“[C]ritical art is a type of art that sets out to build awareness of the mechanisms of domination to turn the spectator into a conscious agent of world transformation,” writes philosopher Jacques Rancière in Aesthetics and its Discontents (2004)

“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.”
― Jacques Rancière, Dissensus: On Politics and Aesthetics

The Ignorant Schoolmaster Quotes Showing 1-8 of 8

“To explain something to someone is first of all to show him he cannot understand it by himself.”
― Jacques Rancière, The Ignorant Schoolmaster: Five Lessons in Intellectual Emancipationtags: pedagogy

“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.”
― Jacques Rancière, The Ignorant Schoolmaster: Five Lessons in Intellectual Emancipationtags: narratives

“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.”
― Jacques Rancière, The Ignorant Schoolmaster: Five Lessons in Intellectual Emancipationtags: government

“Il y a deux mensonges fondamentaux: celui qui proclame ‘je dis la vérité’ et celui qui affirme ‘je ne peux pas dire.”
― Jacques Rancière, The Ignorant Schoolmaster: Five Lessons in Intellectual Emancipation

“To teach what one doesn’t know is simply to ask questions about what one doesn’t know.”
― Jacques Rancière, The Ignorant Schoolmaster: Five Lessons in Intellectual Emancipation

“The master always keeps a piece of learning–that is to say, a piece of the student’s ignorance–up his sleeve. I understood that, says the satisfied student. You think so, corrects the master. in fact, there’s a difficulty here that I’ve been sparing you until now. We will explain it when we get to the corresponding lesson. What does this mean? asks the curious student. I could tell you, responds the master, but it would be premature: you wouldn’t understand at all. It will be explained to you next year. The master is always a length ahead of the student, who always feels that in order to go farther he must have another master, supplementary explications. Thus does the triumphant Achilles drag Hector’s corpse, attached to his chariot, around the city of Troy.”
― Jacques Rancière, The Ignorant Schoolmaster: Five Lessons in Intellectual Emancipationtags: education, school

“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.”
― Jacques Rancière, The Ignorant Schoolmaster: Five Lessons in Intellectual Emancipationtags: linguistics

“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.”
― Jacques Rancière, The Ignorant Schoolmaster: Five Lessons in Intellectual Emancipationtags: pedestal