It was the political and ethical consequences of this kind of analysis that were of interest to postmodernists in general. For the deconstructors had maintained that all systems of thought, once seen as metaphorical, inevitably led to contradictions or paradoxes or impasses or ‘aporias’, to use the Derridean word (which is the rhetorical term for a dubitative question). This is because for Derrideans the metaphorical characteristics of a language system will always ensure that it actually fails to command (or master) the subject matter which it purports to explain.
