Research On Rancière’s Criticism And Inheritance Of Althusser

When it comes to the evolution contemporary French Marxism,Jacques Rancière is no doubt an unavoidable object.The study of Rancière can be described as the "entrance" of the left-wing thought in France and Europe in the late 20 th century,because Rancière has experienced series of historical events in Europe since the middle of the 20 th century and witnessed the rise and fall of the international communist movement.There is no doubt that Rancière is one of the only surviving masters of Western Marxism.The evolution of Rancière’s thought not only reflects the commonality of left-wing thoughts in France and Europe,but also fully demonstrates his unique characteristics.The commonality of Rancière is reflected in the style of subjective criticism of capitalist culture,while his unique characteristics can be understood as his disposition that does not change his original intention.Rancière has not given up the logical core that he insisted on at the beginning of his academic career which is the realistic Marxist social critical position based on sensibility,even though his discourse has been expanded and deepened.Rancière’s understanding of perceptual reality is embodied in his insistence on interpreting the cultural experience with the common people as the main body,and strives to take this as the core,reflecting on the existing capitalist cultural cognition,and then seek the possibility of change.Rancière’s personal experience of a series of important historical events and his consistent position are in sharp contrast,which sets him apart from many contemporary left-wing scholars who have turned to postmodernism,and also makes the study on Rancière’s academic path quite attractive.In thinking about the path of Rancière’s academic growth,there is a set of relationships that must be faced directly,which is Rancière’s criticism and inheritance of his teacher Louis Althusser.When it comes to the relationship between Rancièreand Althusser,previous studies have more or less a certain stereotype,that is,the independent exploration of Rancière after 1968 is based on the complete break against Althusser’s academic claims.However,if you thoroughly examine the texts of Rancière in different periods,you can find that Althusser has a secret and lasting internal effect on Rancière’s academic thoughts.This effect is not something that can be simply summarized as "parting of ways",which is not only reflected in Althusser’s early "introduction" to the Marxist classic texts,but also in the fracture after 1968.The core of Rancière’s critique and inheritance of Althusser lies in Althusser’s ideological proposition.In Rancière’s view,Althusser holds the dual identities of the pioneer and the betrayer of ideological propositions.Rancière believes that,on the one hand,Althusser advocated the interpretation of Marxist social critical theory and the critique on capitalist ideology,on the other hand,he confined the many reality-oriented concepts surrounding ideology in Marxist classics to Lacan style.In Althusser’s view,the linguistic structure of the book cannot truly be based on the elements of perceptual reality and the position of the common people.In the academic career so far,what Rancière wants to pursue is the possibility of narrative liberation facing the reality of cultural life that is not subject to any a priori language structure.To discuss Rancière’s criticism and inheritance of Althusser which is based on the search towards Rancière’s academic life,the thesis can be summarized as follows: Rancière strives to reconstruct Althusser’s ideological propositions with a logic closer to Marxist social critical theory.This logic can be summarized as the fracture of structuralism and the liberation of narrative.The rupture of structuralism refers to Rancière’s efforts to abandon the ideological conceptual shell based on structuralism as the prerequisite of narrative.The liberation of narrative refers to Rancière’s efforts to make the European left-wing narrative and even a whole set of inherent language of western thought history in harmony with the real cultural life,and the cultural symbiosis between intellectuals and the common people is realized after the work to overwhelm structuralism is done.Rancière believes that narrative liberation is the inner way of cultural cognition change.In opening the road,intellectuals should not regard themselves as holders of knowledge a priori,but should experience the actual cultural life and recognize the cultural potential of the masses.Regardless of whether Rancière himself admits directly or not,his academic texts express the logic that the criticism of Althusser is for the internal and implicit inheritance of Althusser’s mission of ideological criticism that Althusser failed to persevere to the end.Only by truly inheriting the task of ideological criticism can the criticism of Althusser be truly supported by logic,and the narrative system can find refuge in real cultural life after it breaks away from the presupposition of the structure.In other words,the fracture of structuralism is the basis of the liberation of narration,and the liberation of narration is the end of the fracture of structuralism.Taking structuralist rupture and narrative liberation as the breakthrough point,Rancière’s academic growth in the process of criticizing and inheriting Althusser can be summarized into four stages.The division of these four stages is based on the main line of time.Progress is also a sign of the gradual maturity of Rancière’s academic thoughts.After experiencing a series of realistic historical events,Rancière deeply thought about the classic Marxist texts,and then reconstructed Althusser’s ideological propositions.The first stage occurred in the 1960 s and ended in the "May Storm" in 1968.During this period,Rancière used the study and reading of Marxist classics as the main feature.He did not openly break with Althusser.But vaguely expressed dissatisfaction with the empirical structure of classical political economy.In the second stage,from 1968 to 1980,Rancière publicly liquidated Althusser’s structuralist logic and expressed that he wanted to explore the path of cultural cognition change beyond structuralism.The third stage is from 1981 to1990.Rancière made it clear that coexistence with the common people in the real cultural life is the true connotation of narrative liberation.After 1990,along with the changes in the subject,Rancière’s academic career entered the fourth stage.In the fourth stage,Rancière runs through the logic of narrative liberation he found in the 1980 s in politics,literature and art,and this effort has been kept to this day.Based on this,the study is divided into four main parts,corresponding to the four stages of Rancière’s academic growth.By interpreting Rancière’s criticism and inheritance of Althusser,the growth path of Rancière’s academic thought is interpreted.The first part of "Dependent Origination" aims to interpret the starting point of the break between Rancière and structuralism.It can be divided into three levels and discussed in turn,namely backtracking,object,and starting point.Backtracking refers to the Marxist narrative tradition’s critique of structuralism,that is,the rejection of a priori structural view.Marx believes that all structuralist presuppositions belong to a priori cognition,and the real narrative basis should be the perceptual reality in the production of material materials.The intrinsic value of Marxist social criticism is often misunderstood by the European leftist narrative behind Marx,but it is re-evoked by Rancière.The object refers to the object that Rancière strives to criticize in his academic growth that is the structuralist style represented by Althusser’s dichotomy of science,technology and ideology.Althusser’s characteristic lies in his attempts to explain and include a series of concepts in the classic Marxist texts with a Lacanian language structure.However,in the future,it seems that Marx’s focus has never been on the definition of any ontological concepts.The essence of Dusseldorf’s attempt was to obliterate the essence of Marx in the name of interpreting Marx.The starting point refers to the beginning of Rancière’s acquaintance with Althusser and his Marxist social critical position,which can be traced back to his initial representative work Reading Capital.The obvious main line is Rancière’s thinking on the critical logic of economic interpretation.The realistic and unconstrained critical budding laid the groundwork for Rancière’s public criticism of Althusser in the future.The second part,"Different Routes",aims to explore the disconnection and the internal relation between Rancière and Althusser after 1968.It can be divided into three parts: break,controversy and inheritance.Its node lies in the "May Storm" of 1968.Break refers to the meaning of "On the Theory of Ideology".Rancière’s public reflection on Althusser’s concept of ideology in 1969 opened the prelude to a different path with Althusser.For the first time,Rancière publicly believes that Althusser’s structural presupposition obliterates the possibility of reality-oriented criticism.The controversy refers to the full reckoning of Althusser’s "dual" narrative by Rancière in Althusser’s Lesson.Rancière caught Althusser’s change from "for Marx" to the narrative changes in the 1970 s.The language structure presupposes logic,and believes that the final outcome of Althusser’s logic is a complete departure from Marxism.Inheritance refers to the de-construction and the reborn posture of Althusser’s ideology.Rancière believed that the inherent tension of Althusser’s ideological concept dried up criticism,but the ideological proposition of removing the outer shell of ideological words is kept in his future understanding of the revolution in culture.Based on "On the Theory of Ideology" and Althusser’s Lesson,Rancière put forward a brand-new request,that is,how to find a guide to break away from structuralism and find a realistic path for cultural cognitive transformation.It laid the "lead" for the mature narrative in the1980 s.The third part "Turn" aims to explore the maturity of Rancière’s concept.The core is to explore how Rancière bred a mature concept of narrative liberation from the cut with structuralism.It can be divided into three aspects: class,language and practice.The key to class-referencing Rancière’s attempt to understand the common people based on perceptual reality and to find hope of struggle from cognitive transformation lies in the exposition in The Nights of Labour.Through the investigation of the cultural life of the Parisian workers,Rancière believes that only by overcoming all transcendental structures in perception can the possibility of reviving the Marxist theory of liberation and finding strong class support be made into reality.Language refers to Rancière’s attempt to reveal the cognitive dilemma of dualistic opposition between intellectuals and the common people in the history of thought in The Philosopher and his Poor that intellectual holds the sense of superiority against common people only by their own fantasy.Rancière believes that the idea "the common people have only secular ideas but no cultural creativity" is actually a situation imagined by the intellectuals themselves.The real path to narrative liberation should be for the intellectuals to let go of their imagination and enter the real cultural life of the common people.Practice refers to the discussion of Rancière in the field of cultural education.Rancière believes that in the practice of the cultural field,the assumptions of intellectuals are embodied in the ontological concept of teachers and the transcendental identity of "ignorant students" to the common people.Rancière said that it is necessary to let go of this obsession in cultural education and truly understand the cultural perception and cultural potential of students.The fourth part "Echoes" aims to explore Ranciere’s expansive exposition on the task of ideological criticism.It can be divided into three parts: politics,artistic and themes.Among them,politics refers to Rancière’s discussion on the relationship between politics and public security.Rancière believes that the meaning of political emancipation lies in political and ideological emancipation,and the "political perception" of the common people must be recognized and acknowledged.In his view,the excessive attention to public security is a manifestation of the shift in the subject of reality criticism,and his problem perspective is always subject to the presupposition of structuralism,unable to realize his claimed resistance to structuralism.Artistic refers to the implementation of the theme of cultural cognition change by Rancière in the fields of literature,art,film and other fields,and the revision of the internal logic of "symptomatic reading" based on real cultural life,that is to go beyond the presupposition itself after reaching the presupposition of the language structure.Theme refers to Rancière’s reinterpretation of ideological propositions and the gains and losses of Marxism in the process.Rancière completely replaced Althusser’s ideological concept with specific issues in perceptual reality.Rancière’s attention to political emancipation and literary aesthetics can be described as the "resurrection" of Althusser’s proposition.However,Rancière’s understanding of the logic of perceptual reality from the cultural dimension is ultimately different from Marx’s discussion of material production.This point reflects the limitation of the entire Western Marxism that overemphasizes subjectivity and ignores the true meaning of Marx’s perceptual reality.Based on above,there are three main points in this study.First,the fracture of structuralism and the liberation of narrative can be regarded as a logical entry point for interpreting Rancière’s criticism and inheritance of Althusser.The open and comprehensive liquidation of Althusser’s academic ideas is a testament to Rancière’s successful abandonment of structuralism,and a mature interpretation of cultural cognitive changes is a sign of finding a path to narrative liberation.The fracture is to "break",and to explore the way to liberate narrative is to "establish".Only by abandoning the existing presuppositions can we construct mature academic concepts without hindrance,and only when the academic concepts mature can the advocacy of abandoning the presuppositions gain logical support.Second,in the theory of Rancière,the relationship between the critique and inheritance of Althusser is explicit and implicit.The explicit criticism is for the implicit inheritance,because Rancière never really gave up the interest in the connotation of Althusser’s ideology.The explicit criticism is to make the ideological propositions finally reappear in Rancière’s narrative without structuralism.Third,the Marxism has always been present for a long time in Rancière’s academic thoughts.For Rancière,the criticism or inheritance of Althusser is to reconstruct the ideological proposition in a way that is closer to the Marxist social critical theory.The perceptual reality and the position of the common people in the classic Marxist texts are not only the basis for Rancière’s criticism of Althusser,but also the source of inspiration for Rancière to explore the potential of common people’s culture.Rancière’s understanding of Marxist classic texts from the perspective of cultural life can also become a direction for further study.