Quotes from Jacques Rancière

Whoever teaches without emancipating stultifies.

Critical art is an art that aims to produce a new perception of the world, and therefore to create a commitment to its transformation. This schema, very simple in appearance, is actually the conjunction of three processes: first, the production of a sensory form of 'strangeness'; second, the development of an awareness of the reason for that strangeness and third, a mobilization of individuals as a result of that awareness.

To explain something to someone is first of all to show him he cannot understand it by himself.

Poetic language that knows itself as such doesn't contradict reason. On the contrary, it reminds each speaking subject not to take the narrative of his mind's adventures for the voice of truth. Every speaking subject is the poet of himself and of things. Perversion is produced when the poem is given as something other than a poem, when it wants to be imposed as truth, when it wants to force action.

Keeping a monopoly on legitimate violence is still the proven best way to limit violence and allow reason some asylum where it can be freely practiced.

Il y a deux mensonges fondamentaux: celui qui proclame 'je dis la vérité' et celui qui affirme 'je ne peux pas dire.

To teach what one doesn't know is simply to ask questions about what one doesn't know.

A material thing is first of all "the only bridge of communication between two minds." The bridge is a passage, but it is also distance maintained. The materiality of the book keeps two minds at an equal distance, whereas explication is the annihilation of one mind by another.

Upravo to je književnost: umetnost pisanja koja ublažava raliku izme?u sveta umetnosti i sveta obi?nog života tako što izjedna?ava sve teme.

It is easier to compare oneself, to establish social exchange as that swapmeet of glory and contempt where each person receives a superiority in exchange for the inferiority he confesses to.

Rhetoric is perverted poetry.

The government does not owe the people education for the simple reason that one does not owe the people what it can take for itself. And education is like liberty: it is not given, it is taken.

H?rsl?lar, kendilerini kimseden a?a?? saymamakla kazand?klar? zihinsel gücü, kendilerini ba?ka herkesten üstün saymakla kaybederler

La pensée ne se transmet pas à l'action. C'est une pensée qui se transmet à une pensée et une action qui en provoque une autre. La pensée agit pour autant qu'elle accepte de ne pas très bien savoir ce qui la pousse elle-même et renonce à garder la maîtrise de ses effets

La première question politique est de savoir quels objets et quels sujets sont concernés par ces institutions et ces lois, quelles formes de relations définissent proprement une communauté politique, quels objets ces relations concernent, quels sujets sont aptes à désigner ces objets et à en discuter. La politique est l'activité qui reconfigure les cadres sensibles au sein desquels se définissent des objets communs

For me, this was not a question of opposing voices from below to discourse from above, but of reflecting on the relation of division of discourses and division of conditions, of grasping the interplay of borders and transgressions according to which the effects of speech that seize human bodies becomes ordered or disturbed" p.227.

Le réel doit être fictionné pour être pensé.

On suppose que l'art nous rend révoltés en nous montrant des choses révoltantes, qu'il nous mobilise par le fait de se mouvoir hors de l'atelier ou du musée et qu'il nous transforme en opposants au système dominant en se niant lui- même comme élément de ce système.

On ne passe pas de la vision d'un spectacle à une compréhension du monde et d'une compréhension intellectuelle à une décision d'action.

Ainsi le raisonnement avance-t-il droit sur ses deux pieds boiteux

Whoever teaches without emancipating stultifies.