Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 47:02 — 43.1MB)
Continuing on Benjamin's "Critique of Violence" (1921).
Mark, Wes, and Seth keep trying to figure out this difficult essay. Is Benjamin really advocating a workers' revolution to end the state, or just reflecting on a hypothetical to explore the limits of the concept of violence? According to Judith Butler's interpretation of the essay, the takeaway is the alternative to motivation through force, i.e., speech. She supports this by referring to some other essays, "The Task of the Translator" (1921, i.e., immediately after the current essay) and the earlier "On Language as Such and on the Language of Man" (1916), where language is given functions with religious significance (he talks about "the divine infinity of the pure word"). This connects, of course (in ways that I don't understand, having not read those essays), with how Benjamin actually concludes "Critique of Violence," which is with the discussion of "divine violence" as somehow transcending means-end analysis and the corruption inherent in violence.
Begin with part one or get the full, ad-free Citizen Edition. Please support PEL!
End song: "Jericho" from hackedepiciotto, as interviewed on Nakedly Examined Music #116.
Sponsor: Visit thegreatcoursesplus.com/PEL for a free month of unlimited learning with The Great Courses Plus Video Learning Service.
Sarah says
March 10, 2020 at 1:54 amWhat’s the name is this song?
Mark Linsenmayer says
March 10, 2020 at 8:25 amOops, thanks, I’ve added it to the description.
Sebastian says
March 10, 2020 at 6:54 amTo clarify the point about pure means, it may come from Kant’s moral philosophy rather than the aesthetics. Just to point out, the criterion for the morality of maxims determining actions is not an end, but rather merely its conformity to Reason’s highest rule, the categorical imperative. Thus acting morally flows from the rule itself, not in any pursuit of a an assumed goal (the Good, under whatever form it is determined).
I don’t know whether Benjamin was that familiar with Kant’s moral philosophy (Continental philosophers often don’t take that part as seriously). However, that part of Kant may make more sense of that point about divine violence. Furthermore, looking at what Kant says about God’s will or the holy will, there we have faculties that are not partially determined by sensuous grounds and where we thus have the conflict of choosing between goals and acting from the moral law. Divine violence would thus be exacting what the moral law requires, without a look to the goal that it is trying to achieve. Since the moral law is a thing from out of this world, it also wouldn’t be caught up in the process of instituting/reinforcing the law.
Mark Linsenmayer says
March 10, 2020 at 8:27 amThanks, that makes sense. I think we were too beholden to the secondary source in this case (which was talking about the aesthetics).
Mark Linsenmayer says
March 10, 2020 at 8:27 amThanks, that makes sense. I think we were too beholden to the secondary source in this case (which was talking about the aesthetics).
Dan McLaughlin says
March 15, 2020 at 9:47 amGood discussion. Thank you. The shuffling about means without end is probably one of the ideas that inspired the Frankfurt Schools focus on instrumental reasoning. Agamben, of course, runs with this thread, profitably, depending on your view, chasing down these ideas in his Sacer Homo series, as well as Means without End, where I think he’s moving toward the relationship, if one can be convincingly offered, between gesture outside of language (like violence without aiming for state) and messianism. It was also his contribution to the Paulist charrette.
Phil Tanny says
April 8, 2020 at 5:51 amI wonder if analyzing violence is really so complicated. It seems a simple fact will suffice. 95%+ of violence is committed by men, a consistent pattern going back thousands of years. Anyone older than 10 can turn on their TV and see this for themselves.
Defining the problem this simply would seem to open the door to a simple (not to be confused with easy) solution. What if there were no male humans? Or perhaps only a tiny number made available for breeding?
In such a case the vast majority of violence would seem to vanish, alleviating vast suffering. This in turn would allow trillions upon trillions of dollars now spent in response to violence to be redirected towards more constructive projects like health care and education etc. In short, a world without men would reach the long sought goal of world peace, or as close to it as we’re likely to ever get.
So, world peace is possible. But we don’t like the price tag so we declare it impossible.
Sometimes making the issue as simple as possible is the most useful philosophy?