Eve L. Mullen

Postmodernism and Social Praxis: Attempting to Put Foucault in Action Through the Theology of Sharon Welch

Whereas the interpreter is obliged to go to the depth of things, like an excavator, the moment of interpretation [genealogy] is like an overview, from higher and higher up, which allows the depth to be laid out in front of him in a more and more profound visibility; depth is resituated as an absolutely superficial secret.⁽¹⁸⁾

So those are the changes, and I try to show those changes...⁽¹⁹⁾

In Communities of Resistance and Solidarity, as well as in A Feminist Ethic of Risk, Sharon D. Welch sets forth a liberation theology in which the deconstructive processes of Michel Foucault are key. Her theology is an amalgam of Foucault's poststructuralist concepts and liberation theology's action-oriented motivation. Welch claims the genealogical methods of Foucault are ideal motivators, urging the activist to political involvement. However, Michel Foucault's genealogy was not intended for such pragmatic applications. Foucault's purpose in writing genealogies was never action-oriented. He only set out to "show those changes." By definition, genealogy never rests in one discourse or on one "truth." Foucault, as an "interpreter," emphasizes the necessary tension between keeping distance from historical discourse and awareness of one's inescapable position in historical discourse. In short, the genealogist can never rest on his or her laurels: seeming bases of "truth" are actually constantly changing historical constructions. While Welch claims not only to possess this type of awareness, but also to recognize its absolute necessity for her theology, she is in danger of defeating her own goals: with no solid foundations, no fixed truths, on which to base liberation theology's arguments, how can her action-oriented methodology be fruitful? Welch claims to have put Foucault in action: how accurate is this claim? How effective are Foucault's methods, never intended for practical use, for Welch's liberation theology? The purpose of this paper is to examine these questions and the accuracy of Welch's treatment of Foucault's concepts by exploring the relevant works of Sharon Welch and the works of Foucault referenced therein.

In Communities of Resistance and Solidarity, Welch presents an adamant argument for the similarities between the work of Michel Foucault and the work of liberation theologians before her. Welch claims not only to possess Foucault's suspicious awareness, or "skepticism," as she refers to it, but also claims its absolute necessity for her theology (85). She attempts to be true to Foucault's methods: skepticism is the engine for the vehicle of continuing analyses. However, Welch fails to acknowledge the radical nature of Foucault's concept of skepticism, as opposed to the concept she utilizes for her theology. Foucault's is a drastic suspicion, a total and continuous skepticism which repeatedly serves as an alarm to the genealogist. Its purpose is to make the scholar cognizant of the undeniable link between power and knowledge. It is a reminder that there exists no absolute Truth on which a discourse confidently may be established. In Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason, Foucault traces the history of what is deemed "the liberation of the insane" in a manner which supports this theory. He documents the work of Pinel and Tuke, considered to be the founding fathers of the civilized, kind asylum, and reveals the changes they instigated as mere substitutes for preexisting methods of control of the insane: no progress in the betterment of treatments is discernible. Foucault writes:

Confinement [of the insane] hid away unreason, and betrayed the shame it aroused; but it explicitly drew attention to madness, pointed to it. If, in the case of unreason, the chief intention was to avoid scandal, in the case of madness that intention was to organize it. A strange contradiction: the classical age enveloped madness in a total experience of unreason; it reabsorbed its particular forms, which the Middle Ages and the Renaissance had clearly individualized into a general apprehension in which madness consorted indiscriminately with all the forms of unreason (70).

Pinel's science gave birth to a new knowledge of insanity which did nothing more than exercise a new power over those deemed insane. Foucault concludes:

Since the end of the eighteenth century, the life of unreason no longer manifests itself except in the lightning-flash of works such as those of Holderlin, of Nerval, of Nietzsche, or of Artaud--forever irreducible to those alienations that can be cured, resisting by their own strength that gigantic moral imprisonment which we are in the habit of calling, doubtless by antiphrasis, the liberation of the insane by Pinel and Tuke (278).

One method of control was simply replaced by another equally flawed method. The history of the asylum is one of judgment, punishment, and confinement: the asylum is an institution of control. "Liberation" thus becomes a comical term for Foucault. In his musings, his brand of cynicism is clearly detected. Also in Madness and Civilization, the philosopher's power/knowledge link becomes total.

In Welch's action-oriented theology, the concept of suspicion takes on, not surprisingly, a more practical character. Her use of Foucault's concepts seems to ask, "Why did Foucault write? To what end?" Welch is most likely influenced by the contemporary feminist "hermeneutic of suspicion," an interpretive tool made commonly known by Elizabeth Schüssler-Fiorenza. This type of suspicion, also primarily concerned with political action, is a skepticism less radical than Foucault's.⁽²⁰⁾ Welch, in the context of her aim-oriented theology, cannot be as extreme with the concept, for she would then be in danger of ruining liberation theology's goals with the very tool she uses to support it. Foucault's methodology, with its ceaseless criticism, allows no stopping points at which a pragmatic application like Welch's can disembark. Welch's liberation theology requires getting off the bus and standing on firm ground; Foucault's genealogy, perpetually in motion, allows no such stopping points.

Welch also claims that Foucault's awareness of the changing determinations of what is considered to be "true" at any given time results in Foucault being committed to political action. She writes:

First, Foucault is aware of the repressive role of ostensibly liberating forms of discourse. His awareness is akin to that which inspires liberation theologians' critiques of academic Western theology and of standard economic and political policies of development. Second, Foucault is committed to challenging oppression (he writes of the insurrection of subjugated knowledges) and is thoroughly self-critical (Communities 23).

Welch is correct in noting the philosopher's thorough self-critique. However, the remainder of her characterization is questionable. Welch acknowledges that Foucault never expounded any plan or program for political action, but even so, her attribution of activism to him is still inaccurate. Foucault is aware, of course, of how operating discourses appear liberating. His main interests lie in the phenomenon of knowledges about human beings and how power tied to those knowledges acts upon human beings. But simply uncovering the operations of power and resisting them constitutes neither a solution nor an inspiration to action for Foucault. What does inspire action is the sense of threat born from the exposing analyses. In an interview with Paul Rabinow, when asked about activism and the prospect of finding contemporary solutions through his examinations of historical problems, the philosopher responds:

No! I am not looking for an alternative; you can't find the solution for a problem in the solution of another problem raised at another moment by other people. You see, what I want to do is not the history of solutions...I would like to do a genealogy of problems, of problématiques. My point is not that everything is bad, but that everything is dangerous, then we always have something to do. So my position leads...to a hyper- and pessimistic activism. I think that the ethico-political choice we have to make every day is to determine which is the main danger (Foucault Reader 343).

Again, Foucault's activism is characterized by a constant skepticism bordering on cynicism. His treatment of the "repressive hypothesis," originally a Nietzschean concept, in The History of Sexuality, Volume I: An Introduction serves to further illumine his perspective. Foucault opposes the repressive hypothesis which, understood in terms of an absolute Truth, postulates that a real truth can be found in direct opposition to power. Part Two of The History of Sexuality, Volume I is devoted to this concept. Foucault documents the discourse on sex in the twentieth century as a prime example. The Victorian Era, viewed as an age of overt sexual repression, became the enemy discourse: it was assumed, perhaps not consciously, that the path to sexual freedom and truth could be found in direct resistance to it. Foucault writes:

...sex has not ceased to provoke a kind of generalized discursive erethism. And these discourses on sex did not multiply apart from or against power, but in the very space and as the means of its exercise... From the singular imperialism that compels everyone to transform their sexuality into a perpetual discourse, to the manifold mechanisms which, in the areas of economy, pedagogy, medicine, and justice, incite, extract, distribute, and institutionalize the sexual discourse, an immense verbosity is what our civilization has required and organized (History of Sexuality 32-33).

In the attempt to overcome the powerful control of the Victorian discourse, the opposition only creates a new, equally controlling one. No truth is uncovered, and no exit from the existing discourse is achieved: the beast is still present; it just wears a different mask. Here again, "liberation" becomes a comical appellation for Foucault. This is the failure of the repressive hypothesis. If one resists power, one does not necessarily resist repression, and certainly does not find freedom or "truth." Foucault writes further of his contemporary example:

What needs to be situated, therefore, is not the threshold of a new rationality whose discovery was marked by Freud--or someone else--but the progressive formation (and also the transformations) of that "interplay of truth and sex" which was bequeathed to us by the nineteenth century, and which we may have modified, but, lacking evidence to the contrary, have not rid ourselves of (56-57).

While there might appear to be several discourses operating, in reality there is only one, supported by the illusion of many. One flawed truth can only be replaced by another equally flawed truth. There is no historical progression in the Enlightenment sense, no gradual perfection of knowledge through time; there is only the fall of a problematic discourse and the rise of another. The product of Foucault's exposing analyses is neither a solution to a problem nor a promise of one. The "hyper- and pessimistic activism" of which he speaks is characterized by this lack of certainty and optimism. Motivation to political activism is not a part of Foucault's genealogy.

The activism Welch seeks to generate is of a different flavor. She speaks of a Christian truth on which to ground one's actions and motivations: she repeatedly refers to Christianity's "just," "loving," and "liberating" God as the grounds for liberation theology, and her criticisms of Christianity's historical and contemporary apathy question the seriousness with which Christians regard those very attributes of God. She writes:

To avoid a too facile faith in the power of liberation, we theologians of liberation must ask about the meaning of the cross and resurrection, about the reality of a redeeming, liberating God in light of the barbarities of the twentieth century: the holocaust, Vietnam, Hiroshima-Nagasaki, sexism, racism, the nuclear arms race, the torture of political prisoners (Communities 5).

Most succinctly, "What does it mean to believe in a God of justice in the face of unthinkable injustice?" (6). Welch's criticisms of the Christian tradition point out its failure to join the ideal with reality, namely a just God with practices of justice. In her vernacular, she "exposes the ambiguity of Christianity's God-language" (7). Welch operates from within a theological framework. It is the nature of her work to contextualize action in Christian theology. This framework necessitates adhering to some transcendental Truth: there is no way around it. And it is here that Welch creates the greatest contradiction within her own work. As a liberation theologian, she must hold to some Truth. As a deconstructionist, she cannot. The methods of the deconstructionists can provide no foundations for Welch. Her failure to recognize the varying definitions and varying truths applied to her own God-language has already thrown a wrench into the workings of her theology. With her own pragmatism, Welch needs to reevaluate the effectiveness of her theology, her God-language, in arguing against Christians with identical God-language but different interpretations. For example, how effectively can she argue against Christians such as Pat Robertson who maintain that a just and liberating action is to "cure" homosexuals through shock therapy? If she is to remain true to Foucault's genealogy, she must question her own meanings of "just" with the realization that genealogy does not allow an end to its own self-critiquing processes. Foucault is aware of the danger of falling into the trap of the repressive hypothesis. The philosopher resists simply taking up the opposing political stance as a means of finding truth or liberation. Welch must be aware of this danger, also.

Reading Welch's Communities of Resistance and Solidarity with any knowledge of the intricacies of Foucault's method is not unlike watching someone hammering a square peg into a round hole. The question does not become "Can it be done?" but "Is it appropriate?" Welch herself seems to feel the need for such questioning: her other work of 1985, A Feminist Ethic of Risk, is in part an attempt to reconcile her liberation theology with the deconstructionist methods it uses. As if cognizant of the problematic differences between the definitions of "action" in her theology and in Foucault's philosophy, Welch spends a great deal of time rethinking the term and the assumptions that accompany it.

Welch's first task in A Feminist Ethic of Risk is the pinpointing of what she sees as the main hindrance to involvement in political activism in America: "cultured despair" (14). The expression refers not only to the complacency or decline in enthusiasm which occurs over time, but also to the spirit-breaking challenge responsibility often presents. "What can just one person do?" is a common lament among concerned people. The result is resignation and inaction. Welch's cultured despair has another, more deeply troublesome quality, the most formidable hindrance to motivation:

Becoming so easily discouraged is the privilege of those accustomed to too much power, accustomed to having needs met without negotiation and work, accustomed to having a political and economic system that responds to their needs (15).

In other words, the privilege of power spoils. For one accustomed to the ease of achievement, any cause requiring hard work or lacking a guarantee of success becomes a senseless waste of effort. Consider Welch's example of nuclear disarmament. Polls conducted by scholars from Brown University show that the majority of Americans feel disarmament is necessary, for no nuclear war has winners. Few of those polled, however, actually participate in activist causes for nuclear disarmament. The reasons, Welch believes, are simple:

The central element...is the notion of power assumed. The question is framed in absolutes: the idea of abolishing nuclear weapons implies getting rid of them all at once, everywhere, and forever. To ask for elimination of nuclear weapons is to desire total control, a humanly impossible degree of domination (Feminist Ethic 26).

Fear of loss of control, of vulnerability, is a concern. But this fear is ungrounded. It finds its origins in the improper way of posing the question of disarmament:

The problem with this way of posing the issue is that if we cannot guarantee the ultimate elimination of nuclear weapons, it seems as though we cannot take smaller steps. They appear foolish when contrasted with the larger goal of total disarmament (Feminist Ethic 26).

Thus, the problem is in our poor understanding of what it means to engage in activism. From this perspective, Welch seeks to find a remedy for cultured despair. Her solution is a redefining of action. Its meaning must be rethought in order to remedy damaging assumptions and fears about guaranteed goals and loss of control.

Central to this rethinking of action are notions of pain and suffering. One's own pain and suffering, as well as the pain of others remembered, are useful. Rage is useful. For Welch, pain, as well as the healing process pain demands, affirm the power and wisdom of struggle. These things motivate the activist. They provide perspective. They justify action. They do not guarantee any victory over evil, nor do they guarantee success of any kind. The resistance is an end in itself. This is not to say that Welch prescribes an aimless activism. Her goals are kept clearly in mind. Her "ethic of risk" merely allows for smaller steps to be made with confidence and a sense of justified motivation. It seeks to replace the former "ethic of control," a paralyzing understanding of action which does not allow for vulnerability, pain, or fragility (99).

Is Welch's reworking of activism and action enough to reconcile deconstructionist theory and liberation theology? Liberation theology is still an aim-oriented undertaking. Sharon Welch clearly states, "The primary challenge of liberation is not to construct the correct theory but the struggle to achieve freedom in history" (Communities 80). And Welch is still a theologian. This necessarily means she is grounding her work in truth claims about the transcendent. In Communities of Resistance and Solidarity, the grounds are a just God and a liberating God. In A Feminist Ethic of Risk, where Welch might be called an ethicist over a theologian, the grounds are still a just "divine" and an empowering "grace" (174). Within the deconstructionist framework, there can be no transcendent truth; therefore, deconstructionists can offer no foundations to theology. However, let us consider our theologian and our deconstructionist philosopher as ethicists only. Such an analysis sheds light on an additional, basic incompatibility between the works of Michel Foucault and Sharon Welch.

Foucault is essentially an ethicist. Gibson Winter's thoughts on this uncommon assertion are helpful here. First, Foucault's most basic moral statement occurs in each history he traces: controlled subjugation of embodied human beings is the danger. From this assertion regarding the danger of concocted historical "truths," one can deduce Foucault's assumption regarding the sanctuary of what he regards as truth, and in the process one can trace Foucault's main philosophical, ethical, and intellectual influences. Winter finds the center of Foucault's ethics in one straightforward question: "How can one be a full human being in spite of all the controlling factors?" (Winter). Most simply, "What does it mean to be human?" The underlying issue for Foucault is the concept of self. For Winter, the issues are two: self and community. The task of answering the questions above is guided by such concepts. For Foucault, the informing factor is Liberté, that is, individualism in the French tradition, influenced by both Sartre and Nietzsche. The driving force behind French existentialism in post-World War II Europe, Liberté ("Freedom") is understood, Winter states, as "what one individual wishes to do." The inadequacy of Liberté is the concept's failure to encompass community as a main factor in the definition of "human being." The grounding philosophical truth for the Sartrean tradition is too individualistic, and Foucault's ground is too dependent on Nietzsche's Will to Power. Liberté, as Winter articulates, fails to see that "real power as the ability to sustain relationships." Community as the manifestation of human life seems to have escaped the sensibilities of Foucault.

Sharon Welch's sensibilities, by contrast, do include community. Through her writings, Welch repeatedly presents a notion of humanity as defined by community. Her theology is based upon it. Consider her choice of title for her liberation theology work: not Individuals of, or Enclaves of, but Communities of Resistance and Solidarity. The communities of which she speaks are not just groups of oppressed peoples; they include human beings who sympathize with the oppressed and recognize that all people are damaged when one segment of the human community is damaged. Welch does not write of enemies or opposing factions; she writes of communication, solidarity, and optimism:

Feminist theology is located in the horizon of the memory of the many times and places where Christian faith and hopes are not actualized and the Christian definition of the nature of human being is defaced or obliterated. Given this horizon, the search for the verification of Christian faith is a practical one. The primary evidence of the truth of Christianity is its successful actualization. The primary threat to it, the basic denial of its truth, the actualization of structures that subvert solidarity, that destroy human dignity, that take human lives (Communities 91).

Intrinsic to Welch's definition of "the nature of human being" is the notion of solidarity, of community. She goes so far as to tie community to Christian truth, in her terms, justice and liberty. Like Foucault, she defines the great danger as the subversion of liberty. Unlike Foucault, she realizes that human liberty includes life in community.

The danger in Foucault's relational understanding of knowledge is genealogy's cyclical process of exposing or unmasking the very purpose of the method. The cycle of critique is unending. It necessarily is engaged in continual self-questioning, and no genealogist may overlook this most fundamental rule. Any theologian attempting to use the deconstructionist method must recognize this limit. Genealogy is an excellent tool, but it must be thrown away at some point. Welch's methodological error is her failure to do just that: after effectively using genealogy to debase constructions of power, she attempts to move it into the realm of pragmatic application. Welch's second error is her failure to recognize Foucault's inadequate definition of human being: to her credit, she possesses a greater, more complete understanding of human being, one which incorporates community and relationships as basic needs. This is the solidarity of which she speaks; her theology can be understood only in its terms.

Underlying Sharon Welch's prerequisite solidarity is a troubling concept: "choice of perspective" is defined by Welch as choosing to think and act from the perspective of the oppressed (Communities 26). This optimistic aim is a basic ingredient in her theology and is rooted in her notions of community, solidarity, and communication. The assumption that one can situate oneself in such a position to have the thoughts, feelings, and perspectives of entire oppressed groups is a naive one at best. It is an assumption heavily criticized by writers like Ann Russo, Rey Chow, Cheryl L. West, and Chandra Talpade Mohanty, who rightfully challenge such assertions made by white academic feminists.⁽²¹⁾ Welch acknowledges her privileged place in the academy:

The privilege to undergo the type of education that allows one to understand and use ontological categories and refer to universal values is a privilege denied many women in the present and most women in the past. It is a privilege denied those who are poor. Universal discourse is the discourse of the privileged (Communities 80).

Still, she situates herself both as oppressed and oppressor. Welch seeks to recover lost voices, or, to "insurrect subjugated knowledges." She seeks to unite with oppressed individuals from her privileged seat in the academy. Again relying on Foucault's work, she assumes that the genealogical method is the tool by which to gain a complete picture of history and all living in it. This, too, contradicts the philosophy set forth by Foucault. Genealogy is a wonderful but limited tool. While it is true that genealogy does seek to recover lost discourses, lost knowledges, and lost voices, Foucault himself humbly points to his method's limits:

Genealogy is gray, meticulous, and patiently documentary. It operates on a field of entangled and confused parchments, on documents that have been scratched over and recopied many times (Foucault Reader 76).

It seems Foucault is less confident about genealogy's potential than is Welch. In addition, genealogy by definition requires that a certain distance be kept from one's object of study when applying the genealogical method. Foucault referred to his method as a kind of excavation, the result being an overview allowing for a detached, profound perspective. "Depth is resituated as an absolutely superficial secret." This element of impersonal distancing certainly is not one of Welch's goals.

In sum, Foucault's genealogical method presents itself as a troublesome tool for Sharon Welch's theology. Its continual self-criticism and deconstruction ultimately become problematic for the action-oriented theology. The task Welch seeks to perform with Foucault's method is much like the task a woodsman performs with an ax: intending to provide firewood, the woodsman uses the ax to fall a tree and then to cut the tree into logs. But it is common sense that at a certain point the woodsman must stop cutting, lest he be left with only sawdust. Sharon Welch must also put down the ax: genealogy is a worthwhile tool, but liberation theology cannot succeed if the ax of deconstruction produces only dust. The necessity of remaining open to new critiques and new modifications is vital to Foucault's processes of analysis, but for Welch, the unending search for bases of discourse inevitably means an unending search for bases of action. Truth becomes problematic. Without a solid foundation of accepted knowledge, that is, without the base of a stable discourse in which to argue, liberation theology cannot survive: the interminable groundless nature of Welch's theology becomes a hindrance to the theology's goal of action. Further, Welch and Foucault operate with differing notions of praxis stemming from differing notions of human being. Foucault's position as ethicist does not entail an incorporation of human community as a guiding force. He once said, "I am well aware that I have never written anything but fictions..." Action was not his concern; the critique was an end in itself. Welch sees more than fictions. The reality of community is part of her most basic definition of what it means to be human. For her, the struggle, the solidarity in community, is an end in itself. More, it is the way to achieve liberation. This is more than Michel Foucault's genealogy can encompass.

Works cited