Date: Wed, 9 Aug 1995 10:04:15 -0400 (EDT)
From: John Ransom <ransom-AT-dickinson.edu>
Subject: deconstruction v. genealogy


I wonder if list colleagues will agree with me when I say that it is 
important to mark the difference between genealogy and deconstruction. A 
text (in the broad sense of the term) is "deconstructed" when repressed 
but influential forces are liberated through a close, careful, critical 
interrogation of the text in front of us.

Thus, deconstruction has a tendency to view "power" as an enemy. That is,
to the extent that an historical entity of some kind or ruling group is
able to maintain its unity by repressing the memory of, role, origins,
subsequent transformations and contemporary importance of certain 
subterranean forces, for that long and no longer will that entity survive.

Thus it is power's ruses and resistances that provide the target for 
deconstructive action. When a deconstructive action is completed, those 
power formations at the center of our society feel a bit decentered; 
those power sources "Othered" by society feel somewhat more empowered. (I 
know all this is a dream! But if we can't have dreams on the stupid 
Internet, what good is it?) 

Genealogy, it seems to me, has quite different purposes; certainly 
different goals. And I may as well say that genalogy is, for me, the more 
respectable science, the more useful set of assumptions to begin with; 
all very loose, elastic, and in this way providing useful tools for a 
situation that is all very loose, and elastic.

How is genealogy different from deconstruction? First of all, it *cannot* 
be the case for a genealogist that exposing the existence and role of 
power is the heart of the critical effect of genealogy. Let me cite 
Judith Butler, whose *excellent* book _Gender Trouble_ makes this very 
mistake. 

	To expose the foundational categories of sex, gender and
	desire as effects of a specific formation of power requires
	a form of critical inquiry that Foucault, reformulating 
	Nietzsche, designates as "genealogy." ("Preface," p. x in
	_Gender Trouble_ (New York: Routledge, 1990).

But it cannot be the *goal* of genealogy to expose something as a 
"specific formation of power." That's an assumption of genealogical 
activity, isn't it? Of course it's true that this assumption is also 
demonstrated in the context of a specific genealogical critique, but to 
say that *the purpose* of such critique is to expose the workings of 
power is to take genealogy at its most superficial level. At the same
time, such a reading reintroduces in a backhand way the notion that power 
is something that is "bad" and that to find in some cultural artifact 
(such as sexual identity, etc.) the workings of "power" is the same as to 
say that one has found something illegitimate or immoral at the heart of 
that cultural artifact.

Judith Butler is *by no means* the only writer to make this mistake (if 
it is a mistake). For instance, Arnold Davidson says much the same thing 
in his article on genealogy:

		Genealogy does not try to erect shining epistemological 
		foundations. As any reader of Foucault learns, it shows 
		rather that the origin of what we take to be rational, 
		the bearer of truth, is rooted in domination, subjugation, 
		the relationship of forces -- in a word, power. 
		(See Arnold Davidson's article in _Foucault: A Critical
		Reader_.)

But that conclusion, I would argue, is too gross to yield critical effects
for the genealogist. Any thoughts?


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