27701115

7/30/2019 27701115

1/22

Against Biopolitics: Walter Benjamin, Carl Schmitt, and Giorgio Agamben on Political

Sovereignty and Symbolic OrderAuthor(s): David PanSource: The German Quarterly, Vol. 82, No. 1 (Winter, 2009), pp. 42-62Published by: Wiley on behalf of the American Association of Teachers of GermanStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27701115 .

Accessed: 23/07/2013 23:44

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of

content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms

of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

Wiley andAmerican Association of Teachers of German are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and

extend access to The German Quarterly.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 129.15.131.149 on Tue, 23 Jul 2013 23:44:18 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=blackhttp://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=aatghttp://www.jstor.org/stable/27701115?origin=JSTOR-pdfhttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/stable/27701115?origin=JSTOR-pdfhttp://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=aatghttp://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=black

7/30/2019 27701115

2/22

David PanUn iv r ity ofCa Ufom i , Irv ne

Against Biopolitics: Walter Benjamin, CariSchmitt, and Giorgio Agamben on PoliticalSovereignty and Symbolic Order1

Recent attempts byGiorgio Agamben to understand the relationship between politics and thehuman body have resulted ina notion of "biopolitics,"derived from texts byWalter Benj amin andMichel Foucault, inwhich there isamerging of biology and politics into a unified system that subjects the bodyto the direct violence of a political order. Though these theories have beenhelpful in focusing attention on the particular dynamics that link politicswith the individual subject, the accompanying suppression of a cultural dimension to this linkage has obscured the role of ideological concerns indetermining political events in themodern world. Unexpectedly, Carl Schmitt, oneof the theorists who has been most criticized forreducing politics exclusivelyto questions of power, turns out to offer the most consistent attempt to understand the centrality of cultural ideals for the construction of the link between politics and the subject. Though Ellen Kennedy ("Carl Schmitt"42-45), Agamben {State ofException 52-64), Horst Bredekamp, and SusanneHeil have documented the extent of the intellectual connections betweenBenj amin and Schmitt, theyhave not recognized the degree towhich Schmittmore consistently emphasizes the role of culture in the structure of the political subject. For in contrast to the attempts by Benjamin and especiallyAgamben to consider law and politics purely in terms ofmechanisms of violence and the body, Schmitt's contribution has been to establish the centralityofmetaphysical ideals in the structuring of subjectivity. Instead of using concepts such as violence or bare life,which exclude issues of culture, Schmitt'smeditations on the decision and the enemy place theological and culturalchoices at the center of his analysis, underlining the role of ideology in constituting the subject.

Benjamin on Law and ViolenceThe differences between Benjamin's and Schmitt's approaches

to law andviolence stem from the diverging goals of their analyses. While Schmitt con

TheGermanQuarterly2.1 (Winter 009) 42?2009, American Association of Teachers of German

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

7/30/2019 27701115

3/22

PAN: Against Biopolit i s 43

sistently defends the status quo of a particular political order, fearing the instability and chaos that change could bring, Benjamin begins with the ideathatmeaningful change ispossible and that the current conditions of law andpolitical order contain elements of domination that can be eliminatedthrough human action. The key to such a proj ect of emancipation becomes forBenjamin the disruption of the existing order in away that opens up unexpected new possibilities forthe future. The primary strength ofhis approachlies in the "Doppeleinsicht" that he describes in his Ursprung des deutschenTrauerspiels and that links a sense forthe new with structures of thought andimagination from the past (1:226). In designating the baroque as an age inwhich "Geist... weist sich aus alsMacht" (1:276), Benjamin identifies the reduction of spirit to power as the key source of themelancholy that pervadestheTrauerspiel genre. The onlyway to escape thisworld determined by powerwould be to leap out of itconceptually into a perspective that denies thenecessity of power and thereby transcends its facticity through an appeal, in thecase of the baroque, to a "Christian spirit" (Benjamin 1:335; Pan, "PoliticalAesthetics" 157-58). Benjamin's strategy formaintaining the presence of aspiritual alternative to aworld dominated by power is then to create the possibility for transcending this existingworld in a redemptive moment leadinginto a new future.He develops thismode of political messianism, forinstance,inhis invocation of "profane Erleuchtung" in er Surrealismus (2:297) and of"Jetztzeit" in?ber den Begriffder Geschichte (1:701).The assumption behind this goal of breaking the historical continuumthrough amoment of transcendence is that this continuum extends a rule ofpower that undermines the existing law's claim tomanifest a higher principle.As both Jacques Derrida (1017) and Jan-WernerM?ller have documented(469), Benjamin grounds this assumption inZur Kritik der Gewalt with theidea that theorigins of law lie inviolence. The linkbetween law and violence isfor him more than just a coincidence of violence with justice in away that

would emphasize their complementary relationship, aswhen Derrida, explicating Pascal, suggests that "justice demands, as justice, recourse to force"(937). Benjamin describes the violent origins of law not to illustrate thenecessityof force in establishing justice but inorder to argue that law does not establish j stice at all but is j st the extension of an act of violence. To the extentthat existing laws referto an ideal of justice, they are simply establishing a rationale for an underlying violence, and Benjamin, in citing Georges Sorel'sview that "in denAnf?ngen alles Recht 'Vor 'rechtderK?nige oder derGro?en,kurz derM?chtigen gewesen sei" (2:198), suggests that the idea of justicewithin a legal system is just themask for themanifestation of power. Conversely, he notes that violence for natural purposes has inherent to it a"rechtsetzender Charakter "(2:186), evenwhen it isa predatory and purely instrumental violence. In addition tomentioning theworkers' strike and war(2:185), Benj amin even goes so far s to suggest that "great criminals" have the


7/30/2019 27701115

4/22

44 Fhe German Quarterly Winter 2009

potential of setting up a new law purely on the basis of their predatory violence (2:186). These examples of amerging of violence and law are all cases ofhow "Rechtsetzung istMachtsetzung und insofern einAkt von unmittelbarerManifestation der Gewalt" (2:197-98).But there isan ambiguity inhis characterization of the strike and thegreatcriminal thatmakes possible themove to a revolutionary messianism while atthe same timemaintaining the legitimacy of revolutionary violence. Whereasthe strike and the criminal are examples of violence, Benjamin singles outthese cases inorder to distinguish them from instances of lawful violence. Hethen criticizes the connection between violence and law,not inorder to imagine a lawwithout violence but rather a violence without law. In order to bringabout the end of themythic violence that grounds the rule of law, Benjaminconstructs his idiosyncratic idea of a "divine violence" thatwould supersedemythic violence and be the basis of a revolutionary transformation of society."Wie in allen Bereichen demMythos Gott, so trittdermythischen Gewalt dieg?ttliche entgegen" (2:199). The difference between the two does not dependon the degree of violence, and themove frommythic to divine violence doesnot involve the abolition of violence itself (2:196). Indeed, the realm of divinepurposes is itself framed by an ultimate violence. Rather, the difference between mythic and divine violence is based on the idea that past history hasbeen dominated by the repetition ofmythic violence and that divine violencewould introduce a new historical age that puts an end to this repetition.While

mythic violence is linked to existing laws and is thus "rechtsetzend," divineviolence destroys the entire system of laws and is "rechtsvernichtend" (2:199).In thisdestruction, divine violence creates redemption by installing the dominance of itsnew order inone stroke, totally annihilating the structure of lawthat precedes it.Divine violence has a revolutionary aspect to the extent that it suspendslaw itselfand, inestablishing itself,founds a new order that replaces lawwithdivine, and thusmetaphysically justified, purposes. This revolutionary qualityof divine violence, which Benjamin compares to the political general strikethat seeks to overturn the entire legal order (2:193-95), establishes a kind ofviolence whose justification lies ina realm removed from laws and located inahigher, divine justice that renders all existing law obsolete. Whereas mythicviolence follows a fateful logic, inwhich the human challenging of fate leadsto the final victory of fate over human endeavor (2:197), divine violence forBenjamin isa kind of political violence that, inestablishing a new order, isnotfateful but unpredictable. Because divine violence has a fundamentally different structure thanmythic violence, Benjamin claims that it supersedes theentire mythic structure of violence linked to law, establishing "ein neuesgeschichtliches Zeitalter" (2:202).M?ller argues thatBenjamin thereby distinguishes mythic violence's lawsfrom divine violence's "non-representational" quality inorder to delineate an


7/30/2019 27701115

5/22

PAN: Against Biopol'itles 45

escape frommythic law into "an extrahistorical, redemptive realm of nonviolence" (469-70). Similarly, Honneth emphasizes that forBenjamin divineviolence creates a zone free of domination, regulated by uncodified customsand rituals of politeness that are based on the idea, "da? sich indenmenschlichen Lebensverh?ltnissen eine herrschaftslose Alternative zur Zwangsinstitution des Rechts auffinden l??t" (198). But if ?ller and Honneth invoke arealm of freedom from all external constraints and purposes, Benjamin himself isnot so sanguine about this possibility.When he describes the freeingofviolence from the status ofmeans toward an end, the alternative understandinghe proposes isviolence as amanifestation of anger: "Was denMenschenangeht, so f?hrt ihn zum Beispiel der Zorn zu den sichtbarsten Ausbr?chenvon Gewalt, die sich nicht alsMittel auf einen vorgesetzten Zweck bezieht.Sie istnichtMittel, sondernManifestation" (2:196). IfBenj amin imagines violence here generally to be amanifestation rather than ameans, then violencewould have in itselfa certain quality that relates itback to its source. According to this perspective, violence expresses the peculiarities of its source, andconsequently Benjamin does not somuch distinguish between amythic and adivine order but between mythic and divine violence, thereby shifting thesource of distinction from symbolicmechanisms to the visceral dimension ofanger.He differentiatesmythic violence as "Manifestation derG?tter," "Manifestation ihresDaseins" (2:197), from a divine violence that expresses itself"durch jeneMomente des unblutigen, schlagenden, ents?hnenden Vollzuges," butwhich isnevertheless "vernichtend"without any "Rechtsetzung"(2:200). Divine violence, rather than following laws, strikes arbitrarily inmoments of annihilation that simultaneously expiate, and Benjamin providesthe example of God's judgment upon Korah and his company (Benjamin2:199; Numbers 16.1-35). While Benjamin thereby seeks to shift the focusfrom laws to be followed to an informal sphere inwhich commandments areunderstood as a "Richtschnur des Handelns" (2:200), his emphasis onmodesof violence as the indicator of this shift obscures the cultural dynamics involved in the distinction between formal laws and informal guidelines forbehavior.

Though he tries to emphasize the unmediated quality of divine violence,Benjamin still cannot keep it free from external purposes so that it could become "etwas Selbstreferentielles," asAxel Honneth contends (208). Instead ofimagining a space of freedom that would result from the receding of powerand ideology, Benjamin contends that divine violence is linked to a "religi?se

?berlieferung" and manifests itself "als erzieherische Gewalt" (2:200). Even ifdivine violence does not obey any laws, it isnot therefore self-referential and itis still amanifestation. If the point of divine violence is to establish an orderbased on justice and on instructional violence rather than on power and law,this justice comes with itsown set of divine purposes. "Gerechtigkeit istdasPrinzip aller g?ttlichen Zwecksetzung, Macht das Prinzip allermythischen


7/30/2019 27701115

6/22


Rechtsetzung" (2:198). While he affirms here an orientation toward divinepurposes overmythic law-making, his vision of justice,while seeking to separate justice from both power and law, still imagines a set of purposes that givehis sense of justice specific cultural characteristics. His references to purposesand pedagogy indicate that, in spite of the fact that it supersedes mythiclaw-making, justice isnot completely universal or self-referential but is stillsubordinate to a specific orientation.This subordination to divine purposes does not involve a system of law forBenjamin, however, but "a sort of justicewithout droit" (Derrida 1023-25).Using a conception of judgment that is similar to Schmitt's in its emphasis on"the irreducible singularity of each situation" (Derrida 1023), Benjamin triestomaintain the particularity ofdivine violence by noting that a set of justpurposes can only be valid fora single situation. "Denn Zwecke, welche f?r eineSituation gerecht, allgemein anzuerkennen, allgemeing?ltig sind, sind dies f?rkeine andere, wenn auch in anderen Beziehungen noch so ?hnliche Lage"(2:196). He contrasts these just purposes based on individual judgmentswithpurposes based on laws,which do not function from case to case but are perceived to be both "allgemeing?ltig" and "verallgemeinerungsf?hig" (2:196).But in rejecting thegeneralizability of justice and concentrating on the justiceof the individual decision, Benjamin isnot describing a kind of justicewithoutlaw but in fact comes very close to a Schmittian decisionism that sees the legaljudgment, not as a consequence of prior laws, but as an independently determining act {Politische heologie 37-38). Like the Schmittian decision, divine violence isnot predictable but suigeneris, this particularity offering an escapefrom the fate that law has become ina positivist understanding that sees eachjudgment as a simple application of a rule. But as Schmitt's analysis demonstrates, this singularity of every judgment is in fact a characteristic of judgments within every legal system aswell.But ifBenjamin is in accord with Schmitt's prioritization of the decisionover the rule and the critique of legal positivism (Honneth 200-02, 204), heveers from Schmitt's analysis to the extent that he attributes the systematicform of law, inwhich the individual case is just the application of the rule,notjust to legal positivism's interpretation of law but to law ingeneral. Consequently, Benjamin feels that, inorder tomove toward a truenotion of justicebased in the freedom of the decision, hemust reject all law and imagine a newform of violence to replace themythic violence that he links to law. He criticizes law forbeing a "mythische Manifestation der unmittelbaren Gewalt,"(2:199) rejecting theworld ofmyth and the rule of fate that thesemyths justify. he lawfulness of violence becomes forBenjamin ameasure of its fatefulness and his attempt to escape fate leads him to sketch out an alternative tomythic violence that is bothMarxist in its treatment of legal authority as akind of false consciousness andmessianic in its imagining of a total and sud


7/30/2019 27701115

7/22

PAN: Against Biopol it cs 47

den "Vernichtung" of themythic violence upon which all existing law isbased(2:199).This schema contrasts with Schmitt's foregrounding of the exceptionbefore the rule, inwhich he does not reject the rule outright butmerely placesit in a subordinate position with respect to the decision on the state of exception (Politische heologie 19,21). Schmitt's inclusion of both thedecision on thestate of exception and the rule in thenormal situation as two complementaryelements of a legal order derives froma differentunderstanding of the relationbetween law and violence fromBenjamin's. Whereas Schmitt imagines thatthe informal sphere of thedecision and the formal sphere of thenorm and laws

always work together to establish a particular legal order,Benjamin sees onlythe two options: law as amanifestation of amythic fate or the elimination oflaw as the overcoming of fate in the justice of divine violence. The eliminationof law can be emancipatory forBenjamin because he considers mythic fatenotas a necessity but as a remnant of a barbaric age and the continuing expressionof fate in law as a tool of thepowerful to advance their interests.Once he takesfate to be avoidable, violence and law (as an expression of fate) can no longerbemediated with one another in a system of justice, and Benjamin understands the abolition of law as the overcoming of fate and the only path to justice. But because theonly source of distinction and patterns that could replacelaw would be the character of divine violence as unpredictable rather thanfateful, there isnothing to prevent this notion of justice frombecoming completely unpredictable and arbitrary By contrast, Schmitt does not admit thepossibility of escaping fate altogether. Linking fate to the external forces andnecessities that affect a society's functioning, he attempts tounderstand lawas a mechanism for channeling the violence of external necessities, made explicit in the state of exception, into forms that are acceptable fora culture'sself-understanding. Thus, while each judgment is stilla unique and unpredictable event forSchmitt, this judgment isnot arbitrary but rathermaintains arelationship between external forces and a cultural dimension that underliesall law.If Schmitt tries to establish a rough commensurability between fatefulviolence and legalviolence, Benj aminian divine violence knows no constraintsbecause such limitations are no longer deemed necessary ina situation wherehumans are free of fate. But ifthe external necessities that give rise to fate arestill relevant for themodern world, then divine violence can only be distinguished from tyranny by the claim to universal validity. This monotheisticclaim of universality then becomes crucial to Benjamin's argument, whichseeks to establish a universal justice established by a singlemoral authorityagainst the competing claims of particular political systems. The underlyingassumption here is that the existing variety of political systems isnot the result of equally valid but competing claims to truth,but of a rejection of truthin favor of power, resulting in the proliferation of self-interested groups that


7/30/2019 27701115

8/22


use a predatory violence to enforce theirdomination over others. Benjamin'salternative is the post-historical era of an overarching, monotheistic unity inwhich laws are no longer necessary because domination has been replaced bythe general acceptance of the divine order and a subordination of self-interestto the general good.The messianic structure ofBenjamin's argument indicates a specific political theology that isgrounded inhis basic stance that themodern world canput fate behind itand advance to a new stage of freedom. The theocratic character of divine violence thatHonneth notes becomes evident at this point as acommitment to the absolute and universal validity of divine violence as atranscendent structure against which all prior legal and political systems aremerely forms of self-interest (Honneth 209). Benjamin shares in an implicitrejection of any competing understandings of the general good thatmarksmovements such as Nazism and communism that claim to have achieved afinal truthbased on theobjective results ofbiological or economic analysis andthat then seek to institutionalize this truth ina revolutionary upheaval, as, forinstance,when Benjamin, in ber denBegriff erGeschichte, indicates: "Gewinnen soll immer die Puppe, dieman historischen Materialismus nennt" (1:693).Historical materialism in this later text isnot just a particular position, butone that Benjamin supports because itoffers a perspective that isnot definedby domination but by an existence "unter dem freienHimmel derGeschichte"(1:701). The connection toZurKritik der Gewalt isclear in theway thathistoricalmaterialism plays the role of an emancipatory perspective, whose superioritywould justify the possible divine violence necessary to establish it.AsDerrida points out, divine violence, while bloodless, is just as lethal asmythicviolence forBenjamin, and in someways is evenmore horrifying, to the pointwhere Derrida compares divine violence to theviolence of theNazi holocaustand Honneth labels Benjamin's notion of right as "terroristisch" (Derrida1044-45; Honneth 209).Yet one of the strengths ofBenj amin's thinking is that his revolutionary rejection of law and fate is still coupled with a sense of the abiding significanceof tradition. The puppet ofhistorical materialism isafter all controlled by thehunchback of theology (1:693). While one might argue that Benjamin turnstheology into a tool fora secular, historical materialist project, the theologicalperspective that Benjamin invokes does not function according to an instrumental logic of control but rather according to an unpredictable process,summed up in his notion o?Jetztzeit,whereby a forgotten tradition suddenlybecomes relevant to the present. In contrast to amanifestation of an unmediated, lethal violence, such a return to a forgotten tradition depends upon a re

vival of the symbolic aspect ofmythic violence.Benjamin maintains a sense for a symbolic tradition inhis discussion of"das blo?e Leben," inwhich he criticizes themechanistic quality ofmythicviolence and law for reducing life to "das blo?e Leben" and describes how


7/30/2019 27701115

9/22

PAN: Against Biopotitics 49

divine violence redeems life in its truemetaphysical significance. His description of this spiritual notion of life indicates a cultural specificity that is incompatible with his idea that divine violence isunmediated. He states specificallythat existence understood as "blo?es Leben" is lower than a just existence(2:201), and he differentiates between lifeunderstood as "blo?es Leben" andlifeunderstood as the life ithin a human that transcends physical existenceand death. Since the sacred element inman consists of "dasjenige Leben inihm,welches identisch inErdenleben, Tod und Fortleben liegt" and there isnosacredness that attaches to "sein leibliches, durch Mitmenschen verletzlichesLeben" (2:201), liferequiresametaphysical quality, which

canonly bemanifested through some symbol, in order to transcend physical destruction

(Weigel 75).Though Benjamin interpretsmythic violence to be a violence that seeks topreserve itself by establishing its bloody violence over "das blo?e Leben,"

mythic violence's subjection of human lifeto its laws also involves a subordination of human endeavor to a sacred ideal, leading to the affirmation of asymbolic dimension inwhich humans can survive spiritually beyond theirmere physical existence. Symbolic determinations constitute the culturalrealm inwhich they canmake the existential trade-offs that are necessary fordealing with external violence. A view that emphasizes the unavoidability ofviolence sees law as the culturallymediated reaction to thenecessities of fate.When Benjamin writes, however, that divine violence rules over all life"um des Lebendigen willen" (2:200), he undermines any distinction between"das blo?e Leben" and this "Lebendige" because the latter can only go beyondbare, physical life if tcanmaintain some kind of symbolic identity,which, inestablishing continuity through lifeand death, also entails the specific culturally marked identity that comes with every symbol. Since divine violenceexists only "um des Lebendigen willen," there could be nothing beyond merelife that could pull this lifeout of itsphysical context and into ametaphysicalone. By cleansing divine violence of any symbolic qualities, Benjamin alsomakes it impossible for divine violence to treat lifeas anything but bare life.Moreover, because divine violence relinquishes any demand forsacrifice and iscontent to accept it (2:200), such violence remainswithout any abiding content or idiosyncratic structure that could give to the "Lebendigen" a symbolicmeaning that could transcend mere physicality.Perhaps in a recognition of these difficulties, Benjamin explicitly reintroduces ameasure of cultural particularity intodivine violence ina finalmove atthe end of his essay, thereby undermining his own distinction betweenmythic and divine violence: "Die g?ttliche Gewalt, welche Insignium undSiegel, niemals Mittel heiliger Vollstreckung ist,mag diewaltende hei?en"(2:203). As opposed to themythic violence that Benjamin refers to as "schaltende" and "verwaltete" and therefore "verwerflich," divine violence, as "Insignium und Siegel" rather than a "Mittel" of execution, retains a trace of a


7/30/2019 27701115

10/22


proper name in the insignia that guarantee that themove frommythic todivine violence is a move frommere material life to a sacred life.Benjaminseeks to distinguish the symbolic aspect of divine violence from themechanical aspect of mythic violence as a mere "means."Yet, the situations thatBenjamin links to divine violence?the "truewar"and the "crowd's divine judgment upon the criminal"?are ones inwhich codified law recedes in favor of a kind of self-righteous feeling for justicewithinthe people. To the extent that he decouples this feeling for justice from amythic content and a legal tradition, he is leftwithout any institutional controls or any responsible authorityto constrain the crowd. Benjamin runs hereinto a basic contradiction between the unmediated character of divine violence and his insight that itmust have a proper name aswell. If the primarytask of divine violence is to establish the "insignia and seal" of sacred execution, then it isbased in a signwith the significance of a proper name withinwhich sovereignty functions. The establishment of the domination of thisproper name becomes forBenjamin the primary task of a divine violence thatseeks to preserve the sacred.But this linkbetween insignia and sovereignty isprecisely the structure ofthe normal functioning of sovereignty, according to Schmitt's idea that the

key issue is "who decides" {Politische heologie 40). The decision on the state ofexception institutes the proper name of sovereignty in competition withother possible names, and indoing so establishes a specific subjectwhose symbolic connections define a particular tradition, for instance the specific ritualsof a peace ceremony. But while Benjamin criticizes such a ceremony as part ofthe occupation process, after a military conquest, of sanctioning the newpower relations as law (2:186), itmay in fact be that the priority is reversed:the ritualmay form the larger symbolic context within which the violencemust take place, ifthe law itestablishes is togain legitimacy. Ifdivine violenceis not about specific punishments or physical effects but is primarily concernedwith establishing a new tradition, then divine violence cannot be immediate, butmust be linked to insignia, that is, toprecisely the type of culturally specific rituals and mythic traditions connected to a proper name thatrelate ametaphysical perspective to specific laws. The way to preserve lifeaspart of a sacred context rather than "blo?es Leben" would not be to reject themythic grounding of law, but to see in the symbolic traditions underlyingmyth the spiritual mediation of an administrative task. By contrast, if thecoming of divine violence as an immediate violence had no connection to insignia, itcould not inaugurate the rule of justice that replaces the rule of powerwith an orientation toward the sacred. The establishment of such a "nameless" immediate violence in place ofmediation through myth would reduceorder to pure power,without thehelp of ideals that themselves must incorporate an invocation of a proper name in the insignia inorder to operate. ThoughBenjamin only gestures toward this symbolic context inhis reference to insig


7/30/2019 27701115

11/22

PAN: Against Biopolitics 51

nia inZur Kritik derGewalt, by the time of ?ber den BegriffderGeschichte, hespeaks explicitly about the importance of the "Bestand der Tradition" (1:695)and of theway inwhich even the French Revolution understood itselfas "ein

wiedergekehrtes Rom," thus citing the proper name ofRome "wie dieModeeine vergangene Tracht zitiert" (1:701).

Agamben and Bare Life

Benjamin's failure to adequately account for the particularity of ideals inZur Kritik der Gewalt has major consequences forAgamben's reading becausethe latter focuses primarily on the idea ofmere or "bare" lifeas essential to thenotion of sovereignty. Because he ignores the dynamic inwhich the superseding of juridical violence in divine violence also involves an invocation of asymbolic dimension, Agamben's argument, though less contradictory thanBenjamin's, ends up being evenmore emphatically destructive of the sacredelement that could prevent the reduction of humans to their bare life. Intaking over the concept of bare life fromBenjamin, he levels the distinctionbetween bare life and sacred life thatwould provide the possibility of recognizing a symbolic and spiritual aspect of human life. In a move thatWilliamConnolly has criticized forunduly limiting our notion of the sacred (28-29),Agamben equates bare lifewith sacred life: "The lifecaught in the sovereignban is the life that isoriginarily sacred? that is, thatmay be killed but not sacrificed? and, in this sense, the production of bare life is the originary activityof sovereignty" (Homo Sacer 83).Whereas Benjamin insists on the differencebetween bare life and sacred life,Agamben folds the two into each other.When Benjamin criticizes the "dogma of the sacredness of life" (2:202), he isreferring to the idea of the sacredness of bare life as opposed to the idea ofsacred life hich is "identically present inearthly life,death, and afterlife. "Butas Connolly has suggested (29),when Agamben equates bare life ith sacredlife,he conceptually forecloses any way of understanding sovereignty interms of a cultural system.Like Benjamin, Agamben commits himself to a project inwhich thegoal isnot only to overcome a political structure of sovereignty that he argues islinked tobare life,but also to supersede law itself.Yet, it isdifficult to imaginethe character of thisnew order beyond law, since Benjamin already, to the extent that he rejects all previous myth and law as fatefulviolence, also disposesof the very traditions that could be the basis of cultural order in the future.Agamben "purifies" Benjamin's approach by adhering to an "absolute" decisionist understanding of lawwhen he argues that "the sovereign is the pointof indistinction between violence and law, the threshold onwhich violencepasses over into law and law passes over into violence" (Homo Sacer 32). Arguing that there is no difference between law and violence, Agamben then


7/30/2019 27701115

12/22


constructs his idea of politics around the notion of a bare life stripped of anylegitimacy or vestiges of culturalmarkings. Though Benjamin runs into contradictions between the unmediated character of divine violence and hiswishthat ithave a symbolic content aswell, he stillmaintains a conceptual distinction between bare lifeand the "living" core that lies at the basis of the sacredthrough life,death, and the afterlife.Consequently, where Benjamin anomalously sees the appearance of bare life s something new, Agamben "cleans up"the analysis by considering sacred life nd bare lifeas equivalent, beginning inancient Rome. If there remains inBenjamin a certain nostalgia for the "insignia and seal" of an order that are to remain as themarkers of divine violence,even as it is supposed to replace the old political orderwith a new, revolutionary one,Agamben asserts that "from the point ofview of sovereignty onlybarelife sauthenticallypolitical11 {HomoSacer 106) and that consequently any juridical order necessarily participates ina violence that reduces humans tobare life.Agamben considers bare life and the sovereign decision as two sides of thesame phenomenon. The decision that founds the state and the decision thatdeclares life itself to bemere lifeare the same {Homo Sacer 84), and Agambenpostulates an enduring linkbetween the sovereign and thebare lifeof the homosacerwithin a political spacewithout religious ideals.As Eva Geulen has noted(91), the homosacerbecomes the primary image of all politics, the sovereign decision becoming a biopolitical one forAgamben inwhich bare biological lifeand purely political lifecollapse into one another, so that "the inclusion ofbarelife in the political realm constitutes the original?if concealed? nucleus ofsovereign power" {Homo Sacer 6).But if the sovereign declares lifetobe bare life in the same action that establishes sovereignty, then there are by definition no limits on sovereign powerfrom the side of the subject and itscommitments. The sovereign decision isanunmediated and violent act forAgamben that is sufficient fordefining orderprior to any cultural mediation. The lack of any notion of a culturalmediation

of politics inAgamben's analysis means that there isonly pure violence, andbiopolitics becomes a matter of cause-and-effect, instrumental calculationsdivorced from any sense of ethical principles. Though Agamben is critical ofthis situation, his theory implies that there isno escape from it. For he haspurged theBenjaminian escape into divine violence of the particular culturalvestiges thatwould prevent bare lifeand the sovereign decision frombecoming complementary opposites that determine each other ina logic of pure violence. By extending the absolute decisionist understanding of political powerinto an argument that a legal order originates in an unmediated and violentact,Agamben's biopolitical theory can no longer present any alternative to anelimination of culture and a treatment of humans as bare life.Even a possiblereturn to "classical politics," inwhich the private and the public are clearlyseparated, is already foreclosed by the fact that violence will always be a tool


7/30/2019 27701115

13/22


of oppression focused on thebody rather than based on principles (HomoSacer188).As a result, Agamben's only alternatives are Utopian ones that are only

sketchily indicated, as inhis description of a humanity that "will playwithlaw just as children playwith disused objects, not inorder to restore them totheir canonical use but to free them from it forgood" (State of xception 64).This imagination of a future humanity that is beyond law as we know it isboth so removed from any conceivable reality and so empty of content because Agamben has excluded fromhis analysis the cultural realm as a dynamicsphere thatwould be the justification and constrainer of law on the one handand the provider of ideals for imagining the future on the other hand. In contrast, though Benjamin is inconsistent in rejecting the injunctions ofmythyet still holding onto the symbolic qualities ofmyth in a new divine sovereignty, he nevertheless manages to retain the possibility of the sacred inhisnotion of a divine violence that inaugurates a new period of justicewithoutlaw.

Culture and Politics in SchmittBut there is an alternative way of understanding the situation of justicewithout law, not as a rejection of law as a form ofviolence but as an acknowl

edgement of the plurality of perspectives thatmight ground law.WhereasBenjamin does not question the objective validity of divine violence, Schmittlinks the situation of justicewithout law to an explicitly political situationthat ismarked by competing conceptions of justice.This "state of exception"isnot a space of divine violence but of conflict inwhich law recedes but remains within the "Rahmen des Juristischen" (PolitischeTheologie 19). Schmittconsiders law to be necessary as amediator between cultural ideals and external violence because he assumes a fundamentally "multicultural" politicaltheology inwhich the source of political conflict isnot competing factions,each defending theirown particular interests, but rather the result of competing conceptions of the general good (PolitischeTheologie 16; Pan, "Carl Schmitton Culture and Violence" 66).Whereas forBenjamin existing examples of law are only based on violence,and the divine violence linked to j stice isonly a possibility ina future after therevolutionary end of these existing legal structures, in Schmitt's thinkingevery establishment of order through a sovereign depends on some set ofmetaphysical ideals. He by nomeans neglects an analysis of power, however,but rather constructs a unified theory of law that understands power and justice as always linked concepts?in marked contrast to theBenjaminian modelthat separates these two aspects from each other in the distinction between

mythic and divine violence.


7/30/2019 27701115

14/22

54 The German Quarterly Winter 2009

Schmitt links power and justice by offering a non-progressivist understanding of the difference between what Benjamin callsmythic violence anddivine violence. Benjamin's insistence on a categorical difference between thetwo, inwhich mythic violence isbased on the rule of power while divine violence introduces the rule of justice, can only make sense if, as Benjamin assumes, there is a fundamental, world-historical break between a traditionalworld based onmyth and fate and a new, post-revolutionary world of justice(2:194). In thisway, Benjamin sets up J?rgenHabermas's approach to thedifference between traditional and "post-traditional" society as thekey to thepossibility of a new type of j stice,which inHabermas, forexample, would bebased on a communicative model of rationality (117-18,167). Schmitt rejectssuch a progressive philosophy of history and assumes that social orderswillalways have to contend with external necessities. At the same time, eachsocietymust define itsapproach to these necessities in itsown way, the determination of this approach then constituting the basic metaphysical commitments of that culture. Because each culture's establishment ofwhat constitutes the general good cannot be objectively justified, Schmitt argues thatexception and rule are intimately related to each other, and that every existingsystem of law?past, present, or future? isultimately justified by an initialdecision. Consequently, the decision does not remain totally removed fromjustice. Indeed, he emphasizes that "beide Elemente, die Norm wie die Entscheidung, imRahmen des Juristischen verbleiben" {PolitischeTheologie 19).There is for Schmitt no world-historical distinction between amythic violence based on power and a divine violence based on justice. Instead, Benjamin's notion ofmythic violence would correspond inSchmitt to the forms ofstate coercion (laws and police) that are used to enforce normswithin a stablepolitical order.At the same time,Benj amin's idea ofdivine violence would correspond inSchmitt to theviolence connected to the decision that isused in thestate of exception to establish the system ofnorms in the firstplace. ThoughSchmitt does not see this establishment of a system of norms as a form ofprogress from amythic system to amodern system, he does understand thedecision as a singular event that grounds an entire order, and in thisway thedecision is likeBenjamin's divine violence. As a consequence, the key difference between Schmitt's and Benjamin's categorizations of forms of violenceis that,while Benjamin sees law-preserving violence and law-establishing violence as just two faces ofmythic violence (2:186-88, 203), from Schmitt'spoint of view, Benjamin's notion of law-preserving violence is the same as

mythic violence, i.e., violence within the normal situation, and law-establishing violence is the same as divine violence, i.e., violence in the state ofexception. Because the exception makes clear on what basis the rule functions,the decision is the founding event for all law for Schmitt, and the state ofexception will always involve a struggle to establish the formof justice forthefuture. By contrast, the violence connected with the norm is not part of a


7/30/2019 27701115

15/22


struggle against alternative forms of law but one that suppresses criminalactivity.Schmitt is at great pains to distinguish both criminal activity and rebellions from true politics because he consistently defends the existing orderagainst the overturning of established order (Begriff es Politischen 10-11,Theoriedes Partisanen 21). As Benjamin Arditi argues (14-16), Schmitt's theoryimplies a constant conflict between the prevailing structure of politics in aparticular order and the potential for the "political" as such to assert itself asthe emergence of a competing notion of order thatwould undermine theexisting hegemonic structure of politics. As opposed toBenjamin's assumption of a single trajectory foraworld-historical shift from power to justice,Schmitt outlines a constantly shifting dialectic between an established politics and anew understanding of the political, inwhich thispossibility of a newpolitics can always threaten the established order, bringing about the state ofexception. Butwhile Schmitt has a keen sense forthe approach of such a stateof exception, his concrete judgments regarding contemporary politics maintain a consistently conservative defense ofwhatever structure of politics iscurrently established?whether itbe theWeimar constitution inLegalit?t undLegitimit?t (98),Hitler's Enabling Act inStaat, Bewegung, Volk (6-7), or the juspublicum Europaeum inNomos derErde (200-01)?against the threat of politically revolutionary tendencies. On the other hand, because Benjamin writesin support of revolution, he is too quick to argue that the fascination with thegreat criminal indicates how criminal violence isalways a potentially politicaldivine violence that establishes a new order. He neglects the extent towhichthis criminal activity needs to develop both a symbolic structure and a representational authority to become a real political possibility.Because Schmitt concentrates on these representational prerequisites forthe transformation of pure violence into politics, he conceives of culture as adynamic process that underlies laws and must be taken into account in anydiscussion of their foundations. The tiebetween exception and norm isa consequence of the fact that the influence of the ideals that determine the decision is sometimes obscured by thenormal operation of laws but can be clearlyperceived in situations, such as the state of exception, where law breaks downdue to the emergence of an alternative conception of the political. Because hedoes not distinguish amythic violence froma divine violence as two historicalepochs, Schmitt establishes a relationship between violence and justice for alllaw butmakes the distinction between the norm and the state of exceptioninto the key one. As Andreas Kalyvas has shown (115-36), the norm forSchmitt is the formof politics within a stable orderwhile the decision in thestate of exception is the impulse that establishes a particular understanding ofthe political against alternative ones.


7/30/2019 27701115

16/22

56 The German Quarterly Winter 2009

Enemy and Way of LifeSchmitt thereby develops a cultural notion of decisionism that isopposedtoAgamben's biopolitical understanding. Ifaccording toBenj amin divine violence declares life to be a sacred entitywhile mythic violence subordinatesbare life tomyth through explicit laws, punishments, and sacrifices, Schmittadjusts his decisionism so that itsobject isnot bare lifebut rather a collective'sway of life,and he understands law and politics as inextricably tied to a cultural context ofmyth and tradition that helps define such away of lifeas a

collective vision that predetermines the individual subject as always morethan its bare life.This cultural interpretation of political change seems at firstto run counter to other aspects of Schmitt's thought, for instance, the idea that the fundamental political distinction between friend and enemy can exist independently of "alle jenemoralischen, ?sthetischen, ?konomischen oder andern

Unterscheidungen" {Begriffes Politischen 27). Though Kennedy, for instance,reads this passage as evidence for how Schmitt "liberates political decisionsfrommoral criteria" {Constitutional Failure 19), a careful look at Schmitt'sdescription of the enemy reveals that the political distinction isnot as pureand independent as onemight at first ssume. For theway inwhich the enemymust be defined as "other" presupposes a cultural determination about whatconstitutes sameness and otherness. As Schmitt notes, this determinationcan never be based on a general norm or the judgment of a neutral party.Rather, he refersto the state "als einer organisierten politischen Einheit, die alsGanzes f?r sich die Freund-Feindentscheidung trifft" {Begriff es Politischen30). On the one hand, within the context of state politics this decision aboutthe enemy cannot bemade by some "objective" agent or authority outside thestate.On the other hand, this decision isnot just the decision of the sovereignbut of the state in its entirety?"als Ganzes." As a consequence, however, thisdetermination of the enemy must be, first,decisionist to the extent that it isnot objective and, second, culturally bounded to the extent that it involves thespecific attitudes and conceptions of the entire political entity. The importance of the decision on the state of exception lies in its ability to sum up thenear-unanimous perspective of the entire group of people forwhich thedecision should be binding. Yet, itmay be that in certain situations no suchhomogeneity of perspective existswithin the people, meaning that no decision ispossible and there can be no clear sovereign. The possibility of the decision thereforedepends on the cohesiveness of thepolity and itsunderstandingof itself as a unified group.Because the possibility of decision depends on the consent of the group,the definition of the enemy is a judgment, not about existence itself, butabout the particular "way of life" that isdefined and established in the decision: "Den extremen Konfliktsfall k?nnen nur die Beteiligten selbst unter sich


7/30/2019 27701115

17/22


ausmachen; namentlich kann jedervon ihnen nur selbst entscheiden, ob dasAnderssein des Fremden imkonkret vorliegenden Konfliktsfalle dieNegationder eigenen Art Existenz bedeutet und deshalb abgewehrt oder bek?mpftwird, um die eigene, seinsm??ige Art von Leben zu bewahren" (Begriffes Politischen27). The appeal to the actual participants rather than to an outsideobserver as the only ones capable ofmaking a judgmentmeans that the judgment depends on a unity of perspective within the polity, beginning with theconcrete experience and situation of theparticular judging subjectwithin thispolity, rather than the application of any objective moral or rational principles.This isbecause the content of this judgmenton the enemy does not just

concern pure biological survival but, asAndrew Norris has indicated (73-76), involves a self-understanding ofwhat constitutes "der eigenen Art Existenz"?one's own particular form of existence. Rather than simply defending one'sbare existence against the enemy, the decision establishes the existence of agroup of people who see themselves as part of a particular cultural form thatmust be defended againstwhat thegroup judges to be alien and threatening tothis form.

In a process that Sarah Pourciau describes as a "practice of radical selfconstitution" (1071), the decision attains a foundational meaning for theself-construction of a collective based on cultural ideals, but not in themechanism of a pre-existing norm. Schmitt isworking within the same frameworkof a critique of the normative emptiness of rationality thatmotivates textssuch asMax Horkheimer and Theodor W Adorno's Dialektik derAufkl?rung.Facing the same process of secularization that has on the one hand delegitimized and relativized theological truths and on theother hand demonstratedthe inability of reason toground a set ofvalues objectively, Schmitt pursues alineof thought inwhich each set of values can attain validitywithin a particularpolitical sphere, not through any objective, universal truth, but through aprocess of collective will formation. The constitution of collective identitythat is carried out in the sovereign decision that establishes order isnot just adecision fororder itself but fora particular order, and Schmitt's innovation isto see this decision as the foundation of any set of norms that, because theycan never have any universal validity, can only attain validity on a local level asthemetaphysical ideals that have gained broad supportwithin a group and arethen established into a particular legal and political order through the sovereign decision.It is significant here that the decision isa decision and not a construction,which is to say that the sovereign's decision involves a choice amongst a number of previously existing, competing conceptions of collective identity.

Though the decision is indeed a definingmoment and in that sense unprecedented, itcannot in fact arise out of a void, because the friend-enemy distinction that underlies this decision is dependent on a pre-existing cultural context.Though the designation of the enemy may seem to be an arbitrary act of


7/30/2019 27701115

18/22


political will by a sovereign, the sovereign's decision isalways bounded by theavailable cultural understandings of both that which might constitute thegroup's way of lifeand thatwhich would threaten this constitution. Becausethe political determination of the enemy is always based on previously developed conceptions of justwhat constitutes the collective's way of life,the decision isbounded by the possibilities available to the cultural context within aspecific tradition. The contents of these possibilities are not defined by thepolitical decision but precisely by those other oppositions?moral, aesthetic,economic?that are available forpoliticization.Schmitt explains this dependence of the political determination of the enemy on nonpolitical factorsby pointing out that the political has no substanceof itsown: "[das Politische] bezeichnet kein eigenes Sachgebiet, sondern nurden Intensit?tsgrad einerAssoziation oder Dissoziation vonMenschen, derenMotive religi?ser, nationaler (im ethnischen oder kulturellen Sinne), wirtschaftlicher oder anderer Art sein k?nnen und zu verschiedenen Zeiten verschiedene Verbindungen und Trennungen bewirken" {Begriff es Politischen38-39). Because it does not have its own substance but only describes an

intensity of an association, the political can never exist in a "pure" state. Instead, it is always a property that attaches itself to a prior association with aspecific cultural content. Such a religious or national or economic associationmust always provide the cultural basis and content for political definition ofthe enemy. Once this happens, that cultural basis is itself transformedthrough the politicization. The friend-enemy distinction cannot be constructed without a pre-existing religious, national, economic, or other distinction. Thus, far from imagining the political friend-enemy distinction as thatwhich grounds an order ex nihilo from an "abyssal act of violence" (Zizek18-19), Schmitt always conceives of the political as a characteristic that apre-existing cultural association can take on. By the same token, the culturalassociation, once it ispoliticized, becomes subject to a political dynamic thattakes decision-making beyond the bounds of the purely religious, national, oreconomic criteria thatwere the initial basis of the association of people andsubjects them to the "oft sehr inkonsequenten und irrationalen Bedingungenund Folgerungen der nunmehr politischen Situation" {Begriff es Politischen39). The political and the cultural are intertwined ina relationship inwhich ahuman association with a particular content becomes intense enough to bethe basis of a decision that defines enemies in terms of the need topreserve thecollective's existence as cultural form.Within this process of defining a cultural identity, the final designationabout the enemy stilldepends upon thepossibility of armed struggle betweentwo groups {Begriffes Politischen 29). But even if theultimate political intensification of an opposition can only arisewhen two groups face each other inbattle, this descent intowar is not a situation of pure violence. Politics forSchmitt can never be about a biopolitics inwhich violence and thebody come


7/30/2019 27701115

19/22


into direct contact without mediation, because politics can never even constitute itself as such without a prior set of ideological oppositions. Because hedefines politics as an intensification of a previously existing opposition, thepolitical for Schmitt always presupposes some substantive opposition thatwill then form the basis for law. Though any particular religious, national, oreconomic opposition might not be political, itwill gain a political meaningwhen it intensifies to the pointwhere an association of people will define anenemy based on the opposition and thereby link their identity to that opposition to such an extent that they arewilling to both risk death and kill inordertomaintain the significance of the distinction.Though the possibility ofwar isnecessary forthe definition of the enemy,Schmitt's conception isnot an incitement towar. Rather, theprospect ofwardefines themost intense point along a continuum between a total lack ofpoliticization and themost extreme politicization of a particular opposition.Schmitt does not call forthe creation of enemies but ratheruses the concept ofthe enemy as a tool to take the political "temperature" of an existing opposition.A particular opposition, such as that between rich and poor or betweenChristian andMuslim, may have a relatively low political intensity ina particular time and place, reflecting the fact that there is littlepotential in that context that, forexample, richpeople would see poor people (orvice versa) or thatMuslims would seeChristians (orviceversa) as theirenemy. But over time, thisintensity could increase to the extent that one group begins to see the other asa threat to its existence as a group. By considering the probability that therich/poor opposition or theChristian/Muslim opposition could lead people totake up arms against each other based on this opposition, one determines therelative political intensity of the opposition. The enemy inwar isnot a desideratum forSchmitt buta limit concept, and thepolitical isnot itselfan opposition that could exist independently of other oppositions, but can only developthrough the intensification of an existing opposition.As a consequence, the descent into civilwar (as opposed to criminal violence) must be based on the commitment to some type of value system inwhich oppositions can be defined on a cultural level that involves basic principles. This set of oppositions, then, isboth the underlying schema fordefiningpolitics in a particular situation and the ideological basis for a set of laws.Anomic violence may be a possibility forSchmitt, but it isnot political. Violence can only be political once it is linked to a symbolic field of oppositionsthat can define enemies. This definition isnot simply a reaction to an existential threat to physical survival but a determination ofwhat counts as culturalsurvival. This "mythic" basis of law isnotmerely an instrument formaintain

ingpower that can be turned on and off atwill, asM?ller suggests (466), butan independent realm of cultural dynamics that follows itsown logic and isnot subject to simple instrumentalization. It is to this realm that Schmitt


7/30/2019 27701115

20/22


turns in order to understand the forces that underlie political conflicts andupheavals.

ConclusionAs opposed toAgamben's biopolitical paradigm that leaves out culturaldifferences as amotivating factor inpolitical conflict, Schmitt's sense for thecultural ideals that underlie such conflict can be particularly useful in those

situations, such as Germany in theWeimar Republic or the period of civilwarin Iraq, inwhich the fundamental sources of conflict do not lie simply in astruggle forresources between competing interest groups but in the disparatereligious, ethnic, and economic systems that collidewith such intensity thatthe resulting political instability leads to a state of exception. Though thesovereign's decision may be the definingmoment in establishing the politicalidentity of a people, this decision isonly one moment ina broader and longerprocess that involves the building of the cultural and ethical foundations thatare necessary forsuch a decision to take place. Consequently, the cultural analysis of both religious and secular literary traditions should be able to throwlight on the deeper trends that motivate themost intractable political conflicts, and Schmitt's political theory is structured so as to leave a space inwhich cultural theory could address the gaps that a purely political analysiswould be unable to fill. Indeed, Benjamin's notion o?Jetztzeitmight be successfully integratedwith Schmitt's idea of the decision, as both represent unprecedented moments that link a cultural tradition with an immediate politicalcontext.

Accordingly, a possible "Schmittian" approach to cultural studies wouldinvolve a new kind of inquiry into the political parameters of cultural production and reception. If 1918 and 1933 represent key decision points inGermanpolitical history, the results of those decisions also had consequences for thecharacter of culture in theWeimar Republic and Nazi Germany. At the sametime, though these criseswere decided by political events, the options available topolitical actorswere tightly constrained by the cultural history leadingup to those points. Schmitt's reading of the sovereign decision and the state ofexception asmoments when culture and politics collide opens up an approachto cultural objects that sees them as offering competing models fordefiningcultural identity in the confrontation with external exigencies.The strength of Schmitt's political theory lies in its ability to interpretcrisis points of politics as turning points in culture aswell. But Schmitt's several attempts to explain the preciseworkings of culture inpolitics turned outtobe either inadequate or downright disastrous. His Staat, Bewegung, Volk, forinstance, argues that the Nazi movement provided the cultural mediationbetween the people and the state that ismissing ina liberal framework that is


7/30/2019 27701115

21/22


based on a dualistic opposition between the two (14-17). While Schmitt isobviously searching here foraway to integrate the realm of culture into thepolitical sphere, his solution ends up destroying the independence of the cultural realm that hewas trying to save by reducing it to unitywith the Nazimovement. IfBenjamin's political theory turns out to be just as dangerous inleading him to imagine, indivine violence, theone true from of j stice that canonly be established through the violent destruction of all previously existingsystems of law, his cultural theory, in allowing for the freedom of cultural lifeto establish new connections between current circumstances and past traditions, provides the antidote to Schmitt's heavy-handed approach to culture.Agamben's biopolitical paradigm, however, in imagining a possible space offreedom from cultural inscriptions, pushes toward a notion of an empty subject, freed from law, but by the same token void of culture and defined by barelife.As much as he criticizes thenotion of bare life,his image of freedom fromlaw implies itby de-legitimating all those "mythic" constructions that are theonly path towardmaintaining the sacred as something that ismore than justpower or bodily existence. Agamben seeks a life that is freed from ideology,imagining that itsmythic character is the source of domination. But if e consider language uals den wirklichen Unterscheidungscharakter unsrerGattung vonau?en'1 (Herder 43), then language and its accompanying ideological underpinningswould not be the source of domination butmerely the human meansof adapting to the sources of violence that form the fundamental parametersof human existence.Note

11would like to thank Kai Evers, Eva Geulen, James Rolleston, Christophe Fricker,and two readers forGerman Quarterly for their helpful comments and suggestions relating to the work in this essay. Any errors or omissions are entirely my own.

Works Cited

Agamben, Giorgio. Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life. Trans. Daniel Heller-Roazen.Stanford: Stanford UP, 1998.-. State of Exception. Trans. Kevin Attell. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2005.Arditi, Benjamin. "On the Political: Schmitt contra Schmitt." Fehs 142 (Spring 2008): 7-28.Benjamin, Walter. Gesammelte Schriften. Ed. Rolf Tiedemann and Hermann Schwep

penh?user. 4 vols. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1980.Bredekamp, Horst. "FromWalter Benjamin to Carl Schmitt, via Thomas Hobbes." Trans.Melissa Thorson Hause and Jackson Bond. Critical Inquiry 25.2 (1999): 247-66.Connolly, William E. "The Complexities of Sovereignty" Giorgio Agamben: Sovereignty and

Life. Ed. Matthew Calarco and Steven DeCaroli. Stanford: Stanford UP, 2007. 23^12.


7/30/2019 27701115

22/22

62 he German Quarterly winter 2009

Derrida, Jacques. "Force of Law: The 'Mystical Foundation of Authority'" Trans. MaryQuaintance. CardozoLaw Review 11 (1989-90): 920-1045.Geulen, Eva. Giorgio Agamben zur Einf?hrung. Hamburg: Junius, 2005.Habermas, J?rgen. Between Facts and Norms: Contributions toa Discourse Theory ofLaw and

Democracy. Trans. William Rehg. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1996.Heil, Susanne. 'Gef?hrliche Beziehungen': Walter Benjamin und Carl Schmitt. Stuttgart:

Metzler, 1996.Herder, Johann Gottfried. Abhandlung ?ber den Ursprung der Sprache. Stuttgart: Reclam,1966.Honneth, Axel. "Zur Kritik der Gewalt." Benjamin-Handbuch: Leben -Werk - Wirkung. Ed.

Burkhardt Lindner. Stuttgart: Metzler. 2006. 193-210.Horkheimer,Max, and Theodor W Adorno. Dialektik derAufkl?rung:PhilosophischeFragmente. Frankfurt am Main: Fischer, 1969.

Kalyvas, Andreas. Democracy and thePolitics of theExtraordinary. Max Weber, Carl Schmitt,and Hannah Arendt. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2008.Kennedy,Ellen. "CarlSchmittand the Frankfurt chool." Felos71 (Spring1987): 37-66.-. Constitutional Failure: Carl Schmitt inWeimar. Durham: Duke UP, 2004.M?ller, Jan-Werner. "Myth, Law and Order: Schmitt and Benjamin Read Reflections onViolence" istoryof uropean deas 29 (2003): 459-73.Norris, Andrew. "Carl Schmitt on Friends, Enemies, and the Political." Felos 112 (Summer1998): 68-88.Pan, David. "Carl Schmitt on Culture and Violence in the Political Decision." Felos 142(Spring 008): 49-72.-. "Political Aesthetics: Carl Schmitt on Hamlet." Felos 72 (Summer 1987): 153-59.Pourciau, Sarah. "Bodily Negation: Carl Schmitt on theMeaning ofMeaning." ModernLanguageNotes 120 (2005): 1066-90.Schmitt, Carl. Der Begriff des Politischen: Text von 1932 mit einem Vorwort und drei Corollarien.Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1963.-. Legalit?t und Legitimit?t. Berlin: Dunker & Humblot, 1988.-. Der Nomos der Erde imV?lkerrecht des Jus Publicum Europaeum. Berlin: Dunker &

Humblot, 1997.-. PolitischeTheologie:

VierKapitel

zur Lehre von der Souver?nit?t. Berlin: Duncker &Humblot, 2004.-. Staat, Bewegung, Volk: Die Dreigliederung der politischen Einheit. Hamburg:Hanseatische Verlagsanstalt, 1935.-. Fheorie des Partisanen: Zwischenbemerkung zum Begriff des Politischen. Berlin: Duncker& Humblot, 1963.Weigel, Sigrid."TheCritique ofViolence: Or, theChallenge to the PoliticalTheology ofJustWars and Terrorism with a Religious Face." Felos 135 (Summer 2006): 61-76.

Zizek, Slavoj. "Carl Schmitt in the Age of Post-Politics." Fhe Challenge ofCarl Schmitt. Ed.Chantal Mouffe. London: Verso, 1999. 18-37.

27701115

Documents