Keywords: Politics, Police, Violence, Western tradition, State, Symbolic order.

Transcription

1 POLITICS AND VIOLENCE IN RANCIÈRE: A PARADOXICAL CONTINUITY WITH WESTERN TRADITION? Javier Franzé (Universidad Complutense de Madrid) Abstract This work questions the relationship between politics and violence in Rancière. Considering his concepts of politics as a symbolic order and as that which lies beyond the State, it analyzes if this links politics to violence or not. It could be affirmed that Rancière does not thoroughly explore the theoretical richness of these two premises. For Rancière, violence seems to emanate only from the police in that they harm the equality of any two beings, as supposed from politics, which implies that violence is linked exclusively to the State, a paradigmatic place of the police. So, paradoxically, this flows with Western tradition, in which politics was considered nonviolent because it promoted the good life, since for Rancière, politics remains far from anything violent because it is an activity that repairs the only violence, that of the State. Keywords: Politics, Police, Violence, Western tradition, State, Symbolic order. 1. Introduction and problem This work questions the relationship between politics and violence in Rancière. It more specifically examines how two decisive premises of Rancierian thought influence this relationship: a) his symbolic conception (aesthetics as a configuration of the sensible) of politics and b) his conception of politics as that which is disassociated from the State. This work analyzes if both conceptions operate as a force that tends to link politics and violence or, on the contrary, if they separate both spheres, as has traditionally occurred in Western thinking. 2. Politics and violence in Western tradition Western political theory has traditionally identified politics with a place or sphere of action, the State; and has defined it by ends that are considered inherent and objectively good (the common good). Therefore, it has tended to dilute state violence in the end or pedagogical function that it allocated to politics: educate on the good life, contain Evil, 1

2 guarantee individual rights, give security 1. In other words, education can never entail violence since it reconciles the true Being of man with his Ought to Be. Violence is that which corrupts this Being and impedes its fulfillment. By focusing on the ends, Western tradition has placed the means into the background. Means are not only understood as the violence and coercion needed to carry out those ends, but also as that which comes prior to this: the construction of the political actor himself, who can only be as such when he holds the power that allows him to act; because politics not only comprises the dimension of realizing ends, but also the construction of a power that allows for even the consideration of this realization of values or ends. Politics also implies a struggle for politics, or for the possibility to do politics, which occurs by building, preserving and accumulating power, understood not as pure force, but as a combination of force and legitimacy, and defined by its relation to the other actors. Politics is legitimized force and the legitimization of force, and there are a series of operations that allow an actor to equip himself with this capital or resource. This capital, and not only the ends, is what every actor puts at stake when he decides to embark or not to embark on the realization of the values that guide him. Furthermore, these values often end up relegated due to the mere possibility of risking the accumulated recognition capital. It is not a coincidence that Western tradition has cast a shadow over this dimension, and that it has been highlighted by thinkers typically classified by this dominant tradition as maquiavelian or realists, starting with the Florentine himself, along with Max Weber and Carl Schmitt, among others. By casting these shadows on politics as a construction of politics (and of a pure will as the actor or political will), Western tradition finally cut all ties between politics and all forms of violence: if it had already set aside the violence commonly known as physical by defining politics by its ends and not by its means, now it was doing the same with violence commonly referred to as symbolic 2, by not considering that the actor is not born as such, rather, he is made and in the eyes of the others: he must earn his legitimacy and recognition by fighting others with the violence that this entails for 1 Here reference is made to the hegemonic concept of politics, in the Aristotelian style, which is of course not the only one that has existed historically. Currents such as Sophistry, or thinkers such as post- Aristotelians, and even schools such as the State of Reason or Contractualism constructed concepts of politics that were more or less removed from the dominant one. Nevertheless, as far as the relationship between politics and violence, even critical thinkers of the dominant tradition did not radically differentiate from it; an example of this is Hobbes, who assimilates politics with pacification and violence exclusively with war. 2 See note 14. 2

3 the authoritative word 3. This way, for tradition, politics could then remain assimilated to good politics and no less because it was devoid of any violent content. Weber and Schmitt s break with tradition Max Weber and Carl Schmitt s reflections, in effect, mark a break with Western tradition 4, but at the same time have some weak points which impede using them as a reference for creating a link between politics and violence. The Weberian reflection 5, according to our interpretation, constitutes a reference point for understanding the link between politics and violence, given its non-normative components (preeminence of the means over the ends; clinical and non-normative concept of violence) and anti-metaphysical components (the world as a place void of meaning, a non-essentialist concept of man, unfounded values 6 ). His weak point is in the reduction although with nuances 7 of politics to the State and the absence of a clear concept of violence. Effectively, on one hand, Weber identifies violence mainly as physical; however he does not neglect to recognize the existence of spiritual violence (seeing oneself as obligated to do something undesirable under the threat of violence). Nevertheless, his concept of violence is mainly physical, 3 P. Bourdieu, Cosas dichas, Gedisa, México, , Propos sur le champ politique, Presses Universitaires de Lyon, Lyon, , Describir y prescribir: las condiciones de posibilidad y los límites de la eficacia política, en Qué significa hablar?, Akal, Madrid, 2001, pp J. Franzé, Qué es la política? Tres respuestas: Aristóteles, Weber y Schmitt, Catarata, Madrid, Sobre la concepción weberiana de la política, véanse: M. Weber, Parlamento y gobierno en una Alemania reorganizada, en Escritos políticos, J. Abellán (ed.), Alianza, Madrid, 1991, pp , La política como profesión, en La ciencia como profesión. La política como profesión, J. Abellán (ed.), Espasa-Calpe, Madrid, 1992, , La ciencia como profesión, en La ciencia como profesión. La política como profesión, J. Abellán (ed.), Espasa Calpe, Madrid, 1992, pp Cf. J. Franzé, Control vertical o vacío de sentido: relevancia del concepto de mundo para la definición de la ética política. La polémica de Strauss y Voegelin con Max Weber, en Contrastes. Revista Internacional de Filosofía, vol XII, 2007, pp Disponible en vancia_del_concepto_de_mundo_para_la_definicion_de_la_etica_politica._la_polemica_de_strauss_y_ Voegelin_con_Max_Weber_ 7 In effect, Weber does not maintain that the only place for politics is the State, but he does support that politics, sooner or later, converges into the State. It goes towards it since it is the place where it s fundamental instrument is found: the monopoly of violence ( La política como profesión, o.c., p. 95). 3

4 given that spiritual violence is a consequence of physical violence, and not vice-versa (coercion precedes obligation). Carl Schmitt s reflection 8, in turn, represents a rupture within the Weberian break with tradition, in that Schmitt breaks with the mutual identification of politics with the State by forming the concept of the political. What is interesting about Schmitt is that he defines the political as something that goes beyond the State, however, without taking away the decisive place of violence as expressed in the state ius belli-- since this is what sustains and carries out the friend-enemy distinction. This converts the State into a political association that is not exclusive, yet is paradigmatic. In short, it allows for the contemplation of politics beyond the State, not reduced to it, although also present within it. Another interesting element of Schmitt s reflections is that in line with Weber his concept of the political presupposes a non-metaphysical concept of man. Different from the hegemonic trends in Western tradition, Schmitt, in order to affirm the political, has no need to ask, as a rule, if man is good or evil. It is enough for him to start with the idea that man is problematic since he is dynamic and dangerous 9. These traits imply a risk for the political since it requires a certain homogeneity, a moment of unity in order to exist. Schmitt s reflection allows, then, for the thought against Western tradition that violence associated to the political derives not from presupposing an essentialist negative anthropology, but from human plurality, from the creative symbolizing capacity of the subjects. On the other hand, for Carl Schmitt, the concept of violence is not treated specifically either: it is unknown what a violent act is for Schmitt. What remains then, is to deduce his concept of violence from how he treats war. Violence enters the political through war, since this implies physical death. This makes it exceptional, since war is only a last resort and not an ideal or political guide. It can also be said that since the maximum instrument of violence the ius belli is in the 8 C. Schmitt, El concepto de lo político, Alianza, Madrid, Ibídem, p

5 State, this, in turn, determines that there is a central axis to violence, which is a vertical one running from top to bottom. Likewise, the notion of political order in Schmitt is similar to that of symbolic order, since it deals with a homogeneity (friendship) which is an existential difference (enemy), not necessarily ethical, economical or aesthetic; based on an unfounded decision and therefore of pure will, sustained by force as a last resort. Nevertheless, it is not clear that the creation and reproduction of meaning (the people s way of life) is or implies violence. Another problem that Carl Schmitt s reflection presents is that violence (understood as that expressed in war), in any case, would take place on the interior-exterior axis rather than the interior alone except in the case of civil war, since the homogeneity of friendship dissolves all interior political conflict. Thus, it is indeed questionable if interior politics is even conceivable for Schmitt. If this is so, the consequence of the aforementioned characteristics would be that Schmitt s concept of the political upholds a mutual reference between State and the political. Not to define the political as such, rather to define the violence present in the political. It could be said that violence has only one place or source, which is the State (or the power able to monopolize it and thereby challenge the official State), and only one manifestation, the ius belli. This calls to mind another problem in Schmitt. By focusing only on the concept of the political, his conception does not consider the tension between the political and politics, between the struggle for and the polemical creation of meaning, and its reproductioncrystallization in order. The concept of the political looks to assume these two moments through the concept of the degree of intensity of enmity, but does not allow for the distinction of the potential struggle, even more probable in a pluralistic society with unfounded values. It would seem, in sum, that the preservation of friendship dissolves all internal struggle, all interior politics. The place for the political would be the international plane, the pluriverse. 5

6 To summarize, the insufficiencies of Schmitt s conception are: it does not have a clear concept of violence, or rather, it leans towards the positivist viewpoint of material and/or physical harm 10 ; violence appears as something exceptional (albeit thereby essential) in the political; violence only appears on the vertical axis, from top to bottom, there is no horizontal axis (bottom-bottom); and his concept of the political does not reflect the tension between the struggle for and creation of meaning (the political) and its crystallization and reproduction (politics). 3. Politics and violence in Rancière Rancière s treatment of the relation between politics and violence is noteworthy. In his key texts on politics 11 there is no specific treatment, nor is it thematized with the same clarity as in a passage from an interview 12, in which although in few lines he leaves no doubt about this link. The treatment of the relation between politics and violence in his key texts and in this interview not only differ with regard to importance and explicitness, but also with regard to meaning, since they have different nuances. 10 Here a distinction can be made. In relation to war, Schmitt comes closer to a physical concept of violence when discussing the possibility of being dead, and to a symbolic concept of violence when discussing killing. Schmitt criticizes liberalism for upholding that the State of Rights is based on respect for individuality, interior human privacy; while Schmitt affirms that this does not exist as long as the State owns the physical lives of its individuals, which is expressed in those with the power to order someone to kill and die in war (El concepto de lo político, o.c., pp. 97 ss). 11 J. Rancière, El desacuerdo. Política y filosofía, Nueva Visión, Buenos Aires, , La división de lo sensible. Estética y Política, Centro de Arte de Salamanca, Salamanca, , The thinking of dissensus: politics and aesthetics, Disponible en , Introducing Disagreement, en Angelaki. Journal of the theoretical humanities, vol. 9, nº 3, 2004, pp , Política, identificación, subjetivación, en Política, policía, democracia, Ediciones LOM, Santiago de Chile, 2006, pp , La causa del otro, en Política, policía, democracia, Ediciones LOM, Santiago de Chile, 2006, pp , Diez tesis sobre la política, en Política, policía, democracia, Ediciones LOM, Santiago de Chile, 2006, pp , Universalizar las capacidades de cualquiera: entrevista con Jacques Rancière, en Archipiélago, nº 73-74, diciembre 2006, pp Disponible en , En los bordes de lo político, Ediciones La Cebra, Buenos Aires, "La democracia es fundamentalmente la igualdad", en H. Quiroga, S. Villavicencio y P. Vermeren (comps.), Filosofías de la ciudadanía. Sujeto político y democracia, Homosapiens ediciones, Buenos Aires, 2001, pp

7 In the key texts violence is linked to the notion of harm (tort). The police harm equality and politics is the act of subjectification that deals with harm to anyone s equality with anyone else. The disagreement consists in the clash between two ways of looking at the same thing, since the perceptive-cognitive frameworks which are the driving force behind the political are not homogeneous. So, on one hand violence derives from the constitutively symbolic characteristic of politics 1314, in that harm tends to derive from communication 15, but not from a specific characteristic of politics; which seems remarkable for an author whose concern is to find the essence of politics. Furthermore, with politics being the treatment of harm caused by the police, politics as such would be devoid of any violence. Violence would be found in the police and, perhaps, in the political, understood as the meeting point between police logic 13 With the notion of the political as symbolic order I am referring to the idea that it is not the things themselves, not the material that possesses an inherent meaning, able alone to generate a distribution of power, and therefore an organization or classification of the actors and their relations to force, but it is the meaning given to things that generates order. What things, or the material, symbolize or represent is what grants power to those who have them. 14 Stemming from the notion of symbolic order, we believe that the expression symbolic violence that Rancière uses: see note 16--, as well as that of symbolic and physical violence, used by authors such as Pierre Bourdieu (cf. Cosas dichas, o.c.; Propos sur le champ politique, o.c.; Describir y prescribir: las condiciones de posibilidad y los límites de la eficacia política, in Qué significa hablar?, o.c., pp ), do not give enough theoretical consideration to what they seek to explain. Furthermore, they have an imprecision that tends to reduce the concept of the symbolic. Therefore, I prefer the use of the expression symbolic concept of violence in place of this. The expression symbolic violence does not impede the preservation of the conceptual separation between the physical and the symbolic, and therefore, it suggests the association of the symbolic with one type of violence, the non-physical one. Symbolic violence would refer to that which is immaterial, abstract, indirect, vaguely metaphorical and latent, in contrast to physical violence, which would be the only one that is really concrete, material, direct and manifested. The symbolic would then be that which pertains to words, gestures, threats, in sum, to the figurative and indirect, to that which replaces; as symbols or symptoms of the desire for the authentic violence of blows, wounds and measurable pain. The symbolic and symbolization are then assimilated to the function of synthetically labeling what one is searching to express in order to identify and understand it better; as a behavior that indirectly represents two meanings, the manifested one and the latent one. The latter is central and determines the former. This is a reductionist concept of the symbolic, as it makes no reference to the capacity of giving meaning to things and to the world, constituting them by naming them, rather to that of naming what already has meaning (in this case: real violence is physical), as if symbols were instruments that were external to things and created for the mere purpose of designating them. It presupposes, in sum, the exteriority between words and things, language and reality, abstract and concrete, representation and content. The expression symbolic concept of violence, on the other hand, refers more to the fact that violence is not a problem at play in the physical-non-physical ( symbolic ) dichotomy, concrete or abstract; rather is one of the order of the symbolic in that it depends on the meaning given to the action in order to know if it is violent or not, be it physical or not. 15 Although this does not mean that it is always present, because the dispute must be activated politically through the process of subjectivization-disidentification, and politics is episodic since it tends to become the police. 7

8 (administration) and political logic (emancipation), however, and this is very important brought on by the police. In the interview, however, Rancière places politics next to war but clearly differentiates them 16. While in politics, alterity, violence and conflict can be treated, which implies a symbolic violence which is strong, yet limited, regulated and instituted; war, on the other hand, is sustained by the impossibility of symbolizing alterity and therefore the logic behind it is a battle to the death. Politics, then, is the peaceful war ( ) a controlled form of violence that obstructs other forms 17, military war forms. Here it seems that Rancière is affirming a violence specific to politics, linked in its capacity unlike war to symbolize alterity and therefore treat conflict. The two options For Rancière, the existence of these two forms of treating violence gives way to two possible interpretations, which require a methodological decision on behalf of the reader: 1) Rancière s entire reflection, as it stems from a symbolic conception of politics, quite implicitly assumes the link between symbolization and violence; or, 2) his reflection on this is explicit yet discontinuous, in terms of emphasis as well as in terms of conceptual content. Let us look at both alternatives. If the relation between symbolization and violence were implicit in the Rancierian reflection, asserting this link would obligate us to what we could call an overinterpretation, given the assumption that the interpretation reigns in social sciences. Nevertheless, in this case, it would be realized based on what is unwritten or inexplicit in a more systematic way than a disperse one, in the majority of the author s texts. 16 There Rancière asserts: It could definitely be said that politics is the pacific war, the limited war. ( ) Politics is strong symbolic violence, the obligation of the conflictuality of principle that allows for the treatment of violence. Politics succeeds war as regulated symbolic violence, as an institution of treatable harm (tort) and alterity. And there where its missing, in fact, we see the figures of non-symbolizable alterity, of war to the death or of generalized delinquency reappear. ( ) Everything happens as if politics were a specific form, a controlled form of violence that obstructs the other forms. ("La democracia es fundamentalmente la igualdad", o.c., p. 257). 17 Ibídem. 8

9 If, however, Rancière s reflection on politics and violence were discontinuous in terms of emphasis and content, it would then represent a particularly significant theoretical gap for an author with a symbolic conception of politics. I am inclined to choose the second option, since I agree with the centrality of the interpretation. I do not believe there are elements that confirm the first alternative, mainly because it is not clear what the link between symbolization and violence would consist in (as we will see ahead). In this sense, and if this choice is plausible, Rancière s predominant reflection on politics and violence would be paradoxically symmetrically opposite to that of Western tradition: if the latter disassociates politics and violence when the State acts in the only way it should, pedagogically, Rancière asserts that there is no link between politics and violence given the only way in which the State can act, as administration and police. What for tradition was the dissolution of violence because the State was pedagogical, for Rancière it would be the assertion of violence only of the State because the State would be the policing administrator of the invisibility regime (of the uncounted part). In Rancière, politics would mainly be a reparing activity of the only violence, that of the state, while traditionally, politics was an activity mainly promoting the good life, which eradicated the only violence possible, the corruption of this good order itself. Even in the aforementioned interview this meaning can be found. Although the link between politics and violence is asserted there, it is not clear that this takes place because politics produces violence. It would seem that in this relation politics is more of an institutional space for the treatment of violence (produced by the police?) 18. Violence seems to enter into politics, rather than be generated by it. In other words, politics seems to receive violence, produced outside of it. Thus, in line with the meaning we have defined as dominant in his key texts, it would seem that violence is the result of 18 The political scene is always symbolically violent. However, in contrast to Lyotard, it is always about a treatable harm (tort) ("La democracia es fundamentalmente la igualdad", o.c., p. 256). 9

10 the meeting of the police with politics, a meeting in which the police produce violence and politics deals with it and therefore pacifies it, preventing it from breaking into war. If this is so, now we see why he could not simply assert that the notion of symbolic order implied an implicit assertion of the link between politics and violence in Rancière, since in the central idea it was not clear: if this link was due to the fact that politics was a scene of symbolization of alterity and conflict, or to the fact that politics when fighting for meaning, produces and not only treats symbolic violence. The point then, is: the simple questions with which politics creates subjectivation (is a French woman a Frenchman?, is a worker a citizen?, is a black a human being?): do they produce violence or not? does subjectivation, as disidentification and thereby clashing with another meaning, imply violence? Is a political action only violent when it harms a determined value equality, in this case--, or is it so simply because it asserts a value, whatever it may be, which in a plural world, with heterogeneous perceptive frameworks, implies a conflict with another value and distort other meanings (including that of the police)? In short: Is aesthetics violent? does aesthetic production entail violence? 4. In conclusion In the beginning we posed the question of if the conception of politics as symbolic order and as that which is situated beyond the State was an element that allowed for the union of politics and violence or not. I think that the way Rancière treats violence does not extract all the consequences of the theoretical richness contained within his notion of the political as a symbolic order. Just like the symbolic concepts of politics and violence, Rancière s reflection sheds a more complex and profound light on the problem of violence, in that it does not reduce it to a measurable physical phenomenon, but rather expands the view towards where its most intense and often invisible (and invisibilized) forms appear, such as harm to 10

11 subjectivity and the sense of the subjects (traumas, derecognition, inferiorization) 19. However, at the same time, it seems that for Rancière violence is restricted to harm to only one meaning, that of the value of equality, and not the heterogeneity of the perceptive-cognitive frameworks; to the harm that this difference which Rancière himself asserts in his reflection mutually produces among the actors. In Rancière the violence present in or produced by politics itself remains vacant, insofar as symbolic activity par excellence. Violence not linked to the reparation of harm, but to that which is inherent to all processes of creation of meaning in a plural society, as far as the subjective senses cannot necessarily be harmonized with each other, nor are they soluble through dialogue or knowledge, but rather tend to confront and negate themselves mutually, precisely because the perceptive-cognitive frameworks are heterogeneous, as Rancière clearly demonstrates elsewhere. This takes us to the second point. Because by linking only to police-produced harm to equality, violence remains exclusively linked to the State, and therefore to only one topbottom axis. This leaves out two other axes through which violence flows: the bottom- top and the bottom-bottom axes. Both are visible only if the link between politics and violence is understood as that determined by the capacity for symbolization, which is expressed in politics as a struggle for meaning. Therefore, the bottom-top axis would be added to the top-bottom axis, creating the possibility of contemplating a third, often obscured axis, the bottom-bottom axis. In this direction, the symbolic conception of politics in Rancière is not enough to see violence beyond the State, since before opening the door to contemplating all the axes in which violence flows and is produced, it seems to promise a politics as ephemeral as it may be emancipated of all violence, precisely for being beyond the State. This finally brings us to another question, perhaps the deciding one. There is probably some remnant of regulation in the distinction between politics and police, which would determine that the former has a positive sign (since it is not identified with the State, 19 Cf. Ph. Braud, Violencias Políticas, Alianza, Madrid, 2004, esp. cap

12 and is identified with the ability to repair, institutionalize and emancipate) and the police, a negative sign (since it is identified with the State and the ability to reproduce order, invisibilizing and harming equality). This in turn leads to the evaluation of violence: This would be the negative and therefore only linked to the negative pole of the distinction (police, State). If Rancière sees unlike Western tradition that politics is a struggle for politics, that the actor must struggle to be as such, yet he wouldn t recognize just like Western tradition the violence that this struggle implies, then, he emphasizes the violence carried out by police by denying the character of actor to anyone, asking them for credentials to be one. Politics, by repairing this harm, once again reveals the normative character that Rancière acquires, counterposed to the harmful police. 12