Walter Benjamin's "Critique of Violence"

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In this episode, I present Benjamin's approach to a critique of violence and how he opposes Divine violence to Mythic violence that manifests itself in the form of law as we know it.

[@jonathancampbell5231]

You can't really understand this essay (or any other) without considering it's historical context. Benjamin isn't just "writing" in early 1920s Germany, he's responding to actual events that were happening right in front of him. When he talks about a "General Strike", he's got a very specific "General Strike" in mind- the Weimar Republic had crushed uprisings by radical Socialists- like the Spartacist Revolt- which he was sympathetic to, but would temporarily fall to something called the Kapp Putsch- by the far-right Fatherland Party- not long after, only for the Kapp Putsch to be killed in it's infancy by a General Strike organised by the workers of Berlin, with the conspirators forced to flee with their tail between their legs, and the Weimar government returning to power shortly afterwards. Benjamin is mostly writing about "this" General Strike, and his essay is a lament on it- he thinks that the working class had an opportunity to overthrow the government themselves after defeating the Kapp Putsch, but instead they decided to let the bourgeois politicians back into power and maintain the status quo, likely (in his view) because they had moral and religious reservations about going any further, especially as extreme left wing violence was associated with atheistic anti-clerical terror at this point in time (see the Red Terror of the Soviet regime in Russia for instance). Benjamin is a Jewish mystic but he's also got radical Socialist inclinations, and he's trying to provide a religious justification for overthrowing the State and having a revolutionary Socialist society put in its place. He thinks that violence is not only necessary but essential for this to happen and he's trying to assure the leaders of the working class strikers (and maybe himself) that the violence "of" the State (especially against the revolutionaries and the workers) is unjust and mythical, but violence "against" such an unjust system is Divine and any who commit violence to this end is innocent and blameless as they are trying to get rid of an unjust system in the name of establishing a world without violence at all (a Socialistic paradise) Needless to say, this has drawn criticism not just from the Right but also from many of the Left (who didn't like the religious justifications for what they saw as a purely secular project), but the essay is part of a broader narrative of radical leftist texts that seek to justify violence against the state regardless.

[@sadhnarathore6002]

Sir, can you please elaborate mythical or divine violence according to Walter Benjamin...

[@harisubramanian4165]

Thank you so much for taking your time and explaining some great philosophical ideas and insights

[@tchgizeh04]

Thank you so much. I had had trouble understanding this text and your video clarified so much.

[@TheoryPhilosophy]

Happy to hear it!

[@ambujarouth5306]

thanx a ton for this simplified discussion of one of the toughest texts I read ever!

[@Zing_art]

I really appreciate your efforts of bringing these gems to us. Your videos are a great way to further my understanding of the texts. This text is really difficult and indeed ‘tricky’ as you state in the beginning and I think you have deliberated almost upon every point. However, Benjamin remains obscure with his idea of ‘Divine/Sovereign Violence’ and does the Holocaust actually qualify to be that (i am not sure)? And yes indeed, he seems to be applauding this idea which is quite unfortunate. Can you consider doing some videos on Agamben’s writings on violence? Once again, thank you! That’s a great work on your part.

[@TheoryPhilosophy]

Yes Agambrn is on my list but it might be a while before I get there haha. Thanks for the kind words :)

[@Anakin-Skywalker]

very clear, i really struggled with this text and i have to write a paper on it. You have a nice voice and accent!

[@micah3012]

Do you think that Benjamin is implying that the proletarian general strike is a form of divine violence? I know that he categorizes it as non-violence, but when viewed systemically, it seems very much like an act of violence against violence. Divine violence is intended to evoke liberation from law's confines and the prole strike does this as well.

[@jonathancampbell5231]

His argument is that the proletarian general strike does not go far enough "unless" it is committed to a violent overthrow of the state, and that such a thing is done in the name of Divine Justice and thus all who participate in such a Divine end are innocent and blameless.

[@hokavistark7671]

Very Helpful.

[@TheoryPhilosophy]

Happy to hear it ☺️

[@lushelly7558]

Could you please clarify divine violence by another example? I still don't get it.

[@jonathancampbell5231]

The working classes overthrowing the government and replacing it with a Socialist society is what Benjamin has in mind. The essay is telling the working classes not be squeamish or have moral or religious reservations about revolutionary violence against the state, because (Benjamin argues) the State is a fundamentally unjust entity and abolishing it is Divinely justified by God. That's basically the thrust of the essay.

[@KeenanWilliams777]

That trump analogy didnt age well lmaoo

[@kainikaramohamedkuttykmoha5863]

I will chat later Thanks

[@2phonesnelson]

No such thing as natural law. Or does Walter have a specific definition of nat law?

[@TheoryPhilosophy]

He doesn't really elaborate on it in this text, but you can imagine that at the time there were efforts to find the truth or system of nature (you know....people still trying to finish what Fichte, Schelling, or Hegel were doing before them).

[@Zing_art]

In this text, Benjamin focuses primarily upon positive law. The natural law considers violence to be the product of nature. Its diametrically opposite to Positive law which believes violence to be of historical origin.

[@jonathancampbell5231]

Natural Law and Positive Law are opposing schools of thought in legal theory. Positive Law says that whether something is legally right or wrong comes down to whether or not there is an actual written law that says as such, meaning that justice is subordinate to law. Natural Law is a broader school of thought which argues that right or wrong are rooted in pre-legal natural rights and the written law is both subordinate to and an expression of it (i.e. "an unjust law is no law at all"). For instance, James Madison initially resisted adding the Bill of Rights to the US Constitution because he believed in Natural Law and he didn't like the implication that Rights came from the government; Thomas Jefferson persuaded him to adopt it anyway because the Bill of Rights was meant to codify Natural Law rather than replace it. In Nazi Germany, the had their own racist version of natural law that justified them tearing up every law and treaty that they had agreed to in the name of "might makes right"; after the war, at the Nuremberg trials, the Nazi's themselves were prosecuted for Crimes Against Humanity, a set of laws that didn't exist in written form at the time, with the justification that under more common and Liberal definitions of "natural law", it was self-evident that mass murder and plotting destructive wars of annihilation were criminal and evil acts regardless of whether any law said as such anyway.

[@pantofliaras]

@@jonathancampbell5231 Thanks Jonathan great comments. How is divine violence not part of natural law? It seems as if divine violence is always present and above law, and natural law justifies it according to the relativity of human needs in historical context...and positive law comes last trailing the natural law and archiving it bureaucratically. Is this the position Benjamin is trying to convey?

[@jonathancampbell5231]

@@pantofliaras Benjamin is saying that Divine Law is above Natural Law because it comes from God, while Natural Law is more "pagan" in the loose sense of the term because he's viewing anything that gets it's ultimate authority from force (as he views the state) to be pagan and not-divine. Benjamin was very religious as well as very politically left-wing and is trying to justify one with the other- he's essentially arguing that God wants the workers to rise up and overthrow the State, and that Divine Justice is that which aligns with / comes fom the will of God..