Talk:Deconstruction

Re: NPOV Dispute. Although I find myself agreeing with critics of D, I must also agree that this article, as written, is quite anti-D. Would the user who added the NPOV dispute like to add some text about D, or alert someone who can to do so? --- Williamv1138

I saw the article (this version), and it looked not only POV but also rather unorganized. Here are some of the thoughts I had, and what I did:

The term was defined in many parts of the article, partly due to the merging of previously separate two articles, and partly due to bad edits, inserting some texts without paying attention to the overall structure.
- I tried to correct it.
The explanations about literary criticism existed in two different parts of the article.
- I merged them under one section. Yet it needs edit.
There were two parts (early and later parts of the article) which offered the same critique essentially saying that deconstruction is difficult to understand, if not non-sense.
- I personally wonder if that kind of critique is really that important, but at least some of Derrida's text is known to be weird, even among scholars specializing in Derrida. So I tried to preserve both criticisms, with some change in place (context in the article) and wording.
There was a part which said "major criticism" of deconstructionists was that they allowed only they could be excluded from receiving the deconstruction.
- I think that is probably not major criticism, and mischaracterization. So I removed it. A closer claim is made by Habermas, that post-structuralists are in a state of perfomative contradiction (:means roughly "they are relativists, but they behave as if their relativism is absolutely true"). And including that criticism somewhere is not a bad idea, I think.
"Deconstructionist tenets" section looked a bit too strong and simplified characterization of deconstructionists.
- I didn't change what's already there. I gave a different context and changed the section title. Probably this section could offer a favorable and unfavorable characterization of epistemological and other claims of deconstructionists jaxtaposed with each other.

I haven't even read the later sections seriously. But I would possibly have some opinions how it could be improved once I read them.

In any case, I am not an expert on this, so help from cooperative people would be greatly appreciated. Tomos 14:33, 31 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Upon reading the Deconstructionism & Deconstruction in literary criticism sections of the current version, here are the my questions & opinions.

Is the set of claims listed as those of deconstructionist accurate and fair? I personally think it would be nice if there is an explanation of why deconstructionists believe in these points.
- In general, the criticism article provides tends to be like "I don't understand it. It sounds just too strange and extreme." Characterization without explanation. I would try not to delete these criticisms much, since it may be the case that many think Derrida and others in that way, but I would try what I can do to give better explanations. Hopefully, criticisms of different kind, too. If someone can help on these, that would be great.
deconstruction is said to be "several related schools of thought" at the beginning of the literary criticism section. This statement was actually in the introductory part of the article before I edited. But there is no identifications of those several schools in the article, as I read it. And it seems "deconstructionism" is a better term for a school of thought, rather than "deconstruction."
There are paragraphs about deconstructionism applied to science and history. For one, that should belong to somewhere else. Also, the one which begins with "Most deconstructionists believe" seem to be a bit simplistic characterization to me.
- Even for deconstructionists, not every interpretation is equally convincing, or not every meaning can be equally easily drawn from a given text.
- Some deconstructionists would seriously try to be radical, extreme critics of history or science, I think. And it is not very surprising that some of the beliefs they hold are fundamentally against the whole field of history or a science. But the article seems to be characterizing deconstructionism simply as something unacceptable, rather than some potentially valid criticism. Or I may be interpreting the text only in one way and blind to other connotaitions or possible interpretations... This is a subtle point, and I would think once more before making change.
literary criticism section needs rearrangements of paragraphs in general.
Tomos 02:01, 3 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Re: NPOV edit: Sorry, I didn't mean it; at least I don't think I did. Do you think I meant it? Take my edits back out if you think I meant it and you are sure you have understood me correctly --- Williamv1138 A moment of clarity: The NPOV statement is a uniquely appropriate place to address what D means --- Williamv1138

I find your contributions to the beginning of this text-article-message-anti-message most hyberbolic, and tangential to the usual colonialist Euclidean meanings intended by other "authors". Bravo! Indeed, the very fact that other "authors" purport to be able to explain what deconstructionism is, does violence to the non-Euclidean freedom that deconstructionists should depend on, that is, if they could be said to depend on anything. The author is dead, long live the author! :) RK 02:06, 4 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I guess I'm going to be violent to deconstructionists. So now you play the role of defending their freedom? :-) Tomos 02:12, 7 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Re: Relation to philosophy section

Just some tentative notes on my tentative findings.

Is deconstruction a philosophy?
- There are perhaps two questions. Does deconstruction have to do anything with philosophy? Is deconstruction a philosophy, or philosophical position?
- I have just checked several philosophical encyclopedias published during the 90's. They all had entries on deconstruction. They also explained deconstruction not as a philosophy, but as a technique or method, or in something that should not be clearly formulated and formalized. (This is b/c of Derrida's such remark in Grammatology). So, yes, it is perhaps a well-recognized term in philosophy, but no, perhaps not a position.
- But it would probably be a fair characterization that many scholars (deconstructionists) form their philosophical position based on what deconstruction as a technique implies about the nature of meaning, text, reality, power, and interpretation.
Do Derrida propose that reality does not exist?
- The current version of this article does not say Derrida holds the position, but "some deconstructionists" do.
- I'm not very sure about Derrida's position yet, but there is this famous phrase "there is nothing outside text" (il n'ya pas d'or texte). One encyclopedia entry specifically discussed the meaning of the phrase and suggested that what Derrida meant was quite different from what other people think he meant. So it may be that Derrida's position is not much anti-realist, while deconstructionists' are.

Tomos 02:12, 7 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I just remembered that Walter Ong's Orality and literacy contained a critique of Derrida in the last chapter or so. Just a reminder to myself, and/or an invitation for other to check it out. Tomos 02:20, 7 Aug 2003 (UTC)

So, I am a knowledgeable person in the field, and I am eager to contribute to the Wikipedia philosophy space, but I find it difficult to know where to begin, other than creating new articles and fleshing out stubs. Many existing pages seem quite slanted, and appear to be written from a passing familiarity at best with the field -- this Deconstruction page in particular is quite explicitly anti-deconstructive (and what's worse, factually incorrect in numerous places). Should I be bold and simply make the change, which might involve deleting long passages of this text? I fear this would invite flamewars in which I have no interest. What is the polite way to proceed? Rbellin 02:40, 2 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Politeness is a worthy goal, but not so worthy as getting things right. If you think you understand the topic better than the article, then it's probably best to make your changes, and participate in the ensuing discussion. Some people around here are flamers, but a number of people at least attempt to be reasonable at least some of the time. =) See. Wikipedia:Be bold in updating pages. --Ryguasu 05:38, 2 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Rbellin --- I wrote some parts of this article, I acknowledge it is far from neutral. I want it to be neutral. I welcome your changes. You won't get flamed by me. Don't swing the other way, of course. The landscape of the pro/anti rhetoric about D is as much a part of describing it as describing its tenets, so keep or write some text about that controversy, and about what critics think of D. Wikipedia:Be bold in updating pages. Williamv1138 15:12, 2 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I've undertaken a major rewrite of this article, and removed the NPOV dispute (though I expect someone belligerent may replace it until more "criticism of deconstruction" is added). I had to scrap a lot of text: the article contained very little information specific to deconstruction, and used a lot of hostile sources and "criticism" that were really about post-modernism. Some of that text might belong in another article (maybe Sokal affair, post-modernism, or some other page devoted to the "science wars"?), but none of it belonged here, since none of it discussed deconstruction specifically.

I strongly disagree. You are using a very limited definition of the word "deconstruction". Deconstructionist themselves make no such limitation. The criticism you want to remove do refer to what many deconstructionists refer to as deconstructionism. I think you are narrowing the field to such a narrow area that you miss most of the field! RK 15:44, 5 Sep 2003 (UTC)

As I've explained in the article, many critics (who I assume haven't read much, or any, Derrida) conflate deconstruction with varying stripes of post-modernism, which is incorrect. I've tried to point the "criticism" paragraphs away from the usual poorly informed diatribes and toward real, substantial philosophical disagreements with deconstruction, of which there are many. (For some reason, most of the criticisms were basically about literary interpretation rather than other philosophical questions.) Other informed users will probably be able to augment these if they see a need, hopefully by beginning with actual claims made by Derrida or other deconstructive writers (quote! cite!) rather than straw men.

And before anyone leaps in to start an argument by calling me a "deconstructionist," I should note that I disagree with Derrida and deconstruction about lots of things. I'm by no means entirely pro-deconstruction. But I have read a lot of Derrida's work and I understand it. And an article about philosophy that cited newspaper articles for sources was patently subpar.

A few sentences of other text which dealt with the broadening of literary criticism into cultural studies was removed as well. This would make a good subject for articles on the history of literary criticism, literary theory, or cultural studies. Again, it didn't belong here. There wasn't much more than a stub there anyway.

Rbellin 04:04, 5 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I thought about simply including some of the criticisms from the earlier article along with correct responses, but decided it didn't direct the article toward a better understanding of the subject. Just for fun, here are my replies. Rbellin 04:04, 5 Sep 2003 (UTC)

"No one can know the truth about the intentions of an author. Many deconstructionists hold that authors themselves are unconscious of their own intentions."

(This is the opinion of Sigmund Freud and many psychoanalytic writers, and also of the classic essay "The [Intentional Fallacy]" by the seminal New Critics Wimsatt and Beardsley. While this claim is common to psychoanalysis, the New Criticism, and deconstruction, it is not uniquely of characteristically deconstructive. Indeed, nearly all non-biographical twentieth-century literary criticism is based on this principle, or a weaker version which holds that the author's intention is not the only, or the most interesting, goal of a text's interpretation. Note also that the seminal essays "The Death of the Author" and "What Is an Author?", against which some of the previous Talk page's criticism appears to be directed, are by Roland Barthes and Michel Foucault respectively. Neither thinker is associated with deconstruction.) Rbellin 04:04, 5 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Just because non-deconstructionists hold this point of view doesn't mean anything. The question is this: What do many deconstructionist believe as a part of their program (deconstructionism), and are their mainstream criticisms of these positions that exist. I have seen many critics of deconstructionists make these same points. RK 15:44, 5 Sep 2003 (UTC)

"No one can know anything about the true nature of reality. Some deconstructionists write that there is no objective reality "out there", and that reality is a social construct."

(This is a simplification of Immanuel Kant, who held that things-in-themselves, as separate from their phenomenal aspect, are in principle unknowable. While deconstruction is informed by Kant's work, this is not a distinguishing feature: so is all modern philosophy. Rbellin 04:04, 5 Sep 2003 (UTC)

You missed the point. While Kant did hold such a view, we are not talking about Kant at all. We are talking about a mainstream deconstructionit tenet, which is explicitly stated in many articles by deconstructionist authors. The fact of the matter is that there is a common criticism of this D position, which I summarized. You can't just delete this common criticism. RK 15:51, 5 Sep 2003 (UTC)

"No claim of knowledge is privileged; no method of learning provides authoritative information."

(This is an accurate paraphrase of a common deconstructive position, though it should not be mistaken for an absolute relativism. Deconstruction is often concerned with undermining claims of privileged knowledge -- the desire for which is known as logocentrism -- and indeed with scrutinizing privilege and power in all their forms. Several of Derrida's best-known works, influential in feminist theory, associate logocentrism with patricarchal male privilege. To describe this overlap between the search for absolute truth and the masculinist need for domination, Derrida and other authors use the word phallogocentrism.)

The criticism exists nonetheless; it is quite common, and should be represented in this entry. RK 15:51, 5 Sep 2003 (UTC)

"Language is only a system of arbitrary symbols. Books, essays, etc., all have no meaning outside of the meaning given to them by the reader."

(The position that language's signifying function is predominantly arbitrary is a common theme of all structuralist and post-structuralist continental philosophy, including deconstruction, and is also held by nearly all modern Chomskyan linguists. The second sentence appears to advocate a kind of reader-response criticism, which is very different from deconstructive literary interpretation. Note that social constructivism, a version of which is compatible with deconstruction, is different from the radical subjectivism advocated here.) Rbellin 04:04, 5 Sep 2003 (UTC)

"A common rebuttal to all deconstructionist dogma is that deconstructionists effectively claim a privileged position for their own writings. They write letters and books which expect that readers understand their own intent, yet deny that this is possible for anyone else."

(In fact, reflexivity is one of the strongest points of deconstruction. Derrida's texts, though they inevitably have blind spots, are for the most part ceaselessly self-interpreting. Often, the form of a deconstructive text and the development of its argument's content are so tightly coupled that the two are inseparable.)

I have no idea what this means. It doesn't appear to address the point. RK 15:51, 5 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Deconstruction in architecture is an unrelated topic (and one well worth writing about!) Deconstructionist methods of reading a book are not really related to how an architect builds and designs apartment buildings, homes and monuments. This topic is already discussed in the article entitled Deconstructivism. That entry discusses both Deconstructivism and Deconstruction. I am thinking that perhaps the name of that architecture article is not enough for some people to find it in their Web search engines; maybe we should create Deconstruction (architecture) as an article, and turn it into a redirect to the deconstructivism article? Or maybe we should do this the other way around, and turn the Deconstructivism article into a redirect to Deconstruction (architecture). Thoughts?

Scylla (?) Charybdis

I've tried to deal with the problems regarding the "Criticisms of Deconstruction" section of the article in a new way. After several of the criticisms in this section, I've inserted short replies of the sort that a deconstructor might give. To emphasize this attempt to replace mutual recrimination with respectful dialogue, and also to give the article a more "deconstrution-friendly" feel by whimsically pointing out the unresolved tensions within the article itself, I've labeled each criticism "PROSECUTION" and each reply "DEFENSE." Hopefully the readers will be the jury. I hope this doesn't constitute a violation of NPOV, but I thought it was better to approximate NPOV by having multiple points of view explicitly present than to use NPOV as an excuse to curtail discussion. I hope nobody on either side of this debate is offended by the role in which I have cast her or him. Any thoughts?

Your additions are most welcome; I think they are in perfect accord with our NPOV policy. Although I do not agree much with Decon. viewpoint, I do agree that this article is the place to state it! Glad to have you on board. RK 20:15, 5 Sep 2003 (UTC)~

As the article now stands, things look Ok. We should keep in mind the structure of how to present points and counterpoint. It could get very convoluted if we have Point, counterpoint, counter-counterpoint, counter-counter-counter-point, etc. It looks Ok for now, but if the issue grows any further, we will need to rewrite this section in paragraph form. RK 20:15, 5 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Because I think this issue is interesting for Wikipedia as a whole, not just a personal complaint, I want to state my opinion of the return of the "Criticisms" text that I deleted. I want to be clear: I'm not trying to start an argument (which I correctly predicted was likely before I edited the page), it's not my intention to flame, and I don't intend to re-edit the page again. I just want to air an opinion and solicit comment on it from the user community.

The text reintroduced to this page (from the fourth paragraph to the end of the Criticism section) was a major motivation for my rewrite. In my opinion, this text is factually inaccurate as well as philosophically naive. (Inaccurate because the philosophical beliefs which it attributes to "deconstructionists" are not, in fact, important ideas specific to deconstruction; naive because of the question-begging arguments it presents as "obvious" refutations.) Either of these alone would be enough to justify its removal from a philosophy encyclopedia article, to my mind. The Chomsky quotation is not a "criticism" of anything, but a famous scholar saying that he doesn't understand. (And not that he doesn't understand deconstruction, by the way. The word appears nowhere in the quotation: Chomsky is really talking about "poststructuralism and postmodernism", as he explicitly says, not deconstruction. Again, this quotation doesn't belong in this article, because it's (a) not a real criticism and (b) not about deconstruction.)

In my opinion, a scholar reading this portion of the article would not consider Wikipedia a reliable or intelligent source. The article's point-of-view balance is improved since the new text was added, but I still consider this section subpar.

I think all the content of the deleted text is summarized more coherently, more literately, and more correctly by the first paragraph of the Criticism section that I posted (which simply calls the positions attributed to deconstruction by the deleted texts by their proper philosophical names, and then correctly points out that none of them is really a meaningful tenet of deconstruction, and that the criticisms are really about some form of postmodernism). At least one user evidently disagrees, though without providing any citations or evidence why.

The interesting thing here, as a broader topic for discussion, is that Wikipedia claims that expert and scholarly contributions are solicited. Yet in certain cases (like that of this page) I perceive an active will to ignorace among a segment of the user community: here a relatively well-informed rewrite (with citations and documentation of sources), from a newbie author who's knowledgeable about the subject, was immediately (though just partially) reverted to its previous state of ignorance. The problem, in my opinion, is that the Wikipedian motto "Write about what you know about" fails in the not-so-uncommon case that a contributor doesn't know what he or she knows and, more importantly, doesn't know about. And, as Hegel said, not everyone assumes they can be a shoemaker given leather and a last, but everyone thinks they can be a philosopher.

Furthermore, most experts and scholars, even if they decide to contribute to the Wikipedia, are not going to have the energy or inclination to engage in long discussions with non-experts defending the changes they make. Does Wikipedia have a way to deal with this problem, given that for some topics not all Wikipedians will recognize the difference between a well-informed page and an amateurish one? I know that I won't be participating in any more back-and-forth in Talk pages here, because I have other work to do.

My personal response to this is to become very wary of re-editing existing articles, even those that I know -- from my own scholarly work in the field -- to be inaccurate (or just bad). My contribution to Wikipedia in the future will probably be restricted to creating new articles, so I don't have to worry about stepping on anyone's toes.

Rbellin 01:59, 8 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Well, whatever I say, you may never come back to this article. :( I think Wikipedia has its own limits, like you pointed out, but there are things you can do without being involved in the time-consuming discussion.

Wikipedia is based on the premise that the overall effect of having more people reading & editing an article is refinement of the article, and the premise could be wrong when a vast majority has a "wrong" understanding on the topic. Having such a premiose also means, however, that when someone claims "I am an expert on this, believe me. And please don't change what I write," (there are all kinds of people who says something like this, you know...) other people at Wikipedia can still be bold in editing. After all, Wikipedia is not based on qualifications, but mostly on peer review.

At the same time, though, I think there are some contributions you can make to others' articles. (And I would love to see those..)

Explain more sophisticated criticisms to deconstruction, prefereably by some noted critics.
Explain that some of the common criticisms are naive or incorrect to experts' eyes, citing some sources.

I am not an expert on deconstruction, but some of the criticisms in the current version of the article do seem rather naive blanket statements to me. I still think those things deserve to remain, though, to the extent they are popular. Rather than removing those stuff, adding explanations of more sophisticated criticisms would make the article better (more informative), I think. Tomos 16:02, 15 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I removed a very biased "disclaimer" from a deconstructionist apologist. He wrote in this article "This article's discussion of deconstructive thought should be considered a gross oversimplification. Deconstruction is vulnerable to misunderstanding even when carefully and sympathetically summarized, perhaps more than other philosophy, because of its emphasis on irreducible complexity and its texts' often difficult style."

One hardly knows where to begin criticising such a claim. Is deconstructionist so much harder to understand than nuclear physics and quantum mechanics, or any other complicated topic? I highly doubt it. No other Wikipedia article has such grandiose personal disclaimers, and there is good reason for it. Secondly, most historians, literature professors and scientists are critical of deconstructionism precisely because of such disclaimers. Deconstructinist authors often make incredible statements, then publicly attack their critics as too stupid or naive to understand their real meaning. Over and over deconstructionist literature contains numerous examples of special pleading, in which deconstructionists demand the right to comment on any subject, but reject the right of anyone to examine or reject their own views. This is not NPOV. It isn't even rational. RK 00:30, Nov 2, 2003 (UTC)

I removed the following NPOV violations. It is not acceptable on Wikipedia to promote one's personal views as fact. Critics of deconstruction often believe it to advocate irrationalism, absolute relativism, radical social constructivism, opposition to science or history, anti-realism, subjectivism, and/or solipsism. None of these claims is supported by a careful reading of Derrida's work (or any other eminent texts of deconstruction).... I think that most long-time Wikipedia contributors will understand why such grandiose claims are unacceptable and a violation of our NPOV policy.

This renoval is especially appropriate, since the vast majority of philosophers, literary scholars, historians and scientists reject deconstructionism. These people do make the above criticisms of deconstructionism, and they explain why in great detail. The above deleted statement is clearly calling all of these people too stupid to understand what they are reading. I propose that instead this article simply follow standard policy: Explain who holds point of view "A", and why; then explain who holds point of view "B", and why. RK

I see that any view other than outright attack on deconstruction has little hope of remaining on this page for long. Since I do not have the tenacity or the desire to engage in an argument, much less an edit war, with RK, I surrender, and will likely never re-edit the page, or any other page he seems interested in. You win, pal -- enjoy. But you're actively driving away a contributor who wants to help the Wikipedia, with a strong background in fields underrepresented here. And, for the record, I don't think this page should serve as a debate forum about mistaken claims based on cursory/poor readings of complex and lengthy texts.

What edit war? I made one change today, and others are free to edit this change. Please stop presenting yourself as a martyr that is under attack. You aren't. If you took the time to read the new material, you'd note that I actually included much of your own text, often word for word, along with my own. As for the above deleted paragraphs, they were gross violations of NPOV policy, that pushed deconstructionist beliefs as indisputable fact. Such belief pushing is unacceptable in all Wikipedia articles, not just this one. RK 22:13, Nov 2, 2003 (UTC)

I will limit myself to a few remarks en passant. First: I have read and understood several thousand pages, from at least three dozen books, on deconstruction. I have been in graduate seminars with many experts who publish books on the topic. I have what I, and a prestigious university, think is a decent background in the topic. I hate to speculate on the background of other contributors, but RK's edits certainly don't display any familiarity with the material that I can see. (I know, I'm just asserting this without documentation, and I'm honestly not trying to pull rank or justify my previous edits on this basis alone, but it puts what I'm saying about the changes in some perspective.)

And many Muslims, and Orthodox Jews, and Ayn Rand objectivists, each have thousands of pages of their own preferred ideology! What does this prove? Nothing at all. You can read a million pages of Ayn Rand's objectivists belief system...but that still won't give anyone the right to use Wikipedia as a platform to push her ideology as a fact. We have to follow our NPOV policy. The same is true of those who would push the philosophy and belief system of other points of view as factual. We do not allow proponents of process theology to push their views as factual, no matter how many books they read and how sincere they are. We do not allow proponents of Judaism, Christianity or Islam to push their views as factual, no matter how many books they read and how sincere they are. The same is true here. So, to be blunt, stop your claim of special privilege. RK 22:13, Nov 2, 2003 (UTC)

Second: As I wrote above (right near where I predicted I'd be assumed to be an "apologist," though being assumed to be "he" I couldn't have predicted!), I think (personal opinion) this page is an example of a very general failing in Wikipedia's community process (or lack of it), in which a single aggressive user is forcing ill-informed changes that worsen an article.

I didn't touch any of the article...except for the egregious sections in which you pushed your personal beliefs as irrefutable facts. That kind of bias and advocacy is forbidden in all Wikipedia articles. RK 22:13, Nov 2, 2003 (UTC)

Third: A fairly large proportion of RK's assertions on the topic are factually incorrect (most egregiously "the vast majority of..." assertions above), not that I'd waste my time trying, since RK will evidently not be convinced by documentation or citation of sources.

That is totally untrue, and shows your total ignorance of the subject. You obviously need to do a lot more reading if you are so totally unfamiliar with the vast literature that I am repeatedly referring to. The existence of thousands of critics of deconstructionism is not controversial, except apparently in your own private little world. RK 22:13, Nov 2, 2003 (UTC)

I will observe that no documentation for any of RK's text is apparently forthcoming (and as I noted above, the Chomsky citation is completely off-topic; it says nothing about deconstruction). Wikipedia ought have a real process to deal with this kind of problem.

Chomsky's quote is clearly and obviously what we are talking about. Your denial of this fact is silly.

Fourth, because I think the "disclaimer" is an interesting issue: Presumably it's obvious, at least to the non-simple-minded, that there are topics too complex to cover in adequate depth in a Wikipedia article. Presumably it's also obvious that there are ideas and arguments too subtle to summarize effectively in a short article. So what's the problem with the disclaimer (which is of a sort that's common in pedagogical introductions to all kinds of topics)? Is it that Wikipedia articles on complex or subtle subjects should all implicitly be treated as oversimplifications? That might be a bitter pill for some Wikipedia boosters to swallow. Rbellin 04:37, 2 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Your defense of special pleading is not a valid defense. The above criticisms still stand. This article is no different than any other Wikipedia article. RK

It seems like this article needs to be deeply cut to even approach NPOV. Like about 1-2 paragraphs each side. I don't want to swing the machete though. Williamv1138 14:22, Nov 4, 2003 (UTC)