I attempt to explain deconstruction

Point 1: A written or spoken word makes reference to an idea of a thing. The word is not the thing: the word "table" or "tree" is not an actual table or an actual tree. Instead, it makes reference to the idea of a table or the idea of a tree.

Point 2: There is no reason why we should use "tree" to refer to the idea of a big woody plant with leaves. (The Romans used "arbor" and the French use "arbre," but all three of us are talking about the same idea.) But we do.

Point 3: Words and the ideas they represent derive their significance from their different from other words and other ideas. We recognize the sound of the word "tree" as signifying a distinct idea because there are no other words that sound like it. The same can be said for the idea. If the sun never set, we would have no word for the idea of night, because we would have nothing to compare it to. (Here's another example: nobody said "analog watch" until digital watches were invented, or "film camera" until digital cameras were invented.)

Point 4: Meaning is always deferred. This is proved by points 1–3, but especially point 1. Again, the word is not the thing.

Point 5: Western metaphysics privileges speech over writing. It sees speech as the pure, full presence of the speaker's mind. Writing, on the other hand, is seen as pure absence; it can only make reference to pure presence. (This is exactly what Bret Stephens believes, by the way, like not even ironically.)

Point 6: All of that is bullshit. Everything that Western metaphysics finds wrong with writing can also be said about speech. If writing is the deferral of meaning, so is speech. Recall points 1 and 4: the word is not the thing, no matter if it's spoken or written.

Point 7: This isn't just about language. The privileging of speech over writing has historically merged with the idea that being is pure presence.

Points 1–4 were Derrida's starting points. They're derived from the tradition of structural linguistics, which began with Ferdinand de Saussure in the early 1900s. But Points 5, 6, and 7 are where Derrida makes his main arguments. He often referred to himself as a historian, and his project of deconstruction is in many ways a project of historical analysis. Deconstruction does not mean destruction. (See Derrida's letter to his Japanese translator: https://grattoncourses.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/letter_to_a_japanese.pdf) Deconstruction is a method of analysis that shows how phenomena have been socially, historically, and culturally constructed. In "Of Grammatology," Derrida did not want to destroy Western metaphysics. (Whenever somebody says that Derrida wanted to destroy anything, particularly Western civilization, you can immediately tell that they've never read a single thing he's written.) He wanted to look at how certain ideas of presence, absence, and being have been constructed throughout the history of Western metaphysics. In so doing, he wanted to demonstrate that the idea of being as pure presence, and the idea of speech as full presence, are not eternal ideas that are borne out of a separate realm of pure truth. Rather, they are historical constructions.

(Just because something is a historical construction doesn't make it non-real. Here I am thinking of a friend of mine who once got blackout drunk and put out a cigarette on his hand while explaining that the self was historically constructed. By all accounts, it was still quite painful. [The cigarette burn, I mean.])

About 99% of what Derrida said about meaning, deferral, construction, and metaphysics can also be found in Nietzsche's philosophy. Jordan Peterson fans, take note.