Hatred of Democracy

By Jacques Ranciere and Steve Corcoran

In this vehement defence of democracy, Jacques Rancière explodes the complacency of Western politicians who pride themselves as the defenders of political freedom. As America and its allies use their military might in the misguided attempt to export a desiccated version democracy, and reactionary strands in mainstream political opinion abandon civil liberties, Rancière argues that true democracy—government by all—is held in profound contempt by the new ruling class. In a compelling and timely analysis, Hatred of Democracy rethinks the subversive power of the democratic ideal.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Release date: Jan 7, 2014
• ISBN: 9781781682043

Jacques Ranciere

Jacques Ranci�re 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.

Reviews for Hatred of Democracy

[stillatim · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A fun little polemic, which is particularly interesting to read in the US, rather than in France. Ranciere attacks French critics of democracy. His book suggests that France will be a monarchy within a few years, as everyone everywhere is constantly complaining that the masses are irresponsible, narcissistic consumers who have no interest in anything other than the next commodity. How did this happen?

"Democracy has come to be attributed with engendering both the form of social homogeneity recently accounted for by totalitarianism and the self-generating growth inherent to the logic of Capital."

In other words, everything that people used to think would happen to us thanks to totalitarianism, or used to think has happened to us because of capitalism, is now said to have happened to us because of democracy. On this argument, the "dominant intelligentsia", which can no longer use totalitarianism as an argument in favor of their conservatism (because totalitarianism isn't much of a danger), and which cannot use anti-capitalist arguments (because they've aligned themselves with neoliberalism) still need a whipping post, and that post is democracy and individualism... by which, Ranciere suggests, they mean an egalitarian society. Where radicals argue that commodification is the result of capitalism's structural requirements, the new intelligentsia argue that commodification is the result of people not being able to keep their wallet in their pants.

Ranciere then lays out his own understanding of democracy, via a critique of the history of political philosophy, in which the great Greeks mostly pooh-poohed the idea. He says, more or less, that democracy is not a *form* of government, and certainly not the form we're living with; it is the legitimating principle of government itself; it names the consent of the governed, it names the reason to accept political reasons. But consent of this kind cannot be forced, it must be given, or government must rule without it--but if a state tries to do without the consent, it will face a "democratic movement," which is anti-capitalistic and egalitarian. There is an inevitable conflict between the (bad) limitlessness of capitalism and the (good) limitlessness of democracy.

It turns out, on Ranciere's understanding, that "the evils of which our 'democracies' suffer are primarily evils related to the insatiable appetite of oligarchs," which I assume means the aforementioned limitlessness of capitalism and not, as the sentence actually says, simple greed. This oligarchical system is (supposedly) legitimated by the popular vote, and by technological competence (as Habermas predicted long ago); but the popular vote and technological competence don't really go together. So the legitimation of our states is contradictory, and the clash of democracy and oligarchy will persist.

There are some obvious formal problems with Ranciere's argument. First, and most obviously, his redefinition of democracy is incredibly abstract. In this book, at least, it seems to mean little other than "people will want what they want;" Ranciere just asserts that what people want is equality and not capitalism. But (silly example ahoy!) what if people really want to water their lawns during a drought? In the clash between the hated state expert and the democratic insurgent gardeners, the state must win, or the gardeners, like everyone else, die of thirst.

Second, he insists that democracy has no foundation and neither is nor has a subject of history; there is no development from the present to an actually existing democracy, only "singular and precarious acts" in the "here and now." Which means, of course, that his understanding of democracy is transhistorical. But if that is so, why has nobody been wise enough, before Ranciere, to understand democracy properly? What is so very special about his definition? And where did this transhistorical fact come from?

And, third, his resistance to historical thinking (in this book) and ideology critique means that he must attribute the failure of democracy to an evil cabal of intellectuals, all keeping the People down in the name of greed. That, I suggest, is not really happening anywhere.

On a different note, it's always funny to read French theorists in America--the societies, governmental structures and dominant intellectual tendencies are so very, very different. The idea that there is an epidemic of elitist intellectuals defaming democracy doesn't really hold much water in a country that altogether lacks elitist intellectuals, and has a government run by fools rather than knaves; not to mention that if anyone should suggest that democracy isn't the cure of every problem in America, s/he would be ostracised and probably forcibly deported to China so s/he could see 'what it's really like without democracy.'

But no matter what you think of Ranciere's argument, he gets in some nice jabs at other, even worse arguments--for instance, "We do not live in democracies. Neither, as certain authors assert--because they think we are all subjected to a biopolitical government law of exception--do we live in camps." He also points out some nice ironies--for instance, that in the neoliberal battle against the state, it is invariably *non*-state institutions that were set up *in the teeth* of the state that get hammered: unions, higher education, cultural bodies and so on. Actual state institutions (police, army, and so on) go on doing what they've always done.

[jonfaith · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Therein lies the scandal: the scandal for well-to-do people unable to accept that their birth, their age, or their science has to bow before the law of chance; scandal too for those men of God who would have us all be democrats on the condition that we avow having had to kill a father or a shepherd for it, and hence that we are infinitely guilty, are in inexpiable to this father.

Hatred of Democracy is a black mass of devil's advocates, Jacques Rancière constructs arguments quite convincingly only to topple them like a suave, Gucci-trimmed Immanuel of the lecture circuit. The premise of this disturbing work is the antidemocratic ground swell of the GOP and myriad conservative and anti-immigration groups in Europe. Such proceeds with a gradual escalation of terms and intensity. Suddenly Rancière supplants this mention of [b:Les penchants criminels de l'Europe democratique|15718738|Les penchants criminels de l'Europe democratique|Jean-Claude Milner|/assets/nocover/60x80.png|21390324], THIS IS AN IED, the thesis of such is that Jews had to be exterminated so that the ties of kinship embodied by such would be eliminated and a bureaucratic godless democracy could ensue. That just sounds crazy. Google Milner and Criminal Inclinations: there isn't much there outside of anti-defamation sites which suggest such "scholarship" constitutes evidence of sorts. I commend Rancière for including such here.

The book concludes with distinctions between the rights of men and the rights of citizens: the former becomes more a projection than anything else. The latter is likewise subject and vulnerable, but damn, it keeps most of the wolves from one's door and remember the wonky vote in Parliament over the airstrikes against al-Asasd. It is this uncertainty which maddens, especially those that covet priviledge and power. It can also inspire.

But among those who know to share with anybody and everybody the equal power of intelligence, it can conversely inspire, and hence joy.