On the Genealogy of Critique

Stypinska, Diana

doi:10.4324/9780429398315

Cited by 9 publications

(4 citation statements)

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“…Confessional critiques, perhaps reflecting the contemporary culture of neoliberal individualism and self-responsibilisation, reconfigure critique as an endless struggle for purification, akin to a secularisation of the pursuit of personal salvation. Such critical subjects are broadly compatible with contemporary neoliberal governmentality, and politically inefficacious (Stypinska, 2020).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 95%

“…The sociology of critique has long problematised the redirection of external critiques of structures and ideology to individuating self-critique (Stypinska, 2020). Our genealogy traces how this internalisation of critique reflects the redirection of parrhesia into confession -the entanglement and tension between these two modes of truth-tellingwhich is neither new nor fixed but needs detailed historical and contemporary study.…”

Section: Understanding Confessional Critiquementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Rather than just words or discourse in the abstract, the practice of parrhesia transforms individuals into critics. Parrhesia involves taking responsibility for one's words, via a performative speech act or even an oath which identifies the person with their critique (Stypinska, 2020). Parrhesia is a social practice, and implicitly any parrhesiast confronts the public or an interlocutor 'To refute the other person and turn his mind, will succeed in transforming the attitude of the person who errs' (Foucault, 2005, p. 140).…”

Section: Theorising Truth-tellingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…unfortunately liable to being co-opted (Boltanski & Chiapello, 2005) or even rendered governmentalizing (Stypinska, 2020). Herein we examine 'confessional critique' within anti-racist books within the United Kingdom and United States, drawing on Foucault's genealogy of parrhesia and avowal to recognise these different modalities of 'truthtelling'.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Confessional critiques: Parrhesia and avowal in contemporary anti-racist discourses

Boland,

Moore-Ponce

2023

European Journal of Social Theory

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Confessional critiques proliferate in contemporary culture, remodelling critical politics as self-purification. Within Foucault’s work, critique is associated with resistance to power and subjectification, whereas confession appears a technique of disciplinary and pastoral power. However, genealogy creates hybrids, and herein we observe how critique and confession are entangled in contemporary social justice discourses, focusing empirically on contemporary anti-racist texts. These critique their imagined readers and society more generally, demanding confessions, castigating denials and exhorting interminable purificatory self-work. This analysis draws from Foucault’s genealogies of parrhesia and avowal, through his latter works on the problem of ‘truth-telling’ and how it forms subjects, even by critique. Recognising this historical hybridisation of critique and confession within discourses such as anti-racism may help to clarify the political stakes of critique.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 95%

Section: Understanding Confessional Critiquementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Theorising Truth-tellingmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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