By LUCYANE DE MORAES*
The notion of repetition characterizes the experience of trauma and the painful experience of shock that — real or imaginary — takes on the form of a catastrophe in Modernity.
In Walter Benjamin's body of work, his greatest and unfinished work stands out, focusing on what the philosopher coined as a primeval history of the 19th century. With the aim of developing an original conception of the nineteenth century, the first approach to the project called Flights, developed in the late 1920s, was followed by another focused on a historical interpretation of XNUMXth century Paris, under the primacy of the cult of consumption, that is, the fetishism of merchandise and the urban market phantasmagoria of the newly emerged modern capitalism as such.
This second phase of the work of Flights is documented in the 1935 memorandum entitled Paris, the capital of the 19th century, in which Walter Benjamin approaches in a very peculiar way subjects that are as distinct as they are close, including architecture; fashion; games, street lighting, department stores, advertising, constructions, visual arts, stock exchange, image reproduction, poetry and literature, among many others, always mediated by economic and social aspects.
In the words of Theodor Adorno, “at all times Walter Benjamin relates key figures of the time to categories of the image world” (Adorno, 1996: 197), always interpreted from material bases, justifying the statement of his editor Rolf Tiedemann, in the Introduction of the work: “if it had been completed, the Flights would have been nothing less than a material philosophy of nineteenth-century history” (in Benjamin, 2018: 14).
It can also be said that in this work Benjamin's reflection summarizes, based on the insoluble tension between past and present, a dialectical critique of a certain idea of progress, or as his friend and interlocutor Theodor Adorno rightly pointed out, a kind of “micrology”, related, so to speak, to a history of behaviors. It is from this perspective that the philosopher's gaze sees in the minimum common multiple the maximum divisor of that which divides the coefficient of experiences, between an authentic and never-equal and its opposite, caused by the repetition of the always-the-same.
For no other reason, Walter Benjamin emphasizes the idea of the lived experience of shock, which served as a fundamental instrument for the interpretation of the new socioeconomic realities that emerged with urban societies since the 1989th century: “the experience of shock, felt by the passerby in the crowd, corresponds to the “experience” of the worker with the machine” (Benjamin, 126: XNUMX), an idea that bears similarity to the original notion of Freudian theory of “traumatic shock”.
As a digression, it is worth remembering that Bertold Brecht once expressed the following opinion in an ironic and personal way: “Walter Benjamin maintains that Freud thinks that sexuality will one day become completely extinct. Our bourgeoisie thinks it is humanity. When the heads of the aristocracy rolled, at least their penises were erect. The bourgeoisie managed to ruin even sexuality” (Brecht, 2004: 11).
Returning to the question, it can be said that the experience of shock in Walter Benjamin is caused by countless frustrations and violence that affect the individual in Modernity, who is clouded and subjected to experiences that — through the mechanism of repetition — do not allow him to free himself from his traumas. In other words, what Freud interpreted as traumatic shock was not strange to the philosopher, as a foreign body that — associated with the death drive and the consequent containment of the pleasure principle — brought to light dynamics capable of triggering pathological manifestations on a recurring basis.
This is how the notion of repetition (Repetition) characterizes the experience of trauma and the painful experience of shock that — real or imaginary — acquires the configuration of a catastrophe in Modernity. It is no coincidence that Rolf Tiedemann — who ratifies the words of Theodor Adorno — asserts that Walter Benjamin, in the work of Flights, intended to “give up any and all explicit commentary and let the meanings come to light through the assembly of the material in the form of shock” (in Benjamin, 2018: 16).
At the same time, by resorting to the concept of “commodity fetishism”, considered leitmotiv of your Flights, Walter Benjamin endorses the Baudelairean thesis that in the modern world of capital the same — discontinued in a continuous process of repetition — emerges as an experience free of content, determining a fictitious reality characterized as “second nature”.
Established on the basis of exploitation, the market dynamic — the mercantile nature that dominates the material production of society — consists of repeatedly manufacturing the same, identical products with a view to causing in the subject ready to buy the same illusory feeling of consuming something ever-new (of the lower valley) supported by an idea of recognition based on self-reflection.
From this perspective, it is worth mentioning that Walter Benjamin’s critique goes against processes of cultural commodification that — forged as a dynamic that creates patterns that are always repeated — has as its sole purpose the subjection of the individual to interests focused on mere consumer relations: “this appearance of the new is reflected, like a mirror in the other, in the appearance of the repetition of the always-same” (Benjamin, 2018: 66). And it is none other than the conditioning that produces in the subject turned object the symptom of the potential loss of his individuation.
As a clear definition of phantasmagoria-fetish, Walter Benjamin notes Georg Simmel's sentence that demarcates the symbolic condition of obsolescence not only of products: “The faster fashions change, the cheaper things must become; the cheaper they become, the more they incite consumers and force producers to change fashions more quickly” (Simmel apoud Benjamin, 2018: 157). Fashion threatens the individual with the lack of rigor of the commodity.
The fashion-commodity is joined by the industrial-subject, made for each other, from mass production to mass-individuals. shopping ready, under the extreme anointing of the god Mercury. If fashion strictly subverts the individual with the rigor of profit, Walter Benjamin's question remains: “Would empathy with exchange value be what enables the human being to experience life fully?” (2018: 1277). It is from this perspective that Walter Benjamin interprets the dialectic of commodity production linked to the triumphant system of capital.
In his words, “the novelty of the product acquires — as a stimulus to demand — an importance hitherto unknown. At the same time, the return of the always-same manifests itself clearly in mass production” (Benjamin, 2018: 551). This is also how the Berlin philosopher interprets questions about social problems in his writings, analytically addressing not only political aspects, but also broader cultural aspects.
If in the 21st century the same liberal ideals of two hundred years ago are still experienced in their fullness — as if it were today —, it is from the work of Walter Benjamin, with emphasis on the Flights, that this issue acquires its problematic, understanding the term “passages” not only as something related to the means of movement in galleries, but, mainly, as a metaphor for the transit between the 19th and 20th centuries, from which proceed the applications and implications of the criticism to societies that, informed by everything that is functional, reproduce hegemonic models as standard.
In addition to paying homage to the purpose of Walter Benjamin's work, the undeniable fact is that, on the one hand, we live exponentially under neoliberal inspiration, based on the production of goods that legitimize the capital system itself, on the other hand, we yearn for a promise yet to be fulfilled: that of the possibility of passages for the 21st century.
*Lucyane de Moraes She has a doctorate in philosophy from the Federal University of Minas Gerais. Author of the book Theodor Adorno & Walter Benjamin: around an elective friendship (Editions 70/Almedina Brazil) [https://amzn.to/47a2xx7]
References
ADORNO, Theodor. Characterization of Walter Benjamin. Sao Paulo: Attica, 1996.
BENJAMIN, Walter. Charles Baudelaire: a lyricist at the height of capitalism. In: Selected Works. Vol. III. São Paulo: Brasiliense, 1989.
BENJAMIN, Walter. Flights. Belo Horizonte: UFMG, 2018.
BRECHT, Bertold. Work diary 1938-1941. Vol. I. Rio de Janeiro: Rocco, 2004.
the earth is round there is thanks to our readers and supporters.
Help us keep this idea going.
CONTRIBUTE
