Date post: | 03-Apr-2018 |
Category: |
Documents |
Upload: | daniel-e-florez-munoz |
View: | 217 times |
Download: | 0 times |
of 78
7/27/2019 1998 - Disagreement Politics and Philosophy
1/78
Jacques Rancire
Dis- agrementAND PHILOSOPYPOLIICSTranslated by Julie Roe
Uv f M; ." Mp
7/27/2019 1998 - Disagreement Politics and Philosophy
2/78
The Unversty of Mnnesota gratefully acknowledges fnancal assstance provdedby the French Mnstry of Culture for the transation of ths book.
The pubcaton of ths book was assisted by a bequest from Josah H. Chaseto onor hs paents, Elen Rankin Chase and Josiah Hook Chase
Mnnesota terrtora poneers
hs project has been assisted by the Commonwealth Government of Australathrough the Austraa Counci ts ats fundng and advsory body
Copyrght 1999 by the Regents of the Unversty of Minnesota
Orgnaly pubshed as La Mesntnt: Politiqu t phlosophi,copyght 995 dtons Gale
Al rights reseed. No pat of this publcation may be reproduced stored n aretrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, eectronc
mechanca, photocopying, recording, or othewise without the prorwrtten permsson of the pubsher
Pubshed by the nversty of Minnesota Press11 hird Avenue South Suite 290
Minneapois M 55401-2520http://wwwupressumnedu
Lbray of Congress CataogngnPublcaton Data
Rancre acques[Msentente Engsh]
sagreement : potcs and phlosophy I acques ancire ;translated by ule Rose
p m Includes bblographcal references and index
SB 086628440 Potcal sciencePhosophy Title
JA71R2553 1998320'.01dc21
9842205
Prnted n the Unted States of Amerca on acidfee paper
Te niversty of Mnnesota is an equaoppotunty educatoand employer
0 08 0 06 05 03 02 01 0 99 0 9 8 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contens
Preface v
The Beginnng o Poltcs
2 Wong: Poltcs and Polce 21
3 he Ratonalty of Dsageemen 43
4 Fom Archpoltcs to Metapoltcs
5. Democacy o Consensus 95
6 Poltcs n Its Nhstc Ae 3
Notes 4
ndex 47
7/27/2019 1998 - Disagreement Politics and Philosophy
3/78
Preface
The question we must bear in mind is equali or inequali in what
sortof thing? For this is a problem, and one for which e need politial
hilosohy.
Aistotle Politics 8 b 21
Is there any such thing as political philosoh? The question seems in
congruous for two reasons. First, theorizing aout communiy and its
purpose, about law ad its oundation, has een going on ever sne our
philosopical tradition kicked o and has never cased to keep it vtal.
Second, or a while now olitical philosophy has een loudly trumpet
ing its retun with a new lease on lie. Coled ora long time y Marxsm, whch turned the politcal nto the expression, or mask, o social
relatinships, suject to poaching y the soial and the social sciences,
today, with the collapse o state Marisms and the end o utopias, po
litical philosophy is supposed to e nding its cotemplative purity in
the principles and orms o a politics itsel returned to its original pu
rit thanks to the retreat o the social and its amiguities.
This return poses a ew prolems however. Whe not limited to co
menting on certain texts amous or orgotten, ro out o ts own his-
vii
7/27/2019 1998 - Disagreement Politics and Philosophy
4/78
PREFACE
tory, this rejuvenated political philosophy seems most unwiling to go
beyond the usual assortment of argu ment s trotted out by any state ad
ministration in thinking about democracy and the aw right a nd the
legitimate state. In short, the main aim seems to be to ensure commu
nication between the great cassic doctrines and the usual forms of state
legitimization we know as ibera democracies But the supposed con
vergence be tween the retur n of political philosophy and the return ofits object poitics is lacking in evidence At a time when the politica
was contested in the name of the socia of social movements or socia
science it was nonetheless stil manifest in the mutipicity of modaities
and paces om the street to the factory to the university The resurrec
tion of the poitical is today reveaed in the discretion of such modai
ties or the absence of such places. One may object that the whoe point
is that poitics purged has once again found the proper pace for deib
eration and decision-making concerning the common good in assem
bies where discussion and egislation take p ace spheres of state where
decisions are made supreme courts that check whether such deliberations and decisions conform to the aws on which society is based he
probem is that these are the very places where the disenchanted opin
ion spreads that there isn't much to deiberate and that decisions make
themseves the work proper to poitics simply invoving an opportune
adaptabiity in terms of the demands of the word marketplace and the
equitable distribution of the prots and costs of this adaptability he
resurrection of politica phiosophy thus simutaneousy decares itsef
to be the evacuation of the poitica by its ocia representatives.
This curious convergence obiges us to backtrack to poitica phi
osophys idence preme. That there has (amost) always been poi
tics n phiosophy in no way proves that poitica phiosophy is a nat
ura oshoot of the tree of phiosophy. Even in Descartes politics is not
isted among the branches of the tree medicine and moraity apparently
covering te ed wherever other phiosophies encountered poitics he
rst person in our tradition to come up against poitics Pato only did
so in the form of a radical exceptionality. As a phiosopher Socrates
never relcted on the politics of Athens He is the ony Athenian to
vi
PREFACE
"do politics; to be involved in poitics n tuth as opposed to a that is
done in Athens in the name of politics1 The rst encounter between
poitics and phiosophy is that of an alternative: either the poitics of
the poiticians or that of the phiosopers
he starkess of this Patonic disjunction thus caries what remains
apparent in the ambiguous relationship between the assurance of our
poiticalphiosophy and the discretion of our politics here is noth
ing to say that political philosophy is a natura division of phiosophy
accompanying poitics with its theory however critica. n he rst pace
there is nothing to say that any such phiosophica conguration comes
aong and either echoes through theory or founds through egisation
a the great forms of human actingscientic artistic politica or
otherwise Phiosophy does not have divisions that then end themseves
either to the basic concet proper to phlosophy or to areas where phi
losophy reects on itsef or on its egisation Philosoph has pecuiar
objects nodes of thought borne of some encounter with poitics art
science or whatever other reective activity that bear the mark of aspecic paradox conict aporia. ristote points this out in a phrase
that is one of the rst encounters between the noun phlosophy and
the adjective polcal: "Equaity or inequaity comes dwn to aporia
and poitical phosophy2 Phiosophy becomes "oitica when it em
braces aporia or the quandary proper to poitics Poitics as we will
see is that activty which turns on equaity as its principe. And the
principe of equaity is transformed by the distribution of community
shares as dened by a quandary: when is there and when is there not
equaity in things between who and who ese? What are these "things
and who are these whos? How does equaiy come to consist of equaity
and inequaity? That is the quandary proper to poitics by which poi
tics becomes a quandary for phiosophy an object of phiosophy We
shoud not take this to mean that pious vision in which phiosophy
comes to the rescue of the practitioner of politics science or art ex
plaining the reason for his quandary by sheddng ight on the prin
cipe of his practice. Phiosophy does not come to anyone's rescue and
no one asks it to even if the rues of etiquette of socia demand have
lx
7/27/2019 1998 - Disagreement Politics and Philosophy
5/78
PREFACE
of a rule for assessing differen ypes of heerogeneous discourse. It is
less concerned wih arguing han wih wha can be argued, he presence
or absence of a common objec beween X andY I concerns he an
gible presenaion of his common obec, he very capaciy of he in
erlocuors o presen i. An exreme form of disagreemen is where X
canno see he common objecY is presening because X canno com
prehend ha he sounds uered by Y form words and chains of wordssimilar o X's own. This exreme siuaion-rs and foremos-con
cerns poliics. Where philosophy encouners boh oliics and poery a
once, disagreemen bears on wha i means o be a being ha uses words
o argue The srucures proper o disagreemen are hose in which dis
cussion of an argumen comes down o a dispue over he objec of he
discussion and over he capaciy of hose who are makng an obec of i
The following pages ry o dene a few poiners for undersanding
disagreemen whereby he aporia of poliics i s embraced as a philosoph
ical obec. We will be esing he following hypohesis: ha wha iscalled "poliica philosophy migh well be he se of reecive operaions
whereby philosophy ries o rid iself of poliics o suppress a scandal
in hinng proper he exercise of poliics This heoreical scandal
is nohing more han he raionaliy of disagreemen. Wha makes pol
iics an obc of scandal is ha i is ha acivity which has he raional
iy of disagreemen as is very own raionality The basis o phiosophy's
dispue wi poliics is hus he very reducion of he raionaliy of dis
agreemen. This operaion, whereby philosophy auomaially expels
disagreemen om iself, is hereby idenied wih he proec of "re
all doing poliics, of achieving he rue essence of wha poliics alksabou. Philosophy does no become poliical becase poliics is so
crucial i simply mus inervene I becomes poliical because regula
ing he raionaliy siuaion of poliics is a condiion for dening wha
belongs o philosophy.
The book is organized along he following lines. I begins wih he
supposedly founding srands of hough in which Arisole denes he
logos proper o poliics I hen aemps o reveal, in he deerminaion
of he logicalpoliical animal, he poin a which he logos splis, re
xi
PRFAE
ealing wha is prope o poliics and which philosophy reecs wih
Plao and ries, wih Arisole, o appropriae. On he basis of Arisoles
ex (and wha his ex sops shor of) we will y o answer he ques
ion wha can be hough of specically as poliics? To hink hrough
his speciciy will force us o disinguish i from wha normally goes
by h name of poliics and for which I propose o resere he erm
plicing. On he basis o his disincion we will ry o dene rs helogic of disagreemen proper o poliical raionaliy, hen he basis and
maor forms of poliical philosophy in he sense of a specic mask
ing of his disincion We will hen ry o hink hrough he eec of
he eurn of poliical philosohy in he eld of poliical pracice.
This allows us o deduce a few landmars for reecin ha will clar
i wha migh be undersood by he erm demcacy and he way i
differs from he pracices and legiimizaions of he consensus sysem,
in order o appreciae wha is raciced and sai in he name of he
end of poliics or of is reurn, and wha is exaled in he name of a
humniysans fontes and deplored in he nae of he reign of he
inhuman
mus declare a double deb here rs o hose who, by generously
iniing me o spea on issues of poliics, democracy, and jusice have
ended up persuading me I had somehing specic o say on he sub
ec; and also o hose wih whom public, priae, and occasionally mue
dialogue has inspired me o ry o dene his speciciy. Thy now
wha is heir due in his anonymous hans
xil
7/27/2019 1998 - Disagreement Politics and Philosophy
6/78
Chapter 1
The Beginning of Politics
Let's bgin at the beginning, meaning the celebrated sentences in book I
of Aristotles Politics that dene the eminently political nature of the
human animal and lay te foundations of the city:
Nature as we say, does nothing without some purpose; and she
has endowed man alone among the animals with the power of
speech. Speech is somthing dierent from voice which is pos-
sessed by other animals also and used by them to express pain or
pleasure; for their nature does indeed enable them not only to
feel pleasure and pain but to comunicate these feelings to each
other Speech, on the other hand serves to indicate what is usel
and what is harml and so also what is just and what is unjust
For the real dierence betwee man and other animals is that
humans aloe have perception of good and evil, the just and the
unjust etc t is the sharing of a common view in these matters
that makes a household and a state1
The idea of the political nature of man is compressed into those few
words a chimera of the Ancients according to Hobbes, who intended
to replace it with an exact science of the motivating forces of human
1
7/27/2019 1998 - Disagreement Politics and Philosophy
7/78
7/27/2019 1998 - Disagreement Politics and Philosophy
8/78
THE BEGINNNG OF POLCS
pheronthus does not imply relationship toanother, so the two termsare not genuine opposites. Ingeneral Greekusage what is usuallycontrasted toblaberonas wrong suered isphelimon, the help one receivesIn Te Nchomachean Ethics, what Aristotle himself contrasts to blaberonas a bad lot is aireton, the good lot to be derived But the advantage,the sumpheron,that one individual receives isin no waythe correlativeof an equivalent disadvantage suffered by another For Thrasymachus
such a correlation exists, forthis is the false conclusion he reaches inbookI of the Republic, when he translates into terms of prot and losshis enigmatic and polsemic formula: justiceis the advantage ofthe superior man (to sumphern tou kreionos). For Thrasymachus the protofthe shepherd is the loss of the sheep, the advantageof the governorsthe disadvantage of the governed, a nd so on We might add in passingthat to translate this concept as it is usually translated as "the interestof the strongest" is to immediatelyget locked into the position PlatolocksThrasymachus in;it is to short-circuit Plato's entiredemonstra
tion, which plays onthe polysemyof the formulato bring o a doubledisjunction Not only is the prot of one not the loss" of anotherbut, moreover, superiority strictly speaking only ever has one bene-ciary: theinferior over whom it exercises dominion. In this demon-stration,one term disappearswrong WhatThrasymachuss retationanticipates is a citywithout wrong, a city in which the superiorityexercised according to the natural order produces a reciprocity of servicesbetween the guardian protectors and the artisans who provide for them.
Therein lies the second problem and the second heterogeneity For
Plato, as for Aristotle, who is on this score faithl to his master, the
ust city is basicall y a state in hich t he sumpheron has no correlaiveblaberon. roper distribution ofadvantages presupposes prior elimi
nation of certain wrong, of a certain regime of wrongWhat wrong
have you done me, what wrong have I done you?" According to the
Theaetetus, this is how the advocate talks as an expert in transactions
and tribunals-in other words, as a person absolutely ignorant of the
ustice that is the basis of the city Such ustice only begins wherever
uses stop being parceled out, wherever prots and losses stop eing
4
E BEGNNING O POICS
weighed Justice as the basis of comunity has not yet come into play
wherever the sole concern is with preventing individuals who live to
gether om doing each other reciprocal wrongs and with reestablishing
the balance of prots and losses whenever they do so It only begins
when what is at issue is what citizens have in common and when the
main concern is with the way the forms of exercising and of controlling
the exercising of this common capacity are divided up On te one hand,
justice as virtue is not a simple balancing act of individual interests orreparation of the damage done by some to others It is the choice of
the very measuring rod by which each party takes only what is its due
On the other hand, political ustice is not simply the orde that holds
measured relationsips between individuals and goods together It is
the order that determines the partition of what is common Now in
this order the ust cannot be duced from the useful as in the order
of individuals. For individuals the problem of going from the order of
the useful to the order of the ust can easily be resolved BookV of he
Nichomachean Ethcs oers a solution to our problem: ustice consistsin not taking more than one's share of advantageous things or less than
ones share of disadvantageous things On condition of reducing bla-
beron to the harml" and of idetiing sumpheron with these ad
vantageous" things, it is possible to give a precise meaning to the passage
from the order of the useful to that of the ust the advantageous and
the disadvantageous are the matter over which the virtue of ustice is
exercised, the latter consisting in taking the appropriate share, the aver
age share of each and every one.
he problem, obviously, is that this still does not dene any political
order The political begins precisely when one stops balancing protsand losses and worries instead about distributing common lots and
evening out communal shares and entitlements to these shares, the axia
entitling one to community For the political community to be more
than a contract beteen those exchanging goods and services, the reign
ing equality needs to be radically dierent om that according to which
merchandise is exchanged and wrongs redressed. But theclassics buff
would be a bit rash to leap in and see in this the superiority of the
5
7/27/2019 1998 - Disagreement Politics and Philosophy
9/78
THE BEGINNNG OF POLIICS
common good, whose telos is contained in human naure, over the hag
glin on behalf of individual interests. The root of the problem lies here:
for the founders of "political philosophy, this submission of the logic
of exchange to the common good is exressed in a perfectly determined
way, as the submission of arithmetical equaliy, which presides over com
mercial exchanges and over juridical sentences, to that geometric eq ual
ity responsible for proportion, for common harmony, submission of
the shares of the ommon held by each pary in the community to the
share that party brings to the common good But this shi om vular
arithmetic to an ideal geometry itself implies a curious compromise
with the empirica, an od way of counting the "parties within the
community For the city to be orered according to the ood, ommu
nity shares must be strictly in proportion to the axia of each part of
the communiy to the value it brings to the communiy an d to the right
that this value bestows on it to hold a share of the common power Be
ind te probematic oposition between sumpheron and blaberon theessential political question lies For political phlosophy to exist, the
order of political ideaities must be linked to some construction of ciy
"parts;' to a count whose complexities may mask a ndamental mis
count, a miscount that may well be the blaberon the very wrong that
is the stu of politics. What the "classics teach us rst and foemost is
that politics is not a matter of ties between individuals or of relation
ships beween individuals and the community Politics arises from a
count of community "parts, which is always a false count, a double
count, or a miscount
Let's take a closer look at these axa Aristotle sees three the wealtho h smallest numer ( olgo'), the virtue or excellence (a e) om
which the best (aiso derive their name, and the eedom (eleuheia)
that belongs to the people (demos). Taen on their own, each of these
attributes yields a particular regime, threatened by the sedition of the
others the oliarchy of the rich, the aristocracy of the good, or te
democracy of the people. On the other hand the precise combination
of their community entitlements procures the common good But a
secret imbalance spois this pretty picture. Doubtless one can measure
6
E BEGNNING O PTCS
the respective contribution of oligarchs and aristocrats and the control
of the people in the quest for the common good ook III of Poliics
attempts to make this calculation concrete, to dene the measure of
political capacity held respectively by the minority of men of "merit
and by the majority of ordinary men The metaphr of ixing allows
Aristotle to imagine a communiy nourished by the proportional addi
tion of respective qualities in something like the way he tells us, "thata combination of coarse foods with rened renders e whole diet more
nutritious than a small amount of the latter2 The pre and the impure
are able to blend their eects ut how can they bascally be compared
ith each other? hat exacly is the entitlement or qaliy of each pary?
Within the beautil harmony of the axia, one sinle easily reconiz
able quality stands out the wealth of the oligo. Yet his is also the one
qualiy that derives exclusively om the arithmetic of exchange So what
does the eedom of the people bring to the commniy? And in what
is it peculiar to them This is where the ndamental iscount rearsits head First, the eedom of the demos is not a determinable prop
ery but a pure invention behind "autochthony, the mh of origins
revndicated by the demos of Athens, the brute fact that maes democ
racy a scandalous theoretical object impinges Simply by being born in
a certain city, and more especially in the city of Athen once enslavment
for debt was abolished there, any one of these speaig bodies doomed
to the anonymi of work and of reproduction, these speakin bodies
that are of no more value than slaves-een less, says Aristotle, since
the slave ets his virtue from the virtue of hi s master any old artisan
or shopkeeper whatsoever is counted in this pary to the ciy that callsitself the people as takng par in communiy aairs as such The simple
impossibiliy of the oligo" reducing their debtors to slavery was trans
formed into the appearance of a eedom that was to be the positive
property of the people as a part of the community
There are those who attribute this promotion of the people and their
eedom to the sdom of the good leislator, Solon providing the arche
pe Others refer to the "demagogy of certain nobls who turned the
populace into a bastion against their rivals Each of these explanations
7
7/27/2019 1998 - Disagreement Politics and Philosophy
10/78
THE BEGINNING OF POICS
already supposes a certain idea of politics Rather than opt for one or
the other, it would be better to pause to consider what lies behind them:
the original nexus of fact and law and the peculiar connection this nexus
established beween two key terms in politics, equality and liberty "Lib
eral wisdom smugly tells us of the perverse eects of an articial equal
ity that came along and blocked the natural freedom of enterprise and
exchange. The classic authors, however, encounter a phenomenon of avery different profundity at the beginnings of politics it is freedom, as
an empy property, that came along and set a limit on the calculations
of comercial equality and the effects of the simple law of owingand
having Freedom, in sum, pops up and splits the oligarchy, preventing
it from governing through the simple arithmetical play of prots and
debts Te law of the oligarchy is ectively that "arithmetical equality
should cmmand without hindrance, that wealth should be immediately
idential with domination One ight think that the poor of Athens
were subject to the power of the nobles rather than that of the mer
chants, but the point is that the liberty of the people of Athens reduced
the natural domination of the nobility, based on the illustrious and
ancient ature of their lineage, to their simple domination as wealthy
property owners and monopolizers of the common property. It re
duced the nobility to their condition as the rich and transformed their
absolute right, reduced to the power of the rich, into a particular axia.But the miscount does not stop there. Not onlydoes eedom as what
is "proper to te demos not allowitself to be determined by any positive property; it is not proper to the demos at all The people are noth
ing more than the undierentiated mass of thosewho have no positivequalicaton-no weath, no vitue-but o are nonetheless acknowledged to enjoy the same eedom as those who do The people who makeup the people are in fact simplyfree likethe rest. Nowit is this simpleidentity ith thosewho are otherwise superior to them in all thingsthat gives them a specic qualication. The demos attributes to itselfas its proper lot the equality that belongs to all citizens. In so doing,this par that is not one identies its improper propertywith the ex-clusive principle of community and identies its name-the name of
8
THE BEGNNNG OF POLCS
the indistinct mass of men of no position-with the name of the com
munity itself or eedom-which is merely the position of those who
have absolutely no other, no merit, no wealth-is counted t the same
time as being common virtue It allows the demos (that is, the actual
gathering of men of no position, these men whom Aristotle tells us
"had no part in anything3) to identi with the whole of the commu
nitythough homonymy This is the funamental wrong, the originalnexus ofblaberon and adikonwhose "manifestation then blocks any
deduction of the just fom the usel: the people approprate the com
mon quality as their own What they bring to te community strictly
seaking is contention his should be understood in a double sense:
the qualication that the people bring is a contentious propery since
it does not belong exclusively to the people, but this contentious prop
ety is strictly speaking only the setingup of a contentious commonal
ity The mass of men without qualities identi with the community in
the name of the wrong that is constantly being done to them by those
whose position or qualities have the natural eect of propelling them
into the nonexistence of those who have "no part in anyhing It i s in
the name of the wrong done them by th e other parties that the people
identi with the whole of the community. Woever has no part-the
poor of ancient times, the third estate, the modern poletariat-cannot
in fact have any part other than all or nothing On top f this, it is
through the existence of this part of those who have no part, of this noh
ing that is all, that the community exists as a political community
that is, as divided by a ndamental disput, by a dispute to do with the
counting of the community's parts even more than of their rightsThe people are not one class among others They are the class of the
wrong that harms the community and establishes it as a "community
f the just and the unjust.
So it is that scandalizing men of substance, the demos, that horde
who have nothing, become the people , the political community of ee
Athenians, the community that speaks, is counted, and deiberates at
the assembly, causing wordsmiths to write, 'ESogc T .7/: "it haspleased the people, the people have decided. or Plato, the man who
9
7/27/2019 1998 - Disagreement Politics and Philosophy
11/78
THE BEGNNING OF POLCS
invented political philosophy for us, ths formula easily translates intothe equivalence of two terms: demos and doxa t has pleased those
who kno w onl y those llusons of more or less that are called pleasureand pain; there was simple doxa, "a ppearance for the people appearance of the people. The people are the mere appearance produced bythe sensations of pleasure and pain manipulated by rhetoricians and
sophsts to stroke or intmidate the great anmal the morass of folkwho have nothing, gatherd t ogether at the assembly
Lets be clear at the outset n his resolute hatred of democracy Platodelves much rther into the foundations of politics and democracythan those tired apologists who assure us lukewarmly that we shouldlove democracy "reasonabl, meaning "mderately Plato sees what theyhave overlookd democracy's miscount, which is, aer all, merely thendamental miscount of poltics There s politics-and not just domnaton-because there s a wong count of the parts o the whole.
Ths impossble equation is resumed in a formula Herodotus lends toOtanes the Persian tv y 1oAA ev Ta CVT, the whole liesin the many4 The demos is that many that is identical to the wholethe many as one the part as the whole, the all in all. he nonexistentqualtative dierence of freedo produces this impossible equation thatcannot be understood within the dvsions of arthmetcal equality, requiring the compensation of prots and losses, or of geometric equaity,
which is pposed to link a quality to a rank By the same token thepeople are always more or less than th people The welborn and comfortably placed may laugh or cy over all the sgns of what looks to
them lke fraud or usuration the demos means the maoty and notthe assembly, the assembly and not the communty, the poor in thename of the cty, clapping their agreement counting stones instead oftaking decisons But all these manifestatons of the peoples being unequal to themselves are ust the small beer of a basic miscount thatimpossble equalty of the multple and the whole produced by appropriation of eedom as beng peculiar to the pople This impossibleequality has a domno eect on the entire deduction o shares and entitlements that make up the city Following from ths singular property
0
THE BEGNNNG O POLCS
of the demos, it svirtue, the property of the aristo,that emerges as
the space ofacurous ambiguity Wo exactlyare these en ofsubstance
or these excellent ones bringing virtue to the communal pot the way
the peoplebring a freedom that is not thers to bring? If they are not
the phosopher's ream the count ofhs dream ofproportion conveted
into a part ofthe whole they maywell be merely anoter name for the
olig- inotherwords quite smply, the rich. Even Arstotle who is atpains inThe Nichomachean Ethicsandbook II ofPolticsto give sub-
stance to thethree parts and the threeranks, eely admits inbook IV
andalso inTheAthenian Constitutionthat the ctyactullyhas onlytwo
parties the rich andthe poor "almost everywhere the wellbornand the
welo are coextensive5 The arrangements that distrbutepowersor
the appearances of power between thesetwo parties alone, these irre
ducible parts of the city are required tobrng off that communty
aretthat thearistowlalwaysbe lacking
Arewe to unerstandby thissimply hatthe scentic countsofgeo
metric proportion are merely ideaconstructions bywhich philosophy
in its good will originallyseeks tocorrectthe essential,nescapable real
ity of cass struggle? This question can onlybe answered in two parts
Itmustrstbe emphaszed that the Ancients,muchore thantheMod
es, acknowledged tat thewholebasis of politcs is the struggle be
tween the poorandthe rich But that's just itwhat they ackowledged
wasa strictly political reality-evenf itmeanttryingto overcmeit
Thestrugglebetwenthe richandthe poor is not social reality, whic
politics then has to deal with It is the actual nstitutionofpolitics itself
There is politicswhen thereis apart ofthosewho have no part, a part
or party f thepoor Politcs does not happen ustbecause te poor
oppose te rich. It is the otherwayaround: politics(that is,the interrup
tonofthe simpleeects of domination by the rch) causes the poorto
existas anenity The outrageous claim of the demos tobe the whole
ofte communityonly satises nits ownway-thatofaparty-the
requirement ofpolitics. olitics exists whenthe natural orderofdomi
nation is interrupted b the insttutionof a partofthosewho have no
part This institution s thewholeofpolitics as aspecic fom ofconnec
11
7/27/2019 1998 - Disagreement Politics and Philosophy
12/78
7/27/2019 1998 - Disagreement Politics and Philosophy
13/78
7/27/2019 1998 - Disagreement Politics and Philosophy
14/78
7/27/2019 1998 - Disagreement Politics and Philosophy
15/78
THE BEGINNING OF POCS
The "classics dearly home in on the original equality of the logos
without naming it. Yet what they o ene, an in a way th at remains
incomprehensible to moern theorists of the social contract an life
in the state of nature is the torsion that this principle that is not one
creates, when it takes eect as the "eeom of people who have nothing.
Politics occurs when the egalitarian contingency isrupts the natural
pecking orer as the "eeom of the people, when this isruption prouces a specic mechanism: the iviing of society into parts that are
not "true parts; the setting-up of one part as eual to the whole in the
name of a property that is not its own, an of a common that is
the community of a ispute. This is ultimately that wrong that slips in
between the usel an the just an rules out any eucing of on e from
the other The setting-up of politics is ientical to the institution of the
class struggle The class struggle is not the secret motor of politics or the
hien truth behin appearances. It is politics itself, politics such as it
is encountere, always in place alreay, by whoever tries to foun the
community on its arkhe. This is not to say that politics eists because
social groups have entere into battle over their ivergent interests The
torsion or twist that causes politics to occur is also what establishes
each class as being ierent from itself The proletariat is not so much
a class as the issolution of all classes this is what constitutes its univer
saity, a Marx woul say. The caim shoul be unerstoo in all its gen
eraliy. Politics is the settingup of a ispute between classes that are
not really classes. "True classes are, or shoul be real parts of society,
categories that correspon to functions This is not the case with the
Athenian emos, which ienties with the entire community or withthe Marxist proletariat, which eclares itself to be the raical eception
to the community. Both bring together, in the name of one part of society, the sheer name of equality between anyone an everyone by means
of which all classes isconnect an politics occurs. The universality of
politics is that of each party's ifference from itself as well as of the
ieren as the very structure of comunity The wrong institute by
poltics is not primarily class warfare it is the ierence of each class
from itself, which then imposes on the very carving up of the social
18
E BEGNNNG O POLCS
boy the law of mxing, the law of anyone at all oing anyhing at all.
Plato has a wor for this poluprgmosune, the fact f going on a bit
of going "a bit too far of anyone ning themselves performing any
nction whatever f the Gorgias is an interminable emonstration that
emocratic equaliy is just the inequaity of tyranny, the Rpublicgoes
about enlessly tracking own this poluprgmosne, this consion of
activities, t to estroy any orere allocation o state nctions anto cause the ifferent classes to lose their proper character Book IV of
the Rpublic at the point where it enes justicetrue ustice that
which exclues wrongsolemnly arns us that such consion oes
the greatest harm to our state, an we are entirely justie in calling it
the worst of evils9
Politics begins with a major wrong: the gap create by the empy
freeom of the peole beween the arithmetical orer an the geomet
rc orer t is not comon uselness that founs the political co
munity any more than confrontation or the foring of interests. The
wrong by which politics occurs is not some aw calling for reparationIt is the introuction of an incommensurable at the heart of the istri
ution of speaking boies This incommensurable breaks not only with
he equality of prots an losses it also ruins in avance the project of
the city orere accoring to the proportion of the cosmos an base
on the arke of the community
19
7/27/2019 1998 - Disagreement Politics and Philosophy
16/78
Chapter 2
Wrong: Politics and Police
Thebrilliant deduction of the poitical animals ends from the proper-
ties of the logica anima patches over a tear. Between the use andthe just lies the incommensurabiity of wrong, which alone estabishes
the body poitic as antagonism between parts of the community that
are not real parts of the social body But in turn the false continuity
between the usefu and the ust points up the faseness of evidence of
any decisive opposition beteen huan beings endowed with the ogos
and animas restricted to soe use of the organ of the voice (on). Thevoice Aristote tes us is an organ designed for a imited purpose. It
serves anims in general to indicate or show sminin sensations opain or peasure Peasure and pain exist outside the distribution that
reserves for human beings and the bod y poitic a sense of the protabe
ad the inurious nd the placing in common of the us and theunust. But in distributing so eary the ordinary nctions of the voice
and the privieges of speech surey Aristote has not forgotten the ri
ous accusations eveed by his master, Pato at that "arge and power
anima;' the peope? BookVI of the Rublcactualy takes pleasurein showing us the arge and powerl animal responding to words that
21
7/27/2019 1998 - Disagreement Politics and Philosophy
17/78
7/27/2019 1998 - Disagreement Politics and Philosophy
18/78
7/27/2019 1998 - Disagreement Politics and Philosophy
19/78
WRONC
creatures of speech, there is nothing le to do but to talk to them. This
conclusion is in keeping with the philosophy that Baanche derives om
Vico: passing om one age of speech to another is not a matter of a
rebeion that can be put down; it is a question of some kind of progres-
sive reveation that can be recognized by its own signs and against which
there is no point ghting
Wat matters to us here though more than this determined philosophy is the manner in which the apoogia homes in on the reationship
beween te priviege of the ogos and the itigious pay that sets up the
poitical stage Before the gauging of interests and entitements to this
or that share the dispute conces the existence of parties as parties
and the existence of a reationship that constiutes them as such The
doube sense of logos, as speech and as account, is the space where this
conict is payed out. The Aventine apologia alows us to reformuate
Aristote's pronouncement about the politica function of the human
ogos and the signicance of the wrong it makes manifest The speech
that causes poitics to xst is the same that gauges the very gap between
speech and the account of it And the aisthsis that shows itsef in this
speech is the very quarre over the constitution of the aisthsis, over
this partition of the perceptible through which bodies nd themselves
in community This division shoud be understood here in the doube
sense of the term: as community and as separation. It is the reationship
between these that denes a division of the pereptibe and it is this
reationship that is at pay in the "doube sense of the apoogia the
sense it impies and the sense reuired to understand it To nd out if
plebs can speak is to d out if there is anything between the partiesFor te patricians there is no poitica stage because there are no parties.
There are no parties because the pebeians, having no ogos, are not.
Your misfortune is not to be' a patrician tels the plebs and this mis
fortune is inescapable.2 This is the decisive point obscurey indicated by
istoteian denition or Platonic polemics but plainy ecipsed on te
other hand by al the political communitys notions of trade, contracts
and communication Politics is primarily conict over the existence of
a common stage and over the existence and status of those present on
26
WNC
it. It must rst be establishedthat the stage exists for the use of anin-
eloutorwhocant see it and who cant see it forgod reason because
it doesn't exist Parties do not exist prior to the conict they name and
in which theyare counted as parties. The "discussion ofwrong is not
an exchange-not even a vioent one-between constituentpartners
Itoncerns the speech situation itsef a nd its performers. Poitics does
not est because men,throughthe privilege of speech, place their inerests in common. Politics exists because those who haveno right to
be cunted as speaking beingsmake themseves of some account, set-
ng p a communit b the fact ofpacing in common a wrong thatis
nothing more than this very conontation,the contradiction of two
ws in a singleworld the word wheretheyare and the worldwhere
he ar not the word where there is something between" them and
those ho do not acknowledge them as speaking beings who count
and theworld where there isnothing.
he contingent, factitious nature of Athenian eedom and the excep
tona natre of the Secession of the Plebs" thus stage a fundamenta
on that is at once marked andmissed bythe savewarofScyhia
is conict separates twomodes ofhumanbeingtogetherwo types
o artiion of the perceptibe that are opposed in principe andyet
ond up together in the impossibe counts ofproportion, as wel as
n the vioence of conict. There is the mode of beingtogether that
us bodies intheir place and theirroe accordng to their "properties,
acring to theirname ortheir ackofa name, the ogical or phonic"
nature of the sounds that come out of thei mouths The principe of
ts knd of being-together is simple: it gives to each the part that is
is ue according to the evidenceofwhat he is Ways ofbeing,wa of
oing andways ofsaying or not saying- precisey reect each per
son's due. The Scyhians, in puting out the eyes ofthose who need ony
teir hands to carry o ut the tasktheScythians deand they perform
oerthe most primitive exampe Patricians who can't understandthe
seech of those who cant possibyhave anyoer the classic case. The
olitics" of communications and the opinion powhich oer each
o us ayand night the endless spectacle of aword that has become
27
7/27/2019 1998 - Disagreement Politics and Philosophy
20/78
WROG
7/27/2019 1998 - Disagreement Politics and Philosophy
21/78
WRONG
tion-ha of he par of hose who have no par. This break is manifes
i a series of acions ha recongure he space here paries, pars, or
lak of pars have been dened Poliical ativiy is whaever shis a
body from he place assiged o i or hanges a place's desinaion I
akes visible wha had no business being see, and akes heard a dis
course where once there was only place for noise; i akes understood
as disourse wha was once only heard as noise. It migh be the aiviyof Ballanches plebeias who make use of a faulty for speech hey do not
"pssess It ight be he acivity of hose ineeetheury workers
who esablished a collecive basis for work relations ha were solely
he product of an innite uber of relationships between privae indi
viduals. Or again, h aciviy of deonsrators and hose manig the
barriades ha lierally turned urban omunicaions pahs ino pub
lic space Specacular or otherwise, poliical aiviy is always a mode
of expression ha undoes he percepible divisions of he police order
by ipleening a basically hterogeous assuptio, tha of a par
o hose who have o pa an assuption tha a he end of the day
iself deosrates he sheer oingecy of he order, the equaliy of
any speang being wih ay oher speaing being Poliics ours when
here is a place ad a way for wo heerogenous proesses o ee The
rst is he polie process i he sese we have rie to dee. The second
is he process of equality For the omen le's agree ha his er means
he open se of practices driven by he assumpion of equaliy beween
anyand every speakg being and by he conern o tes this eualiy
he formulation of his opposiio obliges us to make a few further
pois ad enals certain corollaries irs and foremos he police orderthus deed canno be urned ino tha di leveler i which eveyhing
loos the sae, everything is equivale (at igh all cows are grey).
The Scthians practice of gouging out heir slaves eyes and he prac
ies of odern informaion and ounicaions sraegies whih
coersely, pu eveyhing endlessly up for grabs, are boh forms of po
lice proedure Wich is o to say ha we an draw fro this he ni
hilisic onclusion ha he one exaple is he sae as he oher Our
situaion is in every way preferable to ha of he Scyhian slaves. There
30
WROG
is a worse ada beerpolice- he beer one, icidentally not being
heone ha adheres o he supposedly natural orderf society orhe
siene of legislaors, bu he one ha all he breaking and eerig
eperaed byegaliarian logic has mos oe joled o ofis "naural
logi. The police a procure all sors of good, and on kind of police
ma be innielyreferable o aoher. This does no change he nature of
e police, which is what we are exlusivelydealig wh ere The regie
ofpublicopinio as gauged byhe poll and of he unending exhibiion
ofthe real is odayhe normal for he police in Wesernsoieies takes
eherhe polie is swee and kinddoes no make i an less he op-
osie ofpolitics.
It igh be useful to set down wha belogs o ea sphere. For in-
sance, los of quesions raditionallyenlised a s onerning the rela
ionship betwee moraliy and poliis are really onlyocered ith
e rlaioship beween oraliy ad the polie. To decide whether
an eans are acepable to ensure he raquilliy of he populatio
and hesecuriy o f e sate isan issue hadoes no arse o polii-a hought which isnt osayi an' provide thespace forpoliics
o seak in sideways Also, mos of the easures ha our lubs and
pliial"hik tanks relentlesslyome up wih in a bidto change or
reializepoiis by bringing he ciizen closero he sae or the stae
loser o he iizen indeed offer he siples alternaive o politics:
he siple police For i is a representation of he ouniy proper
o he polie ha idenies iizenshipas a properyofindividuals de-
nabl wihin a relaioship ofgreaerorlesserproxiiybewee he
lae ey oupy and ha of pbli power. Poliis, one oher hand,
des not reognize relatioships beweecitizens and te sate. I only
recgizes he mechanisms and sigularaifesations bywhih a er-
ai izeship occurs buneverbelongs o individuals assuch
We should no forge eiher ha if poliics pleens a logic eirely
eerogeous o ha of he polie i is always bound up wih the later.
he easo for his is simple: poliis has no objes or issues of is
own. Is sole priniple equaliy, is o peculiartoi adis in nowayin
iself poliial. All equaliy does is lend poliics realiy i he for of
31
WRONG WRONG
7/27/2019 1998 - Disagreement Politics and Philosophy
22/78
WRONG
specic cases to inscribe in the form of litigation conrmation of the
equality at the heart of the police order. What makes an action politi
cal is not its object or the place where it is carried out but solely its
form the fom in which conrmation of equality is inscribed in the
setting up of a dispute, of a community existing solely through being
divided. Politics runs up against the police everywhere. We need to think
of this encounter as a meeting of the heterogenous. To be able to do thiswe have to let go of certain concepts that assert in advance a smooth con
nection between them The concept of power is the main such concept.
This concept once allowed a certain well-meaning militancy to contend
that "everything is political since power relationships are everywhere.
From that moment the sober vision of a power present everwhere
and at every moment can be settled on the heroic vision of politics as
resistance or the dreamy vision of spaces of armative action opened
up by tose who turn their backs on politics and its power games. The
concept of power allows one to retort with an everything is policing
to an "everything is political but this is pretty poor as a logical conclusion. If everything is political then nothing is. So while it is important
to show as Michel Foucault has done magnicentl that the police order
extends well beyond its specialized institutions and techniues it is
equally important to say that nothing is political in itself merely be
cause pwer relationships are at work in it. For a thing to be political
it must give rise to a meeting of police logic and egalitarian logic that
is never set up in advance
So nothing is political in itself. But anything may become political
if it gives rise to a meeting of these two logics. The same thinganelection, a strike a demonstrationcan give rise to politics or not give
rise to politics A strie is not political when it calls for reforms rather
than a better deal or when i t attacks the relationships of authority rather
than the inadequacy of wages t is poitical when it recongures the re
lationships that determine the workplace in its relation to the commu
nity. The domestic household has been turned into a political space
not throgh the simple fact that power relationships are at work in it
but becase it was the subject of argument in a dispute over the capac-
32
ityofwomen inthe community. The same concept- opinion or law,
for example- may dene a structure of political action ora st ructure
o the police order. Accordingly the sameword opinion can dene
two opposing processes: the reproduction of governmentallegitimiza
tions in the form of t he "feelings ofthe governed or the setting up of
a scene of conict between this play of legitimizations and feelings;
hoosing om among responses poposed orthe invention of a question
that no one was asking themselves until then. But it should be added
tat such terms mayalso, and mostly do, designate thevery entangle-
ment ofboth logics. Politics acts on the police. It acts in the places and
ith the words that are common to both, even if it means reshaping
thos places and changing the status of those words. What is usually
posited as the space of politics, meaning the set of state institutions is
recisely not a homogenous place. Its conguration is determined by
the state of relationsbetween political logic and police logic. But it is
also ofourse, the privileged spacewhere their dierence is dissimu-
lated within the assumption of a direct link between the arkhe of theomunity and the distribution ofthe institutions the that eect
is basis.
Nothingis political in itself forthe political onlyhappens bmeans
of a principle that does not belong to it: equality The status of this
"rinciple needs to be specied. Equality is not a given that politics
then presses intosevice, an essenceembodied in the law or a goal poli-
tics sets itself the task o f attaining. It is amere assumptionthat needs
to e discernedwithin the practices implementing it. In the Aventine
apologia, this assumption of equality is to bediscernedeven w ithin a
discourse proclaiming the fatal fact of inequality. Menenius Agrippa
explains to the plebs that they are only the stupid members of a city
ose soul is its patricians. But to teac the plebstheir place this way
he must assume they understandwhat he is saying. He must presume
the equalityof speaking beings,which contradictsthepolice distribution
ofbodies who are put intheirplace and assigned theirrole.
Let's grant one thing at the outset to those jaded spirits for whomequalityrhmes with utopia while inequality evokes the healthy robust
33
7/27/2019 1998 - Disagreement Politics and Philosophy
23/78
WRONG
ness of "the way it is: such an assumption is just as hollow as they
reckon it is. In itsel it has no particular efect, no political consistency.
It may even be doubtul whether it could ever have such an efet or
consistency. Moreover those who have taken such dubt to its exteme
are the greatest champions of equality. For politics to occur there must
be a meeting point between police logic and egalitarian logic. The con
sistency o this empty equality can itself only be an empty property asis the eedom of the Athenians. The possibility or impossibility of pol
itics is played out here and this is where aded spirits lose their bear
ings for them the empty notions o equaity and liberty prevent poli
tics Nw the problem is strictly the reverse or there to be politics
the apolitical structural vacuum of equality between anone and every
one must produce the structural vacuum of a politial propery like
the reedom of the demos of Athens
This is a supposition that can be reected. I hae elsewhere analyzed
the ure form of such a reection in Joseph Jacotot the theorist of the
equality o intelligence and o intellectual emancipation4 Jacotot radi
cally opposes the logic of the egalitarian assumption to the logic o the
aggregation o social bodies For Jacotot it is alwas possible to make
a show of this equality without which no inequality is thinkable but
on the strict condition that such an act is always a one-o perormance
that it is every time the reproduction o the pure trace of its conrma
tion. This always oneo act of equality cannot consist in any form of
social bond whatsoever Equality turns into the opposite the moment
it aspires to a place in the social or state organization Intellectual eman
cipation accordingly cannot be institutionalized without bcoming instruction o the people in other words a way of organizing the eternal
minoriy The two processes must remain absolutely alien to each other
constituting two radically dierent communities even if composed of
the same individuals the community of equal minds and that of social
bodies lumped together by te ction of inequality They can never form
a nexus except by transforming equality into te opposite The equality
of intelligence the absolute condition o all communication and any
social order cannot have an impact in such an order by means of the
34
flf WROGempty reedom of some collective subect. Every individual in a societycan be emancipated But this emancipationwich is the modern termfor the eect of equalitywill never produce the vacuum o a eedom
belonging to any demos or to any other subect o the kind In the so
cial order there can be no vacuum. There is only ever the ll weights
and counterweights. Politics is thus the name of nthing. It cannot be
anything other than policing that is the denial o equalit. The paradox of intellectual emancipation allows us to think the essential nexus
o logos and wrong the constitutive nction of wrng in transorming
egalitarian logic into political logic Either equality has no eect on
the social order or it has an eect in the speci form o wrong. The
empty reedom that makes the poor of Athens the political subect
demos is nothing more than the meeting of these to logics t is noth
ing more than the rong that institutes the comunity as a commu
nity based on conict Politics is the ractice whereby the logic o the
characeristic of equality takes the orm o the pocessing of a wong in
which politics becomes the argument o a basic wrong that ties in withsome established dispute in the distribution of obs roles and places
Politics occurs through specic subects or mechanisms of subecti
cation. hese measur the inommensurables the ogic o the mark o
equality or that of the police order They do this by uniting in the nae
of whatever social group the pure empty quality euality between
anyone and everyone and by superimposing over the plice order that
structures the community another community that only exists through
and or the conlict a community based on the conict ver the very
existence of something in common between tose ho have a part andthose who have none.
Politics is a matter o subects or rather modes o subectication.
By subjectifcation I mean the production through a series o actions
of a body and a capacity for enunciation not previously identiable
within a given eld of experience whose identication is thus part o
the reconguration of the eld o experience Descartes's ego um, ego
ito is the prototype o such indissoluble subects a series of opera
tions implying the production o a new eld of eerience. Anypolitica
35
7/27/2019 1998 - Disagreement Politics and Philosophy
24/78
WRONG WROG
7/27/2019 1998 - Disagreement Politics and Philosophy
25/78
WRONG
stricken manual laborer, which in any cas, is not appropriate to the
accused. B ut, within revolutionary politics Blanqui gives the same word
a different meaning: a profession is a profession of faith a declaration
of membership of a collective Only, this collective is of a particular
kind The proletarian class in which Blanui professes to line hiself
up is in no way identiable with a socia roup The proletariat are
neither manual workers nor the labor classes They are the class of theuncounted that only exists in the very declaration in wich they are
counted as those of no account The name proletarian denes neither
a set of properties (anual labor industrial labor destitution etc) that
would be shared equaly by a multitude o individuals nor a collective
body, ebodyng a principle of which those individuals would be mem
bers It is part of a process of subjectication identical to the process of
expounding a wrong"Prolearian subjectication denes a subject of
wrong-by superimosition in relation to te multitude of workers
What is subjectied is neither wor nor destitution but the simple count
ing of the uncounted the difference between an inegalitarian distribu
tion of social bodies and the equalit of speaing beings
This is also why the wrong exposed by the name proltarian is in no
way identical to the historically dated gure of the universal victim
and its spcic paths. The wrong exosed by the suffring proletariat
of the 1830s has the same logical structure as the blabron implied in
the unprincipled freedom of the Athenian demos, which had the au
dacity to identi itself with the hole of the comunity It is just that
in the case of thenian democracy this logical structure functions in
its elementary for in the imediate unity of th deos as both partand whoe The proetarian declaration of membership on the other
hand, makes the gap eween two peoples explicit beween the declared
political ommuniy and the community that denes itslf as being ex
cluded from this community. Demos is the subject of the identiy of
the part and te whole Proletarian on the contrary subjecties the
part of those who have no part that maks the whole dierent fom it
self Plato railed against that dmos that is the count of the uncount
able Blanqui, in the name of proletarians inscribes the uncounted in
38
WROG
a space where thy are countable as uncounted Politics in general is
made up of such miscouns; it is the work of classes that are not classes
that in the paticular name of a specic part or of the whole of the
community (the poor the proletariat, the people) inscribe the wrong
that separates and reunites two heterogenous logics of the community
The concept of wrong is thus not linked to any theater of"victiiza
tion. It belongs to the original structure of all politics Wrong is simplythe ode of subjectication in which the assertion of equality takes
its political shape Politics occurs by reason of a single universal that
takes the specic shape of wrong Wrong institutes a singular universal
a polemical universal by tying the presentation of equality as the part
of those who have no part, to the conlict between arts of society
The founding wrong of politics is thus of a specic nd, and we
should distinguish it om the gures with which it is usually assiilated
causing it to disapear in law, religion or war It is distinct rst om the
lawsuit, bjectiable as the relationship between specic parties that can
be adjusted through appropriate legal procedures Quite simply, partiesdo not exst prior to the declaration of wrong. Before the wrong that its
name exposes the proletariat has no existence as a real part of sociey
What is moe the wrong it e xposes cannot be regulated by way of some
accord between the parties It cannot be regulated since the subjects a
political wrong sets in motion are not entities to who such and such
has happened by accident, but subjects whose very existene is te ode
f manifetation of the wrong. The persistence of the wrong is innite
because verication of equality is innite and the resistance of any police
order to such verication is a matter of principle. But though the wong
cannot be regulated this does not mean that it cannot b processed It
is not the same as inexpiable war or irredeemable debt Political wrong
cannot be settledthrough the objectivity of the lawsuit as a compro
mise between the parties But it can be processedthrough the ech
anisms of subjectication that give it substance as an alterable relation
ship between the parties, indeed as a shi in the playng eld
The incommensurables of the equality of speag beings and the
distribution of social bodies are gauged in relation to each other and
39
WRONG WONG
7/27/2019 1998 - Disagreement Politics and Philosophy
26/78
this gauge has an eect on the distribution itself Between legal settle
ment and inexpiable debt, the political dispute reveals an incompatibil
ity that can nonetheless be processed. To simpli, this processing goes
beyond any dialogue concerning respective interests as well as any rec
iprociy of rights and duties. It passes through the constitution of spe
cic subjects that take the wrong upon themselves give it shape invent
new forms and names for it and conduct its processing in a specicmontage ofproofs:"logical arguments that are at the same time a wa
of reshaping the relationship between speech and its accountas well as
the peceptible conguration that demarcates the domains and powers
of the logos and the phne the spaces of the visible and the invisible
and articulates these to the alocation of pati es and parts Political sub
jectication redenes the eld of experience that gave to each their
identity with their lot It decomposes and recomposes the relation
ships between the ways of doing ofbing, and ofsayingthat dene the
perceptible organization of the community, the relationships between
the places where one does one thing and those where one does something else the capacities associated with this particularoingand those
required for another It asks if labor or maternity for example is a pri
vate or a social matter if ths social nction is a public nction or
not, if this public nction implies a political capacity A political subject
is not a group that becomes aware of itself, nds its voice imposes
its weight on society It is an operator that connects and disconnects
differen areas regions identities nctions and capacities existing in
the conguration of a given experience-that is, in the nexus of distri
butions of the police orer and whatever equality is already inscribed
there, however agile and eeting such inscriptions may be A workers'
strike, for example, in its classic form may bring together two things
that have nothing to do with one another: the equality proclaimed
by the Declaration of the Rights of Man and some obscure qustion
concerning hours of work or workshop regulation The political act of
going out on strike then consists in building a relationship between
these things that have none in causing the relationship and the nonre
lationship to be seen together as the object of dispute his constru
40
tion implies a whole series of shis in the order that denes the part
of work it presuposes that a number of relationships beween one
individual (the employer) and another individual (each of the employ
ees) be posited as a collective relationship, that the private place of work
be posited as belonging to the domain of public visibility that the very
status of the relationship between noise (machines shouting or suer
ing) and argumentative speech conguring the place and part of workas a private relationship be recongured Political subjectication is
an ability to produce these polemical scenes, these paraoxical scenes
hat bring out the contradiction between wo logics by positing exis
tences that ae at the same time nonexistences-or nonexistences that
are at the same time existences. Jeanne Deroin does this in exemplay
fashion when in 1849, she presents herself as a candidate for a legisla
tive election in which she cannot run. In other words she deonstrates
the conradiction within a universal surage that excludes her sex om
any such universality She reveals hrself and she reveals the subject
women as necessarily included in the sovereign French people enjoying universal surage and the equality of all before the law yet being at
the same time radically excluded This demonstration is not a simple
denunciation of an inconsistency or a lie regarding the univrsal It is
also the staging of the very contradiction between police logic and po
litical logic whic is at the heart of the republican denition of com
munity Jeanne Deroin's demonstration is not political in the sense in
which she would say the home and housework ar "political Te home
and housework ar no more olitical in thmselves than the stret the
factory or government Deroin's demonstration is political because it
makes obvious the extraordinary imbroglio marking the republican re
lationship between the part of women and the very denition of the
common of the community he republic is both a regime founded on
a declaration of equaliy that doe s not recognize any dierence beween
the sexes and the idea of a complementarity in laws and morals Acord
ing to his complementarity the pat of women is that of moras and thateducation through which the minds and hearts of citizens are formed
Woman is mother and educator not only of those ture citizens who
41
WRONG
7/27/2019 1998 - Disagreement Politics and Philosophy
27/78
are her children but also more importan for he poor woman of er
husband. Domesic space is hus a once ha private space separated
om e space of ciizenship, and a space included in e copleenar
iy of laws and morals ta defnes the accomplishmen of ciizenship
The unseely appearance of a woman on the elecora stage ransforms
ino a mode of exposure of a wrong in e logical sense tis repblican
opos of laws and morals tha binds police logic up in e deniion ofpoliics By consructing the singlar polemical universaliy of a demon
sraion, i brings ou the universal of he republic as a pariclarized
universal disored in is very eniion by he police logic of roles
and parts. This eans conversely hat i transforms ito arguents
for he feminine nos sumus, nos istimus all hese ncions, "privlegesand capacities at police logic hs poliicized aribues o women
wo are ohers educators carers and civizers of the class of lawmaker
ciizens
In his way the bringing ino relaionship of o unconneced things
becoes e easure of what is incomensurable beteen wo orders:beween e order of the inegaitarian distribution of social bodies in
a pariion of e percepible and the order of he eqal capacity of
speakng beings in genera. I is indeed a q uesion of incomensurables
But hese incommensurables are well gauged in regard to each oer
and his gauge recongures he relaionships of parts and parties of ob
jecs likely to give rise o dispue of subjects able o ariclat e it t pro
dces both new inscripions of eqality within libert and a es spere
ofvsibii for rther demonsrations Poliics is not ade up of power
relaionsips; it is made up of relaionships beween worlds.
42
Chapter 3
The Rationality of Disagreement
The incommensurable on which poliics is based is not ideniable wi
any irrionality. t is rather e very measure of he reaionship between a logos and e alogia it denes-alogia in he duble sense ofhe Greek of Plato and of Aristotle signiing not only te animality
of te creare simply doomed to he noise of pleasure and pain but
also te incommensrability hat distinguishes the geomeric order of
good om the simple arithetic of exchanges and allocations Politis
does indeed have a logic bu his logic is ineviably based on te very
duality of he logos as speech and accoun of speech and pinned down
to he specic role of ha logic to make manifest (deloun) an aisthsisha as Ballance's apologia has shown was e space of disribuion
of comunity and of division To lose sight of the doble speciciyof political "dialogue is to lock oneself ino false alternaives requiring
a choice between he enlighenmen of raional comnication and
the urkiness of inheren violence or irreducible dierence Political
raionaliy is only inkable precisely on condiion that i be eed o
te aernaive in which a cerain raionalism would like to keep i reined
in either as excange between partners puting their inerests or san
dards up for discussion or else the violence o the irrational
43
7/27/2019 1998 - Disagreement Politics and Philosophy
28/78
THE RAONALI OF DSAGREEMNT RATONA OF DSAGREEEN
7/27/2019 1998 - Disagreement Politics and Philosophy
29/78
derstand your orders we share with you the same faculty of understand
ing:' At the next level, though, this tautology gets complicated precisely
by bringing out-sharing as a disputethe gap presupposed by the
question the gap between the language of command and the language
of problems which is also the gap within the logos, one distinguishing
undersanding of an uerance and understanding the count of each per
sons words this understanding implies. The response wil therefore become complicated accordingly "We understand what you say when you
say Do you understand We understand that in sayng Do you under
stand? you are in fact saying Theres no need for you to understand
me you dont have the wherewithal to understand me, and so on
But this seconddegree understanding may itself be understood and
universalized in wo opposing ways, depending on how it articuates
the community and noncommunity implied by he gap between the
capacity to speak and the account of the words spoken. The rst possi
bility makes this account the ultimate way of interpreting the meaning
of the utterance. We might sum it up like this We understand thatyou are using the medium of communication to impose your lan
guage on us. We understand that you are lying when you posit he lan
guage of your commands as a common language. We understand in
short, that all universals in language and communication are merely a
lure, that there are only idioms of power and that we too must forge
our ow. The second possibility would argue the reverse, making
community (of capacity) the ultimate reason for noncommunity (of
the account) We understand that you wish to signi to us that there
are two languages and that we cannot understand you We perceivethat you are doing this in order to divide the world into those who
command and those who obey We say on the contrary that there is a
single language common to us and that consequently we understand
you even if you dont want us to. In a word we understand that you
are lying by denying there is a common language.
The response to the lse question "Do you understand thus implies
the constitution of a specic speech scene in which it is a matter of con
structing another relationship by making the position of the enunciator
46
exlicit. he utterance theeby completed then nds itself extracted om
the speech situation in which it nctioned naturally t is placed in
another situation in which it no longer works, in which it is the object
of scrutiny, reduced to the status of an utterance in a common language
Within this space of the comment ary that objecties and universalizes
the "nctional utterance, the utterances claims to validity are thor
oughly put to the test n setting up the common dispute proper topolitics the cum of the commentary that objecties the gap between
the logos and itself, within the polemical gap of a rst and third person,
is indistinguishable from the gap in communiction between a rst and
a second person No doubt it is a distrust of this shi between persons
that frustrates Jrgen Habermass eorts to distinguish the rational a
gument that creates communiy om simple discussion and the putting
together of particular interests. n e Philosophical Discouses ofMode-
ni Habermas accuses his opponents of adopting the point of view of
the observer of the third person, on the argument and communication
front; this eezes rational communication, which does its work in theplay of a rst person engaged in embracing the secondperson point
of view.2 But such an opposition locks the rational argument of politi
cal debate into the same speech situation as the one it seeks to over
come the simple rationality of a dialogue of interests. n underestimat
ing this multiplication of persons associated with the multiplication
of the political logos Habermas also forgets that the third person is as
much a person of direct and indirect speech as a person of observation
and objectication. He forgets that one commonly speaks to partners
in the third person, not only in several languages formulas of politeness but whenever the relationship between speakers is posited as the
very stakes of the interlocutionary situation. Our theater summarizes
this gambit in a few exemplary echanges, such as the dialogue in Mo
lires The ise between the coocoachman of Harpagon the miser
and his steward
"Master Jacques is a great talker
And Master Steward is a great meddler!
47
THE RATONALTY OF DISAGREEMENT THE RATONALITY OF DISGREEMENT
7/27/2019 1998 - Disagreement Politics and Philosophy
30/78
Such theatrical conicts which are domestic conicts, aptly demon
strate the connection between the "third person of politeness and
that third person of ientication that institutionalizes social conlict,
the third person of the workers' representative who declares, Workers
will not accept . It would be missing the logic of the play of persons
implied here if one were to reduce this third person enunciated by a
rst person either to the natural ("animal) process of the aisthesis of
a collective bod that nds its voice, or to some kind of deceptive iden
tication with an impossible or missing collective body The play of the
third person is essential to the logic of political discussion, which is
never a simple dialogue It is always both less and more: less for it is
always in the form of a monologue that the dispute, the gap internal
to the logos delares itself, and more for commentary sets o a multi
plication of persons In such an interchange, the "they pla a triple role
First, it designaes the other person as the one with whom not only a
conlct of interests is under debate but the very situation of the speak
ers as speakng beings. Second it addresses a third person at whosedoor it virtually lays this question. Third it sets up the rst person the
"I or we of te speaker as representative of a community In poli
tics, it is the set of these interactions that is meant by "public opinion.
Political public opinion as distinct om police management of state
legitimization processes is not primariy some network of enlightened
minds discussing common problems Rather, it is an informed opinion
ofa paticular knd an opinion that evaluates the very manner in which
people speak to each other and how much the social order has to do
with the fact of peaking and its interpretation. This explains the histor
ical connection etween the fate of certain valets in comedy and the de
velopment of the v ery notion of public opinion
At the heart of all arguing and all litigious argument of a political
nature lies a basic quarrel as to what understanding language implies
Clearly al interlocution supposes comprehension of some knd of con
tent of the lloction. The contentius issue is whether this understand
ing presupposes a telos of mutual understanding By "contentious issue
I mean two things rst that there is an assumption here that remains
48
to be proven, but also that it is pecisely here that the original dispute,
at play in all specic litigious arguments lies. Any interlocutionary sit
uation is split at the outset by the contentious issue-unresolved and
conlictual-of knowng what can be deduced om the understanding
of a language
We can deduce either something or nothing om such an understand
ng From the fact that a command is understood by an inferior we can
simply dedce that such a command was indeed given tat the persongiving orders has succeeded in their work and that as a result the person
receiving the order wll indeed car out their own work, the extension
of the former in keeping wth the divsion between simple aisthesis and
the lness ofhs. Another, completely contrar, deduction can also be
made the inferior has understood the superiors order because the in
ferior takes part in the sa me community of speaking beings and so is
in this sense their equal. In short, we can deduce that the inequality of
social ranks works only because of the very equality of speaking beings
This deduction is upsetting, n the poper sense of the term Wheneverit is opted for it is clear societies have long been tickng over nd what
makes them tick is the idea that the understanding of language has no
bearing on the denition of the social order With their nctions and
their commands, their allocations of parts and parties, soceties work on
the basis of an idea that the most basic logic seems to conrm-namely
that inequality exsts because of inequality The consequenc is that the
logic of understanding normally only presents itself in the form of a
subversive paradox and endless conlict To say that there is a common
speech situation bausan inferior understands what a superior is say
ing means that a disagreement, a prosional conontation must be setup between two camps those who think the is an understanding within
understanding that is, that all speaking beings are equal as speaking
beings and those who do not think so The paradox is that those who
think there is an understanding within understanding are for that very
reason unable to take this deduction any rther except in the form of
conict of disagreement since they are bound to show a result that is
not at a apparent The political stage the theater of a paradoxcal co
49
HE RAONALTY OF DISAGREEMENT HE RAONA O DAGREEMEN
7/27/2019 1998 - Disagreement Politics and Philosophy
31/78
munity that places the dispute in common, therefore cannot possibly be
idented with a model of communcation beeen establshed partners
concerning objects and ends belonging to a common language. This
does not mean that the political stage s reduced to the ncommunica
bilty of languages, an mpossibility of understanding linked to the het
erogeneity of language games Political nterlocution has always mxed
up language games and rules of expression, and t has always partcularized the universal n demonstrative sequences comprised of the meet
ng of heterogeneous elements Comprehensible narratves and argu
ments have alwa been composed of language games and hetergeneous
rules of expression The problem s not for people speakng "different
languages, literally or guratively, to understand each other, any more
than t is for "lnguistc breakdowns to be overcome by the nventon
of new languages The problem is knowig whether the subjects who
count in the nterlocution "are or "are not, whether they are speak
ing or just makng a noise It is knowng whether there s a case for
seeing the object they designate as the visble object of the conlict. tis knowing whether the common language in which they are eposng
a wrong is indeed a common language The quarrel has nothng to do
with more or less transparent or opaque linguistic contents; it has to
do with consideraton of speaking bengs as such Ths is why there is
no call for contrastng some modern age of ltigaton, associated wth
the great narratve of mode times and wth the drama of the universal
vctim, to a modern age of derend, associated wi th the contemporary
exploson of language ames and small-scale naratves.3 The hetero
genety of language games s not an nevtablty for contemporary so
ceties that suddenly comes and puts an end to the great narratve of
poltcs. On the contrary, t s consttutve of poltcs, t s what distin
gushes poltcs from equal urdcal and commercal exchange on the
one hand and, on the other, rom the alterty of religon and war
Ths is the sgncance of the scene on the Aventne Ths exceptonal
scene s not just a tale of orgns Such "orgins never stop repeatng
themselves Ballanche's narratve s presented n the unusual form of a
retrospectve prophecy: a moment n Roman hstory s renterpreted
50
in a way that transforms it into a prophecy of th historic destiny of
peoples in general But this retrospective prophec is also an anticipation
of the immedate tue. Ballanches text appeared n the Revue de Paris
between the sprng and fall o 829. In the meante, the July evolu
tion had broken ut n Paris, lookng to many lke the demonstraton
hi et nunc of that "general rule for all peoples of whch Ballanche spoke
And that revoluton was followed by a whole series f socal movementsthat took on exacly the same form as that of Ballances tale The names
o the actors, sets, and prps mght change, but te rule remans the
same t conssts of creatng a stage around any specc conct on whch
the equaly or inequality as speaking bengs of the partners n the con
ct can be played out Doubtless, at the tme Balanche was wrtng
hs apologue, t had ceased to be sad that the members of the moern
proletarat, the equvalent of the plebeians of antquty, are not speak
ng beings t s smply assumed that there s no connecton between
the fact that they speak and the fact that they work There s no need
to explan why there s no connecton it suces not to see the connecton Those who make the exsting order work, ether as rulers, mags
trates, or governors, cant see the connection beween one term and
the other hey cant see the ddle term beween wo dentites that
mght be oned together n the speakng beng, who shares a common
language, and the laborer, who exercses a specc occupation as an
employee n a factory or works or a manufacturer As a result, hey
dont see how the lot a laborer receves by way of a wage mght become
he busness of the communty, the object of publc dscsson
And so the quarrel always bears on the preudcial queston s there
any call for the common world of speaking on ths subject to be setup? The disagreement that becomes entrenched n the years following
Ballanches apologue ths disagreement that wll be called a social move
ment or the workers movement, consisted in sang that ths common
world existed that the status common to the speakng being in general
and to the laborer employed in whatever specic function exsted and
that ths common status was also common to the workers and ther
employers, that it consisted of their belonging to te same sphere of
51
THE RATIONALTY OF DSAGRMNT
community already recognized already written down even if in ide
HE RAONAY OF SAGREEMENT
can be received because they are addressed by subjects who do not exist
7/27/2019 1998 - Disagreement Politics and Philosophy
32/78
community, already recognized already written down-even if in ide
alistic and eeting inscriptions: that of the revolutionary declaration
of the equality in law of man and the citizen. The disagreement destined
to put this understanding into action consisted in asserting that the in
scription of equaity in the form of"the equality of man and the citizen
before the law dened a sphere of community and publicness that in
cluded the business of work and determined the place where work is
performed as arising from public discussion among specic subjects.This assertion implies a most peculiar platform of argument The
worker subject that gets inluded on it as speaker has to behave a though
such a stage existed as though there were a common world of argu
mentwhich is eminenty reasonable and eminently unreasonable, em
inentwise and resol