Page 29 - Darko Štrajn, From Walter Benjamin to the End of Cinema: Identities, Illusion and Signification. Ljubljana: Educational Research Institute, 2017. Digital Library, Dissertationes, 29.
P. 29
benjamin‘s aspect
maybe it can be even proved that the “The work of art...” occupies a special
place within the context of the completely fragmented work by Benjamin.
As much as this paper obviously is not in accordance with Adorno’s views,
it is not in accordance with, at least, Benjamin’s style and approach in most
of the rest of his discourse on aesthetic phenomena of his time.
However, taking into account the Adorno‘s criticism slightly helps
our evaluation of those meanings of Benjamin’s text, which transcend the
boundaries of the age in which it was written. Some political motives, the
intellectual revolt against Nazism most visible among them, clearly belong
to historical determinations, which caused Benjamin’s strong criticism of
the idea of the autonomous work of art. Such a stand could be well under-
stood within the logic of the text itself seeking to define artistic production
as a kind of a “material force”, as an agency of the emancipation – not as a
product of a solitary intellectual effort (which an autonomous work of art
is usually supposed to be), but as a consciousness creating force. This con-
sciousness is, of course, most decisively related to the mass perception of re-
ality. Benjamin’s supposed over-reaction against l’art pour l’art is not based
on a perception of fascism as only a “brutal totalitarianism”. On the contra-
ry, the problem is, that the /.../ “aesthetic concept of culture (Kulturbegriff )
isn’t /.../ exterior to fascism, to his cult of the form as the power claim by the
privileged Subject, who in his tendency already encircles the totality of the
form-able material into the political sphere” (Hillach, 1985: p. 257). There-
fore, the problem is that fascism makes use of the mass culture, made pos-
sible by the mechanical reproduction, and Benjamin’s intention is to show
that in spite of it, the dawn of the age of a new mode of production – the aes-
thetic products included – brings the means of the emancipation through
the “transformation of the superstructure”.
Benjamin’s “clash with fascism” clearly helped the author to express
some views, which could be considered along the lines of Adorno‘s criti-
cism as a distortion or even as slightly crude reductionism. Nevertheless, a
question could be put forward, how important really is this side of the text
for its main points? The communication, personal as it may be, between
Benjamin and Adorno, reflected two different points of view of the same
traumatic problem. Adorno’s approach led to problems of “enslaved subjec-
tivity” of the Subject, who “lost his spontaneity” and autonomy in subjec-
tion to market forces. Consequentially, Adorno’s aesthetic theory became a
brilliant illustration of the philosophy, marked by pessimism and even nos-
talgia. Benjamin’s discourse has not been developed in such a wide scope. It
27
maybe it can be even proved that the “The work of art...” occupies a special
place within the context of the completely fragmented work by Benjamin.
As much as this paper obviously is not in accordance with Adorno’s views,
it is not in accordance with, at least, Benjamin’s style and approach in most
of the rest of his discourse on aesthetic phenomena of his time.
However, taking into account the Adorno‘s criticism slightly helps
our evaluation of those meanings of Benjamin’s text, which transcend the
boundaries of the age in which it was written. Some political motives, the
intellectual revolt against Nazism most visible among them, clearly belong
to historical determinations, which caused Benjamin’s strong criticism of
the idea of the autonomous work of art. Such a stand could be well under-
stood within the logic of the text itself seeking to define artistic production
as a kind of a “material force”, as an agency of the emancipation – not as a
product of a solitary intellectual effort (which an autonomous work of art
is usually supposed to be), but as a consciousness creating force. This con-
sciousness is, of course, most decisively related to the mass perception of re-
ality. Benjamin’s supposed over-reaction against l’art pour l’art is not based
on a perception of fascism as only a “brutal totalitarianism”. On the contra-
ry, the problem is, that the /.../ “aesthetic concept of culture (Kulturbegriff )
isn’t /.../ exterior to fascism, to his cult of the form as the power claim by the
privileged Subject, who in his tendency already encircles the totality of the
form-able material into the political sphere” (Hillach, 1985: p. 257). There-
fore, the problem is that fascism makes use of the mass culture, made pos-
sible by the mechanical reproduction, and Benjamin’s intention is to show
that in spite of it, the dawn of the age of a new mode of production – the aes-
thetic products included – brings the means of the emancipation through
the “transformation of the superstructure”.
Benjamin’s “clash with fascism” clearly helped the author to express
some views, which could be considered along the lines of Adorno‘s criti-
cism as a distortion or even as slightly crude reductionism. Nevertheless, a
question could be put forward, how important really is this side of the text
for its main points? The communication, personal as it may be, between
Benjamin and Adorno, reflected two different points of view of the same
traumatic problem. Adorno’s approach led to problems of “enslaved subjec-
tivity” of the Subject, who “lost his spontaneity” and autonomy in subjec-
tion to market forces. Consequentially, Adorno’s aesthetic theory became a
brilliant illustration of the philosophy, marked by pessimism and even nos-
talgia. Benjamin’s discourse has not been developed in such a wide scope. It
27
