction, your problem is solved.
But Derrida doesn't stop there. He spreads his reading outwards to other texts by Lévi-Strauss, pulling out bits and pieces here and there that let him connect the dots and making a way bigger reading. Lévi-Strauss, according to the big D, is always teeter-tottering back and forth between admitting that unchanging truths (like the nature/culture divide) don't exist, and searching around for unchanging truths anyway. He's so close to seeing that the structure doesn't have a center, or a beginning or end, but he always falls just a little bit short.
Derrida turns a close reading of a single paragraph into a commentary on Lévi-Strauss's entire life's work, and, AT THE SAME TIME, chats about the whole history of Western philosophy like it's no big deal. That's the deconstructive method at work: showin' people up, one "truth" after another.
In case you haven't figured it out by now, don't cross swords with Derrida.