1998 - disagreement politics and philosophy

7/27/2019 1998 - Disagreement Politics and Philosophy

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Jacques Rancire

Dis- agrementAND PHILOSOPYPOLIICSTranslated by Julie Roe

Uv f M; ." Mp


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The Unversty of Mnnesota gratefully acknowledges fnancal assstance provdedby the French Mnstry of Culture for the transation of ths book.

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sagreement : potcs and phlosophy I acques ancire ;translated by ule Rose

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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


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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-

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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WROG


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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


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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

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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

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WRONG WROG


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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


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


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


28/78

THE RAONALI OF DSAGREEMNT RATONA OF DSAGREEEN


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


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


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


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

1998 - disagreement politics and philosophy

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