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Diacritics.
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Davide Panagia:
Ranciere'sReply:
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Davide Panagia:
Ranciere'sReply:
You're correctin sensing a shift. There is a notable developmentbetween the first es-
says in On the Shoresof Politics (writtenfrom 1986 to 1988) andDis-agreementor my
"Dix theses sur la politique"(writtenfrom 1994 to 1996).3A development,that is, not
only in my own thinkingbut also in the political context that I was respondingto and
addressing.
In orderto explain and markthis shift more clearly,we might begin by delimiting
what has been a constantconcern in my intellectualpursuitssince the 1970s: namely,
the desire to evince what I call "la metapolitique,"4by which I mean that element that
bringspolitical or ideological "appearances"back to the realityof socioeconomic rela-
tions-whether or not this reality is conceived in terms of a Marxistnotion of produc-
tion or a Tocquevillianidea of equality.What is ultimatelyimportantfor me is to dis-
miss the facile oppositionbetween a plane of appearancesand a plane of realityand to
show, as I attemptedin The Nights of Labor,how it is that the "social"-a category
supposedly intended to explain away and therebyrefute the "ideological"-is in fact
constitutedby a series of discursive acts and reconfigurationsof a perceptivefield.
It is from this problematicthat I began, in the 1980s, to tackle the question of
democracy.Here I pursueda double-sided imperative:on the one hand, I wanted to
refutethe Marxistoppositionbetween "real"and"formal"democracywhile at the same
time refutingthe notion thatthe shapeof democracycan be easily reconciledwith con-
stitutionalforms of governance.Thus, the essay that discusses "the forms of democ-
racy"in On the Shoresof Politics5is an effort at tryingto eschew this doublereduction-
ist gestureby grantingthe democraticmode of being its properstatusas a mode of being
in common [existenceen commun].In orderto constitutesuch an image, it was incum-
bent upon me to inscribe in this logic of rehabilitationand play of appearancescertain
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Davide Panagia:
Rancikre'sReply:
By the notion of contemporaneityI understandtwo things:the first is that an object of
reflection commandsthe apertureof a specific temporality.That is, it commandsthe
presence of a process of writing,of the constructionof a specific form of writing,ori-
ented towardan intrusiveencounterwith a specific mode of thinkingthat, in its turn,
creates a particularthought-eventby interruptingthe organizationof a class of objects
or a series of performances.Thinkingfor me is always a rethinking.It is an activitythat
displaces an object away from the site of its originalappearanceor attendingdiscourse.
Thinkingmeans to submit an object of thoughtto a specific variationthat includes a
shift in its discursiveregister,its universeof reference,or its temporaldesignations.In
the case of Mitterandthat you mention, I extractedthe event of an election from the
field of political sociology in order to conceptualize a variationof the foundational
narrativesof political philosophy. I considered how it is that that which is given to
thoughtas an object of political inquirywas also a mise-en-schneof variousroles and
posturesand not necessarilythe contentof policy programsor theirrelationto different
social forces, economic imperatives,etc. It is this stagingthatdeterminesthe conditions
for a constitutiverethinking;that is to say, it is a restaging.The elaborationof these
"momentsof thinking"is for me the task of a philosophythatchallengesthe boundaries
separatingthe classes of discourses.Returningonce again to my TheNights of Labor I
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Davide Panagia:
Rancihre'sReply:
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WORKSCITED
Carrier,Peter. "Desirable Dissent." Rev. of On the Shores of Politics. TimesLiterary
Supplement 14 June 1996: 29.
Ranciere,Jacques.Dis-agreement:Politics and Philosophy.Trans.Julie Rose. Minne-
apolis : U of MinnesotaP, 1998.
. "Dix theses surla politique."Aux bordsdupolitique. 2nd ed. Paris:La Fabrique,
1998. 164-85.
. The IgnorantSchoolmaster:Five Lessons in IntellectualEmancipation.Trans.
and intro.KristinRoss. Stanford,CA: StanfordUP, 1991.
. The Names of History: On the Poetics of Knowledge.Trans.Hassan Melehy.
Forewordby HaydenWhite. Minneapolis:U of MinnesotaP, 1994.
. TheNights of Labor: The Workers'Dreamin Nineteenth-CenturyFrance. Trans.
John Drury.Philadelphia:TempleUP, 1989.
. On the Shoresof Politics. Trans.Liz Heron.London:Verso, 1995.
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