It’s the title of a book by Jacques Ranciere. Ranciere defines politics as “that activity which turns on equality as its principle.” This principle is an aporia and (or, an aporia which) produces a set of questions: “when is there and when is there not equality in things between who and who else? What are these “things” and who are these whos?” Ranciere describes these questions as “the quandary proper to politics” (ix), the occurence of which could I think be said characterize what he calls disagreement.
Ranciere defines disagreement as “a determined kind of speech situation: one in which one of the interlocutors at once understands and does not understand what the other is saying” (x). This takes place “wherever contention over what speaking means constitutes the very rationality of the speech situation.” This occurs at and as a result of the intersection of different idioms and their different uses of words. Disagreement “generally bears on the very situation in which speaking parties find themselves” (xi).
Disagreement “is less concerned with arguing than with what can be argued, the presence or absence of a common object between X and Y. It concerns the tangible presence of this common object, the very capacity of the interlocutors to present it. An extreme form of disagreement is where X cannot see the common object Y is presenting because X cannot comprehend that the sounds uttered by Y form words and chains of words similar to X’s own.” Such a situation “concerns politics.” “[D]isagreement bears on what it means to be a being that uses words to argue.” In disagreement “discussion of an argument comes down to a dispute over the object of the discussion and over the capacity of those who are making an object of it” (xii).
For Ranciere disagreement is the logic of politics. Political philosophy is a mechanism whereby philosophy tries to exorcise this logic, and thus to eliminate politics as aporia. This elimination is a condition by which philosophy constitutes itself. (xii.) This elimination is connected with “what normally goes by the name of politics,” that which Ranciere calls policing. (xiii.)
Ranciere intends for this to clarify, among other things, “what might be understood by the term democracy,” which for Ranciere “differs from the practices and legitimizations of the consensus system. How this differing takes place is another part of what Ranciere intends to clarify.
“There is politics - and not just domination - because there is a wrong count of the parts of the whole.” It seems that every count is a miscount, since “the people are always more or less than the people.” (10.) Or, since, as Badiou writes someplace, everyone is infinitely different from everyone, including themselves, any count is always already a miscount. Politics is an aleatory declaration or eruption which takes a count as a miscount.
“The struggle between the rich and the poor (…) is the actual institution of politics itself. There is politics when there is a part of those who have no part, a part or a party of the poor.” (11.) Ranciere is here addressing the division of rich and poor in Aristotle’s _Athenian Constitution_ but the point could be taken as a logical and historical claim about societies as well. The point should be made, though, that conflict between rich and poor, and the conflict of capitalist and proletariat, is a species of politics for Ranciere, not the reverse. In both cases - in every case of the political - politics is constituted in active sense by the aggrieved party’s activity in response to the aggrieving party’s domination. Party does not mean exclusively what is meant today by a political party, though Ranciere’s use of the term does seem to imply the inclusion of the political party within politics, in at least some instantiations of the party. (This sense part and party could be read into Schmitt’s writings on the partisan. Schmitt’s term translated as “partisan” is “parteiganger” which means “party adherent” or “party member”. I tried to address some of this in my contribution to the Long Sunday symposium on Schmitt’s Theory of the Partisan.)
“[P]olitics (that is, the interruption of the simple effects of domination by the rich) causes the poor to exist as an entity. (…) Politics exists when the natural order of domination by the institution of a part of those who have no part.” (11.)
The institution which Ranciere writes of here is ambiguous. He says that it “is the whole of politics as a specific form of connection.” (11-12.) “It defines the common of the community as a political community, in other words, as divided, as based on a wrong that escapes the arithmetic of exchange and reparation. Beyond this set-up there is no politics. There is only the order of domination or the disorder of the revolt.” (12.)
*
Somewhat related to this, on domination and politics, which relates to some themes I’d like to return to someday in my notes on Benjamin .
From a section of Kant’s Critique of Judgment.
SS 28. Nature as Might.
Might is a power which is superior to great hindrances. It is termed dominion if it is also superior to the resistance of that which itself possesses might. Nature, considered in an aesthetic judgement as might that has no dominion over us, is dynamically sublime.
If we are to estimate nature as dynamically sublime, it must be represented as a source of fear (though the converse, that every object that is a source of fear, in our aesthetic judgement, sublime, does not hold). For in forming an aesthetic estimate (no concept being present) the superiority to hindrances can only be estimated according to the greatness of the resistance. Now that which we strive to resist is an evil, and, if we do not find our powers commensurate to the task, an object of fear. Hence the aesthetic judgement can only deem nature a might, and so dynamically sublime, in so far as it is looked upon as an object of fear.
But we may look upon an object as fearful, and yet not be afraid of it, if, that is, our estimate takes the form of our simply picturing to ourselves the case of our wishing to offer some resistance to it and recognizing that all such resistance would be quite futile. So the righteous man fears God without being afraid of Him, because he regards the case of his wishing to resist God and His commandments as one which need cause him no anxiety. But in every such case, regarded by him as not intrinsically impossible, he cognizes Him as One to be feared.
The term for “might” is “macht” (I believe this is also the term translated as “power” in Nietzsche’s “Will to Power). The term for “dominion” is “Gewalt,” the same term translated as “violence” in Benjamin’s “Critique of Violence.” Gewalt is a net greater Macht, a differential in Macht. It is not simply Macht against an obstacle. If we read Ranciere’s terms into this, interpreting domination as Gewalt, as a differential in Macht, then politics is the interruption of Gewalt, the interuption of the differential relation. In this sense, then, politics is somewhat akin to aesthetics in Kant, particularly to the sublime. The sublime is that which is judged as fearful without one being afraid of it, that which is judged as fearful when judged from a safe distance. That which can be judged fearful is or has Gewalt. One of the results of the sublime is a reminding or a foregrounding of the ways in which the subject is (or has the capacity of faculty to be) superior to the Macht and/or Gewalt of nature (and presumably of any Macht and/or Gewalt), that is, of subjective freedom.
“Sublimity, therefore, does not reside in any of the things of nature, but only in our own mind, in so far as we may become conscious of our superiority over nature within, and thus also over nature without us (as exerting influence upon us).”
The power of or capacity for politics seems similar, it is the ability to not be fully causally determined (to not be fully exhausted or overcome by Macht or Gewalt) but to be - or to subjectively exercise a subtactive operation which renders - an underdetermination within the regime of the determined, and from there to operate a determining power.
Another thought, is there any relation between “interruption” and “teleological suspension”?
Comment by Nate — November 4, 2006 @ 10:27 pm
Hey Nate–
On “interruption” and “teleological suspension,” I would say that they’re different. In Kierkegaard, the “teleological” suspension of the ethical isn’t simply the “interruption” of ethical universality. It’s an interruption which is “called for” by faith. But, then again, faith is a passion, and it’s absurd, so it might be appropriate to just ignore the “teleological” part of the “teleological suspension of the ethical” in Kierkegaard (Fucking Christians!). In a more general context, I’d say the “teleological” part of the “teleological suspension” means that a “teleological suspension” is directed to some end or purpose. It might be an instrument for realizing that purpose, or the peculiar (exceptional) character of the end might justify breaking the rules which apply in ordinary circumstances. Who knows? At any rate, I think “interruption” is more general, and doesn’t specify any relation to an end (or even a cause, for that matter).
On Ranciere, I don’t understand the claim about disagreement. I skimmed the book a couple of years ago, but don’t remember it very well. What does it mean to say that disagreement is a speech situation “in which one of the interlocutors at once understands and does not understand what the other is saying?” It seems to me that (dis)agreement is a different phenomenon from understanding. I can understand a claim or an argument completely and still disagree with it. I don’t know that the converse is true (I don’t know that it’s possible to misunderstand something and still agree with it… I’ve tried it, and it doesn’t work very well), but it seems like agreement or disagreement would be more like “affirming” or “denying” than understanding. In that case, agreement or disagreement would presuppose understanding. But then why do we need to affirm or deny what we understand? Because we can understand something to be true or false, good or bad? Can we understand something false or bad? I guess we can understand a false or bad claim or argument. And part of that understanding would be the recognition that it (the claim or argument) is false or bad. I guess I’ve gotten pretty far from Ranciere here. Anyway, I just think it’s interesting.
I like talking about politics (and political engagement) as capacity or as the exercise of a capacity. Particularly a capacity for freedom. Right on. More.
Comment by Colin — November 5, 2006 @ 6:04 pm
hi Colin,
Clarity is not Ranciere’s chief virtue, at least in this book. Disagreement is a technical term for Ranciere, though one he doesn’t define in a straightforward or easy to get fashion. R takes as a paradigm case of disagreement some old story about a self-assertion of slaves who are told they’re inferior, and references I believe some lines from Aristotle about the slave being defined as someone who participates in the linguistic community but does not comprehend language. The ability for the slave to understand the “you are inferior” (ie, “you participate in but do not comprehend languge”) presupposes an equality which is denied by the assertion. The slave’s equality with the slave owner must be implicitly believed or presupposed by the slave owner, but is also denied. The self-assertion capacity of the slave is then something which must be both believed in and held to be impossible (like in that episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer where hell is a workplace, the head demon’s all “this can’t be happening!” in the face of the workers’ revolt [sorry just been watching a bit of TV]). When the slaves assert themselves in a way which makes all of this apparent, that’s a case of disagreement. I have a hunch there’s something here analogous to Badiou but I’m not sure. I’m reading Disagreement again and will keep posting notes on it. I’m also going to try to write something relating this to Kant - the sublime being the experience of one’s superiority over nature (I want to read this as underdetermination by any causally determining order, ie freedom), via the experience of the fearful which is not feared. I want to say that Ranciere’s political is analogous to that - a declaration of equality which relativizes the so-called natural order - and which does not itself institute a new causally determining order (or which should be viewed as if it does not, since it should be viewed under the concept of freedom rather than the concepts of nature).
take care,
Nate
Comment by Nate — November 5, 2006 @ 10:02 pm
Hey Nate–
Thanks for the clarification. Ranciere’s example makes his claim make more sense. And it’s a novel reading of a very weird text. Be that as it may, I think it speaks more about one species of disagreement (which includes the cognitive component I was confused about) than about the phenomenon itself. Certainly there’s also a kind of disagreement where both parties understand each other fully, and are therefore equal, in a sense, but still disagree. Take the ancient skeptics’ equipollent arguments, for example. Here, there’s equality AND disagreement.
I think the Kant reading is right on. With respect to underdetermination, Kant clarifies how freedom and nature are related (to some degree) in the metaphysics of morals. He says human beings are “sensibly affected, intelligibly determined.” He means that no natural phenomenon (sensation) or force (instinct) has the power to determine our will. The only thing that can determine our will is practical reason. This got him into some trouble on the question of determinism. The argument about radical evil in the Religion text suggests that there are ways that sensibility and inclination can do more than affect us. Because our wills are perverse and there’s radical evil in our natures, we aren’t always determined by reason. So we don’t always do the right thing.
Colin–
Comment by Colin — November 6, 2006 @ 8:28 am
Sorry. After the “So we don’t always do the right thing,” I should have explained how Kant uses radical evil to show that human beings are underdetermined by (practical) reason, as well as by nature. It’s how he gets back to the freedom of the will (Rheinhold, I think, argued that if the will is determined by reason, then it isn’t free).
Comment by Colin — November 6, 2006 @ 8:33 am
hi Colin,
Agreed. The book is really on a specific thing, and I don’t see any strong reason why he uses this term instead of another. It’s basically a technical term which could be swapped for many other terms. I just finished the book this morning (now it’s time to reread Metapolitics). It’s kind of all over the place. There’s a lot that I like, though.
He says at some point that most terms in political matters are homonyms for quite different things. I like that. I think conflict over homonyms is part of what he has in mind by the term disagreement. He also has a nice bit on the phrase “do you understand?” uttered after an order - the phrase doesn’t really mean “do you understand” but rather “will you obey” or “whether you understand is unimportant, rather all that matters is that you must obey.” Quite nicely done I thought.
With the Kant stuff, I’m not clear on something. Is it that humans are a sort of mix of the free and the natural (an alloy of gold and bronze, so to speak), or is it that humans are conceivable under the concept of freedom and under the concepts of nature? I’m under the impression that it’s the latter. I’m also under the impression that one can only deploy one or the other scheme at a time, that one can’t think the human as free and the human as natural at the same instant. Yet both are important for different purposes such that we can’t just take one and discard the other.
One analogy I use to think about it is this drawing I saw once, where there’s a figure drawn in solid black and clothing on it drawn in a translucent red. One could either focus on the clothes or the figure, but not both. Or like focusing on foreground or background, both are possible but not at the same time (such that a total view is not possible without the subordination of one or the other).
The stuff on evil is really interesting, and I like the bit about how freedom is not determined by reason. That seems … reasonable. Otherwise humans would be propositional machines. I can’t remember if I’ve mentioned this to you before, but there’s this dialog by Lewis Carroll that I like very much, it’s here http://www.ditext.com/carroll/tortoise.html
I think one could read it in relation to this issue of freedom and/or nature. Achilles wants the transition from premisses to inference to occur under a concept of nature, whereas the Tortoise’s continual not-inferring suggests that inference occurs, when it occurs, under the concept of freedom.
As ever, if/when I fail to make sense please point it out…
take care,
Nate
Comment by Nate — November 6, 2006 @ 5:55 pm
Hey Nate
I think I can clarify what I was getting at in my questions about Ranciere. Basically, I was-am asking if politics is necessarily a struggle between unequals. Certainly it’s not necessarily something that only takes place between equals, or only between certain kinds of equals, as Aristotle thought. But it’s also not just a struggle between unequals, because equals can still disagree with one another. Granted that politics involves some kind of struggle or contest, where does equality come in? Why is it so important?
On Kant on freedom and nature, I’m not entirely sure. Sometimes he seems to want to give a philosophical-theological anthropology. In other places, he’ll talk about the perspective from which we consider the a human being, and the (theoretical or practical) interest we take in considering him or her that way. I’m not sure which one is primary, though I’d certainly prefer the latter. But then the problem of the “contradiction” between nature and freedom, and how a certain kind of being can both be and not be free and/or (naturally causally) determined. Kant thinks he solves this problem with autonomy in the Metaphysics of Morals, but it’s a little bit over my head.
Colin–
Comment by Colin — November 6, 2006 @ 7:44 pm
hi Colin,
Thanks for clarifying. If that Kant stuff is over your head then I’m going to leave it out as it’s surely over mine then.
With Ranciere on equality/inequality, as usual it’s not clear or straightforward. On my read for him, politics is a technical term, like disagreement, though the specification as a technical term is unclearly made in the text. Politics in his sense is a relationship between equals counted as unequals. More particularly, politics for him is an occurence where the equality underneath inequality is revealed. Inequality is thus ostensible inequality or equality-counted-as-inequality. Ranciere’s not entirely clear as to whether any such occurrence is politics, or if the occurrence has to produce a revision of the terms of inequality (ie, if politics always has to succeed to some extent, in order to be considered politics). So, the slave rebellion and the speech connected with it that renders the “you do not comprehend language” no longer tenable, that’s a case of politics. Ranciere’s also not clear if the underlying equality is actual or merely posited (a Kantian “as if”). He sometimes sounds like the former, talking about the equality of speaking beings as such, and sometimes sounds like the former. He doesn’t want politics to be a new and more equal count, which implies that he doesn’t believe in a count which conforms to the actual equality of all people. He more uses it as something revealed or posited during politics, politics in the sense of a process of shaking up any count or distribution. Stable counts and distributions, ones which come before and after politics, he calls “police” and “partition of the perceptible” or “distribution of the sensible.” He tries to say that he doesn’t mean police in a perjorative sense but that’s hard to see. He does specify that there are better and worse police orders, which is worth something I think as otherwise the argument would be far too leveling.
cheers,
Nate
Comment by Nate — November 6, 2006 @ 7:58 pm
very helpful
Comment by chuk — November 30, 2006 @ 10:46 pm
Thanks Chuk.
A better way to put the thing about Ranciere in comment eight:
For Ranciere material inequality does exist, but is never natural or necessary. It’s contingent and eliminable. Ranciere talks about this in terms an equality prior to all inequality, the condition of all inequality (roughly parallel to Marx’s remarks that capitalist competition is predicated on a prior cooperation). This equality for Ranciere is not particularly substantive so much as posited. In the Ignorant Schoolmaster he calls it an opinion, a hypothesis and says something like “I don’t have proof but until this opinion is disproved I’ll stick with it.” I’d like to think of it along the lines of a paraphrase of the Kant quote in the thing on religion in the bounds of reason, acting as if there is equality (or as if equality is possible or really for Ranciere the point is more acting against existing inequalities) and suspending questions about possibility.
Comment by Nate — July 26, 2007 @ 10:07 am