How Aesthetics Goes To Politics

Based on the historical context of Western aesthetics about "how aesthetics goes to politics",this paper examines the aesthetic concept of the contemporary French radical leftwing thinker Jacques Rancière.Theories about aesthetics and art of Rancière provides us with a radical version of the response to "How Aesthetics Goes to Politics",which presents a very different feature than other theorists in history.Among the answer he provided us,we can clearly find out the most distinctive place about the aesthetic concept of Rancière: from the horizon of Rancière's radical equality,there is no clear distinction between aesthetic subjects and political subjects,"aesthetic" and "Politics" are two different fields of equal practice of the same equal subject.Through the unique concept of "the distribution of the sensible",the political subject and the aesthetic subject have achieved a natural transformation.Therefore,the core issue of Rancière's aesthetic concept has been transformed into the generating of "the modern political –aesthetic subject".Rancière changed the way of responding to the question of "how aesthetics went to politics" in the history of Western aesthetics.He no longer tried to realize the emotional energy of aesthetic activities commit the political problem in the field of real experience by transforming the aesthetic subject into a political subject,he integrates the aesthetic subject with the political subject,so that the two becomes a whole.And it begins with the reestablishment of the political subject.Through the revelation of the unequal order contained in traditional political philosophy and the new understanding of democracy,Rancière has planned a new type of political action subject – "a part that has no part"."A part that has no part" conflicts with the logic of discourse which established into the hierarchical order within the community by practicing equality presupposition,triggering the emergence of "disagreement".The emergence of "disagreement" led to the break of the original "police order",it disturb the perceptive order about visibility and sensibility which circulating in community,thereby disordering the mechanism of "the distribution of the sensible".In this disordering action,these "a part that has no part" as the political subject draws things that are rejected by the existing perceptive mode into community,and at the same time constructs a new,heterogeneous perception mode,reconfiguring the perceptive order about visibility and sensibility."The distribution of the sensible" has become a key factor in connecting political subjects and aesthetic subjects.Starting from the perceptual dimension of "aesthetic",Rancière understands "aesthetics" as a specific mode of perception which limits visibility and sensibility.Aesthetics in a broad sense is a kind of the distribution of the sensible,and aesthetics in the narrow sense is a measure of the visibility and sensibility in the field of art,that is,the distribution of the sensible of art.In this regard,politics and aesthetics belong to different areas of "perceived distribution",and the political subject and the aesthetic subject can therefore be completely connected.On this basis,Rancière specifically elaborated on how the modern political-aesthetic subject achieves the political purpose of "reconstructing sensibility" by triggering the "disagreement" in the art field,which transforms the visible and sensible forms of art.The "disagreement" in the field of art stimulate a "dissensus" effect that led to a fierce revolution in the "Artistic Regimes",so that some elements that were once obscured and ignored by the community's hierarchical order in artistic creation are equally presented in new art products.All of this lets art disturbing constantly the boundary between art and life through the contradictory movements of "self-discipline" and "heteronomy",thus disturbing the mechanism of "the distribution of the sensible" circulating in the field of art,so that the concept of equality is intuitively presented in the people's aesthetic perception,thereby realizing the political function of art.