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Saturday, July 10, 2004

Walter Benjamin on History being written from the standpoint of the Victor 

‘Whoever has emerged victorious participates to this day in the triumphal procession in which the present rulers step over those who are lying prostrate. According to traditional practice, the spoils are carried along in the procession. They are called cultural treasures, and a historical materialist views them with cautious detachment. For without exception the cultural treasures he surveys have an origin which he cannot contemplate without horror. They owe their existence not only to the efforts of the great minds and talents who have created them, but also to the anonymous toil of their contemporaries. There is no document of civilization which is not at the same time a document of barbarism. And just as such a document is not free of barbarism, barbarism taints also the manner in which it was transmitted from one owner to another. A historical materialist therefore dissociates himself from it as far as possible. He regards it as his task to brush history against the grain.’
 

  • "Where are the empathies of traditional historicism?] The answer is inevitable: with the victor. Hence empathy with the victor invariably benefits the rulers. Historical materialists know what that means. Whoever has emerged victorious participates to this day in the triumphal procession in which the present rulers step over those who are lying prostrate. According to traditional practice, the spoils are carried along in the procession. They are called cultural treasures, and a historical materialist views them with cautious detachment... They owe their existence not only to the efforts of the great minds and talents who have created them, but also to the anonymous toil of their contemporaries. There is no document of civilization which is not at the same time a document of barbarism... [A historical materialist] regards it as his task to brush history against the grain." 

    "For every image of the past that is not recognized by the present as one of its own concerns threatens to disappear irretrievably." 
    (From "Theses on the Philosophy of History" in Illuminations, ed. Hannah Arendt) 

    • Working with Frederic Jameson's categories ("Postmodernism and Consumer Society") (1) "the transformation of reality into images" (cf. Debord and Baudrillard) 
    (2) "the fragmentation of time into a series of perpetual presents" 
    • "the erosion of the older distinction between high culture and so-called mass or popular culture" (Jameson).
    • Pastiche and parody of multiple styles: old forms of "content" become mere "styles"
    • stylistic masks, image styles, without present content: the meaning is in the mimicry
    • "in a world in which stylistic innovation is no longer possible, all that is left is to imitate dead styles, to speak through the masks and with the voices of the styles in the imaginary museum" (Jameson).
    • No individualism or individual style, voice, expressive identity. All signifiers circulate and recirculate prior and existing images and styles.
    • Discuss postmodern attempts to provide illusions of individualism (ads for jeans, cars, etc.) through images that define possible subject positions or create desired positions (being the one who's cool, hip, sexy, desirable, sophisticated...).
    • "our advertising...is fed by postmodernism in all the arts and is inconceivable without it" (Jameson)
    • Po-Mo as late capitalism: transnational capitalism without borders, only networks and info flo

    Benjamin, “Thesis VII”, Illuminations. Trans. Harry Zorn. Ed and intro. Hannah Arendt. London: Fontana, 1992 (1973). 248

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    # posted by Hazem @ 7/10/2004 05:58:00 PM

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