the untenability of history

The first step in the transvaluation of history entails the destruction of the old forms of history, which is accomplished via the “most nihilistic thought”, eternal recurrence. Benjamin tells us that “in the idea of eternal recurrence, the historicism of the nineteenth century capsizes” (AP [D8a,2]). This form of historicism is based on much of the same values as the old forms of aesthetics, that is to say, of the historical object having a unique existence in space and time. In the last chapter, it was shown how, given the thought of eternal recurrence as a form of mass production, even unique art objects become mere recurrent reproductions. Eternal recurrence means that in order for a thing to be, it has to recur. As such, everything that is now has already been. This understanding now forces itself on the past, in that it transforms “even the historical event into a mass-produced item” (AP [J62a,2]). As a mass produced item, the historical event can hold no claims to a unique existence; from the point of view of recurrence, the Paris commune is no longer “the” Paris commune, but rather “a” Paris commune. The result of this thought, Benjamin tells us, is that “every tradition, even the most recent, becomes the legacy of something that has already run its course in the immemorial night of the ages” (AP [D8a,2]).

Another aspect of historicism which crumbles under the thought of eternal recurrence is progress. Progress is little more than the ossification of history into a fixed narrative, closing the borders of the past at all points. For Benjamin, there is no such thing as progress. Becoming wants nothing and aims at nothing, and as such it tends only towards itself. The most nihilistic thought attacks the notion of progress, as Eduardo Cadava writes, “within a cosmic process of repetition, the notion of progress belongs to the domain of phantasmagoria.” Given the knowledge of recurrence, belief in any notion of progress seems incredibly foolish; eternal recurrence brings the untenability of traditional history to the fore, exposing it for what it is. Progress implies movement towards something, towards a definite endpoint; it implies improvement. For Benjamin, this manifests itself, via the vulgar-Marxist conception, as the transformation of history into a natural science. History tries to follow the same rules as science, looking for laws and truths with which to claim some authority on the past. This is precisely what Nietzsche is referring to when he critiques the pursuit of historical knowledge. Historical truths and norms are impossible because “[the world] is ‘in flux,’ as something in a state of becoming, as a falsehood always changing but never getting near the truth: for – there is no ‘truth’” (WP §616). Becoming evades all laws and truths, and as such, progress can never approach anything other than becoming itself.

The notion of progress is extremely dangerous for Benjamin, as it is in its name that the opponents of fascism accept its emergence as a “historical norm” (SW 4:392). There is no such thing as historical norms; they are solely the invention of man, forcing some kind of order onto the past. In thesis IX, Benjamin refers to progress as storm which prevents history from righting itself. The angel of history is caught in the wings of progress, helpless to repair the catastrophe of human history as he is ceaselessly blown away. Progress is inherently tied to the status quo; in fact, it creates the status quo. “That things are ‘status quo’,” writes Benjamin, “is the catastrophe” (AP [N9a,1]). Progress refuses to let things be, trying to organize history in to norms, laws and narratives. As such, it subverts human activity: “nothing so corrupted the German working class as the nothing that it was moving with the current” (SW 4:393). The problem lies in that there is no “current” in becoming, it just flows. It moves and unfolds, but it has no ends other than itself. This belief in progress amounts to little more than petty fatalism, pushing towards the inevitable end of the linear course of history, whether it be the victory of fascism or the utopia of the proletariat (SW 4:394). It is precisely this conception of progress that causes the worker to sacrifice his revolutionary potential, as it presents fealty to progress as inherently revolutionary. This conception is impossible, there is no such thing as the end of the course of history (for becoming has no aim). The closest thing to the end of history is the perspective afforded us via the thought of eternal recurrence, which is that existence never ends, it just recurs. The idea of progress crumbles, and “the idea that history is something that can be narrated” dies with it (SW 4:406).

There is a unifying core principle that underlies the various manifestations of progress: “the concept of [mankind’s] progression through a homogenous, empty time.” Benjamin argues that “a critique of the concept of such a progression must underlie any critique of the concept of progress itself” (SW 4:395). Progress relies on the openness of the future, the endless extension of existence; it needs space to operate. Even those conceptions of progress which approach something – revolution, utopia, et cetera – are reliant upon a concept of time as an empty space across which it can march on its way towards destiny. However, in the realm of eternal recurrence, time is always already spoken for. Nietzsche writes that time is eternal, and the changes within time – that is to say history and becoming – are merely how we experience it. Repetition simply reveals to us the fact “that it has always happened thus” (WP §545). This is not to say that Benjamin rejects progress in favor of a fatalistic conception of history, for fatalism means nothing if we do not know what was fated beforehand. The only end – fated or otherwise – towards which existence tends is recurrence. The affirmation of eternal recurrence negates fatalism, turning it into an act of creation. At the same time, Benjamin tells us that instead of empty time, we should see the history as a construction within “time filled full by now-time” (SW 4:395). Now-time is a tool with which the continuity of the discourse of historical progress can be broken, in that it is used to link the present to moments in the past. Now-time as recurrent time means that progress can no longer attain to its narrative of causality, for within eternal recurrence, the motor of existence is “no longer cause and effect” (WP §1059). The eternal repetition of the interaction of forces removes cause and effect, as each element of the cycle conditions all other. Eternal recurrence provides us with a sequence of events, but it does not mean that they necessarily cause each other. Nietzsche explains that “the feeling that post hoc is propter hoc can easily be shown to be a misunderstanding”; rather, the cycle “is comprehensive” (WP §545).

This is not to say that Benjamin – or Nietzsche for that matter – is annihilating history. The Dionysian process means that the old forms of historicism are destroyed in order to make way for a new creation of history. The additive process of historical progress, the accumulation of “a mass of data to fill the homogenous, empty time” (SW 4:396), can never approach becoming, for becoming itself is a process of this destructive regeneration. As such, the new form of historiography must take this maxim into account: “the relationship of what has been to the now is dialectical: is not a progression but image, suddenly emergent” (AP [N2a,3]). The activity of history is now solely concerned with the undertaking of the construction of images.

work report for week ending 22 june / new directions

I have excuses for why this week hasn't been as productive as I wanted, but they are just excuses. However, I have had a productive past few days. I finished reading Words of Light and it has proved highly useful (an in-depth analysis will follow shortly). I went to Birkbeck yesterday to do some reading. I have found it difficult lately to get work done around the house, as there are just too many distractions. While sitting in the silent reading room, reading Cadava's book, I had a breakthrough.

Au revoir, M. Debord. I think it's about time we parted ways. It's not you, it's me. Honest. I really do like you. The Society of the Spectacle is a fantastic piece of work. I'm just not ready for a commitment of this level. We can still be friends though. And who knows, maybe down the road we can get back together.

I feel kind of bad about it though. My supervisor was pretty gung-ho about my project, telling me not to change it. While it does have the advantage of being original, I'm just floundering at this point. Besides, I feel like part of me just picked him to write about to satisfy some kind of a revolutionary desire to throw bricks at cops and burn down the Louvre. The main comment on my work I keep getting back from my supervisor is: "More philosophy, less barricades!" I just keep finding myself drawn back to the same issues, which ultimately put me back at the barricades. While essential to the overall revolutionary project, it's not exactly appropriate here. After all, my MA is in philosophy, not revolutions. Now that I've had time to step back from it, I've realized that I don't need Debord. Trying to bring him in is just cluttering my thought. I have plenty to work on without the SI. I still think there are a lot of untapped resources within the Situationist discourses that have been overlooked. The affinity to Benjamin is so strong, it boggles the mind as to how it has largely gone unnoticed. I think that it might be something I would want to work on for a PhD. project, but for now, it's time to let it go.

So, now it's time to move forward on my project. Walter Benjamin and Nihilism. I feel that Benjamin's thought is inherently nihilistic, in the Nietzschean sense. While consistently tied to Hegel and the dialectic, Benjamin's dialectical images share far more structurally with Nietzschean affirmation than they do with Hegel. This project will argue that Benjamin's essay, "The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technical Reproducibility" is fundamentally a call for a nihilist aesthetics. That is to say, it demands a transvaluation of aesthetic values. The crisis of authenticity brought to a head my reproducability is not unique to modernity. To say, as Benjamin does, that the work of art no longer has any recourse to authenticity, is to also say that it never had such recourse. In a sense, technical reproduction does on a small scale to art what recurrence does on an eternal scale. Even items such as Michelangelo's "David" can no longer claim to be authentic. Given eternal recurrence, this is merely the recurrence of David. But that is not to say that there ever was an original statue. Meaninglessness is only a crisis if one still holds onto an idea of meaning. For Benjamin, this crisis leads to fascism. (In Debord, the crisis continues into totalizing hegemonic capitalist globalized domination.) However, if one is to let go of authenticity as a category, as a basis of value, the disintegration of aura is of no consequence. The necessity of a new aesthetics is indissociable from a new politics. At the same time, both are also bound to Benjamin's history (this connection will be discussed further in the next post on Cadava's book). Thus, the goal of this project is to perform a nihilistic analysis and construction of Benjamin's work, in an effort to extrapolate his aestetic, historical, and political system.

work report for mon 16 june

I spent most of the day working, with quite a few distractions. As a result, I didn't get as much done as I wanted before my eyes started threatening a mutiny. But, all in all, a productive day.

I read half of this book: Words of Light: Theses on the photography of history by Eduardo Cadava. It's fantastic. He links Benjamin's philosophy of history to the philosophy of photography. On top of being really useful, it's an enjoyable read. He brings in Nietzsche too, which is making me think I'm on the right track. But he doesn't seem to go far enough. A more detailed report when I finish today.