Emotion, Reason and Self: Reconsidering the Understanding of Others in Multicultural Education

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1 Working paper abstract on the issue of Translation, untranslatability and the (mis)understanding of other cultures Emotion, Reason and Self: Reconsidering the Understanding of Others in Multicultural Education Nami Fujimoto Graduate School of Education Kyoto University Issues with Multicultural Education In seeking to enable individuals with different cultural backgrounds to coexist, there are many practices in Japan s multicultural education that aims to promote classroom discussions and raise students awareness of other cultures. However, such classroom activities could be very limited in preparing students for the reality of the disturbing gap between different social and economic groups and global society s overall attitude of maintaining ignorance and disregarding inefficiencies and differences. Indeed, one per cent of the entire world population is said to own the same amount of wealth as the rest combined (Oxfam, 2016). Facts such as these represent the malfunctioning and unfeasibility of the present consensual process in both domestic and international communities, indicating that just being aware of the differences and improving discussion techniques are not sufficient. In the field of education, we cannot overlook this reality. Accordingly, the paper attempts to respond to this issue by drawing on the theories of Jacques Rancière and other contemporary philosophers. Specifically, it seeks to explore the act of translation in an effort to communicate with incomprehensive others and reconsiders the concepts of self and others and of the relation between them. Throughout its course, this paper underscores the issues of reason, emotion and self, thereby attempting to answer the question: How can we live with others whilst being able to understand them only to a limited extent? 1. Political Subjects First, before discussing translation, the paper examines the notions of politics and political subjects, with reference to Rancière. As is well known, he proposes an unconventional notion of politics. By criticising Harbarmasian idea of deliberative democracy that presupposes the equality of participants, Rancière presents a conception of politics in which those who are ignored and proportionless come to raise voices in order to be recognized as part of the community.

2 Those Shifting Their Bodies According to Rancière, police, is an order of bodies that allocates ways of doing, ways of being, and ways of saying to individuals (Rancière, 2004a, p. 29). In other words, it is an order of hierarchy and domination (Chambers, 2011, p. 321). Contrarily, politics is not something involving governance. However, it is understood as whatever breaks with the tangible configuration (Rancière, 2004a, pp ) by which those who did not have a place in the configuration are going to be defined (Ibid.). This means that politics is already going on even when a group of people are oppressed, and their lives cannot be defined in relation to the norms of their police. Accordingly, a political subject is one who can shift one s body from the place assigned to it (Ibid., p.30) in the given configuration. Following this statement, Rancière continues that politics is a matter of subject and modes of subjectification (Rancière, 1998, p.35). 1 Moreover, political subjectifcation produces a multiple that was not given in the police constitution of the community (Ibid., p.36). It is also the manifestation of a gap between the part of work as social function and the having no part of those (Ibid.). It follows that the notion of political subjects that Rancière proposes allows multiple ways of self manifestation based on the understanding of politics as breaking the conventional order. Furthermore, Rancière states that the shifting of bodies occurs in the system of self-evident facts of sense perception that simultaneously discloses the existence of something in common and the delimitations that define the respective parts and positions within it (Rancière, 2004b, p. 12). Therefore, this distribution creates something common that is shared and exclusive parts at one and the same time (Ibid.). Referring to Plato, Rancière calls this distribution the distribution of the sensible, and this is why politics can be regarded as aesthetical. Community of Political Subjects as Reasonable Ones Rancière s discourse of politics as an interruption to the given social order is concomitant with the discourse of equality in the sense that it breaks and twists the order of the superior and the inferior intelligences. In this way, Rancière asserts that all humans are equally intelligent. 2 Conversely, Rancière states that A society, a people, a state, will always be irrational. He opposes to such an aggregation and institutionalisation of individuals and says that the reason of the person itself which can emancipate herself (Rancière, 1991, p. 80). 3 Indeed, in many schools, students are categorised into inferior 1 Rancière states that political subjectification is the production through a series of actions of a body and a capacity for emancipation not previously identifiable within a given field of experience (Rancière, 1995, p.35). This leads to the statement that the identification of the subject is part of the field of the reconfiguration of the field of experience (Ibid.). 2 Rancière explains that what stultifies the common people is not the lack of instruction, but the belief in the inferiority of their intelligence (Rancière, 1991, p. 39). 3 Therefore, Rancière continues that should intellectual emancipation be inscribed on the banners of sedition nor can the

3 and superior, and occasionally some are treated as inferiors in turn being disempowered by schools (Levinson, 2012, pp ). However, this does not mean that Rancière denies communities entirely. He suggests In a given social order, it s possible for all individuals to be reasonable (Rancière, 1991, p. 96). A society as such will never be reasonable, but it could experience the miracle of reasonable moments arising not in the coincidence of intelligence but in the reciprocal recognition of reasonable will (Ibid.). 4 In brief, Rancière states that politics consists of physical and aesthetical movements that break the conventional order and allows individuals who did not have a voice to speak to others in the community. Moreover, he claims that all individuals are equally intelligent. 2. Translation Secondly, this paper argues that individuals can realise self and recognise others in the act of translation. In this process, the paper closely examines how Rancière defines reason, emotion and self. In addition, by also referring to other philosophers, including Bin Kimura, the paper explores how individuals can live with incomprehensive others. Rancière asserts that politics interrupts conventional social orders, thereby disturbing the categorisation such as the superior and the inferior. He understands that it is our veracity, i.e. a sincere will to translate and counter-translate that can create the miraculous moment of reciprocal recognition of reasonable will. There are no particular pedagogical performances to expect from an emancipated gardener or from the ignorant master in general, Rancière says (Ibid., p. 39). According to Rancière, translation allows individuals to face to each other and to the unspoken materials such as others writings (Ibid., p. 64). He asserts All words, written or spoken, are a translation that only takes on meaning in the counter-translation (Ibid.). Counter-translation is the effort of those who recognise and respect each other s intelligence to attempt to translate and retranslate their thoughts into words and words into thoughts in the situation of communication (Ibid., p. 63). He asserts, The impossibility of our saying the truth, even when we feel it, makes us speak as poets, makes us tell the story of our mind s adventures and verify that they are understood by other adventures, makes us communicate our feelings and see the shared by other feelings (Ibid., p. 64). This is called improvisation, and this is the reason translation is considered teaching method following this belief be included in any social programme (Rancière, 1991, p. 102). 4 Rancière states that as long as equality of intelligence is mutually presupposed, one can be reasonable even in discouraging environment. He says that one can increase the number of people who, as individuals, will make use of reason, and who, as citizens, will know how to seek the art of raving as reasonably as possible even within such an environment (Rancière, 1991, p. 98).

4 poetry 5. An individual, therefore, uses language as a tool like an artisan (Ibid., p.65). In this sense, translation deals with feeling, voice, and the life as a whole of the individual. This is why speech and the conception of all works as discourse are prerequisite to any learning (Ibid.). Precisely because of this, Rancière says, the artisan must speak about his work to be emancipated and the student must speak about the art he wants to learn (Ibid.). Therefore, people speak and translate in turn dividing their thoughts for others in an artistic manner (Ibid., p. 62). Others do the same. If one considers language in this way, there is no division of the language of power and that of powerlessness. By following Rancière, people cannot be emancipated even if they acquire the language of power and transform the social structure using it. This is because former speechless might have to put another in the place where they used to be. Accordingly, Rancière s notion of translation offers an alternative to the notion of self-recognition. As far as individuals can mutually recognise each other s intelligence in the first place and then continuously repeat the process of translation and counter-translation, these preconditions and processes should enable individuals to recognise who they are and speak about themselves whilst allowing others to do the same. Toward the Conclusion By analysing the relation between recognition and interruption and between translation and interruption in the process of translation, the paper will clarify several conceptions, including reason, emotion and self. In turn, it will explain how an individual constantly and gradually forms and reforms self, and how one can react to the reality in which one might fail to communicate with others despite the belief that our thoughts are communicable. The paper will also address the issue of listening to others which is not well discussed by Rancière. It will conclude by stating that translation is a critical approach in multicultural education since it helps individuals to coexist with incomprehensive others. 5 Moreover, in the fact of speaking, man doesn t transmit his knowledge, he makes a poetry; he translates and invites others to do the same. In this way, when man acts on matter, the body s adventure becomes the story of the mind s adventure (Rancière, 1991, p.65).

5 References : Kimura, Bin, Entre «ONOZUKARA» et «MIZUKARA», Ecrits de psychopathologie phénomenologique, Paris : Universitaires de France, Levinson, Meira, No Citizen Left Behind, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, Oxfam, An Economy for the 1% : How privilege and power in the economy drive extreme inequality and how this can be stopped, PDF file: -privilege-and-power-in-the-economy-drive-extreme-inequ (retrieved from Oxfam UK website on 25 January 2016). Rancière, Jaques; The Ignorant Schoolmaster Five Lessons in Intellectual Emancipation, Stanford, CA : Stanford University Press, 1991 ; Le maître ignorant : cinq leçons sur l émancipation intellectuelle, Paris : Librairie Arthème Fayard, Rancière, Jaques, Dis-agreement Politics and Philosophy, Minneapolice, MN: Universityy of Minnesota Press, 1998; La Mésentente, Paris: Edition Galiée, Rancière, Jaques, Philosopher and his Poor, Durham: NC, Duke University Press, 2004; La philosophe et ses pauvres, Paris: Champs Flammarion, Ranciére, Jacques, The Politics of Aesthetics, New York, NY : Continuum, 2004 ; Le Partage du sensible : Esthétique et politique, Paris: La Fabrique-Editions, 2000.

Japan Library Association

1 of 5 Japan Library Association -- http://wwwsoc.nacsis.ac.jp/jla/ -- Approved at the Annual General Conference of the Japan Library Association June 4, 1980 Translated by Research Committee On the Problems