Definition & Differentiation (Confessional as a quality & Individual vs Societal approaches)
In the acceptance of Foucaultâs overarching philosophy in regard of the political history of confession (as opposed to the original use of his material to support the surface level of my own comparison), some other theoretical problems Iâve encountered began to resolve. The first one being the fundamental lack of definition for confession, âconfessionalityâ, âconfessionalismâ and the âconfessional mechanismâ within the project. My intention at the beginning of the project was that this would come quickly and naturally with the research. However I was stretching the term so broadly that the breadth of the research kept increasing and was beginning to disintegrate.
Foucault also does not specify a definition of confession, only using cases in point to aid his analysis. For the most part they are obvious religious confessions. But later in his look at contemporary instances, itâs not so clear. He talks of our âsingularly confessional societyâ through a wide range of examples from psychotherapy to love letters. For Foucault these are all ââarcheologicallyââ inked to the medieval confessions via the underlying power dynamics and social function. Shall they still be regarded as confessions? They all have confessional as a quality but Foucault makes no claim they are in themselves ââconfessionsââ necessarily - although many are.
I have drawn up these practical definitions which fit Foucaultâs use of the terms, my own sense of the terms and importantly, the official dictionary definitions. This has created a coherent vocabulary for the project.
Confession: an externalisation of something internal: a thought, feeling, action or experience. The internal element must be negative and/or harmful to the individual. Typically they are shameful or distressing to the individual. A second party must be involved: that is, a witness to the confession whether itâs an audience or singular individual.
Confessional: an act or behaviour which has the qualities of a confession.
Witness to Confession: the second party involved in a confession, the observer or the audience. For Foucault, the nature of the witness is to have power over the confessor no matter the intention or context.
The Confessional Mechanism is my own term for the specific function of the confession. It began optimistic focal point of my proposal. I had the sense that the confessor experiences some form of relief from their confession (short term or long term). There is a possibility of empowerment through this vulnerability. This is an incredibly individualist approach and solely looks at the confessor rather than the witness.
However, Michel Foucault looks almost entirely at the relationship between the confessor and the witness to the confession. It is this he uses to trace confession from its medieval roots to its forms today.
My project began from an individual level of confession. I was incredibly pleased to immediately find the Foucault text to back up my intuition that a comparison could be drawn, or rather, an exact lineage of confession from religious to secular context. However, his societal and power-focused approach differed hugely. I was not interested in the problem of power in confession, instead wanting to focus on a supposed catharsis of the individual.
A lot of my problems with the conceptual development have come from trying to merge these things. That is, using Foucaultâs theory to prove my initial proposed idea meanwhile knowing it was significantly different in scale and approach. I cannot reject his theory of power for my own project while using the same text to ground my ideas of confession. I have only recently been able to articulate this and in doing so things have become clearer, but some questions have arisen.
To what extent do I want to focus on the problem of power dynamics vs the individual? â¨Is Foucault critical of the ââpositiveââ impact of confession for the individual? (His critique of Freud suggests so). Can they exist simultaneously? And how can I integrate them both into the project?
