Introducing disagreement1

This paper was delivered by Jacques Rancière at the Institut Français, Berlin, 4 June 2003. It addresses the reasons why he was prompted to reconsider the tradition of political philosophy and its thinking of politics in his book La Mésentente: Politique et philosophie (Paris: Galilée, 1995), translated by Julie Rose as Disagreement: Politics and Philosophy (Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1999). I would like to thank my reader at Angelaki, Forbes Morlock, for his extensive suggestions and comments on two earlier drafts of this translation. I would also like to thank Gene Ray and Jasmin Mersmann for their comments on an earlier draft of this translation. [Translator's note.]

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Notes

Jacques Rancière

c/o Éditions Galilée

9, rue Linné

75005 Paris

France

E‐mail: ranciere@club‐internet.fr

Steven Corcoran

Wichertstrasse 52

10439 Berlin

Germany

E‐mail: [email protected]

This paper was delivered by Jacques Rancière at the Institut Français, Berlin, 4 June 2003. It addresses the reasons why he was prompted to reconsider the tradition of political philosophy and its thinking of politics in his book La Mésentente: Politique et philosophie (Paris: Galilée, 1995), translated by Julie Rose as Disagreement: Politics and Philosophy (Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1999). I would like to thank my reader at Angelaki, Forbes Morlock, for his extensive suggestions and comments on two earlier drafts of this translation. I would also like to thank Gene Ray and Jasmin Mersmann for their comments on an earlier draft of this translation. [Translator's note.]

For example, the massive strikes in the winter of 1995 in France against plans by the Juppé government to move France's social security and health system closer to an American‐style system were condemned by the usual figures who constitute the service intelligentsia as being out of step with the rigours of “economic imperatives.” Many of these “unsentimental” intellectuals, having willingly shed all their radical positions and become cognisant of economic activity, openly supported this government's “fundamental reform” in a letter to Le Monde. The popular mass uprisings were denounced as “archaic,” “corporatist,” “classist,” in sum, no more than a tide of egalitarian nostalgia holding back the progress of modern, consensual, democratic France. On this point see Kristin Ross's May '68 and its Afterlives (Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2002) 208–15. [Translator's note.]

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jacques rancière

Jacques Rancière c/o Éditions Galilée 9, rue Linné 75005 Paris France E‐mail: ranciere@club‐internet.fr Steven Corcoran Wichertstrasse 52 10439 Berlin Germany E‐mail: [email protected]