Great stuff. I came about understanding deconstruction and ‘unlocking’ it (if that can ever be truly done), after reading Ferdinand de Saussure, the linguistic responsible for modern linguistics and the ‘ordering’ of the humanities. His seminal work was actually written from complied notes of students and colleagues, called Course in General Linguistics. He created the object of study and defined it, revolutionizing the study into synchronic linguistics. The model is scientific and made linguistics into an object of rigor that began to unlock not only language but the deeper neurological systems in the physical brain. I read the book again it seems every 5 to 10 years because of all it relates to.
From it flows the structural analysis, sometimes called structuralism, in humanities and became a way to more rigorous analysis. It had a big impact on Jean Levi-Strauss and anthropology, and from it branched, in opposition or reaction some might say, the post-structuralist world or which Derrida (The Margins of Philosophy) was a leading voice. Strongly related was Michel Foucault’s The Order of Things (more structural than post-structural) and the similarly named later century The System of Objects by Jean Baudrillard. The French perhaps lack the scientific rigor of American linguists, but they are philosophers, not scientists who responded, and they provide inspiration to question the authority of the past and present, to break down the concepts by emptying the authority out of them. I find them more adventurers in thought and ideas, of philosophy, seekers who relish eh seeking and not the arriving at the destination of Truth. They forever destroyed my notion of Truth and truth, making it relativistic and belonging to someone.
However, they ended up not threatening or overturning sciences such as physics, biology, chemistry, or even linguistics. Such sciences rely on measurements, and the breaking down of parts and the fitting them together into systems is what is meaningful in them, not the meaning of the thing in the human social world, the political order, or the questioning of existence itself from a spiritual level. One can never be hurt by indulging in their explorations of thought, and their value is important as it is about the exercise of thought and the constant disintegration of philosophical “Truth.”
The sad note is that Chomsky’s first scientific book on Generative Grammar was and is a revolution of thought that revealed the ‘proof’ behind universal grammar or syntax. His following books were also important to the science of science of syntax. However, as a political philosopher or thinker, he is quite terrible and far outdated, clinging to some 60s revolution he imagines he led. I find most of it drivel. I didn’t read some of his political essays until much later and found them dull. His place in thought should be on linguistics where his contribution was important. His constant anti-establishment ramblings could be ignored or considered entertainment at best. I dare say he doesn’t seem to understand deconstruction.

Thanks much for your thoughts and sparking my mind.