Rancière on the partition of the sensible (in politics)

1. Rancière on the partition of the sensible (in politics) phone • the voice that expresses - pain - pleasure logos • the speech that reasons - higher order distinctions: good-bad, just-unjust - justified pain, bad pleasure etc. • Aristotle etc. - the political animal: the animal that has the capacity for logos (rational animal) • Rancière: - the act of making distinctions between ‘mere expression’ (emotionality) and rational, political speech makes up a primary partition of the sensible, and this partition foundational for political community - this act not only distinguishes between those that belong and do not belong to the political community (the people) - but may also create distinctions within the political community itself: the establishments of legitimate rights to speak and obligations to stay silent - thus: today converted into a distinction between non-legitimate speech and legitimate speech - through which in turn further partitions are made and established: legitimate speaker + legitimate further partitions

2. Rancière on politics and equality “politics exists wherever the count of parts and parties of society is disturbed by the inscription of a part of those who have no part. It begins when the equality of anyone and everyone is inscribed in the liberty of the people. This liberty of the people is an empty property, an improper property through which those who are nothing purport that their group is identical to the whole of community. Politics exists as long as singular forms of subjectification repeat the forms of the original inscription of the identity between the whole of the community and the nothing that separates it from itself – in other words the sole count of its parts. Politics ceases wherever this gap no longer has any place, wherever the whole of the community is reduced to the sum of its parts with nothing left over” (Disagreement, p. 123) • classical: the people as demos: those who have nothing else but/no other quality than freedom - the wealthy, the virtuous and the people as different groups (the people as the mob the poor etc.) - Rancière is playing with this distinction: the people is at the same time both those with nothing else but freedom, and the whole of the people

3. Rancière on the political democratic logic of interruption in the name of equality (politics) • to reinscribe onto the stage - the lack of secure foundation of any government, and - the equality (without property) of all and everyone • as the moment of politics • not necessary oligarchic logic of governmentality (the police) • management of the whole - unification of society - in the name of some sufficiently well defined common goods - hierarchy of goods (partition) • necessary for any socio-political order the political - the action that sets in motion the interruptive encounter between the two

4. equality? an assumption of moral equality between persons, according to which equal weight should be given to each person grounded on what? - a conception of the person - that is to say, a certain ontology - a decision? - of a political nature (liberal-democratic) equality egalitarianism a political ideal, according to which persons should have equal shares of, access to or opportunities to goods such as resources or welfare Thomas Nagel 1979, “Equality” in Mortal Questions. Nils Holtug & Kasper Lippert-Rasmussen 2007, “An Introduction to Contemporary Egalitarianism” in Egalitarianism.

5. equality? of What? - rights, liberties, formal opportunities (classical liberal equality) - social primary goods (Rawls), e.g. things any rational person is presumed to want, irrespective of plan of life: rights and liberties, powers and opportunities, income and wealth, social base of self-respect - welfare, real (opportunities to) well-being - resources to welfare, opportunities as free possibilities (Dworkin) - power, participatory influence, political rights (democratic equality) equality When? - instantaneously and all the time - over a life-time - in the long run of Whom? - individuals - groups (gender, cultural group) - priority of the worst off - to the benefit of the least advantaged (Rawls) - citizens (national) - all human beings globally (cosmopolitan) - living beings etc. Nils Holtug & Kasper Lippert-Rasmussen 2007, “An Introduction to Contemporary Egalitarianism” in Egalitarianism.

6. Rancière on equality arithmetic equality • all are the same and have the same value (like numbers are alike) - commercial exchange (all are equal units) - juridical sentences (equality before the law)  distribution of goods according to what people do ≈ real inequality (I do this and you do that, I get this and you get that etc.) geometric equality • proportional equality ≈ legitimate inequality - according to some criteria of good-bad - wealth, capability (virtue), expertise, desert  foundation of oligarchic rule (conception of justice as the ground of political order) equality as the lack of foundation for inequality - grounded in the limitless possibility to assert the freedom of all, everyone and anyone (the demos) as the foundation of society - itself grounded in the impossibility to find a secure foundation for the assessment of the quality of a human being as human being  no naturally grounded nor secured form of counting right  the abolition or interruption of all qualitative distinctions between human beings

7. Rancière on equality equality as the lack of foundation for inequality foundations for qualitative distinctions (≈inequality)? wealth - some are richer than others  some have more economic possibilities than others freedom - a propertyless property (lack of specified content - cannot be measured, no foundation for comparison  any count is a miscount heritage (natural qualities) - some are born more well off (in some respect) than others virtue (inherent goodness) - some are better (in some respect) than others the only qualification (property) of the demos desert - some deserve to have it better (in some respect) than others imply the possibility of a measuring stick (norm)

8. Rancière on the history of political philosophy • arkhi-politics: the establishment of a unified, all-encompassing and organised system as a justified (reason-based) ground for the socio-political order. - government of reason - Plato’s Politeia. • para-politics: the establishment of a (rational) balance between different goods. - mixed government - Aristotle, the social contract tradition • meta-politics: the dominance of an overarching goal or value over politics, - Marx: the revolution as an overcoming - of ethics over politics - war against “the axis of evil” common trait: the removal or overcoming of politics as rooted in the insecure foundation and antagonistic freedom of the multitude (plurality) Zizek: Ranciére’sultra-politics: democracy (politics) as a pure act of interruption KK: democracy cannot be reduced to action (a moral ideal?), it is (at best) a process involving action that have a real effect on outcomes (decisions) and manages to establish itself as power. The gap between moral ideal and functional demands remain open.

9. Rancière on the political • Rancière vs. Lefort: the political is an action that interrupts the staging and the partitions in place (not only the form of the staging and the meanings distributed) • Rancière vs. Mouffe: democratic politics is an act of interruption (that is to say, an antagonistic/agonistic act) that interrupts in the name of equality, not a struggle for democratic hegemony as management. • Rancière vs. Arendt: the political/democratic politics is not to rise above the level of the social onto the creative level of beginning something new or of disclosing one’s own identity in communication with others, but is the act whereby the (policeing) logic of managing the whole is interrupted in the name of the equality of everyone and anyone. Politics may well concern exactly the social, the main distinction is whether that is made in the name of management or in the name of equality.

10. Rancière on the political (political ontology) Lefort: • the political is the form of the staging and the sense-giving that has come to condition the whole of society neutral and descriptive account • the staging of democracy is co-foundational with certain normative elements (human rights, public space etc.) Mouffe: • the political is the antagonisms present in the human relations - that the form of the staging and sense-giving makes real  defines the political in terms of pluralism and a certain non-neutral trait: antagonism (not co-operation) • democratic politics consists in turning these antagonistic relations into agonistic - instead of a turn towards a process of reaching consensus about common issues Rancière: • democratic politics is the agonistic interruption of consensus in the name of the equality of anyone and everyone  introduces a normative dimension as characteristic of democracy: equality, in alignment with freedom and pluralism