Brendan Moran

An Inhumanly Wise Shame

In Kafkas work, Benjamin detects a gesture of shame, which he characterizes as historico-philosophic (geschichtsphilosophisch). He considers Kafkas gesture of shame to be philosophic in its opposition to myth, which is closure concerning history. In its elaboration of Kafkas gesture, moreover, Benjamins analysis itself becomes a gesture of shame and thus somehow “literary.” This does not detract from the notion that the gesture—in Kafkas work and in Benjamins criticism—remains philosophic. Kafkas literary work is philosophic in shaming mythic interpretations of it; Benjamins philosophic criticism continues this gesture by advancing shame about mythic tendencies either in the work or in its reception. Without pathos, Kafka presents astonished shame at mythic human order and is attentive to exceptions to, deviations from, such order. Benjamins criticism continues the latter attentiveness, but the attentiveness, the philosophic element in Kafkas literature, is also betrayed by Benjamin in some respects.

Foolishness of Philosophy

The historico-philosophic shame about myth (closure) might even facilitate Benjamin’s interest in those who are deemed foolish by mythic standards. This interest might be, above all, commendation of a wisdom that elicits, gives prominence to, or even somehow promotes, such fools or foolishness. This wisdom would arise both from receptive attention to the tension that the fools represent in relation to discernible closure, and from the previously discussed underlying and correlative shame about closure. In this way, the philosophic in Kafka’s works and in Benjamin’s criticism is itself foolish. It has departed from the demands of recognizable myths.

Philosophy, Literature, Politics

Philosophic criticism provides a persistence of truth-oriented discourse against any ostensibly concluded gesture of an artwork. Such persistence continues the exercise – initiated by the artwork – of breaking recognizable myth. The artwork performatively eludes discursive rendering and thereby helps to keep philosophy philosophic: such unyielding is the philosophic element in the artwork. Attentiveness to this philosophic element of the artwork is integral to criticism itself being philosophy. The literary element in philosophy is the gesture enacting an inextinguishably mysterious particularity of any expression, including philosophy itself. “Kafkan” politics requires this gesture. Philosophy is thereby renegade in relation to myth, which attempts to subsume experience. Insofar as Benjamin disregards the pressure of inextricable particularity as accentuated in Kafka’s literature, the philosophical character of his criticism is diminished.

Anxious Friendliness as Physical Attentiveness

Not to fear distraction by (what Levinas dismisses as) “underground passages” is an overhuman pressure placed by Benjamin on the philosophic. The philosophic removes us as much as possible not only from mythic reassurances but also from mythic fears. Wisdom involves “friendliness” that is provided at times and places that are most difficult. Agamben defines philosophy as “nonpredicative” friendship. For Benjamin’s Kafka, philosophy as friendliness is no escape from representation and conceptualization but is an attempt to consider representation and conceptualization as emerging from distracting and distorting physicality that does not entirely manifest itself. Philosophy as friendliness must be willing to lend attention to anything, for everything belongs to the unincorporable physicality on behalf of which this friendliness is anxious to offset mythic constraint.

Gesture of Philosophy

Many objections to Benjamin’s gesture, along with Adorno’s quasi-Hegelian criticisms of Benjamin’s Kafka-readings, are of limited relevance to the gesture discerned by Benjamin in Kafka and to the correlative gesture of Benjamin’s writing. Unlike some of his critics, Benjamin himself does not characterize his work as gestural, but Adorno might not be wrong in referring to Benjamin’s gesture. The gesture is esoteric not in the sense of binding itself with a secret that only adepts can access; neither authoritarian nor immobilizing, it offers nothing as authority and thereby recognizes secret for all. This is not secret that can be rendered, but rather secret that remains despite attempts to render it. Hence, the need for philosophic gesture that goes beyond thorough articulation.

In the Epic Vorwelt

For Benjamin, Kafka’s Vorwelt (pre-world) precedes the world constituted by myth. According to some, Benjamin portrays this prehistory as itself a mythic – unduly constrictive – force to be remembered so that it is no longer determinant. Another tendency in Benjamin’s Kafka-writings is, however, to present the Vorwelt as a pre-mythic residue that defies attempts to constrict it or be entirely conscious of it. Whereas Franz Rosenzweig focusses on the potential of humans to overcome the Vorwelt, Benjamin often uses the term “Vorwelt” to refer to an irrevocably shared experience – our epic Vorwelt. Insofar as Benjamin presumes an overcoming of the Vorwelt, he disregards Kafka’s literary accentuation of our distortedly particular relationship with all and everything, including ourselves. Benjamin thereby diminishes the philosophic character of his criticism.

Prophecy of Shame

Benjamin’s approach to Kafka is a convergence of prophecy and criticism. Kafka’s writings prepare themselves for continually being read as a twofold prophesy: of a future of myth, and of a potential philosophic capacity for shame about myth. Benjamin’s philosophic criticism responds to this impetus in Kafka’s writings and thereby continues the prophecy. Under mythic constraints, it is possible that all are victims of questionable imperatives. Shame about those imperatives is a possibility that may be prophesied. The basis for such shame is the inhuman, which may always be critically juxtaposed with human presumptions to dominate it. Whereas Agamben considers it certain that shame about the human will continue as long as the inhuman is witnessed, Benjamin’s Kafka prophesies this shame as simply a possibility.

Exception and Decision: The Extreme and Philosophic Politics

Although some claim Benjamin’s works refuse decision, Benjamin outlines philosophic decision as taking exception to closures. Exceptions and extremes in relation to closures can highlight the limitedness of the closures themselves. While exceptions and extremes do not necessarily set standards for philosophic decision, they might make evident the myths from which they deviate. Contrary to deconstructive criticisms of Benjamin, philosophic decision, like Benjaminian-Kafkan attentiveness, does not presume to expunge its own contingency. It does dissociate itself from recognizable efforts simply to control or eliminate exceptions and extremes. Benjamin’s philosophic decision is thus distinct from the decision criticized in Francois Laruelle’s rejection of philosophy. To the slight extent that Benjamin does succumb to the project of eliminating exceptions, however, he betrays his own philosophic politics.

Historico-Philosophic Shame

Agamben recurrently works a somewhat Benjaminian conception of shame into his writings and especially into Quel che resta di Auschwitz (1999). This chapter is concerned quite specifically with shame as a gesture of philosophy. The shame is a gesture, for it recalls a force that dissociates from historical incarnations. The gesture of philosophic shame is not quite the discharge that is advocated by Deleuze and Guattari or the internalized community of sentiment that is formulated as shame by Bernard Williams. Benjamin’s Kafka-writings and Agamben’s relevant texts (with distinct nuances) concern shame that includes constant preparedness to dissociate from notions of discharge and from the conclusions of community sentiment. This dissociation is integral to the philosophic gesture of both Benjamin and Agamben.

Exception, decision and philosophic politics Benjamin and the extreme

Walter Benjamin’s writings are often read in terms of their emphasis on undecidability. This article focuses on Benjamin’s view of decision as a philosophic capacity to suspend recognizable myth. Myth is recognizable as closure. Myth becomes recognizable as myth when exceptions and extremes arise in relation to it. Without necessarily following the specific exception or extreme (which may itself be mythic), philosophy is a politics that is attuned to the capacity of an exception or extreme to perform the limit of a specific mythic form. In elaborating philosophically impelled decision as a capacity to take exception to myth, the article compares Benjamin’s works with writings by Agamben, Schmitt, Hiller, Sorel, Derrida and others. At various points in the article, and especially towards the end, the discussion of the notion of philosophic decision includes consideration of ways in which aspects of Benjamin’s enmity to myth might themselves become mythic, unphilosophic.