On the Shores of Politics

It is frequently said that we are living through the end of politics, the end of social upheavals, the end of utopian folly. Consensual realism is the order of the day. But political realists, remarks Jacques Ranciere, are always several steps behind reality, and the only thing which may come to an end with their dominance is democracy. In these subtle and perceptive essays, Ranciere argues that since Plato and Aristotle politics has always constructed itself as the art of ending politics, that realism is itself utopian, and that what has succeeded the polemical forms of class struggle is not the wisdom of a new millennium but the return of old fears, criminality and chaos. Whether he is discussing the confrontation between Mitterrand and Chirac, French working-class discourse after the 1830 revolution, or the ideology of recent student mobilizations, his aim is to restore philosophy to politics and give politics back its original and necessary meaning: the organization of dissent.

About the author

Jacques Rancière is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the University of Paris-VIII. His books include The Politics of Aesthetics, On the Shores of Politics, Short Voyages to the Land of the People, The Nights of Labor, Staging the People, and The Emancipated Spectator.

Summary

Returning politics to its original and necessary meaning: the organization of dissent

Report

Rancière's writings offer one of the few consistent conceptualizations of how we are to continue to resist. Slavoj Zizek

Product details

• Authors: Jacques Ranciere, Jacques Rancière, Ranciere Jacques
• Assisted by: Liz Heron (Translation), Heron Liz (Translation)
• Publisher: Verso
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 16.03.2021
• EAN: 9781788739665
• ISBN: 978-1-78873-966-5
• No. of pages: 128
• Series: THE ESSENTIAL RANCIERE
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Philosophy > General, dictionaries; Non-fiction book > Philosophy, religion > Philosophy: antiquity to present day; Social sciences, law, business > Political science; PHILOSOPHY / Political, PHILOSOPHY / Essays, PHILOSOPHY / Criticism, Social & political philosophy, Political science & theory, social and political philosophy, Political science and theory, Philosophical traditions and schools of thought, Deconstructionism, Structuralism, Post-structuralism