Abstract
This chapter elucidates further Benjamin’s notion of Kafkan attention, a notion for which the ultimately inhuman physicality is so intrusive that it does not abide Heidegger’s view of the human as unique ontologically oriented being. Levinas considers Heidegger’s ontologically oriented human to be inattentive to human relations. Although the aspects of Benjamin’s work on Kafka most emphasized here do not conceive of the human as ontologically privileged, they do conceive of attentiveness as a level of distraction and physically impelled waywardness that Levinas might indeed consider irresponsible towards humans. This waywardness is so great that it strains Benjamin’s messianism insofar as the latter is informed by a conception of a uniquely salvatory human, a conception that might itself undermine attention to distraction.
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Notes
- 1.
On Kafka’s text, see Blumenberg, 633–36/ 685–89. On myth as diminishment of anxiety, see 4, 48, 550/ 10, 56, 597.
- 2.
Kafka , “Prometheus,” Kafka’s Selected Stories, 129/ KA, Nachgelassene Schriften und Fragmente II, KA, 69–70. Although without mention of Kafka’s Prometheus-text, Derrida’s Abraham -musings include a reference to the “rock” of Kafka’s “fictional writing” whereby there emerges a “truth” of vigilant “doubt” (“Abraham , the Other,” 337/ “Abraham , l’autre,” 41).
- 3.
Adorno , “Notes on Kafka,” Prisms, 247/ “Aufzeichnungen zu Kafka,” Prismen, 253.
- 4.
Kafka, Beim Bau der Chinesischen Mauer, 42.
- 5.
With regard to Benjamin’s early writings, Benjamin’s notion of the human was outlined and questioned in Rrenban. More recently, an attempt has been made in Moran, “Nature, Decision, and Muteness.”
- 6.
Heidegger , “Introduction to ‘What is Metaphysics?,’” Pathmarks, 284/ “Einleitung zu: ‘Was ist Metaphysik?,’” Wegmarken, 374. The more elaborate statement by Heidegger is, of course, an effort to distinguish the human being from everything else, not just from the rock: “The human being alone exists. The rock is, but it does not exist. The tree is, but it does not exist. The horse is, but it does not exist. The angel is, but it does not exist. God is, but he does not exist” (284/ 374–75). See also Part Two, Chapter 3 in Heidegger, The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics/ Die Grundbegriffe der Metaphysik.
- 7.
Heidegger , “Introduction to ‘What is Metaphysics?,’” 283–84/ “Einleitung zu: ‘Was ist Metaphysik?,’” 374.
- 8.
Heidegger , “Introduction to ‘What is Metaphysics?,’” 284/ “Einleitung zu: ‘Was ist Metaphysik?,’” 374.
- 9.
Heidegger , “Introduction to ‘What is Metaphysics?,’” 284/ “Einleitung zu: ‘Was ist Metaphysik?,’” 375.
- 10.
Heidegger , “The Origin of the Work of Art,” Off the Beaten Track, 16/ “Der Ursprung des Kunstwerkes,” Holzwege, Gesamtausgabe, vol. 5, 22.
- 11.
Heidegger , “Postscript to ‘What is Metaphysics?,’” Pathmarks, 234/ “Nachwort zu: ‘Was ist Metaphysik?,’” Wegmarken, 307.
- 12.
Heidegger , Pathmarks, 233/ Wegmarken, 306.
- 13.
Levinas , God, Death, and Time, 184/ Lévinas, Dieu, la Mort et le Temps, 212.
- 14.
Levinas , Totality and Infinity, 79/ Lévinas, Totalité et infini, 78.
- 15.
Benjamin , Oeuvres, vol. 2, 67. See II:2, 412 and Tackels , Walter Benjamin. Une vie dans les textes, 732.
- 16.
Heidegger, The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics, 309/ Die Grundbegriffe der Metaphysik, 447. For commentary on this passage, see Derrida , The Beast and the Sovereign, vol. II, 227/ Séminaire. La bête et le souverain, vol. II, 317.
- 17.
For the discussion of human being-with-one-another as oriented by being as such, the whole of Part Two, Chapter 6 is especially relevant: Heidegger, The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics, 274–366/ Die Grundbegriffe der Metaphysik, 397–532.
- 18.
Nancy , L’Adoration (Déconstruction du christianisme, 2), 43.
- 19.
Derrida , The Beast and the Sovereign, vol. II, 264–67/ Séminaire. La bête et le souverain, vol. II, 365–68.
- 20.
Nancy , Being Singular Plural, 70, 202 n. 61/ Être singulier pluriel, 93.
- 21.
In The Metamorphosis, for instance , Herr Samsa greets the news that Gregor is dead with the remark: “Now … we can thank God” (The Metamorphosis, 40/ “Die Verwandlung,” Drucke zu Lebzeiten, 195). In writings by Kafka that Benjamin had read, there are quite a few such references to God . It has mistakenly been suggested, however, that God is mentioned in Kafka’s letter of 1921 dealing with Abraham (Moran, “Anxiety and Attention,” 216); the word God does not appear there. This letter was discussed in Chap. 6 above.
- 22.
See too II:3, 1214, 1219. As noted in Chap. 6, Brod and Schoeps ascribe to Kafka the capacity of “mythic divination” (“Nachwort,” in Kafka, Beim Bau der Chinesischen Mauer, 255).
- 23.
Levinas , “Paul Celan : From Being to the Other,” Proper Names, 42–43/ Lévinas, “Paul Celan : de l’être à l’autre,” Noms propres, 51–52. See Celan , “Der Meridian,” 9.
- 24.
Levinas , “Paul Celan,” 42/ Lévinas, “Paul Celan,” 51.
- 25.
Levinas , “Paul Celan,” 42/ Lévinas, “Paul Celan,” 51.
- 26.
Celan, “Der Meridian,” 9.
- 27.
For Celan’s reference to Pascal and Schestov, see Celan, “Der Meridian,” 7.
- 28.
For statements somewhat similar to Benjamin’s “quotation,” see: Malebranche , Recherche de la Vérité, Oeuvres Vol. II, 453; Conversations Chrétiennes, Oeuvres Vol. IV, 11–12; Traité de la Nature et de la Grace, Oeuvres Vol. V, 25–26, 102, 103; Recueil de toutes les résponses à Monsieur Arnauld, Oeuvres Vols. VI–VII, 126, 130; Recueil de toutes les résponses à Monsieur Arnauld, Oeuvres Vols. VIII–IX, 633; Méditations Chrétiennes et Métaphysiques, Oeuvres Vol. X, 144, 148, 168; Réflexions sur la Prémotion Physique, Oeuvres Vol. XVI, 48. In a study of 1901 on Malebranche , Henri Joly does refer to “l’attention, ‘prière naturelle’ de l’âme” (236).
- 29.
Levinas, “Paul Celan,” 43/ Lévinas, “Paul Celan,” 52.
- 30.
Celan , “Der Meridian,” 9. The French translation by André du Bouchet is used by Levinas, but it is also different from what Levinas quotes and closer to the German that has been translated above into English: “‘l’attention est la prière naturelle de l’âme.’” See Celan , “Strette.” Poèmes suivis du “Méridien” et d’“Entretien dans la montagne,” 192.
- 31.
Levinas, “Paul Celan,” 43/ Lévinas, “Paul Celan,” 52–53.
- 32.
Levinas, Existence and Existents, 4–5, 57–62/ Lévinas, De l’existence à l’existant, 19–21, 102–11.
- 33.
Derrida , “Violence and Metaphysics,” Writing and Difference, 141/ L’écriture et la difference, 208.
- 34.
This could be suggested in Levinas, Otherwise than Being, 164/ Lévinas, Autrement qu’être ou au-delà de l’essence, 256.
- 35.
For a recent study that (on the basis of some of Benjamin’s writings) develops this aspect as a relational ontology of the human, see Andrew Benjamin, Working with Walter Benjamin, passim (and 34–35 for specific formulations).
- 36.
For discussion of distraction in Kafka, Heidegger , and Benjamin, as well as in other textual sources, see North. Unfortunately, this book does not discuss the dynamic of attention and distraction in Benjamin’s Kafka-writings. North’s book also proposes that Benjamin separates distraction entirely from attention (e.g. 165), whereas Politics of Benjamin’s Kafka is an attempt to show that – for Benjamin – attentiveness not bound to distraction is no longer attention. Attention, or at least attentiveness, is an ultimately inhuman demand and not a human accomplishment. This inhumanity of the demand – its surpassing of what humans can live up to – derives from its bond with distraction. Distraction takes the human beyond conscious accomplishment.
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Moran, B. (2018). Distractedly Attentive. In: Politics of Benjamin’s Kafka: Philosophy as Renegade. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-72011-1_8
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