ABSTRACT
Ranciere distinguishes between three practices of ignorance, of which two operate in accordance with police logic and one in accordance with democratic logic. After attending to the distinction between the two logics and discussing the practices of ignorance aligned with each, this chapter draws on Etienne Balibar’s critique of Ranciere to propose that an additional, fourth, practice of ignorance associated with democracy deserves attention. If nothing else, this investigation refuses the theorization of ignorance as a state and even less necessarily a debilitating one. Rather, it reinforces ignorance as a practice—an activity with its own rules of what is and is not allowed—subject to change, and highlights the contested nature of ignorance and its relation to democracy. Complementing the existing linguistic order and the idiomatic-universal interruption, the dynamic democratizing force of translation involves diversional ignorance. The failure of ethical ignorance constitutes the practice of diversional ignorance.
