compromise. Now, the investigation into the hierarchy of deals bears
precisely upon propositions thatdo not yet know definitively to what
common setthey belong. Appearances notwithstanding, the appeal to
any transcendence at all made this work of ordering simplyimpossible,
for the (provisional) model against which the new deals were to be
measured was stabilized too quickly, before the following phase of in-
stitution. The investigation does not start, then, with stubborn es-
sences and headstrong interests, but with situations of uncertainty
shared by allabout the nature of the order that connects these entities
by order of importance. The common measure for incommensurable
beings cannot be found by any means other than the collaboration of
scientists, politicians, economists, and moralists. Even if modernism
always preferred to establish priorities surreptitiously and avoid in
all possible ways what we have called the requirement of publicity*,
the fact remains that it complicated the task of compromise that it
claimed to be settling by avoiding it, since it always brought to bear on
the negotiators the threat of an agreement that wouldcome from some-
where else.If the recourse to immanence, which we have called secular-
ization, produces at first glance a particularly horrible monster, it at
least makes agreement possible, since it obliges the lower house to
find a solution within itself. It restores to thedemoswhat thedemos
had been deprived of since the invention of the Cave.
The investigation bears upon a blend of skills: an ingenious innova-
tion is developed by clever engineers, one class of beings is substituted
for another by bold scientists in order to unblock stalemated power
relations, accommodations are made behind closed doors, simulations
are produced by means of calculations, cold diplomacy is accompa-
nied by the occasional moment of enthusiasm to warm up this im-
probable heap of compromises, during which the concerned entities
modify the representative base on which they had founded their inter-
ests up to that point. Then the miracle is produced and the impossible
harmony among incommensurables is discovered—not because the
right compromise has been made, but because the nature of the “we”
with which each one had chosen to identify has been changed. This
work is found impure only by those who believe that the Old Regime
did better, whereas its impossible purification of facts and values re-
sulted only in a revolting confusion. By seeking to do better, people
have always done worse. In practice, the past arrangements always had
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