Chronicles of Consensual Times

'This collection shows us Jacques Ranciere at his best. The chronicle is ideally suited for his style of thinking. Ranciere philosophizes with a fine razor blade to take apart all the presuppositions behind our present-day consensus yet the effect is as fatal and irreversible as if he had used a sledge hammer.'-Bruno Bosteels

In this fascinating collection, Jacques Ranciere, one of the world's most important and influential living philosophers, explores the nature of consensus in contemporary politics.

Consensus is not peace. Instead it refers to a map of operations of war, of a topography of the visible, of what is possible and what can be thought, in which war and peace live side-by-side. Lying at the heart of these consensual times are new forms of racism and ethnic cleansing, humanitarian wars and wars against terror. Consensus also implies using time in a way that sees in it a thousand devious turns. This is evident in the incessant diagnoses of the present and of amnesiac state politics, in the farewells to the past, the commemorations, and the calls to remember.

All these twists and turns tend toward the same goal: to show that only one reality exists and that we have to consent to it. But democratic politics stands in the way of this undertaking. These chronicles aim to re-open the space in which it can again be thought.

Jacques RanciFre taught at the University of Paris VIII, France, from 1969 to 2000, occupying the Chair of Aesthetics and Politics from 1990 until his retirement.