Thinking the Unthinkable as a Form of Dissensus: The Case of the Witness

Abstract

This article discusses the possible political ramifications of bearing witness that can be derived from Rancière’s politico-aesthetic thought. Two misguided argumentations that Rancière ceaselessly tries to uproot – Lyotard’s notion of complete Otherness and Agamben’s analysis of the Holocaust, are analysed. Both argumentations draw on the contention that there is something unthinkable, unrepresentable and untestifiable at the heart of thought. This contention calls for a unique form of bearing witness – bearing witness to the impossibility of truly bearing witness. In trying to account for everything, however, either as thinkable or as unthinkable, these philosophical accounts shift the discussion from political to ethical grounds, in which infinite, unthinkable evil calls for infinite justice and redemption.

Rancière’s objection to these lines of reasoning is examined here in light of his notion of politics. As political action is defined by Rancière as the action of a supplementary part in the community which, by calling attention to the fact of it being unaccounted for, makes us question the inner-divisions and redefine the boundaries of the existing regime, an ethical discourse that wishes to set boundaries upon intelligibility is, by definition, opposed to political endeavour.

The article concludes by demonstrating the political implications of Rancière’s critique and his notion of politics in the context of bearing witness. For if we accept Rancière’s conceptualisation we can regard the words of witnesses as redefining the boundaries of intelligibility, of consensus, thus resulting in dissensus. Not only is the word of the witness salvaged from entering into the “ethical trap,” but in some cases it can be considered the highest form of political action, namely a form of dissensus.