Rancière’s keynote in Tallinn

I’ve just returned from Rancière’s lecture on Soviet film posters, which I rather enjoyed.

This was my first time in the same room as Rancière, so I made sure to sit in the front row. Sometimes there is an excessive tendency to try to subtract the human away from the argument, perhaps out of an understandable fear of ad hominem arguments and the like. But the fact is, philosophical statements are made by living animals, and it’s important when possible to get a feeling for the vibrations of those animals.

Nietzsche is better on this topic than anyone, of course. Are the statements you’re reading coming from an angry and aggressive organism? A pompous one? A tyrannical control freak? A timid and halting persona? Or one with warmth and a zest for life? This is not to say that you can dismiss an argument on the basis of personality (Heidegger was not only a Nazi, but apparently a bit of a jerk in personality terms on top of that, and yet he was still the greatest philosopher of the century; his personality is not a refutation of his philosophy, but adds a greater depth and richness to our interpretation of it if we know a bit about that personality). What it means is that you want to hear the tone of voice and feel the human vibe that is subtracted from the prose you read; for dead philosophers, biographies are admittedly the best you can do.

Anyway, I found Rancière not only likable but quite surprising in human terms. For some reason I had always imagined him as a bit thunderous in person– a sort of decaffeinated Žižek. In fact, he’s nothing like that at all. He’s basically shy and professorial. His lecture was very good, though.

And where he really shines is in the question period. Whereas during the prepared lecture he seems concerned, even a touch worried, about whether the lecture is going well (though I’m sure they always go perfectly well in his case), in response to questions he really opens up and makes warm human contact with his questioners. He proves himself to be flexible, undogmatic, able to see both sides of a question, and suddenly delighted to have a crowd with whom to speak. He seems to feel a disarming trust in his audience, in fact. He reminded me of a brilliant but quiet uncle with lots of stories to share, but who doesn’t want to burden his company by talking too much. And yet, just get a couple of glasses of wine in him and he’s a great raconteur. I think Rancière would be a wonderful person to study with– completely approachable for students.