Benjamin's Angel in the Eye of the Needle

“The state of emergency” [Ausnahmezustand] in which we live is the rule.--Walter Benjamin (VIII)

Two hunters are out in the woods when one of them collapses. He doesn't seem to be breathing and his eyes are glazed. The other guy whips out his phone and calls the emergency services. He gasps, "My friend is dead! What can I do?" The operator says "Calm down. I can help. First, let's make sure he's dead." There is a silence, then a gun shot is heard. Back on the phone, the guy says "OK, now what?"--World's Funniest Joke

Upon dwelling lately on "On the Concept of History," I was impressed by the fact that not unlike Hayek, Benjamin's treats Fascism as a natural development out of (vulgar) Marxism and Social Democracy (see paragraph XI). That is to say, they both diagnose a kind of social-conceptual-necessity that can hold between a particular set of beliefs (and social institutions) at one point and later social outcomes.** They both take care to distinguish this particular necessitating relationship from a cruder and more general determinism and progressivism. Moreover, they are both (as good readers of Nietzsche and Weber) aware of the suppressed theological commitments that animate the very idea of living with faith in science, and tempt the reader into a theological critique of these commitments. 

A crucial part of Benjamin's strategy is to offer an alternative to what he calls "homogeneous and empty time" (13ff). For, echoing Bergson, he rightly notes, despite the best efforts of the collaborating bureaucrats and some misguided philosophers of science, who impose homogeneous time on us, this need not be experienced time. That is to move momentarily to a metaphysical-Spinozistic register that articulates one version of Benjamin's general position: something need not be past as long as its effects can be made to endure (Ethics 1p36; recall here, here). In practice, this entails -- as Benjamin stresses -- that at any given moment our world is largely the product of victor's justice.

Benjamin's position is a healthy alternative to the ruling dogma's of today's cult of contingency embraced by the quietist followers of Foucault and Wittgenstein that dominates our era's historical reflection. On this today's historians are, despite mutual contempt, at one with the randomness-embracing mathematical, social scientists. By this I do not just mean that they (falsely) disown complicity in ruling ideology (although certainly there is that); they forsake part of their task, that is to generate the seeds of alternative futures.

Yet, doesn't there remain, a Tu Quoque? 

For, Benjamin's schema involves a friend-enemy distinction as well as a commitment to the live possibility of revolutionary shock-therapy; as long as Benjamin's thought is made to endure in our stormy times, we also allow ourselves to infect any possible future worth having.

Even so, the joke is that Benjamin's may be the least-worst option.

 

** I first learned the significance of this idea in Hume's analysis of the origin of justice.

Comments

[Eric Brown (Budapest)]

Thanks for reminding me how interesting Benjamin is. I've been thinking about how historical contingency or at least history should be related to (analytic) political philosophy and been leaning towards two views Foucault's and institutionalism in economic and the social science. Now I'll have to try to see what I can say on behalf of Foucault against your implied view. :)

[Eric Schliesser]

Well, I adore Foucault--I just think he has been domesticated by professional historians.