Is there a crisis in representation?

11 ?Is rhetoric able to represent? What happens to representation in a time of crisis? These are two questions addressed by Christian Biet, who compares the representation of the events which marked the Wars of Religion in the 16^th and 17^th centuries in Europe on the one hand, and the Second World War on the other. The author’s first question is at the heart of the issue regarding representation. In both cases, society, after events of unheard-of violence had taken place, found itself faced with a question of a political order – “Should catastrophe be represented?” An essential source of reflection is contained in the diametrically opposite responses made by society in these two instances regarding the issue of representation. On the one hand there is the duty to forget, included in the actual wording of the Edict of Nantes, and on the other there is the duty to remember, a duty well known to our contemporaries. These two options gave rise to differing treatment of representation by the society of the time. The political ban contained in the duty to forget conditions indirect representations which make it possible to consider the event by analogy with another event to which no such ban applies. In the second case, the duty to remember confers the weight of the ineffable on the event, which will find an escape route by aestheticising the representation. Christian Biet, who is a specialist in the representation of violence in the theatre, notes with great acuity that in the contemporary theatre representation has become auto-representation, which means that theatrical action stages the impossibility of representation [6].?

12 ?Whether it is forbidden or ineffable, representation is therefore not direct. Nevertheless, every society circumvents the bans placed on it, making no reference to the event when there is a duty to forget, and referring to the event when there is a duty to remember. These two types of circumvention give rise to radically different rhetorical options, however. The result is that a ban produces indirect representation, through mediation, while an obligation prevents representation, blocking it and turning it against itself. Mediation, the symbolisation of the world in words, is, however, at the very heart of rhetoric. Christian Biet’s reflections lead to a paradox that is strange for the rhetorical system. Would banning expression paradoxically promote the freedom to represent, by the need to circumvent it? Is the Edict of Nantes more “rhetorically correct” than the highly contemporary “duty of memory”? We can see that, behind the rhetorical question, there is an unresolved political question. Is there some escape route that contemporary rhetoric could take to avoid the risk of the ineffable??

13 ?That is what is proposed by Yannis Thanassekos, Director of the Auschwitz Foundation in Brussels, which has been able to gather and conserve a large number of first-hand accounts from people who escaped the Shoah. His contribution is in line with Christian Biet’s thinking, addressing the question of the representation of catastrophe in modern times. To do so, Yannis Thanassekos recalls that the ultimate representation was formulated by Jacques Derrida (2004) after the events of 9/11 – it is a feature of the events that they are in fact ineffable. This confirms the link between the duty to remember and the injunction regarding what cannot be represented. The exact corollary of the political obligation of representation is its ethical ban. In modern times, the rhetorical function of representation is directly placed in a crisis situation. The ethical ban blocks representation and silences expression, which today leads certain authors to declare that Auschwitz – taken as a metonym of catastrophe in modern times – has annihilated our capacity for representation. Here again, emphasis is placed on auto-representation as the escape route, in the form of “staging of the self” and “auto-referential discourse”. It has nevertheless been said that representation is first and foremost the capacity to mediatise the event in question. That is also why rhetoric, as a tool for keeping events at a distance through its symbolic function, is the enemy of Sade’s injunction to “say everything” [7]. And yet… How can we use language to mediatise an event that by its very nature is incapable of being represented? The consequences for the entire rhetorical system are crucial. Without representation there can be neither judgment nor decision. Thus Yannis Thanassekos envisages what could indeed provide a way of resolving the aporia of representation – the art of giving an eye-witness account. This has the fascinating ability to transcend the aporia of representation. Because in one way it allows the mediatisation of the event and its symbolisation through discourse, without completely placing it at a distance. The eye-witness narrates the event by his/her real presence and corporeity; he/she is thus able to take the risk of representing an event, personally guaranteeing the authenticity of that representation. The enthusiasm for the eye-witness account noticeable now, at the start of the 21^st century, is perhaps due to the intuition of a society that hopes to find in rhetoric the means of reaching beyond the aporia that appears to be caused by the duty to remember. But the last eye-witnesses are disappearing, and it will be necessary to find a way of ritualising their words so that the guarantee of authenticity may be retained beyond their actual presence. There is obviously an intellectual urgency to this.?

Is there a crisis of judgment?

14 ?Judgment is an evaluation of representation. It is essential to the rhetorical function, as it is on the basis of its establishment that decisions are subsequently made. Thus it may be supposed that the difficulty in making judgments is in addition to the difficulty in representing the event in question. Marc Angenot leads the way with regard to the contemporary figure of resentment by referring explicitly to Max Scheler (1958). In the typology proposed by this specialist in the rhetoric of the social world, the figure of resentment represents one of the four idealised rhetorical types in present-day society, all involved in a “dialogue of the deaf”. The author immediately broaches the subject of society’s stakeholders’ ability to reach common judgments through debate, a question indeed shared by the rhetorical models of normative inspiration. If a failing in argumentative ability is noted in the partner’s speech, this implies that, even before the arguments are discussed, there is no acknowledgement that the partner is trustworthy. This dialogue of the deaf is a chronic revelation of the fact that many of the participants in the debate do not seem to share a common world, or even a set of pre-required conditions for holding the discussion. In a word, the “other person” – the person who does not think as I do – is deemed intrinsically irrational, which quite simply prevents any discussion with that person. From the disagreement that is theoretically the origin of all possibility of discussion and argumentation, we move on to condemnation and disqualification. On this point, Marc Angenot refers to a cognitive break, something much deeper than disagreement, since it actually prevents discussion taking place. Analysis of the figure of resentment, which seems to be particularly present these days, starts out from this observation of the absence of real debate. Indeed this form of the “privatisation of ethical and civic universals” affirms, by a method of reasoning which the author qualifies as specious, that “my failure is the indication of my merit”. This method of reasoning is intimately linked to the conspiracy turn of mind, and operates on the basis of conspiratorial thinking. This, like the method of reasoning based on abduction inherited from the rhetoric of enclosed worlds, has the immense advantage of being extremely effective in terms of persuasion: gathering together a group defined by its identity, it supplies in one movement a single cause for all the injustices and political disasters being experienced, a cause that is indeed hidden, but irrefutable once it has been revealed. A normative conception of rhetoric would condemn this index-based method of reasoning as fallacious. Being abductive rather than inductive, it is not logically valid. It would then be necessary to look outside the rhetorical paradigm, towards the pre-Platonic, pre-logic – in a word, irrational – index paradigm. Even so, Marc Angenot emphasises that this method of reasoning is particularly useful these days, because it occupies the place left empty by the present context of “crisis” and the disintegration of the great promises of our times. Critique itself, the mainstay of modern times, is being replaced by its archaic corollary of storing up clues that reveal the Cause. Seen from this viewpoint, any attempt at critique is immediately interpreted as a new manifestation of the ignominy of the enemy. In psychological terms, it should no doubt be noted that such a practice is much more reassuring than the practice that consists of endless discussion on the basis of pre-required conditions – those of modernity – which appear to be at least in part placed in crisis [8]. Have the moderns we are “returned” to being irrational? Or are we discovering that we have never been rational in the way ideal rhetoric could have thought? The question remains unanswered.?

15 ?For his part, Philippe Breton adopts the notion of rhetorical incompetence as not only the sign but also part of the explanation of clearly diagnosed democratic incompetence. More specifically, the author holds that rhetoric and democracy are the two component parts of a single matrix, that of a specifically human ability taking the form of “competence”. This would, in a way, be the functional description of the rhetorical paradigm. We find competence at work in places of words, empty-centred circles, representing an axis of symmetry, symbolising equality. Equality has no meaning unless it is actually granted in the right to speak. Expressed differently, equality – as is liberty, which is correlative to it – cannot be acquired without learning how to speak out. Without such learning, a degree of rhetorical incompetence would lead to real democratic incompetence. What does this competence comprise? “Rules” is Philippe Breton’s answer, aware of the fact that he could be accused of a certain form of normativity that includes a touch of elitism, which is ultimately irreconcilable with democracy. At any event, these rules comprising rhetorical competence should make it possible for citizens to make judgments with a view to making decisions, not in the capacity of experts, but in the capacity of citizens. This is evidently also a function of democracy. Yet Philippe Breton’s observation on the current state of this competence among citizens is not optimistic. Thus on the basis of a certain number of observations made during experimentation [9], he draws up an inventory of incompetence (Breton, 2006).?

16 ?What does this observation mean? Is society in crisis because it realises the discrepancy between its democratic ideal and its practical achievements? Or is society at an early stage of democratic competence, such that there is reason to hope that it will evolve? Here again, there is no conclusive answer.?

Is there a crisis in decision-making?

17 ?A third type of approach involves thinking about the practice of argumentation in democracy, and more specifically in the deliberative function responsible for making decisions. Alban Bouvier, as a sociologist specialising in argumentation, asks the question clearly: “Is there is crisis in rhetoric or is there a crisis in democracy?” To answer the question, he observes the way in which democracies treat decisions, seen as the result of argumentative deliberation. In this perspective, the author proposes a full definition of argumentation: a technique aimed at persuasion by using rational means including logic, but also aiming for effectiveness. The corollary of this definition is that rhetoric is also a technique aimed at persuasion, but without a criterion of logic. We must therefore see in every valorisation of argumentation by a given society a movement of rhetorical anti-crisis. The hypothesis of an anti-crisis in rhetoric is supported by the analysis of two examples. The first concerns the highly valorised notion of “deliberative” democracy. This occurs most frequently in proximity contexts of democracy, as a reaction to a crisis in political authority, and more specifically as a reaction to a crisis in its legitimacy. This ought to be improved by using processes for justifying decisions made by elected representatives and, at the same time, by giving citizens the possibility of contesting decisions. The case in question involves people living on the sites of major regional development projects. Alban Bouvier points out two criticisms levelled at these practices. The first, marginal but interesting in terms of theory, comes from American feminists who stipulate that deliberation is not democratic because people do not all have the same talent for oratory. However, this turns the practice of argumentation into a gift, rather than a competence within Philippe Breton’s meaning. If this criticism were to be intensified, we could see in it – Alban Bouvier emphasises – a crisis in rhetoric. Indeed this talent, given by Nature, could not in any circumstances be equated with the systematic learning of a series of rules. The second, more serious, criticism claims that such a practice is a masquerade, on the basis that the decisions would in fact remain independent of the deliberations. Claims of this kind involve policy, while presupposing the valorisation of the practice of argumentation. In this sense, it does not reveal any crisis in rhetoric.?

18 ?The second example is that of the revalorisation of parliamentary debate. This comes from the United States, in the context of a political crisis suspected of promoting clientelism to the detriment of the common good. In such a framework, Alban Bouvier recalls that Jon Elster (1986) explicitly valorised the practice of argumentation in decision-making, in contrast to negotiation and voting. Here again this reveals a preference for the rational nature of deliberation, within Aristotle’s meaning. The author concludes by providing a specific answer to the question – there is a political crisis in which argumentation is valorised, and even used as a rhetorical anti-crisis.?

19 ?Lastly, Benoît Frydman considers the contestation of popular juries for assize court hearings. This originated in a personal experience, as the law professor was involved as a legal expert in the reform of this institution. The article therefore begins with an account that refers to the concern and frustration experienced during the procedure. Benoît Frydman had had the clear impression that, for the legal experts, it was a matter of ratifying the decision that had already been made to do away with popular juries for assize court hearings. The researcher sees in this the clear sign of a two-fold crisis, both in rhetoric and in democracy. By way of explanation, he recalls that the popular jury constitutes one of society’s most radically democratic institutions. However, the distrust of it on the part of a section of society is at least partly due to a certain conception of rhetoric. From this point of view, he stresses the intimate link that exists between an anti-democracy attitude and an anti-rhetoric attitude, as inherited from Plato. A contrario, he proposes a return to a culture of eloquence, orality, the expression of emotions – in short, a culture of fully assumed, incarnated rhetoric. The fact remains that such an experience of contesting popular juries expresses a paradox, since it goes against a current trend – also noted by Alban Bouvier – that consists of promoting situations of participative democracy. One of the reasons for this paradox is perhaps to be found in the fact that legal rhetoric constitutes the democratic institution par excellence where it is evident that the responsibility of rhetoric is crucial. As for any human activity, as soon as it appears conventional to the social stakeholders, it manifests thereby that it is not infallible.?

Conclusion

20 ?Representing, judging and deciding are human activities that are necessary for the construction of social reality, and they need the rhetorical function for their completion. However, the framework of rhetorical activity has always been torn between the question of the criteria for its rationality and the question of its actual effectiveness. In a democracy, argumentation supposes the use by society’s stakeholders of at least one of the functions analysed by the contributors to this presentation. Today, rhetorical reasoning appears to be challenged by its own functionality. Its practice reveals the chronic failings and limits of human ability to present the world, to formulate shared judgments, and hence to make decisions for the common good. This observation, whether or not it reveals a crisis, at any event sets the challenge of thinking about rhetoric, more particularly from the starting point of the failings and limits of its practice.?