In her analysis of the way the heterosexual residents of gentrified gay neighbourhoods see homosexuality, the sociologist Sylvie Tissot reveals logics of domination dressed up as progressivism.
When, and in what historical and conceptual context, did the notion of public opinion make an appearance? What theoretical role has it taken on? Can it be considered a concept, or is it among those words that are if not empty then at least ambivalent and volatile, and whose unmasking is incumbent upon philosophy?
The Politics of the Veil is an exemplary exercise in the critique of discourse, unearthing its intentional and subconscious meaning, and bringing to the surface its internal tensions and paradoxes; but the counter-discourse of toleration and recognition may turn out to be as problematic as the republican discourse of abstraction, denial and repression so eloquently criticised.
