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Marx and God with anarchism: on Walter Benjamin’s concepts of history and violence

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Abstract

The article analyses relationships between profane and religious illumination, materialism and theology, politics and religion, Marxism and Messianism. For Walter Benjamin, every second is “the small gateway in time through which the Messiah might enter”. This is the starting point in the reading of Benjamin’s works, where we confront various liaisons and couplings of radical politics and messianic events. Through the reading of Benjamin and through the analysis of his conceptions of history and time, the article addresses the question what is possible in the world.

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Notes

  1. Bloch (1968, p. 317).

  2. Tiedemann (1983–1984, p. 91).

  3. Benjamin (2006a, p. 396). The original German title “Über den Begriff der Geschichte” is often translated wrongly as “Theses on the Philosophy of History.”

  4. Benjamin (2006a, p. 397).

  5. Benjamin (2006a, p. 390).

  6. Benjamin (2006b, p. 406).

  7. Benjamin (2006a, p. 396).

  8. Benjamin (2006b, p. 402).

  9. Benjamin (2006a, p. 395).

  10. Benjamin (2006a, p. 396).

  11. Benjamin (2006a, p. 397).

  12. Benjamin (2006a, p. 396).

  13. Benjamin (2006a, p. 397).

  14. Benjamin (2006a, p. 389).

  15. Benjamin (2006a, p. 389).

  16. Benjamin (1974, p. 1235).

  17. Löwith (1949, p. 45).

  18. Goldstein (2001, p. 271).

  19. Wohlfarth (1978, p. 151).

  20. Goldstein (2001, p. 250), Rabinbach (1992, ix).

  21. Benjamin (1994a, p. 245). Translation modified. Wolin considers this letter as “[t]he first significant indication of a serious turn to leftist political commitment on Benjamin’s part.” Wolin (1981, p. 85).

  22. Lacis (1971, p. 45).

  23. Benjamin (1998, p. 118).

  24. Bloch (2000, p. 278).

  25. Bloch (2000, p. 279).

  26. See Rabinbach (2000, p. 6).

  27. Bloch (1977).

  28. Benjamin (1994b, p. 268).

  29. Benjamin (1994c, p. 248).

  30. Benjamin (1994d, p. 300). Translation modified.

  31. Rabinbach (1985, p. 80).

  32. Löwy (1989, pp. 112–113).

  33. Löwy (1989, p. 113).

  34. Löwy (1989, p. 109).

  35. Löwy (1989, p. 112, see also pp. 109–110).

  36. Rabinbach (1985, p. 82).

  37. C.f. Goldman (1978).

  38. Löwith (1949, p. 42).

  39. Löwith (1949, pp. 42, 44).

  40. Goldstein (2001, p. 247).

  41. Derrida (1994, p. 89).

  42. Derrida (1994, p. 65).

  43. Derrida (1994, pp. 59, 90).

  44. See Tiedemann (1983–1984, p. 91).

  45. Tiedemann (1983–1984, p. 91).

  46. Tiedemann (1983–1984, p. 95).

  47. Habermas (1979, p. 51).

  48. Habermas (1979, p. 51).

  49. Habermas (1979, p. 54).

  50. Habermas (1979, p. 54).

  51. Habermas (1979, p. 51).

  52. Scholem (1976, p. 187).

  53. Scholem (1995, p. 13).

  54. Witte (1991, p. 126), Benjamin (2005a).

  55. Scholem (1988, p. 229). Goldstein (2001, p. 269.) says that after the Kraus-essay Benjamin did not engage in “the same type of explicit mixture of Marxism and Messianism until the late 1930s,” even though the mixture remained under the surface. Then again, Irving Wohlfarth (1986, p. 11) sees “Der Autor als Produzent” (The Author as Producer) (1934) as his “most programmatic materialist essay.”

  56. Scholem (1976, p, 231).

  57. Wolin (1981, p. 82) sees that there is a re-emergence of theological motifs identical to those of Benjamin’s early period in his later texts “Über das mimetische Vermögen” (On the Mimetic Faculty), “Franz Kafka,” and the seminal “On the Concept of History.”

  58. Scholem (1976, p, 231).

  59. Benjamin (2004a, p. 250).

  60. In a letter to Scholem in January 1921, Benjamin mentions first time “Zur Kritik der Gewalt.” The plan to do a work on politics emerges from his letters. See Benjamin (1996, pp. 54, 109, 119, 127, 177); Benjamin (1997, p. 9). See also Steinert (2001, p. 61).

  61. Benjamin calls divine violence as waltende, which does not exactly mean “sovereign,” which has strong connotations to political and legal sovereignty. We could speak also of “effective” violence. See Benjamin (2004a, p. 252).

  62. Benjamin (2004a, p. 252).

  63. Benjamin (2004a, p. 248).

  64. According to Tom McCall, in the Ancient Greek world a myth became a fictive totality, which was composed from momentary dispersed elements. Once the myth is constituted, it must be held together and maintained in reiterations and in the illusions of permanence and duration. In the myth, a momentary event is given temporal span and duration. The new mythology hides the discontinuousness that inhabits the singular acts of violence. Mythic violence is a theatrical gesture that inscribes pure violence into contexts where it may appear to be continuous and mythic representation is linked to colossal figures of authority and authorship, gods and fate, so that violence seems to come from some legitimate source. Mythic representative violence is thus a power-positing lasting performance. Moreover, the triumph of fate is the beginning of the law, which is the parasite of the myth just as the myth is the parasite of pure violence. The law arises only where the myth has been. McCall (1996, pp. 194–200).

  65. Benjamin (2004a, p. 248).

  66. Benjamin (2004a, p. 249).

  67. Benjamin (2004a, p. 249). Hermann Cohen had already made in Religion der Vernunft aus den Quellen des Judentums (1919) a distinction between mythology and religion, between the mythical polytheism and the ethical monotheism, in which the idea of unique God, which is not a reflection of nature, made possible the hope of achieving universal global justice. See Cohen (1972).

  68. Benjamin (2004a, p. 248).

  69. Benjamin (2004a, p. 249).

  70. Benjamin (2004a, p. 250).

  71. Benjamin (2004a, p. 249).

  72. Benjamin (2004a, p. 244). For Benjamin, the police bring forth this suspension of distinction. It enforces laws serving thus legal ends. However, thanks to its discretionary power, it also decides the means and ends itself with wide limits that exceed strict legality as it intervenes “‘for security reasons’ in countless cases where no clear legal situation exists.”

  73. Benjamin (2004a, p. 251). Translation modified.

  74. Benjamin (2004a, p. 247).

  75. Benjamin (2004a, p. 249). Translation modified.

  76. Benjamin (2004a, p. 252).

  77. Benjamin (2004a, pp. 251–252).

  78. Benjamin (2004b, p. 226).

  79. McNulty (2007, p. 42).

  80. McNulty (2007, p. 42).

  81. Benjamin (2004a, p. 247).

  82. Benjamin (2004a, p. 248). Translation modified.

  83. Wolin (1981, p. 83).

  84. Wolin (1981, p. 81).

  85. Wolin (1981, p. 84).

  86. Wolin (1981, p. 84).

  87. Wolin (1981, p. 84).

  88. Benjamin (1994c, p. 248).

  89. Wolin (1981, p. 87).

  90. Wolin (1981, p. 88).

  91. Benjamin (2006a, p. 397).

  92. Benjamin (2006a, p. 402).

  93. Benjamin (2006a, p. 396).

  94. Benjamin (2006a, p. 396).

  95. Benjamin (2006b, p. 402).

  96. Benjamin (2006b, p. 402).

  97. Benjamin (2006b, p. 401).

  98. Benjamin (2006b, p. 403).

  99. Gold (2006, p. 1231).

  100. Benjamin (1974, p. 1242, 1244).

  101. Benjamin (2006a, p. 397).

  102. Benjamin (2006b, p. 407).

  103. Benjamin (1974, p. 1246).

  104. Benjamin (2006b, p. 407).

  105. Benjamin (2006b, p. 402). Translation modified.

  106. Benjamin (2006b, p. 402).

  107. Benjamin (2006b, p. 403). Emphasis mine.

  108. Benjamin (2006a, p. 394).

  109. Benjamin (2004a, p. 251).

  110. Benjamin (2006a, p. 391).

  111. Benjamin (2004a, p. 247). Translation modified.

  112. Benjamin (2004a, p. 251).

  113. Benjamin (2004a, p. 249).

  114. Benjamin (2004a, p. 250). Translation modified.

  115. Benjamin (2004a, p. 250). Italics mine.

  116. Benjamin (2004a, pp. 244–245, 247).

  117. See Benjamin (2004c, p. 64).

  118. See Salzani (2008, p. 24).

  119. Why not the politics of pure ends? The politics of pure ends, Kant’s ends-in-themselves, may offer, according to Benjamin, a minimal program for the critique of legal violence, but it does not go very far, since, Peter Fenves says, every legal order may present itself as means to preserve one’s person as its immediate end. Fenves (1998, p. 46).

  120. Benjamin (2004a, p. 252). Translation modified.

  121. Benjamin (2004b, p. 227).

  122. Benjamin (2004a, p. 252). Translation modified.

  123. Steiner (2001, p. 46). Benjamin compares Sorel’s political considerations with his own purely theoretical ones. Benjamin (2004a, p. 245).

  124. Benjamin (2004a, p. 252).

  125. Benjamin (2006c, p. 305).

  126. Benjamin (2006c, p. 305).

  127. Benjamin (2006c, p. 306).

  128. See Goldstein (2001, p. 271).

  129. Benjamin (2004a, p. 245). Translation modified. Fenves (1998, p. 45).

  130. Critchley (2008, p. 5).

  131. Benjamin (2006c, p. 305).

  132. Martel (2012, p. 147).

  133. Benjamin (2004a, p. 252).

  134. Benjamin (2004a, p. 251).

  135. Benjamin (1974, p. 1242).

  136. Benjamin (2004a, p. 252). Translation modified.

  137. Benjamin (2006a, p. 395).

  138. Benjamin (2004d, pp. 340–341); see also Salzani (2008, p. 36).

  139. Benjamin (2006a, p. 392). However, between 1933 and 1935 Benjamin considered the technological progress as an instrument that could forward revolutionary politics. At the same time, he had quite uncritical stand towards the Soviet Union. Löwy (1985, pp. 53–54).

  140. Already in “Das Leben der Studenten” (The Life of Students) (1915), Benjamin spoke against the view of history that concerns only with the speed of progress. It does not recognize the demands the past makes on the present. Benjamin (2004e, p. 37). According to Matthias Fritsch, Benjamin’s construction of the counter-historical montage of “the trash of history” demonstrates that Benjamin sees the claim of the dead as a call to responsibility. The memory of the past violence is to assume the promises of past struggles and to draw strength from them for present and further struggles. Fritsch (2005, p. 8).

  141. Benjamin (2006a, p. 394).

  142. See Wolin (1981, p. 86).

  143. Habermas (1979, p. 55).

  144. Löwy (1985, p. 50).

  145. Löwy (1995).

  146. Benjamin (1974, p. 1241).

  147. Benjamin (1994d, p. 300).

  148. Löwy (1985, p. 43).

  149. Benjamin (2006c, p. 305).

  150. Benjamin (1994d, p. 301).

  151. Benjamin (1994d, p. 248).

  152. Benjamin (2005b, p. 218). James McBride considers that for Benjamin, Marxism’s revolutionary nature, rather than its dogmatic and epistemological one, contributed to the discovery of truth. McBride (1989, p. 261).

  153. Benjamin (2004a, p. 241).

  154. Benjamin (2004a, p. 241).

  155. Benjamin (2004f, p. 233).

  156. Benjamin (2005b, pp. 215–216).

  157. Benjamin (2005b, p. 207).

  158. Bakunin (1965, p. 173).

  159. Benjamin (2004a, p. 246), Sorel (1936, pp. 221–268).

  160. Benjamin (2004a, p. 252).

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  1. Faculty of Law, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland

    Ari Hirvonen

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Correspondence to Ari Hirvonen.

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A member of Centre of Excellency in Foundations of European Law and Polity, funded by the Academy of Finland.

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Hirvonen, A. Marx and God with anarchism: on Walter Benjamin’s concepts of history and violence. Cont Philos Rev 45, 519–543 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11007-012-9234-9

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