Taking Exception to Decision: Walter Benjamin and Carl Schmitt Author(s): Samuel Weber Reviewed work(s): Source: Diacritics,

Vol. 22, No. 3/4, Commemorating Walter Benjamin (Autumn - Winter, 1992), pp. 5-18 Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/465262 . Accessed: 18/02/2012 14:23
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TAKING
TO

EXCEPTION

DECISION: BENJAMIN SCHMITT AND

WALI'ER CARL

SAMUELWEBER
... as in the epigramabove an engravingdepicting a stage on which there stand, to the left, a buffoonand, to the right, a prince: "Whenthe stage is empty,fool and king will no longer countfor anything." -Walter Benjamin,The Origin of GermanTragicDrama 1 In December 1930 WalterBenjaminsends the following letter to Carl Schmitt: EsteemedProfessor Schmitt, Youwill receive any day nowfrom thepublishermy book The Originof the German MourningPlay. Withthese lines I would like not merelyto announceits arrival, butalso to express myjoy at being able to send it to you, at the suggestionof Mr.AlbertSalomon. Youwill veryquicklyrecognizehow muchmybook is indebtedto youfor itspresentation of the doctrine of sovereignty in the seventeenthcentury. Perhaps I may also say, in a addition, that I have also derivedfrom your later works, especially the "Diktatur," ofmymodesof researchin thephilosophyofartfromyours in thephilosophy confirmation of the state. If the reading of my book allows thisfeeling to emerge in an intelligible fashion, then the purpose of my sending it to you will be achieved. Withmy expression of special admiration Yourvery humble WalterBenjamin [GS 1: 3.8871 Thisletteris notto be foundin thetwo volumesof Benjamin'sCorrespondence, published in 1966. The esteem thatBenjaminexpressedfor the eminentpolitical thinkerwho, just a few yearslater,was to publishtexts suchas "DerFiihrer schiitztdas Recht"("TheFiihrer Protectsthe Law") (1934) and "Die deutsche Rechtswissenschaftim Kampfgegen den in Its Struggle against the Jewish Spirit") jiidischen Geist" ("GermanJurisprudence (1936) hardlyfits the picturethatBenjamin'stwo editors and formerfriends, Gershom Scholem and Theodor Adomo, intended to make known to a broad audience. As understandable as theirdecision to exclude thisletteris, it nonethelessexpressesa malaise thatis relatedto the way in which thefigureof WalterBenjamintendsto resistanyattempt at univocalclassificationor straightforward evaluation. It is as thoughthe fact thathe had been able to admireand drawinspirationfrom the work of a Catholicconservativewho diacritics / fall-winter 1992
diacritics 22.3-4: 5-18 5

was soon to become a conspicuous member of the Nazi party could only muddy and confuse the meaning of an oeuvre thatboth Adorno and Scholem, whatevertheir other differencesaboutit might be, agreedwas of exemplarysignificance. It is as thoughthe of a debt amountedto a generalidentificationandthus,in view of later acknowledgment to developments, a moral contaminationof Benjaminby Schmitt. of Rolf Tiedemann,who is to be creditedwith Sucha malaiseis palpablein theremark in the the letter to Schmitt critical he assembledfor the edition of publishing apparatus he Collected that edited. The letter,he remarks,is "denkwiirdig," Writings Benjamin's not what sort of he does it although sayjust thoughts mightelicit or deserve[GS 1: 3.887]. One response that is often encounteredin this context traces Benjamin's interest in Schmittback to the critiqueof liberal,parliamentary democracysharedby both. But this as evident and as accurate as it explanation, may be, hardlysuffices to accounteitherfor the "debt"mentionedby Benjaminin his letter,or for the mannerin which it manifests itself in his book. Rather,the workof Schmittfiguresin thatbook for at least two related but very distinctreasons. Firstof all, the "playof mourning" at work in the Trauerspiel and above all the character of its "origin" both imply a certainrelationship to historyand to politics.' Second, and more specifically, Benjamin encounters the question of butas a methodologicaland sovereigntynot simplyas a themeof German baroquetheater, theoreticalproblem:as we shall see, accordingto Benjaminevery attempt to interpret the Germanbaroquerisks succumbingto a certainlack of sovereignty. Let us examinejust how these two factorshelp to explain Benjamin'srecourseto Schmitt. The German baroque mourning play has as its "true object" and "substance" "historicallife as represented by its age." But the relationshipbetween the Trauerspiel and historyis far from a one-way street: if baroquetheateris concernedprimarilywith s history,this historyis in turnconstruedas a kindof Trauerspiel.This is why Benjamin' here must read as be as as The "true formulation, elsewhere, rigorously possible: object" of baroque drama is not just "historicallife" as such, but rather"historicallife as representedby its age [das geschichtliche Leben wie es jene Epoche sich darstellte]" andrepresentative of historyin the [Origin62/Ursprung51]. The primary representation is "The the sovereign: Sovereignrepresents baroqueage, however, history. He holds the course of history in his hand like a scepter"[65]. Benjamin'sinsistence on the historicalsubjectmatterof Trauerspielthus leads him necessarilyto the questionof political sovereigntyandits relationto history. But it is not merely the thematicaspectof his subjectthatleads Benjaminto examinethe questionof sovereigntyandhence to the theoriesof Schmitt. Inhis letter,Benjaminwritesthathe has foundin Schmitt's worksa "confirmation" of his own style of research, "meine[n]eigenen Just what to becomes clearerif we turn Forschungsweisen." Benjaminmightbe referring to the beginning of the first chapterof his book, "Trauerspiel and Tragedy." Benjamin his in with a notion elaborated the begins study proper "Epistemo-Critical Prologue": of a philosophicalinvestigationsuch as the one he namely, thatthe "conceptualization" proposes must be "directedtowards the extreme [die notwendige Richtung aufs Extreme]"[57/45]. In thus foregrounding the constitutiveimportanceof a "turntowardthe extreme"in the process of "philosophicalconceptualization," Benjaminplaces himself squarelyin a tradition thatgoes backat least to Kierkegaard' s essay on Repetition; butthe text in which this mode of thinkingimpressed itself most profoundlyupon Benjaminwas probably Schmitt'sPolitische Theologie[Political Theology],the firstchapterof which concludes by insisting on the significance of "theextremecase":
1. I have discussed the historicalityof Benjamin'snotion of Ursprung,as elaboratedin his "Epistemo-CriticalPrologue" to this book, in "Genealogy of Modernity: History, Myth and Allegory in Benjamin'sOriginof the GermanMourningPlay" [MLN 106 (1991) esp. 467-74]. 6

Precisely a philosophy of concrete life must not withdraw from the exception and the extremecase, but must be interestedin it to the highest degree. The exceptioncan be more importantto it than the rule, not because of a romantic ironyfortheparadox,butbecause theseriousnessof an insightgoes deeperthan the clear generalizations inferredfrom what ordinarily repeats itself. The exception is more interesting than the rule. The rule proves nothing; the exceptionproves everything: it confirmsnot only the rule butalso its existence, which derives onlyfrom the exception. [15] In the "Epistemo-Critical Vorrede)to the Trauerspiel Prologue"(Erkenntniskritische book, where Benjaminseeks to elaboratethe premisesandimplicationsof his readingof thathe appeals the Germanbaroquetheateras an "idea,"it is precisely to the "extreme" in order to indicate just how the "idea" distinguishes itself from the subsumptive generalityof the concept: The idea is best explained as the representationof the context in which the uniqueand extreme[Einmalig-Extreme]standsalongside its counterpart.It is the mostgeneral referenceswhichlanguage thereforeerroneousto understand makesas concepts, insteadof recognizingthemas ideas. It is absurdto attempt to explain the general as the average. Thegeneral is the idea. The empirical, on the other hand, can be all the moreprofoundlyunderstoodthe more clearly it is seen as an extreme. [35] of the Einmalig-Extreme Whatis characteristic is, as Schmittexplicitly states,thatit is a "borderlinenotion": it is situated at the extremity of what is familiar, identically repeatable,classifiable; it is the point at which the generallyfamiliaris on the verge of passing into somethingelse, the point at which it encountersthe other,the exterior. To thinkthe "idea"as a configuration of singularextremes(Einmalig-Extreme) is to construe its being as a function of thatwhich it is not. Suchpassagesindicatehow Benjamin's modeof investigation,his Forschungsweise, is indebtedto thatof Schmitt: both sharea certainmethodologicalextremismfor which the formationof a concept is paradoxicallybut necessarilydependentupon a contactor an encounter with a singularity that exceeds or eludes the concept. This singular encountertakes place in and as the "extreme"and it is the readiness to engage in this encounter,according to Benjamin, that distinguishes "philosophicalhistory"from art history,literaryhistory,or any otherform of historythatpresupposesthe givenness of a generalconcept underwhich the phenomenait addressesare to be subsumed: Philosophical history, the science of origin, is theform which, in the remotest extremesand the apparentexcesses of theprocess of development,reveals the configurationof the idea-the sum total of all possible meaningful juxtapositions of such opposites. The representationof an idea can under no circumstances be consideredsuccessful unless the whole range ofpossible extremesit contains has been virtuallyexplored. [47] The circle of extremes can be traversedonly potentiallynot only because the extremes themselves areneverfully presentor realizedas such. Rather,they articulate themselves historicallyin termsof a split into a Vor-undNachgeschichte. This pre- andposthistory of the singularidea constitutes "the abbreviatedand obscuredfigure of the remaining world of ideas" [47]. This figure is to be deciphered(abzulesen). And it is here, precisely, thatBenjamin finds himself faced with a problemthatseems to beara particular relationto the German baroqueand its interpretation: diacritics / fall-winter 1992
7

That characteristic feeling of dizziness which is induced by the spectacle of the spiritual contradictions of this epoch is a recurrent feature in the improvised attempts to capture its meaning.... Only by approaching the subjectfrom some distance, and initially, forgoing any view of the whole, can the mind be led, through a more or less ascetic apprenticeship, to the position of strength from which it is possible to take in the whole panorama and yet remain in control of oneself. [56]

in the stagingof an idea In the baroque,the "circle"of potentialextremesto be traversed and of antithesesfrom which thereseems has become an encirclementof contradictions no escape, but only the "dizziness,"the vertigo that its spectacle elicits. and antithesesencircle the Germanbaroque? Not the What sorts of contradictions least of these appearsto be a singulardiscrepancybetween its artisticintentionsand the aestheticmeans at its disposal. And it is here that Benjaminencountersthe problemof sovereigntyin a guise thatseems to be peculiarto the Germantheaterof the time: "The neverachievedthatsupplenessof formwhich Germandramaof theCounter-Reformation bends to every virtuosotouch, such as Calder6ngave the Spanishdrama. It took shape ... in an extremelyviolent effort, and this alone would suggest thatno sovereigngenius imprintedhis personalityon this form"[49]. Whatis modem, topical,aktuell,aboutthebaroquein general,andaboutthe German is thus tied on the one hand to a certainlack of sovereignty,to a baroquein particular, certainincapacityof producingconsummateartisticforms, and on the otherto an effort to overwhelmall of the will thatstrivesto compensatefor this lack but insteadthreatens it: those who seek to interpret
Confronted with a literature which sought, in a sense, to reduce both its technique, the unfailing richness of its creations, and the vehemence of its claims to value, one should emphasize the necessity of that sovereign attitude which the representation of the idea of a form demands. Even the danger of allowing oneself to plunge from the heights of knowledge into the profoundest depths of the baroque state of mind. [56]

as well as thepowerof its will The lack of sovereigntyof theGerman baroquetheater, all the moreimperative render a attitude" for that to lack, "sovereign seeking compensate it. This is at least one explanation andall the moredifficultfor those who seek to interpret of his style of researchin the Lehre for why Benjaminis led to look for a "confirmation" of Schmittconcerning,precisely, the questionof sovereignty.2

" thatBenjamin 2. Herethequestionshouldat least be raisedinpassing whetherthe "dizziness here identifieswiththeGermanbaroqueis notalso, inpartat least, a resultof his owndetermination of the origin as a Strudel, a vortex or maelstrom that "reisst in seine Rhythmik das of the origin is split between a tendencyto Entstehungsmaterialhinein" [29]. The "rhythm" restore and to reproduce (Restauration,Wiederherstellung),on the one hand, and a certain (Unvollendetes,Unabgeschlossenes)on the other. Thissplit in the origin is what "incompletion" then articulates itself as the division intopre- and posthistory. The lack of a center,fully present associates with to itself, in theorigin isperhapsthe "origin"of thatSchwindelgefiihlthatBenjamin thebaroquein general,and its Germanvariantinparticular. It remainsto be determined, however, whetherthisconnectionindicatesthatthebaroqueis a particularlyoriginary age, or ratherwhether the origin itself is not particularlybaroque. Nor is there any guarantee that the answer to this questionmustconformto the schema of an either/or,a simpledecision. Wewill returnverybriefly at the end of this paper to the relation between "decision" and "rhythm"as articulated in Benjamin'sbook.

2 in the figure of If the primaryobject of the GermanTrauerspielis historyas represented the sovereign, the destiny of the rulerin the baroquetheatermanifests a regularitythat suggests the inevitabilityof a naturaloccurrence:"Theconstantlyrepeateddramaof the rise andfall of princes... appearedto the writersless as a manifestationof moralitythan as the naturalaspect of the course of history,essential in its permanence"[88]. History as a repetitiveandineluctableprocessof rise andfall is identifiedwiththenatureof a fallen creationwithoutany discernible,representable possibilityof eithergraceor salvation. It is the loss of the eschatologicalperspectivethatrendersthe baroqueconceptionof history "inauthentic" and akin to a state of nature. entailsatleasttwo fundamental Sucha conceptionorconfusionof historywithnature for a theater whose as we have seen, precisely the concern is, primary consequences this the loss of the dimension resultsin a radical of First, history. eschatological spectacle of the dramaticelement of the theater,insofar as it had been tied to a transformation Aristoteliananalysis of the narrative-teleological conceptionof history. The traditional plot in terms of "unity of action" resulting from the exposition, development, and as Benjaminputs it, "wanders resolutionof conflict, is no longer applicable. "History,"
onto the stage [Die Geschichte wandert in den Schauplatz hinein]" [92/89]. Second, the

of historyprofoundlyaffects the figure of the sovereign,primary baroquenaturalization of history. The naturalistic destinyof the princedoes not merely exponent,we remember, imply the rise and fall of an individualfigure, but more significantly,the dislocation of sovereignty as such. Out of this dislocation Benjamin develops what he calls "the must of thebaroque.Thereasonthatthis "typology" typologyandpoliticalanthropology" be elucidatedat the outset is because it arises out of the articulation, or rather,disarticulation of sovereignty, and hence of history, the primaryobject of the Germanbaroque
Trauerspiel.

of the political anthropologyof the baroqueconsists of Benjamin's reconstruction threefigures, of varyingstatureand status,and yet each of which is unthinkable without the others. This trio embracesthe tyrant,the martyr,and the plotter(der Intrigant). It is interestto us here. the first and the last that will be of particular The point of departure for this typology is, of course, the figure of the prince. It is here thatBenjaminmakes explicit referenceto CarlSchmitt's theoryof sovereignty. To graspthe significance of Benjamin'suse of Schmitt,it will be helpful if we first review certainaspectsof the latter's discussion of sovereignty,startingwith the famouspassage at the beginning of Political Theologyin which the notion is first announced:

Sovereign is he who decides on the state of exception [Ausnahmezustand]. Only this definition can do justice to a borderline concept. Contrary to the imprecise terminology that is found in popular literature, a borderline concept is not a vague concept, but one pertaining to the outermost sphere. [5]

Despite the apparentand seductive clarity of this definition, it nevertheless leaves a numberof problemsunresolved,aboveall regarding thenotionof the "stateof exception." Firstof all, the stateof exception, Schmittinsists, is not simply equivalent,in German,to a state of emergency or of siege: not every "danger"or "threat"constitutes an in Schmitt'ssense, since not every exceptionper se representsa threat Ausnahmezustand to the norm. The stateof exceptionthatconstitutesthe objectandproductof the sovereign decision is one thatthreatensor calls into questionthe existence and survivalof the state itself as hithertoconstituted. Sovereigntyis constitutedas the power to decide upon or diacritics / fall-winter 1992
9

aboutthe stateof exception andthus in turnincludestwo moments: first, a decision that a state of exception exists, and second, the effective suspension of the state of law thechallengeof theexception. previouslyin force so thatthe statemaymeet andsurmount In thusdecidinguponthe stateof exception,the sovereignalso effectively determinesthe limits of the state. And it is this act of delimitationthatconstitutespolitical sovereignty accordingto Schmitt. of Ausnahmezustand as "state"of exception is not quite This is why the translation accurate,or rather,why it obscuresthe delicatebalanceof similarityanddistinctionthat determine the relationshipof the state as Staat and the exception as Zustand. The is a "state"in the sense of having a relativelydeterminate status;as a Ausnahmezustand it is "Zustand," always also somethingdifferent... from an anarchy and a chaos, [and thus] order in thejuristicsense still prevails even if it is not of the ordinarykind. The existenceof the state is undoubtedproof of its superiorityover thevalidityof the legal norm. Thedecisionfrees itselffromall normativeties and becomes in the truesense absolute. Thestate suspendsthe law in the exceptionon the basis of its right of self-preservation,as one says. [12; my emphasis] The paradoxor aporiaof Schmitt's position is suggested here by the conclusion of the passage just quoted. For if the "decision"is as radically independentof the norm as Schmittclaims, it is difficult to see how the decision of the state to suspendits laws can be justified at all, since all justificationinvolves precisely the appealto a norm. This is Schmittacknowledgesthatthe term why, in appealingto a "rightto self-preservation," is more "a way of speaking"thana rigorousconcept: "Thestate suspendsthe law in the as one says." exception on the basis of its rightof self-preservation, On the one hand,then,the sovereigndecision marksthe relationshipof the orderof the general-the law, the norm,the concept-to thatwhich is radicallyheterogeneousto all such generality. In this sense, the decision as such is sovereign, thatis, independent of all possible derivationfrom or subsumptionto a more generalnorm. It is a pureact, somewhatakin to the act of creationexcept thatwhat it does is not so much to createas and suspensioncan never be predicted and to suspend. If such interruption to interrupt in advance,theyarenonethelessnotarbitrary insofaras theyareunderstood ordetermined as necessaryin orderto preservethe state as the indispensableconditionof all possible law and order. And yet, precisely insofar as it is situated in this temporalityof repetition and to be entirely the decision cannotbe considered,Schmittnotwithstanding, reproduction, in . an or itself and as a break with . it constitutes absolute. Rather, ., interruption norm from what does notIn what to the a norm. separating belongs suspensionof... andin thissense everyauthentic decision,as Schmittasserts,hasto do withanexceptionthe decision distinguishes itself from the simple negation of order, from "chaos and as Schmittwrites,andcanindeedlay claimto havingsome sortof "legalstatus." anarchy," Theproblem,however,is thatsucha claimcanbe evaluatedandjudgedonly afterthefact, as it were, which is to say, froma pointof view thatis once againsituatedwithina system as the fact thatthe state, which is the of norms. For Schmitt,this paradoxis articulated condition of all law and order, is itself constitutedby a decision that is prior to and proves thatin orderto createrights, independentof all such considerations: "Authority it need not be right"[20]. On the otherhand,the nonlegalor alegal statusof the sovereign and exceptionaldecision is justifiable and indeed identifiableonly insofaras it provides of the exceptionby the norm. The statethushas the the conditionsfor the reappropriation first and the last word in Schmitt's theoryof sovereignty. This brings us to a second aspect of Schmitt's thought. Up to now, we have been considering it in terms of a relatively abstract,general, and quasi-logical theory of 10

decision; but Schmitt's thinkingis also historical,as the very title of his book, Political Theology, suggests and as the following passage makes manifest:
All significant concepts of the modern theory of the state are secularized theological concepts not only because oftheir historical development-in which they were transferred from theology to the theory of the state, whereby, for example, the omnipotent God became the omnipotent lawgiver-but also because of their systematic structure, the recognition of which is necessary for a sociological consideration of these concepts. The exception in jurisprudence is analogous to the miracle in theology. Only by being aware of this analogy can we appreciate the manner in which the philosophical ideas ofthe state developed in the last centuries. [36]

To be sure,in the "analogy"thatSchmittis here constructing,"historicaldevelopment" is subordinated to "systematic" considerations.At the same time, it is only in a reflection orrecallof thehistorical"transfer"-or rather, transformation-of theologicalcategories into political ones thatthe "systematicstructure" of political discourseis fully revealed. The salienttraitof thatstructure is, as we have alreadyseen, its dependenceupona certain transcendence, uponthatwhich exceeds its self-identity,upon an irreduciblealterityand exteriority: just as the miracle in Augustiniandoctrineboth exceeds and explains the createdworld. If historical reflection upon the development of political discourse reveals its theological origins and hence its dependence upon a certaintranscendence,the actual historical development of political theory and of theology has moved in an opposite direction:
To the conception of God in the seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries belongs the idea of his transcendence vis-a-vis the world, just as to that period's philosophy of state belongs the notion of the transcendence of the sovereign visa-vis the state. The nineteenth century was increasingly governed by representations of immanence. [49]

To these "representations of immanence" belong the identificationof rulerandruledand,

above all, that of the state with the legal order (Identitit des Staates mitderRechtsordnung)

[49/63]. But if the developmentof modem thoughthas thustendedto efface the originary and constitutiverelationshipof the political to transcendence,in the name of notions of does not seem to be entirelyfree of autonomyand self-identity,Schmitt's own approach suchtendencies. This canbe seen in the manner in whichhe conceives the "consciousness of the analogy"between political and theological categories,which for him is the key to authenticallyhistoricaland systematicalunderstanding. For what emerges in Schmitt's discussion of the relationof politics and theology is thathe construesthe analogy between them above all in termsof identity,ratherthanin terms of transformation or of alteration. For instance, he finds confirmationof his theological-political thesis in the position of Atger, for whom "the monarch in the doctrineof the statewas identifiedwithGodandoccupiedin the state seventeenth-century the position precisely analogous to that occupied in the world by God in the Cartesian system" [45]. The methodthat Schmitt advancesin Political Theology,which he calls "the sociology of concepts," thus employs the notion of "analogy"in orderto reduce difference to identity, as the following programmatic declarationclearly demonstrates: "Themetaphysicalimagethata particular epochforgesof the worldhas the samestructure as what the world immediatelyunderstandsto be appropriate as a form of its political of such an identity is the sociology of the concept of organization. The determination diacritics / fall-winter 1992 11

sovereignty" [46; my emphasis]. One would be temptedto say that Schmitt's critique seeks to replace the Immanenzvorstellungen of modern political theory with thatseek to recalltheheterogeneityof politicalconceptsoutof the Identititsvorstellungen oblivion into whichtheyhave fallen,butonly succeedin once againreducingtheiralterity to the same: to "the same structure" and to "thedetermination of... an identity." 3 With the ambivalenceof Schmitt's approachto the political in mind, let us now turnto the mannerin which the question of sovereignty emerges in Benjamin's study of the Germanbaroquetheater: Thesovereign representshistory. He holds the course of historyin his handlike a scepter. This view is by no meanspeculiar to the dramatists. It is based on certain constitutionalnotions. A new concept of sovereignty emerged in the seventeenthcenturyfrom a final discussion of the juridical doctrines of the middle ages .... Whereasthe modern concept of sovereignty amounts to a supremeexecutivepower on thepart of theprince, the baroqueconceptemerges from a discussion of the state of emergency,and makes it the most important function of the prince to exclude this [den auszuschliessen].. [54-55; my emphasis] A note at the end of this passage refers to Political Theology. And yet the very words whichseem only to paraphrase Schmittconstitutein facta slightbutdecisive modification of his theory. Schmitt,we remember,defines sovereigntyas constitutedby the power to make a decision that consists of two moments: first, the determinationthat state of exception exists, and second, the effective suspensionof the stateof law with the end of preservingthe stateas such. ForSchmitt,then,the stateof exceptionmustbe "removed," beseitigt, "done away with," but only in each particular case, never as such: that is precisely what Schmittcriticizedmoder political theoryfor tryingto do, by excluding of sovereignty. Benjamin, considerationof the stateof exceptionfromthe determination in of the the terms thatSchmittrejects: the describes the task sovereign very by contrast, is with task of the state of exception, "den the "excluding" charged sovereign the Aus-nahmezustand, is to auszuschliessen."In short,thatwhich is already"exterior," be exteriorizedonce again, aus-geschlossen, and this applies not simply to the state of threatto the state-the position of Schmitt-but exception as an individual,determinate to the state of exception as such, thatis, as that which transcendsthe state in general.3 In short, the function assigned to the sovereign by the baroque, according to Benjamin,is thatof transcendingtranscendenceby makingit immanent,an internalpart of the state and of the world, of the state of the world. And the reasonwhy the baroque is so attachedto the state of the world Benjaminexplains as follows: The religious man of the baroqueera clings so tightlyto the world because of thefeeling thathe is being drivenwithit towarda cataract. Thebaroqueknows no eschatology;andfor thatveryreason itpossesses no mechanismby whichall earthlythingsare gatheredtogetherand exaltedbeforebeing consignedto their end. Thehereafteris emptiedof everythingwhichcontains the slightestbreath
werdenkannodernicht, wirklichaus der Weltgeschafft 3. "Aber ob der extremeAusnahmefall das ist keine juristische Frage. Ob man das Vertrauenund die Hoffnung hat, er lasse sich oder tatsdchlichbeseitigen, hdngtvonphilosophischen,insbesonderegeschichtsphilosophischen ab" [13]. Uberzeugungen metaphysischen 12

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of this world, and from it the baroque extracts a profusion of things which customarilyescaped the grasp of artisticformulation and, at its high point, brings them violently into the light of the day, in order to clear an ultimate heaven,enablingit, as a vacuum,one day to destroythe worldwithcatastrophic violence. [66] Whatthe baroquerejectsis any admissionof the limitationof immanence,andit does so of all possible representable content. Farfrom doing away by emptying transcendence with transcendence, such endows it with a force that is all the however, emptying only of absolute that of the the and unbounded more powerful: other,which, since vacuum, is also no longerlocalizable"outthere" it is no longerrepresentable, oras a "beyond."The this side thereforereappears othernessthatis no longer allowed to remaintranscendent or as a fall. even the more of "cataract," Or, horizon,represented radically,such abyss, will be and transcendence as, allegory. representedby, of the sovereignto "exclude" the stateof exception In thisperspective,the"function" conformsfully to the attemptof the Germanbaroqueto exclude transcendence.But the also condemnsthe functionof the sovereign very same desire to exclude transcendence to malfunction: for unlike the political-theological"analogy"of Schmitt, the baroque the Germanbaroquesovereign-is definedpreciselyby his sovereign-and particularly, to as from difference God, just baroqueimmanence sets itself up in contradistinction in the At the time when transcendence. political sovereign very point theological the differencebetweenworldly vis-a-vis the Church, successfullygainshis independence powerandthatof the divinecan no longerbe ignored. The result,as Benjaminformulates it, turnsout to be directlycontraryto the conclusion of Schmitt: "Thelevel of the state is enacted,also unmistakably exercises of creation,the terrainon which the Trauerspiel a determininginfluence on the sovereign. However highly he is enthronedover subject buthe and state,his statusis confinedto the worldof creation;he is the lordof creatures, remains a creature"[85]. Schmitt, we recall, had construedthe theological-political analogy in termsof a relationshipof essential similarity: The sovereign transcendsthe state as God transcendsthe creation. By contrast,Benjamin'snotion of secularization of the change it entails. Such incommensurastresses precisely the incommensurability in even more evident the becomes specific case of Germanbaroquetheater: "The bility of the new drama the of of the religious dramasis characteristic eschatology rejection into nature nevertheless the rash a flight deprived of grace is throughoutEurope; The German theater "flees" German" [81]. wildly to nature-which, baroque specifically we remember,is for it the otherface of history-only to discoverthatthereis no graceor consolation to be had there, either. The undoing of the sovereign is the fact that in a creation left entirely to its own devices, without any other place to go, the state of 211 ff.]. exception has become the rule [see Garcfa-Diittmann The resultis thatthe sovereign finds himself in a situationin which a decision is as imperativeas it is impossible: The antithesis betweenthe power of the ruler and his capacity to rule led to a a generic whichis, however,onlyapparently featurepeculiar to theTrauerspiel, the be illuminated the can and which theory only against background of feature of sovereignty. The prince, who is responsiblefor making the decision to proclaim the state of emergency, reveals, at the first opportunity,that he is almost incapable of makinga decision. [70-71 ] The sovereign is incapableof makinga decision, because a decision, in the strictsense, "natural" is not possible in a worldthatleaves no place for heterogeneity:the inauthentic, or radicalsuspension of its perennial history of the baroqueallows for no interruption 14

interruptions.The sovereign reacts by seeking to gatherall power and thus becomes a his incapacityto arrive tyrant;and yet the more power he has, the more he demonstrates at an effective decision. Faced with this situation,the tyrantcan easily turninto a martyr. Both figures,Benjaminobserves,arefor thebaroqueonly two sides of the samecoin, "the Janus-heads of the crowned... the necessarilyextremeforms of the princelycharacter" [69]. In emphasizingthe dictatorialtendencyof the sovereign,Benjaminfollows Schmitt here practicallyto the letter ("Thetheoryof sovereignty,which takes as its example the specialcase in which dictatorial powersareunfolded,positively demandsthe completion of the image of the sovereign, as tyrant"[69]). But in so doing, he arrivesat a resultthat is almost diametricallyopposed to thatof Schmitt: the very notion of sovereigntyitself is putradicallyinto question. One extremeillustration of this is the figureof Herod,Kind of the Jews, "who,as autocrat became of a derangedcreation" emblematic and gone mad, as such also an exemplaryillustrationof the fate of the "sovereignfor the seventeenth century":"thesummitof creation,eruptinginto madnesslike a volcano and destroying himself andhis entirecourt.... He falls victim to the disproportion betweenthe unlimited hierarchicaldignity with which he is divinely invested and the humble estate of his of which the Germanbaroqueis the result humanity"[70]. The key to the secularization is thus for Benjaminnot so much an analogybased on proportion, andhence on identity,
as a relation based on disproportion, on a Missverhaltniss.

The effects of this disproportion do not stop at the dismantlingof the sovereign,who is split into anultimatelyineffective if bloody tyrantanda no moreproductivemartyr; nor does it come to rest at any of the compromisespossible betweenthese two poles, such as that representedby the "stoic ostentation"that often characterizesbaroquerepresentations of the prince. Rather,the splittingof the sovereignis accompanied by theemergence of a thirdfigure, who standsin radicaldissymmetryto the othertwo. That figure, who completes the baroque "political anthropology and typology," is the "plotter,"the Intrigant:andit is he who turnsoutto hold thekey to thefate of sovereigntyin the German baroquemourningplay. 4 To understand what distinguishesthe plotterfrom the other two figures in the baroque political "typology,"it mustbe emphasizedthatthe incapacityof the sovereignto decide involves the transformation not merelyof an individualcharacter type, but of the manner in which historyitself is represented in the Trauerspiel. And this in turndeterminesthe takes place. With the split of the sovereign into tyrantand way in which representation but the unity of character martyr,what is dislocatedis not just the unity of a character, as such. This disarticulationis of particularimportancefor baroque theater. If the Aristoteliantheoryof tragedyassigns primaryimportanceto the unity and wholeness of of character[Poetics 1454a], it is precisely action,andrequiresto this end "consistency" this consistency and unity thatare undermined togetherwith the statusof the sovereign. Nothing, however, demonstratesthe distance of the Trauerspielfrom the Aristotelian of unity-of the theoryof tragedymorethanthefact thatit is preciselythis disarticulation sovereign and hence of the action-that contributesto the peculiar theatricality of baroquedrama,as the following passage suggests:
Just as compositions with restful lighting are virtually unknown in mannerist painting, so it is that the theatricalfigures of this epoch always appear in the harsh light of their changing resolve. What is conspicuous about them is not so much the sovereignty evident in the stoic turns ofphrase, as the sheer arbitrari-

diacritics / fall-winter 1992

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ness of a constantlyshiftingemotionalstormin which thefigures of Lohenstein especially sway about like torn and flapping banners. And they also bear a certain resemblanceto thefigures of El Greco in the smallness of their heads, if we understandthis in a metaphorical sense. For their actions are not determinedby thought,but by changingphysical impulses. [71; my emphasis] From this accountit is clear thatthe dilemmaof the sovereign in baroquedramais also and above all thatof the subjectas such: it is no longer determinedby its "head"-that of it, thatbuffet is, by its consciousness,its intentions-but by forces thatareindependent anddrive it fromone extremeto another. A powerfuldynamicis thusunleashed,which, however, does not really go anywhere. Instead,like "tornflags" whippedaboutin the affects"over which they have little wind, the baroquefiguresaredrivenby "tempestuous control. Whatresultsis a rhythmof abruptand unpredictable changes and shifts, and it the in the of is this rhythmthatdeterminesthe structure "plot" Trauerspiel. Moreover, is sufficientlyunified or consistentto providea compresince neitherplot nor character hensive framework for the play, this framework must be sought elsewhere. That elsewhere turnsout to be the theateritself, as stage, as artifice,and as apparatus.This is figuresof the age appear implicitin thepassagecited, which describeshow the "theatrical their resolve." The dismantling the "harsh imgrellen Scheine"-in light"-"of changing kind of a to different absolute a and of decision, of definitive, ultimate, act, gives way the takes on a lit that which place stage up by spotlights; phrasegrellen Scheine, acting: which recursfrequentlyin Benjamin'stext, recalls the Scheinwerferof the theater. In the theatricalspace thusopenedby the dislocationof the actionandof the subject, and in the confusion thatresults,the sovereigntyof the tyrantis replacedby the mastery of the plotter: "Incontrastto the spasmodicchronologicalprogressionof tragedy,the Trauerspieltakes place in a spatial continuum,which one might describe as choreois the intriguer" graphic. The organizerof its plot, the precursorof the choreographer, with here of associated The discontinuous [95]. tragedy, is temporality decision, in continuum" which a resituated-within exceptionalinter"spatial replaced-that is, have become the The rule. no because are regularnatureof they longerpossible ruptions and the or "chorebecomes the interruption programmer, programmable, paradoxically of to andconthe word con-found is the The in-trigare, "intriguer." etymology ographer," which in in the clear-cut of more a world is all the fuse, separation the deappropriate cision is no longer effective. The intrigueor plot is thus designatedby Benjaminas a Verwicklung: an imbroglio or entanglement,but one that is organized. The baroque dramathus depends upon a plot that is based not upon a sovereign subjectbut upon a masterfulorganizeror promoter(Veranstalter). It is precisely the calculating natureof calculationsawakenin the thismasterythatfascinatesthebaroqueaudience:"Hiscorrupt the more interest becausethe latterdoes not und all of the Staatsaktionen Hauptspectator of but an anthropological, even of a the here workings politics, simply mastery recognize a physiologicalknowledgewhich fascinatedhim"[95]. The amoralcalculatednessof the plottercontrastsradicallywith the attitudesof both the tyrantand the martyr. For only confrontsa stateof the worldin whichtheexceptionhas becomethe rule,and the intriguer of thereforein which universalprinciples-and be it the principle of the interruption The mechacounted no be decision-can intriguerexploits upon. longer principlequa nisms of humanactionas the resultof forces over which therecan be no ultimatecontrol, but which can thereforebe made the subjectof probabilisticcalculations. into somethingcloser to a The contingencyof such calculationsturnsthe "intrigue" game or to the exhibitionof a certainvirtuosity,ratherthanto the expressionof a cosmic strategy for the good of all or of the state. Thus, not only the subject matterof the structureas well. The Trauerspiel-historical action-changes, but its dramaturgical plot is replacedby plotting: "Baroquedramaknows no otherhistoricalactivity thanthe 16

corruptenergy of schemers"[88]. At the same time, however, the structureof the plot changes: It differsfrom the so-called antitheticalplot of classical tragedyby virtueof the isolation of motives,scenes, and types.... the baroquedramaalso likes to show the antagonistsin crudelyilluminatedseparatescenes [in grelles Lichtgestellte Sonderszenen],where motivationusuallyplays an insignificantpart. It could be said that baroque intriguetakesplace like a change of scenery, so minimal is the illusionistic intention. [75] The utter indifference to psychological or moral "motivation,"combined with the encapsulationof conflicting figures through"in grelles Licht gestellte Sonderszenen" precludesany sort of resolutionin a totalizingdenouement. Whatintereststhe baroque is not so much the dramatic resolution of conflict as its representationthrough a mechanismthat acknowledges and even flaunts its own theatricality. The buffeting of in a stagingthat individualfiguresin thewindsof passionfinds its adequate representation its own artifices. demonstrates The privileged site and scene of such emphaticallytheatricalartifice is the court: "Theimage of the setting,or, more precisely, of the court,becomes the key to historical understanding.Forthe courtis the settingparexcellence.... In the Trauerspielthe court the timelessnatural decorof the historicalprocess"[92]. The "eternal, natural" represents characterattributedto the court in the baroquetestifies to the situationof a historical or Europeis dividedinto a numberof Christian provinces periodin which "Christendom whose historicalactions no longer claim to be integratedin the process of redemption" [78]. Thus, with the eschatological perspectiveblocked, the irreduciblepartialityand provincialityof the local courtrendersit the exemplarysite and stage of a movementof history thathas been reducedto conspiratorial plotting,the aim of which is the destabilizationrather thanthe takingof power. This is why the structural dynamicsof the plotter causes him to resemble comic figures or the fool ratherthan the prince who would be sovereign. If the plotteris most at home in the court,it is only insofaras he knows that for him [96]. therecan be "no properhome [keineeigene Heimstdtte]" In this sense the plottercan be said to be the Exponentdes Schauplatzesas thatplace in which no one, includingthe sovereign,can be athome. Unlike the sovereign,however, the plotter"knows" thatthe courtis a theaterof actionsthatcan neverbe totalizedbutonly with more or less virtuosity. By thus heeding only the rules of the game without staged to reach ultimate seeking principles,the plotterbegins wherethe sovereignhopes to end: with the ex-clusion of the stateof exception. The stateof exceptionis excludedas theater. Whatcharacterizes this theateris thatin it, nothingcan ever authentically takeplace, least of all the stage itself. as a whole... the stage is also not strictlyfixable, In the EuropeanTrauerspiel not an actual place, but it too is dialectically split. Bound to the court, it yet remainsa travelling theatre;metaphoricallyits boards representthe earth as the setting createdfor the enactmentof history; itfollows the courtfrom town to town. [119] If the stage of baroque theater is "dialectically split" and thus "inauthentic,"what distinguishesthe Germanbaroqueis the impossibility of a dialecticalAufhebungthat would constitutea totality: "Theintriguealone would have been able to bringaboutthat allegorical totality of scenic organization,thanks to which one of the images of the sequence stands out, in the image of the apotheosis, as different in kind, and gives mourningat one andthe same time the cue for its entryandexit" [235]. But it is precisely diacritics / fall-winter 1992
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the inabilityto reachsuch an apotheosisthatcharacterizes the Germanbaroquetheaterin in Calder6n. And yet if this limits its aestheticvalue, contrastto its Spanishcounterpart it is also what gives it its distinctivehistorical-philosophical significance. The theaterof the Germanbaroquedivergesbothfromclassicaltragedyandfromthe Schmittiantheory of sovereignty in that it leaves no place for anythingresembling a definitivedecision. Rather,it is preciselythe absenceof sucha verdictandthe possibility of unendingappealand revision thatmarksthe Trauerspiel: The legal analogy may reasonably be takenfurther and, in the sense of the medievalliteratureoflitigation, one mayspeakof the trialof the creaturewhose charge against death-or whoever else was indicatedin it-is only partially dealt with and is adjournedat the end of the Trauerspiel. Its resumptionis implicit in the Trauerspiel.... [137; my emphasis] Nothing could demonstratemore clearly the distancebetween this eternalrevision and Schmitt's notion of an absoluteand absolutelydefinitive andultimatedecision. Here,as there, the question of decision, of its power and its status, is always tied to a certain of space. Whereasin Benjamin,however, this determination determination is revealed to be the errantstage of an inauthenticand unlocalizableplace, for Schmittdecision can be situatedin terms of an unequivocalpoint: The legal force of a decision is differentfrom the result of substantiation. Ascription is not achieved with the aid of a norm; it happens the other way whata normis andwhatnormative around.Apoint of ascriptionfirstdetermines A be is. cannot derivedfroma norm,only a quality rightness point of ascription content. [32; my emphasis] of If Schmitt asserts here that the norm presupposes a "point of ascription," a Zurechnungspunkt upon which one must count, but which the norm as such cannot the unmistakable implicationis thatdecision alonedoes providesuch a point. In provide, his reinscriptionof Schmitt,Benjamintakes exception to this point, therebyrevealingit to be a stage upon which anythingcan happen,even a miracle,but nothingdefinitively decided.

WORKS CITED Walter. Briefe [Correspondence]. Ed. GershomScholem and TheodorW. Benjamin, am Main: Suhrkamp,1966. Adomo. Frankfurt . The Originof GermanTragicDrama. Trans.JohnOsborne. London:New Left Books, 1977. Translationsoccasionally modified. am Main: Suhrkamp,1980. [GS] GesammelteSchriften. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp,1963. . Ursprungdes deutschenTrauerspiels. Frankfurt Alexander. Das Geddchtnisdes Denkens: VersuchiiberAdornound Garcia-Dtittmann, am Main: Suhrkamp,1991. Heidegger. Frankfurt Schmitt,Carl. Political Theology:Four Chapterson the Conceptof Sovereignty.Trans. occasionally modiGeorge Schwab. Cambridge,MA: MIT P, 1985. Translations fied. Politische Theologie, Vier Kapitel zur Lehre von der Souverinitit. Berlin: Duncker& Humblot, 1985.

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