Literature, Politics, Aesthetics. Approaches to Democratic Disagreement

8/10/2019 Literature, Politics, Aesthetics. Approaches to Democratic Disagreement

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Jacques Rancire: Literature, Politics, Aesthetics: Approaches to Democratic DisagreementAuthor(s): Solange Gunoun, James H. Kavanagh and Roxanne LapidusSource: SubStance, Vol. 29, No. 2, Issue 92 (2000), pp. 3-24Published by: University of Wisconsin PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3685772 .

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JacquesRancikre:Literature, olitics, esthetics:Approaches oDemocratic isagreementinterviewed ySolangeGuinoun nd James . Kavanagh

Pour ue l'invitation roduise uelque ffet e pensee, l faut uela rencontre rouve on point e m6sentente. -La isentente12)[Inorder or he nvitation oproduce ome ffect f hought, he

encounter ust ind ts point f disagreement.]

The Principles f Equality, ducation and Democracy

SG In reading your work, ne has the mpression hatyou have had akind of revelation r nuit de Pascal in encountering hat extraordinarynineteenth-century edagogue,Joseph acotot, o whom you have devoteda book, Lemaftre gnorant 1987).

JR It was not nuit de Pascal, but certainly n essential ncounter orre-asking he question of politics and equality. n fact, Joseph Jacototproposed, n an ncredibly rovocative ay, woradical rinciples hat lacedthe

pedagogical paradigm alongsidethe

progressivist ogic generallyidentified ith democracy. irst f all, equality s not a goal to be attained.The progressivists ho proclaim quality s the end result f a processofreducing nequalities, f educating hemasses,etc., eproduce he ogicofthe eacher who assures hispowerbybeing ncharge f hegap he claims obridgebetween gnorance nd knowledge. quality must be seen as a pointofdeparture, nd not s a destination.Wemust ssumethat ll ntelligencesare equal,and work under his ssumption. ut lso,Jacotot aised radical

provocation to democratic politics. For him, equality could only beintellectual equality among individuals. It could never have a socialconsistency. ny attempt o realize t socially ed to ts oss. t seemed to methat very form f egalitarian oliticswas confronted y this hallenge: oaffirm quality s an axiom, s an assumption, nd not s a goal.But lso torefuse partition etween ntellectual quality and social inequality; obelieve that even if egalitarian ssumptions re alien to social logic and

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4 Jacques ancibre

aggregation, heycan be affirmed here ransgressively, nd that politics

consists f this very onfrontation.SG What strikesme is the way this has allowedyou to intervene n thepolitico-socialist onjunction n the 1980s, n the ever-burning uestions feducation nd teaching nFrance, nd thereby ocarve ut aplacefor ourselfvis-a-vis hetwo then-current orms f progressivism.

JR TheFrench ebate overdemocratic choolingwas at that time-and

still s-monopolized by two positions.On the one hand, the sociologicaltendency, nspired by Bourdieu, was calling into question forms oftransmitting nowledge dapted o n audience f young heirs. t proposedto reduce scholastic nequality y adapting the style f the schools to theneeds and styles of underprivileged opulations. On the other hand wesaw the development f the so-called republican hesis, ummarized nJean-ClaudeMilner's Del'cole, whichmade the universality f knowledgeand itsmode of diffusion heroyal oad to democratization, nd denouncedteachers nd sociologists s destroyers f republican chools.Jacotot's deasabout intellectual mancipation laced back-to-back hese two positions,which based equality either on the universality f knowledge and theteacher's role, r on a science of the ocialarrangement or ransmittingknowledge.

SG One of the striking spects of your work s that t presents oth aseries f hifts rom ne discipline oanother, nd the recurring uest for nobject hatwill cut across ll these disciplines. hus, you have passed fromthe poetics of knowledge in history, o literary riticism with your

interpretation f Mallarm6'swork, nd finally othe concept f iterature,and now you are concerned, mong other hings,with the aesthetic deaand with inema.While ll the ime ursuing, rom ne terrain o the other,an object hat elates opolitics, s canbe seenby most of your ubtitles: amesentente. hilosophiet politique1995),Mallarm6. a politique e la sirene

(1996),La chair es mots. olitiques el'ecriture 1998).Without mentioningAuxbords upolitique, ublished n 1990,with henew, ompletely eworkededition ppearing n 1998.

JR The question of politics nd the method of my shifts re closelylinked oeach other. or me, hepolitical lways omes nto lay nquestionsof divisions nd boundaries. chose the title Lanuit desproletaires ormy

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Interview 5

bookonthe mancipation f he worker nnineteenth-century rance ecause

at the heart f this mancipation as thebreaking f the natural ivision ftime hat dictated hat workers must work by day and sleepby night ndhave no time eft ver for hinking. he workers' mancipation ame aboutthrough orkerswho decided to devote heir ights o other ctivities hansleep, to give themselves histime hat did not belong to them n order oenter nto world ofwriting nd thinking hatwas not theirs. o take hisinto account, needed to break the boundary hat s supposed to separategenres-history, hilosophy, iterature, olitical cience. n principle, myworkers elonged to social history. n other words, heir extswere readas documents xpressing hecondition f workers, opular culture, tc.decided to read them n a different ay-as literary nd philosophical exts.Where thers were attempting o read about workers' roblems xpressedin the anguageof the people, saw, on the other hand, a struggle o crossthe arrier etween anguages nd worlds, ovindicate ccessto the ommonlanguage nd to the discourse n thecommunity. s opposedto culturalism,which ought orestore popular ulture, valorized he ttitude f hoseworkers who challenged that so-called popular culture and made anattempt oappropriate nother's ulture i.e.that f the iterate ). he deaof a poetics of knowledge that would cut across all disciplines thusexpresses very loserelationship etween ubject nd method. a nuit esproletaires as a political book in that t ignored he division betweenscientific nd literary r between social and ideological, n order o

take nto ccount he truggle ywhich he roletariat ought oreappropriatefor hemselves common

languagethat had been

appropriated yothers,

and to affirm transgressively he ssumption f equality.

SG All of which ed you to redefine he role of spokespersons.

JR In traditional ogic,the spokesperson s the one who express thethought, eeling, nd way of ife f a group. showed,on the contrary, hata spokesperson s first f all the person who breaks his ogicofexpression,

the one who puts words nto irculation-that s,who uproots words fromtheir ssigned mode of speaking or of being, ccording o which workersshould speak n workers' tyle nd themassesshouldexpress hemselvesin popular culture. he basicproblemwas to show that many fforts hatbelievethey respect thers' ifferences y entering nto their anguageand their ways of hinking, nly epeat lato's adage that ne should tayin his/her laceand do his/her wn thing.

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6 Jacques anciere

JHK Obviously hebasis of your work s a very trong ommitment othe

concept f quality, nd youwant to distinguish ourself rom republicannotion of equality.But t seems to me that ny social sense of equality salready tructured nd determined n someway.Would you agree to that?Or are you posing a non-structured ense of equality?

JR If equality s axiomatic, given, t s clear that his xiom s entirelyundetermined n its principle-that t is anterior o the constitution f adetermined olitical ield, ince t makes he atter ossible n the first lace.This being said, the egalitarian xiom defines hepractices, he modes ofexpression nd manifestation hat re themselves lways determined y aparticular tate f nequality nd by the potential or quality.

JHK Isn't that n Enlightenment dea? That all men are created qual,prior opolitics. ren't you then ack with n eighteenth-century epublicannotion f equality?

JR No. First f all becauseEnlightenment hought oesnot n any wayimply n assumption f equality. rom hispoint f view, heDeclaration fthe Rights of Man exceeds Enlightenment hilosophy. t also qualifiesequality of rights by difference n talent. And most important, heegalitarian xiom s not based on a common, atural ttribute, s is politicalphilosophy. Nature is split in two. The equality of speaking beingsintervenes s an addition, s a break with henatural aws of he gravitationof social bodies. Finally, he egalitarian xiom defines the potential foregalitarian ractices arried ut by subjects, nd not the rights ttributed oindividuals nd populations, ith nstitutions pecializingnthe reductionof the distance etween right nd fact.

The Concept of Literature nd the Change in Paradigm:The Disagreements f Literary riticism

SG Let's talk about the change n paradigm you detect n the passagefrom Belles Lettres to literature, n the particular sense that youunderstand he atter. What truckme, n reading aparolemuette. ssais urlescontradictionse a littirature 1998), s the omewhathasty way in whichyou describeBellesLettres s completely oncernedwith a representativesystem f the art of writing, asing your conclusions, orexample, onBoileau, Huet, Voltaire, nd Batteux, r on historians nd poeticians ofcontemporary iterature uch s MarcFumaroli nd Gerard Genette, ithout

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Interview 7

your personally grappling with texts written during this long period.

Whereas elsewhere,you propose very complex and detailed analyses ofpost-Revolutionary exts o illustrate our concept of literature. Why thisdifference n treatment, hich results n two more or less homogeneousensembles-Belles Lettres n the one hand, and literature n the other-and a change nparadigm etween he wo, ut whichdoesnot eem willingor able to take nto ccount he omplexity f heBellesLettres epresentativesystem, oput t n your erms?

JR First f all, have approached iterature s an established ystem fthe art of writing, hich became consolidated n the nineteenth entury.have shown how its paradigms re constituted n opposition o the kind oforder they destroyed-the BellesLettres paradigms. The difference ntreatment s ustified otonlyby my pecific ubject literature s a systemof pecific hought, ot s a collection fworks), ut alsoby the fact hat heBelles Lettres aradigms were, for Hugo, Balzac or Flaubert, ummarizedin the ystematization ivenby eighteenth-century rench heoreticians, sa culmination f the system riginating n Aristotle's oetics. comparedtwo systems or dentifying he rt of writing, nd not two ways ofwritingin two different ras.Therepresentative ystem scharacterized y the verygapbetween herules f he poetic rts nd the multitude f writings hatdo not obeythem.On the other and, iterature olonger ecognizes rulesof art or boundaries.Thus the new paradigm must be sought n the worksthemselves.Clearly, mass of earlier writings nd writing ractices wereoutside or on the

marginsf the Belles Lettres

ystem.And the

Ageof

Romanticism ither indicated he uthors, pochs nd forms hathad beenexcludedby BellesLettres(especially henovel, hat enrewithout genre),or elseit reinvented classicism f ts own.Whenwe compare baroqueinterpretation f Corneille r Racineto Voltaire's eadingof them, we areable to do so within he historicization hatbelongsto the ge of iterature.

JHK Youpropose another onception f iterature ith no relation o the

art of writing, when you speak of members f the proletariat eeking toaffirm hemselves s speaking ubjects y ppropriating common anguagealready ppropriated y others.

JR I call literarity his tatus f the written ord that irculateswithout legitimating ystem defining he relations etween the word'semitter nd receiver. 'm referring ere to Plato's opposition between theliving word of the teacher own into the soul of the disciple, and the

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8 JacquesRanciere

written, mute word,whichgoeshither nd yonwithout nowing owhomit should or should not

speak.For

me,the word

literaritys

emptyfonetakes his o mean ownership y a specific anguage, onferring n texts

literary uality thefamous intransitivity hat as no consistency). hereisno direct elationship etween iterature s apolitical ystem f irculatingwords and literature s an historical ystem f the art of writing. n thecontrary, here s a strong ension etween he two. A recurring hemeofnovels s the woe of the person having had the misfortune o read novels.

SG I can imaginehow your use of the word literarity that ropensityof he nventive iterary nimal hatwe all are)cancausemisunderstandingswith he dentical ut unrelated erm literarity ) o much n vogue in theheyday f iterary heory--misunderstandings specially mong thosewhohave been debating hesethings ormore than 40 years. t's interesting onote that n Le Monde he same article eviewedyour books and AntoineCompagnon's Le demonde la thdorie Seuil, 1998),which proposes anassessment f literary heory. t's clear ome that your aparolemuette. ssai

sur es contradictionse a littgrature as,paradoxically, een nscribed n thisexistential orizon,without peakingdirectly bout iterary heory, ut bysoliciting t constantly y terms nd notions hat re highly odified nddated, ike literarity, significance, symbolic tructuration, tc.

JR I haven't been much involved in literary heory. What I callliterarity slinked o a problem f ymbolic artitioning hat s much lder

and larger, nd concernswhat callthe partition f hesensible/perceptible[lepartage usensible]:' hedistribution f words, ime, pace.What ed metherewasnot iterary heory f he 1960s-70s.t's the uestion f hepartitionwithin oth anguageand thought, s I had felt t while working n La nuitdesproletaires,specially n the workers' ccounts-in fact ictionalized-oftheir discovery f the world ofwriting ia foodwrappers r other crapsofpaper.

SG Youareproposing

womodes of hefictive-amimetic-fictive,

hichwas the basis of the BellesLettres ystem, ccording oyou-and a fictivethat belongs othe ystem f iterature as a process f the human pirit, syou put t, uoting Mallarm6. o you mean that BellesLetters annot ntailanothermodeoffiction invention) hatwouldco-exist ith iction-imitation?Forexample,Vincent escombesrethought classical writers' mitation fthe Ancients s a new principle llowing rt odetach tself rom uestions

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Interview 9

of truth nd from eligion, hus paradoxically making les Anciensmore

modernhan esModernes

contrary oHabermas) and stressing he role ofclassical writers n the arrival f the modern onception f iterature. ndrecently ou wrote that The politics of art, ike all fields of knowledge,constructs fictions'-i.e. material eorganizations f signs and images,ofrelations etween what oneseesand what onesays,between what one doesand what one can do (Lepartage usensible).s this valid for ll art, ot ustthat f post-1800?

JR It's art's epresentativeystem hat as made fiction central oncept.There's no opposition between imitation and invention. Art'srepresentative ystem s not a system of copies, but of fiction, f theorganization f actions that Aristotle alks about. It's the concept thatliberates rt from uestions of truth, nd from Plato's condemnation fsimulacra. n the ther and, he general ent f he human pirit eparatesthe dea of fiction rom hat f the rganization f ctions r fromhistory.Fiction ecomesa procedure f organizing igns and images, common tofactual ccounts nd to fiction, o documentary ilms nd to films hattells story. ut this organization f igns s not outside the truth. Whenfiction ecomes general ent of the human pirit, t s onceagain underthe rule of truth. his is essentiallywhat Flaubert ays: f a sentence oesnot ring rue, t's because the dea is false.

SG Although completely greewith your estrained nd well-foundeddefinition f literature, feel hat s a literary ritic, have been put in adouble-bind.On the one hand, your discourse eemsto directly olicit heinterest f literary ritics, y proposing lternate ways to think bout theiractivities, utside the constraints nd protocols of the usual reading ofliterature s a socialand learned nstitution. n the other and, you tell usthat our field of activity s such doesn't nterest ou. The critical eaderrealizes hat not onlyhas he misunderstood hat you meant osay, ut thatyour message s not evenaddressed ohim.Which egs the question f theaudience

for your texts nd your tyle.Doesliterature only nterest ouasan object onceivedfor nd addressed to philosophers?

JR For me, there s no line of demarcation etween the questions ofphilosophers nd those of literary ritics. Clearly, don't recognize aseparate domain for literary riticism nd its methods. Literature ndinvestigations nto iterature elong to everyone. And this nvestigation

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10 JacquesRanciere

necessarily rings ogether wokinds f nterrogation: hose oncerning he

procedures hat nable us to contemplate specific istorical ystem f theart of writing, nd those that nalyze the forms hemselves f this rt. Forme, Hegel's theorization f Romanticism nd Flaubert's correction fsentences pring from n identical nterrogation. nd I have spent moretime reading writers hanphilosophers.

SG I'mcertainly ot uestioning his spect fyourwork, or he omplexreadings fpost-1789 exts hat you have done. 'm simplywondering f he

same thing an be done with pre-1800 exts.

JR I think o. But t's not matter f more r ess attention othewritingsof this r that ra. Literature eing he ystem f the rt ofwriting hatnolonger cknowledges herules f that rt, ts mplicit ormsmust be soughtin the detailof the exts. oltaire omparedwhat Corneille id with what heshould do. He allows us to measure, n one direction r another, he xtent

ofCorneille's eparture rom system's orm.And Corneille imself ointsout and ustifies hesedepartures. orBalzac,Flaubert r Mallarm6, normand departure are internal o a writing rocess. Auto-correction asreplaced critical djudication.Our critical methods f close reading re acontinuation of this self-editing. oday we read Montaigne or Racineaccording omodes of ttention orged n theAge fRomanticism. ikewise,an art historian f the school of Louis Marin will ook at a Titian n a waythat s informed y the mpressionists, heFauves,or by abstract rt.

SG It s nonetheless emarkable o see how this position has put you inagreement with the most traditional iterary ritics, with those who arepolitically more to the Right- like Marc Fumaroli, orexample-whoseimpossible ream, hared by many, s to get rid of the iterary heory f thelast 40 years. Even though your reasons for bringing iterary heory o animpasseare different, he ffects emain he ame. Doesn't this trike ouasproblematic?

JR I amcertainly ware of he wish,here nd elsewhere, omake atabularasa f he heoretical nd practical pheavalsof he1960s, nd, for xample,to restore humanism n tune with the old art of rhetoric, ust as onewants to restore the criteria of taste, and of pleasure, the wisdom ofenlightened overeigns nd counselors, tc. But for me, separating thehistorical ystems fwriting oes not meanputting achperson nhis place

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Interview 11

and time. In any case, the literary ystem of writing s a system of

reappropriation f past works, which blurs any pretension o establishlegitimatemethod f appreciation nd interpretation. ut f iterary heorypulled the literary bject out of its pseudo-obviousness, t then eft tindefinitely scillating etween n essentialism hat xternalizes iteraturebasedon undetectable inguistic ffiliations intransitivity) nd a historicismthat operates n equally undetectable onnection etween the artistic ndthepolitical--based n tautological otions ike modernity r onconfusednotions ike critique f representation, hichmixes ogether endifferent

problems from arlimentary emocracy onon-figurative ainting, y wayof psychoanalysis, critique of the cogito, religious interdiction ofrepresentation, nd the unrepresentability f the death camps).

The Politics,Aesthetics, nd Logicof Disagreement

SG Let's move on to the question of individual and collective

subjectificationhatyou analyze nseveral exts, nanattempt ounderstandthe relations ouestablish etween iterature, esthetics nd politics, ll ofwhich you have redefined. n La misentente1995)you proposed splittingthe current otion f the political nto police and politics lapolitique/police nd lapolitique/politique ]nd you define police as a partition fthe ensible/perceptible, hile political would be a means for isruptingthis artition, ince, ccording oyou, he ssence f politics sdisagreement.Fromwhichyou derive n aesthetic f hepolitical, r apolitics hatwouldbe aesthetic nthe enseof llowing obeheard or seenwhat waspreviouslyinvisible nd inaudible, y inscribing perceptiveworld nto nother ne,asyou described t nyour Postface o theAmerican dition f ePhilosopheet sespauvres 1998).So my question s this: Does literature elong to thisgeneralhistoricalmode of visibility hatyou callaesthetic, r s it differentfrom t, nd how? One has the mpression f a kind of conflation f thesethree erms-politics, esthetics, iterature-- odesignate he ameoperation:an

antagonistic artition f the ensible.JR I use aesthetic n two senses-one broad, one more restrained. nthe broad sense, speak of an aesthetic f the political, o indicate hatpolitics s first f all a battle bout perceptible/sensible aterial. oliticsand policeare two different odesofvisibility oncerning he hings hatcommunity onsiders s to be looked nto, nd the ppropriate ubjects o

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12 Jacques anciere

look into them, o udge and decide about them. n the extreme xample

that gave in LaMisentente, hepatricians o not see that what s comingfrom he mouths f he plebeians re articulated ords peaking f ommonthings, nd not growls fhunger nd furor. n the estrained ense, aestheticdesignates for me a specific ystem f art, opposed to the representativesystem. he representative ystem istinguishes, mong the different rts(different n the sense of ways of doing), hose rts with commongoal-imitation-and from here t defines enres, orms f fabrication, riteriaof appreciation, tc.The aesthetic ystem istinguishes heartistic omain

based on how artistic roductions re sensible/perceptible. he aestheticsystem ransforms his nto he manifestations f specificmodeof hought-a thought hat has become exterior o itself-in a sensibility hat s itselfuprooted rom he ordinarymodeofthe ensible/perceptible. he aestheticsystem roposes heproducts f rt s equivalents f the ntentional nd thenon-intentional, f the completed nd the non-completed, f the consciousand the unconscious Kant's aimless finality, chelling's definition fartistic roduction s the oming ogether f conscious nd an unconsciousprocess, tc.) t exempts heproducts f art from epresentative orms, utalso from hekind of utonomy hat he tatus f mitation ad given hem.It makesthem nto both utonomous, elf-sufficient ealities, nd ntoformsof life. Literature, s a new system f the art of writing, elongs to thisaesthetic ystem f the rts nd to ts paradoxicalmode of autonomy.

SG In what ense do you use the word writing Vcriture]n the ubtitleof

yourChairdes mots.

olitiquese

l'criture? or

example,how do

youdistinguish t from literature, discourse, nd language ? What re thetheories f anguage-philosophical or otherwise-underlying ouruse ofthesewords?

JR The dea ofwriting snot based on a theory f anguage, ut on whatIcall the partition f he ensible. or Plato,writing efined certain ommonspace-a circulation f language and thought with neither legitimate

emitter, specific eceptor, or a regulatedmode of transmission. or him,this pace of mute anguage s,by the ame token, he paceof democracy,and democracy s also the system f written aws and the system wherethere s no specific itlefor xercising ower. This is a philosophical ndpolitical oncept, ather han linguistic ne. Writing s a modality f therapport etween ogos nd aisthesis, hich, ince Plato and Aristotle, asserved o conceptualize hepolitical nimal.Theconcepts f writing nd of

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Interview 13

literarity llow us to consider hepolitical nimal as a literary nimal, n

animal n the grip f etters, nasmuch s letters elong ono one and circulatefrom ll quarters.

SG Ifonehad to distinguish our pproach rom hat f MichelFoucault,with whom you acknowledge ertain ffinities, ould it be this notion ofthe partition f the sensible, nd of the politicalpartition f the commonlanguage-in either n egalitarianmanner r not-that differentiates ou?What exactlywould be the ubject f your genealogy ?

JR The idea of the partition f the ensible s no doubt my own way oftranslating nd appropriating ormy own account hegenealogical houghtofFoucault-his way of ystematizing owthings an be visible, tterable,and capable of being thought. he genealogyof the concept of literaturethat haveattempted nLaparolemuette, r nmy urrent ork n the ystemsof art, could be expressed n terms loseto Foucault'sconcept f episteme.But t the ametime, oucault's oncept laims o establishwhat s thinkableor not for a particular ra. For one thing, am much more sensitive ocrossings-over, epetitions, r anachronisms nhistorical xperience. econd,the historicists' artition etween hethinkable nd the unthinkable eemsto me to coverup themore asic partition oncerning hevery ight othink.So that where Foucault thinks n terms f imits, losure and exclusion,think n terms f nternal ivision nd transgression. 'Histoire e afoliewasabout ocking p madmen s an externalstructuring ondition f lassicalreason. In La nuit des

prol6taires,was interested n the way workers

appropriated time f writing nd thought hat hey couldnot have. Herewe are n a polemical rena rather han n archeological ne. And thus t'sthe question fequality-which for oucaulthad no theoretical ertinence-that makes the difference etweenus.

SG What is common language? What conception-philosophical,linguistic, r otherwise-do you have of language,of words, of discourse,

of letters, hat llows you to ponder these partitionings, hesedivisions?And has this onception hanged inceyour work on La nuit esprolitaires?

JR The dea of common anguage smorepolemical handefinitional,more philosophical han inguistic. n the one hand, common anguageis the political efusal f the policing ogic of eparate dioms.TheworkersofLanuit esproletaires efused otalk workmen's alk. Theyrefused o be

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14 Jacques anciere

assigned group dentity. n the ther and, he eferencesmethodological.

It's a matter f saying that n the ong run, philosophers nd historians,sociologists nd politicians peak, argue and make gestures n the samelanguage.

JHK To put the question n Chomsky's erms, an we say that you areinterested n part n literary erformances-in heway they re classifiedand carried ut, etc., nd at the same time,you seek to conceive kind ofequality f iterary ompetence?

JR On the onehand, 'm nterested nliterarity s a common otentialityof experience-individual nd collective. n the other and, 'm interestedin iterature s the pecific ase of he rt fwriting ithin historical ystemof rt. Obviously hese wo are inked.Buton the onehand, general iterarycompetence asno direct onsequences or iterature's pecific erformances.Rather, here s a rapport f tension, f opposition y writers o this ystemof iterarity, hich conditions heir xpression nd their eception. urther,I believe t's fruitful o work n two directions t once-toward constitutinga paradigm of iterature, ith ts specific oliticalpowers, nd also in thelarger,more ndeterminate nd transhistorical rea of hepolitics fwriting.Wemust not be in a hurry o ink hese wo together. emust llow each ofthese xes to produce ts own results. y inking hem ogether ooquickly,we fall nto he uselesscategories hat spokeofearlier-modernity, ritiqueof representation, nd so on.

JHK Whydo Woolf nd Joyce epresent he true novelsof hedemocraticperiod any more than Zola or Hugo? To elaborate, your work stronglyquestions he Platonic notion f a style f speakingpresumed obelongto the worker tatus. t seems to want to deconstruct how philosophyconceptualizes hemeaning f n artisan'sactivity n a way that ssignshima place appropriate o his being; thus socialhistory r sociology onnectsbeing a 'good' scientific bjectwith the representation f a link between

way ofbeing nd a way ofdoingor saying hatbelongs opopular dentity( Histoire es mots, mots de l'histoire, 8).You also say that there are two kinds of community-societies

conceived n the organic nd functional ode-based on people's identity,ondeedsand words-and societies asedon the imple quality f peakingpeople, on the contingency f their oming together ibid. 98), and thatClearly there s a genealogy of the kinds of writing produced by the

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Interview 15

community. or example, n the Age of Romanticism, ealisticwriting

corresponds o a certain aradigm of the community, nd another orm fwriting orresponds o another dea of the community. learly, oryou,the rue novelsof hedemocratic ra are n fact hose hat pparently peak

ofthe eisure lass and their tates f mind, nd not hose hat im to giveanaccount f great ocialmovements, la Zola.

Doesn't this erge n reintroducing new form f Platonic lassificationof literature perhaps even of society), nd appropriate iterary-socialcorrespondences? omething ike: the real iterature f democracy s that

based on heterogeneous oices,not grand ocialgesture precisely ecauseit corresponds o the real forms f democracy, ased on simple equality fspeaking ubjects, ot organic unctional nity).Aren't you back to sayingthat here re, ndeed, forms f iterary xpression ssentially ppropriateto specific ommunity i.e.political) orms? nly, his ime, ust the nverseof the ones we thought.

Perhaps his elates o the lide from wo paradigms f ommunity otwo types f community? hat s, fwe maintain he distinction etween

paradigms and the communities, can't we say that a democraticcommunity-indeedany ommunity--can ppropriately, illinevitably, ndmust igorously nd conscientiously ethought f ither/both n functional,organic nd simple quality f contingence erms, nd that herefore, oone type of fictive or theoretical) iscourse s the essentially ppropriateone for democracy? Making visible the real relation of a Woolf-Joycediscourse o the democratic pochdoes not require enying herelation fHugo-Zola discourse. Both are related to the democratic roject n someway; neither democracy make. Doesn't respect for the heterogeneity fdiscourse pen us to thepossiblepositive ses of both kinds f discourse orthe democratic roject ather han hechoosing f one over the other?

JR The text to which you refer ddressed the literary aradigms ofhistoric iscourse nd the reasons for he perceptible mpoverishment fthe discourse f ocial history. uring heAge ofRomanticism, herewas a

largeparadigm, epresented yMichelet,hat

analyzeddemocratic

peaking,and was based on reducing he literary ap that onstituted hiskind ofspeaking. or the rhetoric f herevolutionary rators,Michelet ubstitutedthe meaning f their words. Forhim,what s speaking hrough hewordsof the revolutionary rators seither he ife f generations, hemotherhoodof nature, r, on the contrary, hegutters f the cities. t is to such natural-mythological owers that Hugo and Zolarefer. t s from hese hat prings

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16 Jacques ancibre

the discourse of social history. have detected certain xhaustion f this

paradigm. rom t, ocial historians avekept ome disincarnate rinciplesof method recourse ogreat ycles nd to daily details of material ife, heinterrogation f silent witnesses ),while forgetting heir ource. For them,this reduction f iterarity s still oo literary. nd socialhistorians, einggenerally riented o the Left, ave a tendency o see in every uestion ofthis rder n aestheticism hat s unworthy fpopular truggles nd suffering.I have said that n order for historians o renew their ccess to democraticspeaking, heywould do well to renew their literary aradigms, nd for

myself, wrote LaNuitdesproletaireslong structural inesthat re closer oTheWaves han o Les Misdrables.orme, t was an heuristic rinciple. romthe historians' oint of view, t was a provocation. ut t's not a matter fsaying hat herewould be a truly emocratic iterature nd then nother,falsely democratic iterature. here s no correspondence, erm by term,between novelistic orms nd forms f political ction. And finally, t isliterarity-as modeof irculation fwriting-that elongs othedemocraticpartition f the ensible, nd not some kind of ntrigue.

SG Youpropose disagreement lamisentente]s a way of hinking boutpolitical subjectification, istinguishing t from misrecognition lameconnaissance]r misunderstanding lemalentendu]. isagreement s thedemocratic ogic fdissensus,sopposedtoconsensus. oupropose henotionof warring ritings in rder o think bout iterature nd ts ontradictions.Whatwouldconstitute heterogeneous iterary roduction, imilar owhat'sproduced by disagreement n the political arena? Is there a

styleof

subjectification articular o literature, hich, of course, would not be atheory f the ubject?

JR Literature, ike politics, operates processes of subjectification yproposingnew ways of solating nd articulating heworld. Thisbeing o,its ubjective nventions re made via a singularmechanism. iterature indsitself etween democratic literarity nd a metapolitical oal:the goal of a

discourse nd a knowledge bout he community hatwould speakthe ruth,underlying r running ounter o democratic iterarity. he subjectsof aperceptible xperience nvented y literature ear witness o this duality.Thus Flaubert's haracters ear witness o both the democratic irculationof etters nd a bodily nd passivemode ofperception hat hallenges his,movingfrom hehuman cale to a sub-atomic ne.

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Interview 17

SG Did I understand you rightly, n your talk at the University fConnecticut, hen you affirmed hat he ntagonistic ubjectification f thepartition f the sensible-like the unconscious n social texts, r like theaesthetic-originates n literature?

JR At that point was not talking bout an origin of the political ngeneral. was talking bout iterature, n the ense that understand t, s ahistorical ystem f the rt ofwriting. said that orme, the question f thepolitical n literature ust xtend o the heart f this ntagonistic artitionof the ensible hat onstitutes hepolitical.And, n this ontext, analyzedthe politics-or metapolitics-specific to literature. That is, thereconfiguration f the political nd the historical erformed y iterature nthe AgeofRomanticism, hen t countered istorians' istory nd tribunaldebates with a dive into the hidden depths of society and its codedmessages-from Balzac'smarketplace oHugo's sewer ystem, nd when t

publisheda

languageand a

rhythm ppropriate othe community, n thestyle f Rimbaud.

Aesthetics, olitics, nd Democracy

SG You write hat ... democracy s not simply form f government,nor kind of ocial ife, nthe tyle fde Tocqueville. emocracy sa specificmode of symbolic tructuring f the ndividual iving n common. Would

therefore very ocial or political movement e first f all a will towardaesthetic ppropriation-an appropriation f the other's language--just severy esthetic racticewould alwaysbe political?

JR I think hat the aesthetic dimension of the reconfiguration f therelationships etweendoing, eeing nd saying hat ircumscribe hebeing-in-common s nherent oevery olitical r ocialmovement. ut his estheticcomponent fpolitics oesnot ead me to seekthepolitical verywhere hatthere s a reconfiguration f perceptible ttributes n general. am far rombelieving that everything s political. On the other hand, I believe it'simportant onote that hepolitical imension f the rts an be seenfirst fall in the way that their forms materially ropose the paradigms of thecommunity. ooks, heater, rchestra, hoirs, ance,paintings r murals remodes for raming community. nd the erms f the lliance hat certainnumber f artists r artistic urrents ave made with revolutionary olitics



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18 JacquesRanciere

are first f ll formed n their wn ground: n the nvention f theater s an

autonomous rt, he edefinition f he medium f painting, he edistributionof the relationships etweenpure art nd decorative rt, tc.

SG The dea of iterary incarnation ppears nyour workbeginning nthe 1990s, n the various iterary tudies that you later ollectedunder thetitle achair es mots. ow did this aradigm ometo you, nd how do youjustify sing t to consider he iterature f the nineteenth entury?

JR I believe this ame to me through he chance reading f Balzac's Lecurd uvillage. hisnovelfictionalizes na quasi-Surrealist ay Plato'sfableof the perversity f writing. n contrast o novel-reading, hich eads twopure, opular ouls nto rime, alzacpresents redemptive riting arvedinto hevery ground f reality-the analsthat heheroine auses to be dugin order o redeem her sins and bring rrigation nd fortune o her village.Thisfable s closetoSaint-Simon's reat topian heme-railroads nd canalsas truemeansofhuman ommunication, s opposedto democratic abbling.Forme, this evived he question f the partition f the ensible,whichwasat theheart f he workers' mancipation. ut t lsogavea romantic ersionof the great heme f St.Paul:incarnate anguagevs. dead letters. rom hatpoint, was led to rethink herelationship etween he tatus f novelisticfiction nd the paradigm f ncarnate anguage,notably ased on a counter-reading f he pisodeofPeter's denial,which lays keyrole nAuerbach'sanalysis f the gospels'accounts nd novelistic ealism, nMimesis. iterarydisembodiment truckme as theveryheart f henovelistic radition nd ofthe dangers fnovel-reading uperficiallydentified ith damaging ffectsof the magination. then ought oshow how literature s constituted nthe nineteenth entury was involved n a great gap between democraticliterature nd its opposite-the idea of a true writing, new version ofincarnate anguage.Consider, or xample,Balzac's or Michelet'snotion fa languageofmute of things,Mallarm6's directwriting f the dea on thepage,Rimbaud's anguage ccessible oeverymeaning, roust's ook writtenwithin

s,and so on.

SG To the xtent hat or ou,democracy s not mbodied nd thepoliticalcollective s not an organism, you consider political subjectification sliterary isembodiment. ow do your deasdiffer rom heconception f

democratic nvention y someone ikeClaude Lefort?

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Interview 19

JR Lefort onsiders democracy s a modern nvention, ased on the

schemata of the double body of the king and his revolutionarydisembodiment. his schemata inks heduality ntrinsic o the concept fthe people to the duality f the king'sbody, nd makes democracy pring

from kind f original, ymbolicmurder. o that or im, emocracy pringsfrom n imaginary einvesting f ravaged ommon ody, nd s shadowedby totalitarian error. hus democratic uality s linked o the drama of anoriginal acrifice.And all theological-political hought enters n thisFreudian heme f patricide, n Lacanian xclusion, n the Kantian ublime,

on the Ten Commandments' nterdiction f representation, tc. n order odefinitively mpose a pathological vision of the political, wherein twocenturies f history re read as a single catastrophe inked to this originalmurder. wanted to show that emocratic eoplewere totally ndependentfrom hisdrama. Which s why used the Greek erm emos, hich carriesno ghosts f acrificed ings this ouldbe themeaning f he nd of Oedipusat Colonus:the pure and simple disappearance of the dead king, theelimination f hedrama f acrifice). hedemoss not heglorious, maginarybody that s heir o the acrificed oyal ody. t's not the body of the people.It's the abstract ssemblageof ordinary eople, who have no individualtitle ogovern. t s the pure addition f chance that omesto revoke llideas of egitimate omination, ll notions f personal virtue estiningspecial category of people to govern. Democracy is the paradoxicalgovernment f those who do not embody any title for governing thecommunity. o the doublebody of hepeople s the difference hat eparatesa political ubject rom ny empirical art of the ocialbody.

JHK All right, emocracy s government y ordinary eople.But how isthe bstract dea of demos ranslatedconcretely n today's world?

JR There s no constantbody of he emoshatwould support emocraticpronouncements. hedemocratic rinciple s the basis for what an becalledoccurences f political ubjectification. he principle f demoss translated

by the activities f those who make pronouncements nd demonstrations,affirming power denied towords nd udgment. t sfrom emos hat hosewho have no business speaking, peak, and those who have no businesstaking art, akepart. Thesesubjects ivethemselves ollective ames thepeople, citizens, he proletariat, erman Jews, nd so on) and impose areconfiguration f the sensible by making visible what was not visible,beginningwith hemselves s subjects apableof speaking bout commonground.SubStance# 2, 2000



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20 Jacques anciere

SG For example, there was some demos t work in the strikes anddemonstrations f November-December 995 n Paris?

JR The questionof demoswas certainly t play, very mblematically, nthat ransformation f subway workers nto demonstrators ccupying hepedestrians' pace.Theeconomic uestion fretirement enefits mmediatelybecame, n an exemplarymanner, Who s qualified o oversee he nterestsof he ommunity, oconnect tspresent o ts future? ccording oa purelyJacotot-style ogic, the movement was only strengthened when Prime

Minister upp6 layedthe chool master, ecturing hese backward eoplegrasping t old rigid deas of alary nd short-term, ersonal nterests,enlightening them on the laws of the global economy and on wisegovernment, s the responsible irector f their ommon future. goodpart of the intelligentsia-including he Marxist-trained ntelligentsia-supported he courageous move of hePrimeMinister, n the name of thestruggle gainst populism. But the strikers eplied, Don't waste yourbreath, eunderstand erfectly ell.Andbecausewe understand, ewantnothing o do with your reform. What they had understood, irst f all,was the ogicof the explanationwhose function as to divide the worldinto those who understand nd those who don't. It was the question ofequality underlying he economic uestion. This said, there re degreesof subjectification. Movements ike those 1995 strikes put elements ofsubjectification nto play, without, owever, rousing political ubjects nthe fullsense-subjects capableoftracing connection etween ll nstancesof subjectification nd attaching hem to the great ignifiers f collectivelife.

JHK This mplies constant eformulationnd reconfiguration f he emosaccording ocontext. hus t's by analyzing hese nstances hat ne locatesthe political. So why attach o much value to the demos? What does itcontribute, olitically? nyone an call themselves hedemos.

JRI seem to

detect,ehind

your question, heshadow of oppositionsbetween spontaneity nd organization, etween populism and scientifictheory. or me, t s not a matter f valorizing hedemos s the good faceofthe collective. t's a matter f reflecting, irst f all, on the question, Whatmakes the political xist? t's a matter f problematizing hedeceptivelysimple idea of a subject who, as Aristotle ut it, participates both ingoverning and in being governed. It's a matter of reflecting n the

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Interview 21

singularity f this gap in relation o the normal rder f things, here he

agent f n action s not lso its recipient.WhenPlato,n

the Laws, xaminesthe natural ntitlement ocommand nd the corresponding ntitlement obe commanded, he discovers he ogicalscandal he calls the role of thegods -that is,the ffects fchance-- government hatknowsnoprinciplefor he symmetrical ivision of roles. t is this ogicalscandal, smotheredbeneath banal pronouncements n popular rule or on the reciprocity fcitizens' ights nd duties, hat heword demosummarizes-the ingularityof the political n relation o the natural ogicof domination. Valorizing

thedemos oesnotmeangiving prize oevery ign-wielding emonstrator;rather, t means foregrounding he paradox of the competence ofincompetents hat s the basis of politics n general. t means saying hatthe analysis f nstances s not univocal.Politics s the very dispute over

the instances and their various elements. Today the denunciation ofpopulism eals the ccordbetween ld Marxists nd young iberals.

The Aesthetic dea and Artistic orms

SG I'm interested by the opposition that you develop-based onFoucault's eprise fKant-between aesthetic nd artistic orm.Accordingto you, aesthetic orm an onlybe seen as a form f t s a form f nothing,and if t doesnot realizeany concept r mitate ny object. hus t cannot eproduced by artistic abor. o that nlygenius, s a subjective aculty, an

produce an aesthetic dea-itself an equivocalconcept.What exactly s anaesthetic dea, your urrent esearch heme t the Collkgede Philosophie?

JR Thisopposition etween wo deas of form s the opposition etweentwo ystems f rt. Representativeogicwas linked othe pposition etweenform nd matter nd to the dea of art s the mposition f form omatter.Kant's Critique fJudgmentuxtaposes his raditional ogicof rt s tekhne oa completely ew logic:that of the free orm, which s not the form fanything, hich s not the ffectuation f any concept, ut rather s the purecorrelative f a

gazethat

uspendsall relations f

knowledger nterest n

an object. or Kant, he esthetic dea is the supplemento the concept, hatauraof ssociated nd indistinct epresentations hat llowsthe onsciouslyelaborated rtistic orm otransform tself nto widely ppreciated estheticform. or him, he esthetic deabelongs n the direct ine of the famous jene sais quoi that haunted heAge of Classicism nd that makes genius hestandard ttribute f he upplement. ut he oncept fgenius lsotranslates

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22 Jacques anciere

that poeticalupheaval naugurated y Vico, n identifying omer's poetic

geniusnot as a capacity or nvention, ut on the contrary, s an inability omaster he anguage, the poet's unawareness of what he is doing. n theaesthetic ge, the esthetic dea becomesmoreprofoundly he dea of rt, fan dentity etween n artistic rocess roduced olely y unregulated rtisticwill, nd a mode of existence f rt objects s free bjects, ot the projectsof will. This global idea of art defines aesthetic deas, inventions ofequivalencebetween fact nd non-fact, etween hebook already writtenwithin us and the book in which everything s invented or heends of a

demonstration Proust), etween heunmediated ye of the amera nd thecombinatory ower of montage, nd so on.

SG Which brings us to enthusiasm, s the power that effects hetransformation f artistic ngeniumnto forms. ou have said that he oldterm enthusiasm hould be called unconscious, n the Kantian ense,where genius s ignorance f what one is doing or what nature s doingthrough ne. Whichbrings s back to the question f the spirit l'esprit]of form nd the ndividualized faceof the ncarnation f the spirit, s youdescribe n Mallarme. a politique e a sirene, believe.Can every writer rartist rom very period be thought f in these terms, ince There s noformwithout he pirit f form, orwithout struggle gainst hisform ?

JR It's not a question of era, but of the system f art. The area of formand its pirit elongs o the esthetic system f he rts. Opposingthe form/idea of the representative ystem, e have the doublet f form s free orm,pure appearance relying n itself Flaubert's book on nothing ) nd formas the form f a process, hemanifestation f a history f forms, nd so on.The spirit f form s the give-and-take etween hese wo poles,betweenautonomy nd heteronomy. have attempted o show this give-and-take sopposed to formalist iscourse,which reates fiction f the conquest fpure form, reed f representative ontent nd of ny obligations xterior oart. From hispoint of view,Mallarme s emblematic. is poems are often

presenteds

pureauto-affirmations f

anguage.But Mallarme, n givingthem hemovement f fan, f ascadinghair, f garland r a constellation,makes them more than aesthetic elights. He makes them forms f life,artifices participating n a political-religious consecration of humanexperience.

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Interview 23

SG Foryou, he esthetic s not he theory r philosophy f he Beautiful,

but the area for laborating the dea of unconscious hought, r again, aproblematic of the political community that is not limited to an'aesthetization' f the political La forme t son esprit ). o would theaesthetic dea be the dea of unconscious hought? nd unconscious nwhat sense?

JR The key idea of the aesthetic s an historical ystem specific tocontemplating rt s the dentity etween he oluntary nd the nvoluntary--

Vico's poetic revolution n declaring Homer a poet not by virtue of hisinventiveness ut by the evidence he gives of a state of infancy is-a-vislanguage;Kant's aimless finality; chiller's aesthetic tate that uspendsthe usual subordination f passive sensation to active understanding;Flaubert's r Proust's roject f a completely alculated ook that wouldbeidentical to a book that would write tself; he impressive gripping ofsensation tself, he unconscious revelations f music in Schopenhauer,Wagner, ietzsche, nd so on. Hegel'sAestheticsas the great ystematizationof art s thought utside of tself. nd from here iterature ssigned tselfdouble task--the inguistic nd geological ne of solating ayers fwriting,while reading hieroglyphics r fossils xpressing he ayers f history a laBalzac), nd the ask f inking houghts, entiments nd typical haractersto primal elements, n themselves nsignificant, f their onstitution a laFlaubert). his s not the Freudian nconscious, ut t prepares heway forit to become thinkable.

Universite eParis-VIIIUniversity fConnecticut

interview onductedApril 18,1999translated yRoxanne apidus

Note

1.Elsewhere,ancibreas efinedhe partitionf he ensible s that ystemf ensibleevidences hat eveals oth he xistence f communalitynd the ivisions hat efinein t respectivelyssigned laces ndparts Interview, nLepartage u ensible;itedin Cinematographicmage,Democracy,nd the Splendor f the nsignificant,' nInterview ith Jacques anciere y SolangeGuenoun, ranslated y AlysonWaters(Sites, all2000).

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24 Jacques anciere

Selected ibliography

Ranciere, acques. uxbords e a politique.aris: siris, 990. nglish ersion: n the horesofPolitics,rans. iz Heron. ondon nd New York: erso, 995.

. La chair esmots: olitiqueel'&criture.aris:Galilee, 998.- Laforme t on spirt. nLaformen eu. Paris: resses niversitaires e Vincennes.. Histoire es mots,mots el'histoire. ntretien vecMartyne errot t Martin e la

Soudiere. ommunications8,1994.- . Lemaitregnorant.inq egonsur 'emancipationntellectuelle.aris: ayard, 987. nglish

version: he gnorant choolmaster:ive essonsn ntellectualmancipation,rans. ristinRoss.Stanford: tanford P: 1991.

.Mallarme:a

politiquee a sirene. aris:

Hachette,996.

*Lamisentente:olitiquet philosophie.aris: ditions alilee, 995. nglish ersion:Disagreement.oliticsndPhilosophy,rans. ulie ose.Minneapolis: niv. fMinnesotaPress, 999.

.Lesnoms e 'histoire.ssai epoetiqueu avoir. aris: euil, 992. nglish ersion: heNames fHistory: n the oetics fKnowledge,rans. assan Melehy,ntro y HaydenWhite.Minneapolis: niv.Minnesota ress, 994.

. La nuit es prolitaires.aris:Fayard, 981.English ersion: heNights fLabor: heWorkers' ream n Nineteenth-Centuryrance, rans. onDrury. hiladelphia, empleUP:1989.

Laparolemuette. ssai ur es ontradictionse a ittirature. aris:Hachette, 998.-. Lepartage u sensible: sthetiquetpolitique.aris: a Fabrique, 000.

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Literature, Politics, Aesthetics. Approaches to Democratic Disagreement

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