The "return" in Nietzsche,
Baudelaire's poetics and
"The eternity of the stars" in Blanqui
for Walter Benjamin are
"reflections of the all-powerful domain of commodities"
Professor Jennings on the concepts
experience and phantasmagoria
(domain of ghosts)
For the occasion of the
publication of the works
and a biography of Benjamin in the USA
Navigation in the domain of ghosts
You are the editor
of Benjamin's works
in the English language
- Yes
- And you are a biographer
In the process of becoming one
I am editor, joint editor
of his works
We are going to publish about
2/3rds of the works
that were first published in the German complete works
at Harvard University Press
And I'm in the process of writing
a biography of Benjamin
in collaboration with the joint editor
Howard Island, a researcher
who works at MIT
And we hope
to complete a short
introduction to Benjamin's life
that will be the first
biography in English
You say that Benjamin's life
is particularly difficult to describe
Yes, we noticed almost immediately
We both are Benjamin interpreters
but to write a biography
is an entirely different thing
Somehow one has to discern
the person behind the texts,
at least as a kind of construct
But traces of a bios,
of a life, with Benjamin
are not rare but
of an I, of a life lived
of an interiority, of a life
there's not much
Only what can be found in his works
Sonar sounds, that is to say
That he did indeed live can be confirmed
Yes
But his personal
his private activities
That isn't quite
That disappears into
his capacity to dedicate
Yes, precisely
The making literary
of all aspects of life
Once we were peasants,
then we become urban dwellers
then we become collectivised
into industrial society
and at last we can narrate stories
of all these phases
Yes we can, but
but in Benjamin this
occurs to a higher degree
It's not only that we can narrate
but that all we are is texts
And in that sense made literary
transformed into text
As you know
a central theme is the concept of experience
That is found in the essay
'On some motifs in Baudelaire'
The dichotomy between an experience
the singular
that isn't consciously recorded
Isolated experience
Yes
And on the other hand: experience
that is coherent
Patterns of singular experiences
and this second type of experience
can be handed down
can be passed on
Of course that's interesting, but
it represents only a small aspect
of his conception of experience
And I have attempted to
show that in this great book
on Baudelaire
- That was never completed
But that can be
reconstructed rather well -
He attempted
to establish a broader
conception of experience
on the basis of an
analysis of the commodity
And for him,
as everyone knows,
the experience of modernity is
the experience of the commodity
That means that our experiences
are determined
by the fact that we
keep finding as both new and old
ourselves and the world
This is a kind of repetition
and for Benjamin experience
amounts to repetition
Constant repetition
The commodity
that is that which can be exchanged
Can be exchanged, yes
Something that doesn't belong to me
A peasant would not sell
his wife, his cow, his land
It can be taken from him by force
but he would not surrender it willingly
His faith neither,
the peasant within him
has to be understood as
something that is not up for sale
Exactly
This represents the
conception of classical individualism
Yes
But now the society of
commodity trading appears
and the commodity
has something like a soul,
the commodity fetish
Exactly, that concept from Marx's Capital
is fundamental for him
And as you say
in the book on Baudelaire he wanted
to work on the concept
"Empathic understanding
of the soul of the commodity"
Just as one assumed before
and during the time of Descartes
that there is a soul lamp
in the human head
And indeed in the commodity is
a projection
that humans have placed into it
Which means that its value
is determined by humans
And this projection
is repeated again and again
The more a person suffers, the more
labour he has invested in objects
the more longings he has had
the more properties he can
place into the commodity
so that they become beings with a soul
Exactly
As if they were beings with a soul
So that an American street cruiser
in Cuba, imported in 1952,
and repaired 70 times
in the heart of socialism
continues to represent commodities
Yes, continues to represent commodities
And a beautiful woman who
does something for money
would be a commodity?
Would also be a commodity
This is Benjamin's famous example
If she does it without
payment possibly in parts
Yes, that's his famous analogy
A beautiful woman who sells herself
she has, as he says, like the commodity
the sex appeal of the inorganic
The more indifferent she is
the less she takes notice of me
the more must I love her
And that becomes the basis of his
conception of experience
That is what I claimed
But
it is not just a
conception of commodification
In the book on Baudelaire
particularly in the final section
There are going to be three sections
First, 'Allegory in Baudelaire'
The second section that
has been published
'The Paris of the second empire'
'The commodity as poetic object'
The commodity as poetic object
And he begins by claiming that
Baudelaire's poems have
commodity characteristics
because they do not only have the
appearance [glow] of the new
but also of the continually same
And as a particular example of this
he takes allegory in Baudelaire
and especially the allegory
of the constellation of the stars
He compares these allegories
with Nietzsche's allegories
Namely, the allegory of the eternal return
And with this notion in August Blanqui
of the 'L'eternite par les astres'
[Eternity of the stars]
What does that mean?
The eternity of the stars
It is difficult to translate, into English, too
But all three
Nietzsche's key idea
the allegories in Baudelaire's poems
and this political notion in Blanqui
for Benjamin
are phantasmagorias
You will have to elaborate
I know the word 'phantasmagoria'
only from Goethe
In Faust part 2
there are phantasmagorias
They are
absurd distorted
plays
But what is it?
Adorno and Benjamin
used the concept
in that they base it on Lukacs'
conception of 'second nature'
In Lukacs this concept
means that we live in a world
and this world consists
of commodity networks
These commodity networks
have commodity characteristics
That means they're fetishes
They exert
a rather inhuman influence on humans
Marx describes this as
sensuous-metaphysical
And Lukacs observed that
we inhabit this world of commodities
as if we lived in nature
This world of commodities 
thus becomes "second nature"
Like a greenhouse
There are unique properties that
thrive in humans, like in a greenhouse
And others that are left behind,
remnants of nature
Exactly
And second nature, of course,
is connected to first nature 
like the tree left standing
in the middle of the World 
exhibition in the Crystal Palace
That is why I cannot simply turn 
away from this second nature
- Or liberate myself
- That means that we live in this world
Marx: "We act, but we do not know that we act"
without being aware of this fact
- In a ghostly imagination / representation
Precisely
And we live
in such a way
in which the senses continuously
are confused
and degraded
And this state
which for Adorno and Benjamin
is an objective reality
And is called phantasmagoria
- What I find fascinating
that on American soil
where Marx did not
yield a great response
Where all relations are different to
19th century Europe
And suddenly scholars arrive
at the great universities
Princeton, Harvard...
and study this
and preserve it, as if on Noah's Ark
of which it is also said 
that it wasn't a ship
but a trunk filled with books
And in this way philologists preserve
a treasure
And I would like a translation
if you could once more
The image of the stars
Their constellation
If you like
It is bound up with 
the concept of gravity
This notion that there exists something
external to this world
that cannot be counterfeited
by any means available in this world
The stars present this fact
In the case of commodities
it would be a high distinction
if a commodity existed
that could completely 
resist any manipulation
I am convinced that this is so
But in Benjamin it's different
He sees that Baudelaire,
Nietzsche, and Blanqui
attempt
to evade the character of modernity
by basing this character on
the fetish-character of commodity
in a kind of apotheosis
or glorification
That is to say that commodities
which exist in great abundance
become stars by means
of a kind of apotheosis.
Thus they become,
rather than the reason for the misery
of contemporary life,
a kind of allegory for a better life.
But
Benjamin wants to say 
that this is a false allegory.
As he said in his book on 
the origin of the Trauerspiel
a "play of sadness", a tragedy,
is a play for sad people
They are so sad
that they can only find consolation by
watching themselves on stage as if
reflected in a mirror
Yes precisely
And that muffles the sadness
for a few hours
What he says is quite correct
It is
That is an interpretation of the theatre
And of musical theatre
Similarly,
he says, if I understand you correctly,
that Nietzsche
Baudelaire and Blanqui
stage the
transformation of the world into a theatre
 
and again before a crowd of mourners
in order to console
Yes, in order to console
While commodities cannot console,
so to speak
Exactly
Or does he say that stars cannot console?
The commodities as stars
cannot and should not console
The romantic period
has to be devalued
to withdraw the commodity character
from poetry
so that it may become 
useful to understanding
Is that Benjamin?
That is Benjamin
That is Benjamin
I believe that
his basic principle
on the one hand is that
the commodity
No, that the world, our world
is such that we can no longer comprehend
its commodity character
But that
I would say
is the project of the Frankfurt School
Benjamin, like Adorno
Adorno has to spur on Benjamin
because Benjamin forgets the 
commodity character occasionally
Or he forgets the fact that
the commodity character is objective
and Adorno reminds Benjamin 
of this again and again
Secondly, I would say that they attempt
to elevate the state of affairs
to the level of consciousness
That is a rather simple project
But that is the project 
of Benjamin's writings
What did Blanqui write
and what is
Benjamin's foundation here?
Blanqui was the leader
of revolts in France
Three times
He was arrested after every
major insurrection in 
France in the 19th century
Against Louis-Philippe
After 1830
Again after 1848
And after the 1870 Paris commune
And he wrote his great 
cosmological speculation
L'éternité par les astres
in the prison of Tradeau [?]
I think that it's called Tradeau
In his last imprisonment
This cosmological speculation
is completely different
to
the way in which Blanqui himself
had earlier conceived of his activities
He's an anarchist, after all
He believes in government by council
and the spontaneous self-regulation
in which humans may govern themselves
Precisely
And here suddenly is a great
network of stars
Almost like a Newtonian clockwork
of the cosmos
And that is astounding
It is
In his disappointment
after the failure of the commune
And while observing
that these societies 
operate like clockworks
Precisely
Like clockworks
He thus conceives of a closed
system of stars
of matter and energy
in the universe
in which combinations could vary
Which means that his activities
could yield different consequences
than they do currently, in the year 1873
Thus revolutions that failed
can be overcome in the
next developmental loop
and realised at that stage
He produces a reservoir,
so to speak
of revolutionary opportunities
Precisely
And Benjamin says
that such reservoirs have 
commodity character
Yes, one might say
that Benjamin is always 
looking for the sparks
of revolutions
so that they won't be lost
But
in this case
he wants to emphasize that
it was a phantasmagoria
A false notion
An attempt
to console Blanqui himself
and his friends of the left
But Benjamin claims that
only by understanding
the false character
of this utopian imagining of the stars
do we have the opportunity
to observe that we inhabit a world
that we do not comprehend
And that these repeated attempts
to console ourselves
accomplish nothing against this world
And that they take from us 
the means of understanding
of reason, of the senses
but also of poetry
of writing
of this heritage
It is taken away and devalued
Weapons are taken from us
We are disarmed
Conversely, one might say that
a person will not think
without the prospect of happiness
He must see hope in it
Only negative [thoughts]
would mean:
I understand it
but do not want to know it
Just like nobody listened to Cassandra
in Troy
At the end she is raped by a silly
Greek Hero
Ajax menaces Cassandra
(Athena on the right)
Nothing is heeded, not prophecy
He would tell her that, too
Yes he would
In this respect
Benjamin liked to quote Kafka
Brod asked Kafka:
"Franz, is there no hope?"
And Kafka said:
"Oh sure, there is infinite hope"
"Just not for us"
And the last sentence of Benjamin's
essay on Goethe is
"Only for the sake of the hopeless 
ones have we been given hope."
There is hope
Whether we become 
happy is a different matter
We know from
Marx, who developed the 
analysis of commodities,
that there exists the necessary 
production of false consciousness
That is to say if an understanding
disappoints emotional stability
it disappoints that on which I live
and I will forsake that understanding
in one way or another
I can replace a fallacy with another
But I cannot quit
my pursuit of happiness
It is an evolutionary 
program, so to speak
Nietzsche says this, too. 
We are animals of illusion
How does Benjamin react to this?
Well
I would never say that
Benjamin is in pursuit of happiness
He wanted to spur on the world
against an apocalypse
And what was to take place after that
he didn't know
He only knew that the
contemporary conditions
were inacceptable
In this sense he is a soothsayer
A seer
That something like Auschwitz,
which takes place after his death
that he can perceive 
it in the social relations
Yes, absolutely
Here he speaks of something
that is indeed unbearable
And also for those who
are not incinerated
but for those who do it
it also amounts to dehumanisation
He spoke of the presence 
of a permanent catastrophe
And we require, at the very least,
the means of poetry,
of commentary, of philosophy
of research
That is where hope lies
And he says
First of all, get rid 
of ornaments and plush
"The search for blurred traces"
Blurred traces
The ornament is plush-fabric for the eye
And in this case
to use the stars
as ornaments
would be wrong, at least because
they do not notice us in any way
For Benjamin the world of capitalism
was a ruin already
Capitalism itself
the effects of commodities
- executed...
- destroyed the world
But
This ruin
This world
maintains the semblance
of coherence
It gives birth to lemurs
In Goethe Lemurs
belong to phantasmagoria
Spectral beings
That means that this 
already destroyed world
would have to be destroyed a second time
by the critic
Subtitles by stefflbw (2011)
