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. ‘We could’, he suggests, ‘merely smile at the duplicity of the conclusion/suppression of politics which is simultaneously a suppression/conclusion of philos...