Between Contemplation and Distraction PDF

German Studies Association
Between Contemplation and Distraction: Configurations of Attention in Walter Benjamin

Author(s): Carolin Duttlinger
Source: German Studies Review, Vol. 30, No. 1 (Feb., 2007), pp. 33-54
Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press on behalf of the German Studies Association
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Between
Contemplation
and Distraction:
Configurations
of Attention in
Walter
Benjamin
Carolin
Duttlinger
Wadham
College,
Oxford
University
Although Benjamin
is best known for his
advocacy
of distraction
(Zerstreuung)
as the
perceptual
stance most
appropriate
for
modernity,
the
contrasting concept
of attention
(Aufmerksamkeit) plays
a
similarly
central, yet
still more
complex
role in his
thought,
where
it mediates between his
earlier,
religiously
informed
writings
and his later
political agenda.
While attention underlies his assessment of different cultural-historical
configurations
and
their
impact
on human
perception
and
experience,
it also takes on an
important
self-reflexive
character,
as its critical
exploration
refers back to
Benjamin's
own theoretical
approach,
which
relies on a
particular, highly
mobile form of attentiveness for its critical
insights
and
response.
The issue of attention has become a source of
growing anxiety
in modern
culture. In the
age
of
computer games, digital
media,
and the
Internet,
At
tention Deficit Disorder
(ADD)
has
gained
the status of a maladie du
si?cle,
exemplifying
the
precarious
and
deeply
elusive nature of attention as
mental
capacity
and cultural resource.1 The current
debate,
which runs across disci
plines
as varied
as
medicine,
psychology,
and
pedagogy,2
is
by
no means a new
phenomenon
but finds an
intriguing precursor
in the
early
twentieth
century,
when various cultural anxieties first
crystallized
in what was
perceived
to be
a
widespread
crisis of attention. Both
periods
bear witness to fundamental shifts
in entertainment and information
technology?today's digital
culture has its
equivalent
in the
early twentieth-century
media revolution
triggered by
inno
vations in
photography,
radio,
and film. At the same
time,
the earlier debates
about
attention,
particularly
in Weimar
Germany,
took
place against
a
backdrop
of
socio-political
crisis that lent the issue of attention an added
urgency
and
immediacy.
The
complexities
of this situation find
poignant expression
in the
writings
of Walter
Benjamin,
which both reflect and reflect
on
the
precarious
role of attention in modern culture.
With the onset of industrialization and
urbanization,
attention
gained
a central
significance
for the
history
of
modernity
and,
in
particular,
of modern
subjec
tivity.
At the
workplace,
in the
shopping
arcades,
and the
burgeoning
world of
mass
entertainment,
the
subject
was
exposed
to a
heterogeneous
succession of
heterogeneous
stimuli and
impressions
that defied mental
synthesis.
At a time
when the individual and collective
capacity
for attention was
fundamentally put
into
question,
the term
Zerstreuung acquired increasing prominence,3 reflecting
the
emergence
of a new
culture,
or indeed
cult,
of distraction. Yet as distraction
34 German Studies Review 30/1
(2007)
became the new buzzword of modern
culture,
the issue of attention
gained
an
unprecedented significance
as
the
subject
of
a
fervent debate
transcending
the
boundaries between arts and
sciences,
between
psychology
and
physiology,
and
between the
personal
and the
political.4
Among
the various factors
influencing
this
development,
economic issues
played
a central role. With the onset of
industrialization,
automated modes
of
production required
workers to focus
closely
on the task at
hand,
not least
because of the
danger
of serious accidents.
Ironically,
however,
this method of
production
induced the
very opposite
of the
required
alertness,
as
the extreme
monotony
of the
repetitive
tasks led to
tiredness, boredom,
and inattention.
This
example
is
symptomatic
of a more
general, paradoxical pattern:
if taken
too
far,
the
disciplinary imperative
for attention threatens to
collapse
into its
opposite.
The
same mechanism can be observed in the
spheres
of consumerism
and mass entertainment
that,
by perpetually trying
to attract the
spectators'
attention,
end
up dispersing
it. On the
whole, then,
the manifold
attempts
to
produce, manage,
and control attentive individuals
through
a
range
of
disciplin
ary techniques
and institutions illustrate both the vital
significance
of attention
for
modernity
and its
troublingly
elusive nature.
Among
the cultural commentators of the 193
Os,
Walter
Benjamin
is
commonly
perceived
as one of the most
prominent
advocates of distraction. While
many
of
his
contemporaries, among
them
Siegfried
Kracauer and Theodor W.
Adorno,
condemned mass culture as detrimental to the individual's reflective and critical
faculties,
Benjamin
defends distraction
as
both
perceptually
and
politically
effec
tive.
Attention,
in
contrast,
particularly
in its more
contemplative
manifestations,
appears
to
provide
little more than
a
negative backdrop
for his cultural
analyses.
This overall
impression,
however,
is
highly misleading;
in
fact,
attention
plays
an
intriguingly
versatile and
complex
role in
Benjamin's writings,
where it recurs
in a
range
of different contexts and
configurations.
For
Benjamin,
unlike for
many
of his
contemporaries,
the
goal
is not
simply
to
salvage
attention in the
face of a culture of
distraction; rather,
his
writings explore
how this stance can
be
productively
mobilized in the face of
challenges
both
perceptual
and
political.
In this
respect,
attention holds
a
dual
significance
as both
object
and mode of
enquiry;
its discussion as a
theme within
Benjamin's
works is echoed in a critical
practice
that
strategically adopts
attention as a
tool of
analysis
and reflection.
Yet while the issue of attention acts as a
crucial
driving
force in
Benjamin's
thought throughout
the 1920s and
1930s,
it also
raises,
as I shall
demonstrate,
troubling questions
about his critical
perspective, approach,
and
methodology.
One of the
challenges
characteristic of
Benjamin's
discourse on attention lies in
its
terminological diversity.5
For
Benjamin
does not limit himself to the term
Aufmerksamkeit,
but
frequently
enlists words from related semantic
fields,
such
as
Kontemplation,
Konzentration,
and
Geistesgegenwart,
in order to
express broadly
Carolin
Duttlinger
35
comparable
but
subtly
different ideas and
perspectives.
Moreover,
while these
different forms of attention are
frequently
evoked in contrast to states such as
Zerstreuung,
Geistesabwesenheit
or
Gewohnheit,
these
oppositions
are never held
up
as
absolutes but
are
brought
into constructive dialectical
interplay.
The roots of this dialectical
approach
can be traced back to the
early fragment
"?ber das Grauen"
(1920-22),
where attention
underpins
the individual's rela
tionship
to
himself,
to
God,
and to the world at
large. Benjamin
here contrasts
two forms of
contemplation,
or
Versunkenheit,
and their effects
on
the
subject.
One such form is
religious
devotion:
Es
gibt
Zust?nde der
Versunkenheit,
gerade
in ihrer
Tiefe,
welche dennoch
den Menschen nicht
geistesabwesend,
sondern h?chst
geistesgegenw?rtig
machen.
[...]
Die
einzige
Art von
Geistesgegenwart,
welche Bestand hat und
nicht
untergraben
zu
werden
vermag,
ist die in der
heiligen
Versunkenheit,
etwa der des Gebetes.
(VI, 75)6
Prayer
and other forms of
religious
devotion enable
a
double
focus,
whereby
the
subject
is "in Gott und damit auch
[...]
in sich selbst
v?llig
versunken"
(VI, 76).
The attention directed at the divine other is thus
compatible
with a
continued
sense of self-awareness. Unlike in the
mystical
tradition, then,
this
form of
religious contemplation
does not dissolve the boundaries between
man
and
God;
but
provides
the basis for
a
different form of
awareness,
resulting
in
a
presence
of mind that
protects
the
subject against distracting disruptions.
In
prayer, then,
the individual's
contemplative
focus
on the divine does not
preclude
a continued
awareness both of himself and of the world at
large.
The merits of
become clear when it is
compared
to
its secular
counterpart;
as
Benjamin points
out,
the
presence
of mind achieved
during prayer
is
diametrically opposed
to a
non-religious
"Zustand tiefer
Kontemplation
und
Konzentration,
wie tiefes
Sinnen,
Versunkenheit in Musik
oder Schlaf
(VI, 75).
As the inclusion of
sleep
in this list
suggests,
these forms
of concentration
continually
threaten to
collapse
into their
opposite:
oblivion.
While devotional
practices
are
compatible
with continued
self-awareness,
in
secular forms of
contemplation
the individual is said to be "in Fremdes und
daher nur
unvollst?ndig
versunken"
(VI, 76). Paradoxically,
however,
it is
precisely
this
incomplete
state of
absorption
that threatens to undermine the
subject's presence
of
mind,
leading
to a
dangerous
form of absent-minded
ness. As
Benjamin argues,
the
contemplation
of an external
object
or stimulus
absorbs all mental
awareness,
leaving
the
subject's physical
self
"depotenziert
unter Abwesenheit des Geistes"
(VI, 76). Benjamin
here takes the notion of
absent-mindedness
literally
when
describing
a state of
absorption
devoid of
self-reflexive
awareness. It is in such a state that the
subject
can fall
prey
to
external
disruptions, leading
to an
experience
of shock or Grauen at whatever
impression interrupts
this
contemplation.
He
points
out "da? der menschliche
36
German Studies Review 30/1
(2007)
K?rper
im Zustande der Geistesabwesenheit keine bestimmte Grenze hat. Das
Wahrgenommene,
vor
allem das im Gesicht
Wahrgenommene
bricht nun in
ihn hinein"
(VI, 76).
Crucially,
then,
this loss of a sense of self is
triggered
not
by
a state of
solipsistic absorption
but
by
the
subject's "Wahrnehmung
des
Anderen,
in dem beide ihre Konturen verlieren"
(Liska 144).
Intriguingly,
the
trigger
of this disturbance evokes Freud's
theory
of the
uncanny; Benjamin
cites as the
exemplary
and most
powerful
source of Grauen "die
Erscheinung
der Mutter"
(VI, 75),
whose familiar
appearance
becomes
threateningly
alien
as the boundaries of self and other are
dissolved.7
Benjamin's
assessment of attention in "?ber das Grauen" thus follows
a
dual
trajectory.
The absent-mindedness of secular
contemplation
is set
against
its
religious counterpart,
where the encounter with the divine other enables both
self-awareness and a
wider,
outward-directed
presence
of mind. From an
early
stage, then,
Benjamin rejects
oblivious
absorption
in favor of a more dialectical
model of attention that combines
contemplative
reflection with outward-look
ing
alertness.
Although
his
advocacy
of
religious contemplation subsequently
gives way
to an avid
critique
of this stance and its
underlying
traditions,
the
dialectical model of attention
developed
in this
early
text remains central for
his
writings throughout
the 1930s.
A decade
later,
Benjamin
builds on his earlier
approach
in the
piece
"Ge
wohnheit und
Aufmerksamkeit," part
of the collection Ibizenkische
Folge
(1932).
Here attention is contrasted not with sudden external
disruption
but,
on
the
contrary,
with more
habitual modes of
perception. Citing
Goethe's assertion
that
Aufmerksamkeit
is
"[d]ie
erste aller
Eigenschaften,"(IV
1, 407)
Benjamin
argues
that attention is
inherently
linked to
Gewohnheit,
which acts as its neces
sary counterpart; indeed,
the two stances need to be combined for the sake of
mental
stability:
"Alle Aufmerksamkeit mu? in Gewohnheit
m?nden,
wenn sie
den Menschen nicht
sprengen,
alle Gewohnheit von
Aufmerksamkeit verst?rt
werden,
wenn sie den Menschen nicht l?hmen soll"
(IV1,407f.).8
As in "?ber
das
Grauen,"
where
was
commended for its combination
of
introspective
reflection and continued
outward-looking
alertness,
Benjamin
here advocates a dialectical model based on
the mediation between two extremes.
As he
writes,
"Aufmerken und
Gew?hnung,
Ansto? nehmen und Hinnehmen
sind
Wellenberg
und Wellental im Meer der Seele. Dieses Meer aber hat seine
Windstillen"
(TV 1,408).
Importandy,
it is not the
process
of
perpetual
oscillation
that interests
Benjamin
in his
essay
but the more elusive moment of balanced
equi
librium
betweenAufinerksamkeit
and Gewohnheit..This
precarious
state, however,
is
explored
in a series of reflections whose dialectical twists and turns belie the
image
of the
quiet
sea,
inducing
in the reader a kind of
argumentative
seasickness.
The first
example
of such
a
balance between attention and habitual
experi
ence is
provided by
the
experience
of
pain:
Carolin
Duttlinger
37
Da?
einer,
der
ganz
und
gar
auf einen
qu?lenden
Gedanken,
auf einen
Schmerz und seine St??e sich
konzentriert,
dem leisesten
Ger?usche,
einem
Murmeln,
dem
Flug
eines Insekts zur Beute werden
kann,
den ein
aufmerksameres und sch?rferes Ohr vielleicht
gar
nicht
vernommen
h?tte,
steht au?er Zweifel. Die
Seele,
so meint
man,
l??t sich
um so leichter
ablenken,
je
konzentrierter sie ist. Aber ist dieses Lauschen nicht
weniger
das Ende als die ?u?erste
Entfaltung
der Aufmerksamkeit?der
Augenblick,
da sie aus ihrem
eigenen
Sch??e die Gewohnheit
hervorgehen
l??t? Dies
Schwirren oder Summen ist die
Schwelle,
und unvermerkt hat die Seele
sie ?berschritten.
(IV1, 408)
As
Benjamin argues,
the
experience
of
physical pain
or mental
anguish
makes
the hence absorbed
subject
not less but more alert to the most
inconspicu
ous
sounds,
which would remain unnoticed even
by
a
deliberately
attentive
listener. Thus the
absorption by
a
painful experience
frees
up
attention for
outside
impressions
that invade this
inward-looking
state. Unlike in "?ber das
Grauen,"
such external distractions
are
figured
not as a
disruptive
threat
to the
subject's contemplation,
but
as
the basis of
a
new,
heightened
mode of atten
tion born out of the
very
concentration that is hence
interrupted.
As attention
and distraction thus
go
hand in
hand,
the final result is not
only
the "?u?erste
Entfaltung
der Aufmerksamkeit" but this in turn marks the moment where at
tention turns back into
Gewohnheit,
as attention is drawn
away
from its
original
focus towards
a new
target, pain?the original
stimulus?is transformed into
a habitual
background experience.
A
second,
similarly complex example
is taken from the realm of dreams. As
Benjamin points
out:
auch Gewohnheit hat ein
Komplement,
und dessen Schwelle ?bertreten
wir im Schlaf. Denn
was im Traume sich
an uns
vollzieht,
ist ein neues
und unerh?rtes
Merken,
das sich im Sch??e der Gewohnheit
losringt.
Erlebnisse des
Alltags, abgedroschene
Reden,
der
Bodensatz,
der uns im
Blick
zur?ckblieb,
das Pulsen des
eigenen
Blutes?dies vorher Unvermerkte
macht?verstellt und ?berscharf?den Stoff
zu Tr?umen.
(IV1, 408)
Experiences
of
waking
life
that,
due to their habitual
character,
do
not attract
any
conscious attention take
on a new dimension
during sleep,
where
they
are
invested with
a new and
unexpected
vividness. As in the
previous example,
however,
this reversal is
subjected
to a
further dialectical twist. As
Benjamin
concludes,
"Im Traum kein Staunen und im Schmerze kein
Vergessen,
weil
beide ihren
Gegensatz
schon in sich
tragen,
wie
Wellenberg
und Wellental bei
Windstille ineinander
gebettet liegen"
(IV1, 408).
Thus the attention
which,
during
a
dream,
is directed at
previously
unnoticed
impressions
does not
trigger
any
sense of
surprise
or
marvel,
just
as the redirection of attention
during
the
38
(2007)
experience
of
pain
does not make the
subject fully
oblivious of the
unpleasant
sensation. In both
cases,
the coexistence of attention and Gewohnheit
prevents
not
only
the
complete collapse
into either extreme but also the transcendence of
this binarism into a
mediating
third state.
Benjamin's primary
interest concerns
the
threshold,
the moment of transition from one extreme to
another,
as is
indicated
by
the term Schwelle which features
prominently
in both
examples.
As in "?ber das
Grauen," then,
Benjamin's
discourse on attention is informed
by
an
intricately
dialectical
approach whereby
an
inward-looking
state of atten
tive concentration is
invariably shaped by
its
opposites,
whether these be the
alert stance o?
Geistesgegenwart
or
the
contrasting
mode o? Gewohnheit.
Although
the chosen
examples appear
rather abstract in their formalized
discussion,
they
nevertheless
lay
the foundation for
Benjamin's subsequent engagement
with attention in its more
specific
cultural and historical manifestations. That
said,
while the
underlying parameters
of this discussion remain the
same,
the
assessment of attention and its
counterparts
undergoes
some radical
changes
that reflect
Benjamin's increasingly politicized perspective.
As
Benjamin
turns his interest towards
contemporary
mass
culture,
the
phenom
enon
of distraction
gains increasing significance
in his
writings. Importantly,
however,
neither distraction nor its
apparent opposite, attention,
is
subject
to
a
homogenous
and consistent discussion. Their
varying appeasement
reflects
the
deeply
ambivalent stance towards
popular
culture within both
Benjamin's
own
writings
and those of his
contemporaries.
A rather critical comment on distraction can
be found in the
piece
"Bekr?nzter
Eingang"
(1930),
the review of an exhibition
organized by Benjamin's
friend,
the doctor Ernst
Jo?l,
who also
supervised Benjamin's
hashish
experiments.
The exhibition's
title,
"Gesunde
Nerven,"
is a
timely
response
to
contemporary
debates about
neurasthenia;
Benjamin's
review, however,
focuses less on the
exhibition's content than on its mode of
display,
which is aimed to
provoke
a
particular response
in the audience. Rather than
being
modeled on
the bour
geois
institutions of art
gallery
and
museum,
it takes its cue
from the
popular
attractions of the
fairground,
which have one
primary agenda:
"um
jeden
Preis
und
jedem
die
kontemplative Haltung,
das
unbeteiligte
und schn?de Mustern
zu
verlegen"
(IV1, 559).
Both
contemplative absorption
and
disengaged,
dis
tracted assessment are held as
symptomatic
of the same
underlying problem:
the audience's lack of active involvement.9 To shake the visitors out of their
inertia,
an
element of
surprise
is introduced into the
displays.
The exhibits
are
accompanied by apparently incongruous
commentaries?a
montage technique
reminiscent of Dadaism and
avant-garde
cinema?whose
goal
is to create
"
[k]luge
Fallen,
die die Aufmerksamkeit locken und festhalten"
(IV. 1, 561).
Attention
is thus constructed
as a
two-fold
remedy
for the
unproductive
extremes of
contemplation
and distracted
detachment;
for
Benjamin,
it
provides
the most
Carolin
Duttlinger
39
effective tool to achieve the exhibition's
agenda:
"Wer als Gaffer
gekommen
ist,
soll nachhause
gehen
als
einer,
der mitmachte"
(TV1, 559).
In this comment on
reception
in modern mass
culture,
Benjamin
thus turns
against
both distraction and
contemplation
as two
inherently impassive
modes
of
reception
that need to be overcome
through techniques
of attention. This
tripartite
model of
attention,
contemplation,
and distraction will recur at
various
points
in
Benjamin's
cultural
theory, although
its individual
elements,
their
function,
and interrelation are
subject
to recurrent reassessment. While
Benjamin
here turns to attention as a
simple escape
from the vicious circle of
distraction and
absorption,
its role becomes
increasingly
more
precarious
in
subsequent
accounts.
A more extensive and
politically grounded
assessment of
contemporary
culture is
developed
in "Der Autor als Produzent"
(1934),
where
Benjamin
gestures
towards a fundamental redefinition of artistic tools and
techniques
for
the
purpose
of Marxist
critique.
His
argument
is not directed
primarily against
conservative art movements but rather towards their leftist
counterparts
whose
political impetus thinly
conceals
a
very
different
agenda.
While
contemporary
political photography
turns
poverty
into an
object
of
consumerism,
the leftist
writers of the Neue Sachlichkeit have
gone
one
step further,
making
"den
Kampf
gegen
das Elend zum
Gegenstand
des Konsums"
(II.2,695).
In both
cases, then,
critical reflexes become
"Gegenst?nde
der
Zerstreuung,
des
Am?sements,
die
sich unschwer dem
gro?st?dtischen
Kabarett-Betrieb
einf?gen";
rather than
working
towards actual
change,
writers such
as
Erich K?stner or Kurt
Tucholsky
transform
political critique
into "einen
Gegenstand kontemplativen Behagens"
and the concomitant texts into "Konsumartikel"
(II.2, 695).
As in
Benjamin's
exhibition
review, distraction,
and
contemplative absorption complement
each
other to offer a
momentary respite
from the
mounting political
and economic
crisis. In this
essay, however,
he moves
away
from
straightforward techniques
of attention towards
a more
complex approach
intended to counter both dis
traction and
absorption through
its critical
impetus.
This model is
provided by
Bertolt Brecht's
epic
theater,
whose innovative
conception
of audience
response Benjamin explores
in this and other
essays.
In
traditional theater?as in neusachliche literature?distraction and
contemplation
are two sides of the
same,
politically
ineffective,
coin: "Dieses
Theater?mag
man an
dasjenige
der
Bildung
oder der
Zerstreuung
denken;
beide sind Kom
plemente
und
erg?nzen
sich?ist
dasjenige
einer saturierten
Schicht,
der
alles,
was ihre Hand
ber?hrt,
zu
Reizen wird"
(II.2, 697).
The
bourgeois
culture of
contemplative absorption
has its
counterpart
in the distractions of
popular
mass
entertainment;
in both
cases,
the audience's desire for stimulation and
entertainment
prevents any
critical
response.
The
epic
theater resists both of these
traps; Benjamin singles
out Brecht's
capacity
to induce "Staunen" rather than
contemplative
identification in the
(2007)
audience
(II.2, 698).
In
Joel's exhibition,
this effect
was
achieved
through
the
montage
of exhibits and
incongruous commentary,
and
a
similar
technique
is
at work in Brecht's
plays.
As
Benjamin
stresses,
the core feature of
epic
theater
is its
strategy
of
interruption,
the
"Unterbrechung
der Abl?ufe" of dramatic
action
through
song, gesture,
or
captions (II.2,698).
Yet where
Joel's
exhibition
merely
aimed to attract the visitors'
attention,
the Brechtian model of audience
response
is somewhat
more
complex.
As the theater
stage
is transformed from a
quasi-magical
"Bannraum" into an
"Ausstellungsraum,"
this
radically
alters the
audience's mode of
reception: "[Brechts]
B?hne bedeutet ihr Publikum nicht
mehr eine Masse
hypnotisierter Versuchspersonen
sondern eine
Versammlung
von
Interessenten,
deren
Anforderungen
sie zu
gen?gen
hat"
(II.2, 520).10
The
alternative to a
quasi-hypnotic
state of
absorption
is thus a detached
yet
alert state
of
"entspannte [s]
Interesse"
(II.2,5
3
5).
Brecht's viewers do not follow the
onstage
action "mit allen
Fibern,
angespannt";
rather,
his
plays
both
require
and
produce
"ein
entspanntes,
der
Handlung gelockert folgendes
Publikum"
(II.2, 532).
These latter comments are formulated in the late
essay
"Was ist das
epische
Theater?"
(1939). Although
"Der Autor als Produzent"
gestures
towards this
model of audience
response,
it is
only through
his
engagement
with another
phenomenon
of modern culture that
Benjamin
comes to
develop
a more dia
lectical model of audience
response
in the
age
of distraction. The
underlying
paradigm
that
shapes
this new
conception
is alluded to in the 1939
essay
on
Brecht: "Das
epische
Theater
r?ckt,
den Bildern des Filmstreifens
vergleichbar,
in St??en vor. Seine Grundform ist die des
Chocks,
mit dem die
einzelnen,
wohlabgehobenen
Situationen des St?cks aufeinandertreffen"
(II.2, 537).
As
we shall
see,
it is the medium of
film,
explored
in
Benjamin's
famous
essay
"Das
Kunstwerk im Zeitalter seiner technischen
Reproduzierbarkeit"
(1935-36),
which
provides
the matrix for a radical reassessment of attention in modern
culture and in its wider historical context.
In the "Kunstwerk"
essay, Benjamin
tones down the
overtly
didactic
approach
of
"Der Autor als
Produzent,"
an
essay which,
as
he remarks to
himself,
"vernach
l?ssigt
?ber dem Lehrwert den Konsumwert"
(V1I.2, 678).
Most
importantly,
he re-evaluates his
previous
dismissal of
popular
entertainment
as
he
attempts
to mobilize
mass culture for his
political agenda.
On the face of
it,
this
essay
marks
something
of a U-turn in
in
particular through
its
emphatic
defense of
distraction,
which
jars
with the author's
previous rejection
of this stance as anathema
to active audience
response.
In
fact, however,
the
essay's argument
is more
complex
than its
programmatic'
tone and
presentation
might suggest.11
Not
only
does its
advocacy
o?
Zerstreuung
build on
previous
dialectical
approaches,
but this
argument
is in turn embedded within a wider
historical
exploration.
The
theory
that human
perception
is
shaped by
socio
cultural
conditions,
and is hence
subject
to historical
change
(1.2,478),
enables
Carolin
Duttlinger
41
Benjamin
to reassess both distraction and attention and to
bring
them into a
more constructive
dialogue.
In the first
part
of the
essay, Benjamin
focuses on
the issue of
religious
contemplation,
thus
returning
to the
subject
of "?ber das Grauen" from
a
historical
perspective.
As he
argues,
religion
and art are
closely
intertwined,
as
the earliest works of art were
objects
used in cults and rituals. Sacred
images,
icons or statues were
predominantly
viewed in a state of
solitary contempla
tion,
from
a
perspective
of
spatial,
as well
as
mental,
distance from the
object
and its "aura" of
presence
and
uniqueness.
As
Benjamin points
out,
this mode
of
contemplative engagement
had an effect far
beyond
the Middle
Ages,
as
the
reception
of art remained informed
by
its
religious origins long
after its
secularization. Within
galleries
and
museums,
works of art continue to be
viewed as
part
of a one-to-one encounter between the auratic
image
and its
contemplative
observer.
This devotional model of
reception
now becomes the focus of
Benjamin's
criticism. In "?ber das
Grauen,"
was
figured
as the
basis of both
presence
of mind and self-awareness. Echoes of this
argument
can be found in the "Kunstwerk"
essay,
where
Benjamin
concedes that
solitary
prayer played
an
important political
function in
previous
centuries
enabling
the believers'
emancipation
from the
mediating authority
of the Church
(1.2,
502).
In modern secularized
society,
however,
contemplation
not
only
loses its
liberating potential
but is in fact
exemplary
of a
pervasive
trend towards social
fragmentation
and isolation. As a
result,
he
argues,
the residues of
religious
practice
in
bourgeois
art
reception
do not lead to
greater (self-)awareness
but
are more akin to the secular state of
absorption
which
Benjamin
criticizes in
"?ber das Grauen." Unlike in his earlier
text, however,
Benjamin's critique
is not
primarily psychological
in
focus,
but concerns
the social and
political
consequences
of such
contemplative reception.
The
inherently solitary
nature
of this state
separates
the individual from the
collective,
thus
preventing
com
munication,
solidarity,
and,
ultimately, political
action. In the "Kunstwerk" es
say, Benjamin
thus
rejects religiously inspired
forms of
contemplation
as both
historically
obsolete and
politically regressive.
As a
counter-model,
he turns to
the
opposite
stance of
distraction,
reappropriating
it as a tool of
emancipation.
The
primary
vehicle of
Benjamin's
reassessment is the
cinema,
whose inven
tion marks
a
sharp
break with traditions of
contemplative reception.
Where the
auratic
appeal
of traditional art is founded on a
distance between artwork and
observer,
film
images
have a
dynamic,
"tactile"
quality,
which undermines
any
scope
for
contemplative viewing, creating
instead a
"simultan[e]
Kollektivre
zeption"
able to transcend differences of
class,
gender
or
political
orientation
within the audience
(1.2,497).
Benjamin's advocacy
of distraction in relation to the cinema is at odds not
only
with his own
previous
comments on mass
culture but also with the stance
42
(2007)
of fellow critics such
as
Siegfried
Kracauer,
who condemned distraction as a
vehicle of docile
escapism.12
That
said,
Benjamin's
own
model of distraction
goes
far
beyond
the
goal
of
passive exposure.
Although
constructed in
op
position
to
contemplative
reflection,
distraction nevertheless leaves
scope
for
a
critical
response
founded
on an
alternative mode of attentive
engagement.
Indeed,
in
Benjamin's
essay,
the
concept
of distraction acts as an umbrella term
for a
range
of
perceptual responses;
the cinema is described as a
perceptual
Ubungsinstrument, teaching
the audience to take in the stimuli of modern life
in a
casual,
detached state of distraction. The
key
term here
is,
once
again,
the
stance of
Gewohnheit-,
habitual
perception
does not blind the audience to the
encountered
sights
but enables them to take in the stream of
impressions
in a
detached
yet
alert
way, resulting
"viel
weniger
in einem
gespannten
Aufmerken
als in einem
beil?ufigen
Bemerken." In a statement
prefiguring
his remarks
about Brecht's theater
audience,
Benjamin
concludes "da? die
begutachtende
Haltung
im Kino Aufmerksamkeit nicht einschlie?t. Das Publikum ist ein
Examinator,
doch ein zerstreuter"
(1.2, 505).
These latter remarks introduce a term that has been
remarkably
absent from
most of the "Kunstwerk"
essay.
As a
result of the
advocacy
of
distraction,
the
notion of
Aufmerksamkeit
seems to be dismissed
alongside contemplation
as
an
obsolete and
regressive
stance. Yet while
Benjamin
here
rejects
the kind of
solipsistically
focused
attention,
which is a
feature of
bourgeois
art
reception,
his notion of the audience as an examiner
clearly
involves
an
(albeit revised)
element of attention. As he
points
out,
the "shock effect" of
film,
the
perceptual
challenges
it
poses through montage
and other visual and aural
effects,
must
be countered
by
the viewer "durch
gesteigerte Geistesgegenwart"
(1.2, 503).
Attention thus makes a covert
reappearance
in the
guise
of
Geistesgegenwart,
a
stance that seems
diametrically opposed
to the model of
reception
in a casual
state of Gewohnheit.
While the
opposition
between
Aufmerksamkeit
and Gewohnheit echoes
Benjamin's piece
from
1932,
the
concept
of
Geistesgegenwart points
back to his
much earlier text
"?ber das
Grauen,"
where it was
associated with
religious
contemplation?and
hence with the
very
cultural tradition which
Benjamin
now
hopes
to overcome
through
the medium of film. At the
same
time,
this
intertextual link testifies to the
complexity
of
Benjamin's thought
that,
far from
progressing
in
a
linear
manner,
is informed
by unexpected
and at times counter
intuitive echoes and associations.
Indeed,
the recurrence of
Geistesgegenwart
in
the "Kunstwerk"
essay
is more than a
regressive slip
of the
pen.
Geistesgegenwart
is here invested with a new
significance, underlining
the continued
significance
of attention in a culture of
distraction,
where it enables the
subject
to
respond
effectively
to the
perceptual challenges
of modern life. While
presence
of mind
seems at odds with the model of
Gewohnheit,
the two in fact
complement
each
other;
by shielding
the
subject
from excessive
exposure
to
surrounding
stimuli,
Carolin
Duttlinger
43
habitual
perception
frees
up
mental
energy
for the
perception
of
significant
details. While
figuring
Gewohnheit^ the effect of cinematic
distraction,
Benjamin
also reintroduces
attention,
in the
guise
of
Geistesgegenwart,
into his
theory
of
modern
experience.13
Unlike
a more
contemplative
form of
attention,
this flexible mental stance
matches the overall
dynamism
of modern life. That
said,
in a footnote accom
panying
this
argument, Benjamin
invests
Geistesgegenwart
with a somewhat
more serious dimension.
Commenting
on cinematic
techniques
of
montage,
Benjamin
states that film is "die der
gesteigerten Lebensgefahr,
der die Heu
tigen
ins
Auge
zu
sehen
haben,
entsprechende
Kunstform. Das
Bed?rfnis,
sich
Chockwirkungen
auszusetzen,
ist eine
Anpassung
der Menschen an die sie
bedrohenden Gefahren"
(1.2, 503).
While the
precise
nature of such threats
here remains
unspecified,
the
implications
of this ominous remark will become
clearer in
Benjamin's
historical
writings,
where the role of
Geistesgegenwart
in the face of
danger
takes on a
central
methodological,
as well as
personal,
significance.
"In der
Passagenarbeit
mu? der
Kontemplation
der Proze?
gemacht
werden.
Sie soll sich aber
gl?nzend verteidigen
und
behaupten"
(V.2,103 6).
This
quota
tion from the so-called
Passagen-Werk
marks
yet
another remarkable
change
of
direction within
Benjamin's
discourse
on attention. In the "Kunstwerk"
essay,
contemplation
had not
only
been
"put
on trial"
but, indeed,
duly
sentenced and
expelled
from the domain of modern culture. In
Benjamin's
historical
writings,
however,
contemplation
makes an
unexpected
comeback.
Although again put
under close critical
scrutiny, contemplation
here mounts an effective defense
and
emerges
as one of the
core
concepts
of
Benjamin's engagement
with the
past which,
together
with a more
dynamic
form of
attention,
shapes
his histori
cal
approach
on both
a
thematic and
a
methodological
level.
Benjamin's
work on the
Passagen-
Werk,
his materialist
history
of the nineteenth
century,
extends from 1927 to his death in 1940. This timescale alone testifies
to the author's
impressive
attention
span
in relation to this
project,
which he
pursues
alongside
numerous shorter
studies,
and in the face of
mounting political
and
personal
crises.
Indeed,
the unfinished state of this mammoth work reflects
such distractions both external and
internal, yet
the
existing body
of text also
suggests
that
Benjamin's
aim was never to
produce
a
coherent and
ideological
study
in the classical
sense. The material is divided into 36 thematic sections in
which the author's reflections are
interspersed
with
quotations
from
historical,
literary
and
philosophical
sources. To read the
Passagen-Werk
cover to cover
makes for
a
peculiarly
distracted
reading experience, although
with
growing
immersion various
patterns
and
configurations begin
to
emerge, illustrating
Benjamin's
at once
dispersed
and focused mode of reflection. While
a
dialectics
of concentration and distraction is thus
integral
to the
project
as a
whole,
such
44
(2007)
issues are
also
explicitly
thematized within the text.
As if to underline his revaluation of
contemplation, Benjamin
comments
critically
on the distraction induced
by nineteenth-century commodity
culture
as
exemplified by
the world exhibitions:
Die
Weltausstellungen
verkl?ren den Tauschwert der Waren. Sie schaffen
einen
Rahmen,
in dem ihr Gebrauchswert zur?cktritt. Sie er?ffnen eine
Phantasmagorie,
in die der Mensch
eintritt,
um sich zerstreuen zu lassen.
Die
Vergn?gungsindustrie
erleichtert ihm
das,
indem sie ihn auf die H?he
der Ware hebt. Er ?berl??t sich ihren
Manipulationen,
indem er seine
Entfremdung
von sich und andern
genie?t.
(VI, 50f.)
The
capitalist "Inthronisierung
der Ware und der sie
umgebende
Glanz der
Zerstreuung"
(VI, 51)
preclude any
moment of reflection on the
part
of the
consumerist masses who?in an
argument echoing
Kracauer's Die
Angestellten
-derive
pleasure
from their own
objectification.
Yet while distraction is here
dismissed as an
incapacitating, mentally numbing
response,
the
Passagen-Werk
also contains numerous
examples
where distraction
gains
an
enabling, produc
tive
capacity.
Three
figures
who
embody
this dialectical
process
are the
fl?neur,
the
gam
bler,
and the
collector,
all of whom are at home in the modern world of stimuli
and
shocks,
taking
in the
fast-changing spectacles
of
modernity
in a state of
permanent
intoxication. The "anamnestische Rausch" of the
fl?neur wandering
the streets
(VI, 525)
and the
gambler's Geistesgegenwart
at the
gaming
table
(VI, 639)
are two alternative models of attention in a state of distraction.14
A
third,
more
contemplative
variation on this stance is that of the collector
entranced
by
his
objects.
His "tiefste
Bezauberung"
does
not, however,
result in
impassive absorption;
while
losing
himself in his
collection,
he also maintains
enough
alertness "an einem Strohhalm sich von neuem
aufzurichten
[...]
aus
dem
Nebelmeer,
das seinen Sinn
umf?ngt"
(VI, 271).
Through
the
process
of
collecting,
he "nimmt den
Kampf gegen
die
Zerstreuung
auf," yet
it is
pre
cisely
this state of
dispersal
which attracts him to his task in the first
place.
The
collector is
"ganz urspr?nglich
von der
Verworrenheit,
von der Zerstreutheit
anger?hrt,
in dem
[sie]
die
Dinge
sich in der Welt vorfinden"
(VI, 279), just
as the scatter of the material world in which he revels is
only
accessible "to an
intensively
scattered
perception" (Eiland 63).
While all three of these
figures play
a
prominent
role in the
Passagen-Werk,
the collector takes
on a
particular,
self-reflexive
significance.
He
emerges
as an
alter
ego
for the materialist
historian,
who needs to
adopt
a
similarly
distracted
attentiveness towards his
subject
matter.
Indeed,
the historian's attention is
even more indiscriminate and
dispersed
than that of the traditional
collector,
making
him more akin to a
Lumpensammler
or
rag-and-bone
man. As
Benjamin
notes:
Carolin
Duttlinger
45
Methode dieser Arbeit: literarische
Montage.
Ich habe nichts zu
sagen.
Nur zu
zeigen.
Ich werde nichts Wertvolles entwenden und mir keine
geistvollen Formulierungen aneignen.
Aber die
Lumpen,
den Abfall: die
will ich nicht inventarisieren sondern sie auf die
einzig m?gliche
Weise
zu
ihrem Recht kommen lassen: sie verwenden.
(VI, 574)
The
fragmentary
character of the
Passagen-Werk
is thus not
merely
the re
sult of its unfinished status but stems from a deliberate
montage technique
which
displays,
rather than
conceals,
the eclectic nature of historical evidence.
Benjamin's
attention is directed not at the
obvious,
the landmarks of cultural
achievement,
but at the debris of
history,
at those
objects
and
phenomena
that
have been excluded from collective consciousness. As
Irving
Wohlfarth
remarks,
"Nur
dann,
wenn sie nicht mehr
zirkulieren,
wie es
sich f?r
anst?ndige
Waren
geh?rt, fangen
die
Dinge
als Ladenh?ter
an,
Zeichen eines
anderen,
subver
siven Potentials von sich
zu
geben"
(74).
This stance
requires
a
particular
form
of attention whose
alertness,
coupled
with
a
non-discriminatory
openness,
is
reminiscent of Freud's
"gleichschwebende
Aufmerksamkeit"
(377).
In a
similar
manner,
Benjamin
stresses the
"Notwendigkeit,
w?hrend vieler
Jahre
scharf auf
jedes zuf?llige
Zitat,
jede fl?chtige Erw?hnung
eines Buchs hinzuh?ren"
(VI,
587)
as the bedrock of his critical
methodology.
The crucial
significance
of this remark is underlined not
only by
the Pas
sagen-Werk
but also
by
the late text
"?ber den
Begriff
der Geschichte"
(1940),
a
supplement
to
Benjamin's large-scale project
which condenses its
underly
ing theory
of historical
enquiry.
In a set of 18
"theses,"
Benjamin rejects
the
conception
of
history
as a
continuous,
ideological
narrative
connecting past
to
present.
As he
argues,
the
past
can never be reconstructed as it
really
was;
rather,
the aim of the materialist historian is to
engage
with the
past
as it
appears
from the
present perspective.
This dialectical
approach implies
an awareness
of the
inherently
mediated character of
any
historical
exploration;
more im
portantly,
however,
Benjamin argues
that fruitful historical
engagement
should
always
have
repercussions
for the
present.
Rather than
just enabling
access to a
remote
period,
the
exploration
of the
past
should
provide
critical
insights
into
the current
situation,
in
particular
into its structures of
power
and
oppression,
which are
prefigured
in
previous periods.
Part of the
challenge
is thus to write
a
history
not from the
perspective
of the
victors,
of rulers and
monarchs,
but
from the
perspective
of the defeated and
oppressed,
whose
experiences
are
commonly
absent from official records and accounts
(1.2, 696).
Ultimately,
such
an
engagement
with the
past
can
yield
the realization that the
present
is not
inevitable but can be
subject
to transformation
or,
as
Benjamin puts it,
salvation: "Die
Vergangenheit
fuhrt einen heimlichen Index
mit,
durch den sie
auf die
Erl?sung
verwiesen wird"
(1.2, 693).
To realize this inherent
redemptive potential,
the materialist historian needs
(2007)
to
employ
a combination of different
approaches.
In order to
engage produc
tively
with the
past,
he
initially
needs to dissociate himself from the
present
as the inevitable and
unchangeable
state of affairs: "Die
Gegenst?nde,
die die
Klosterregel
den Br?dern
zur Meditation
anwies,
hatten die
Aufgabe,
sie der
Welt und ihrem Treiben abhold
zu
machen. Der
Gedankengang,
den wir hier
verfolgen,
ist aus einer ?hnlichen
Bestimmung hervorgegangen"
(1.2,698).
Yet
this return to a form of
contemplation,
here
figured
as
religious
meditation,
is
only
one side of
a
dialectical
process.
In order to
bring past
and
present
into
productive interplay,
the historian also needs to
adopt
a rather different
state
of mind.
Counteracting
the
conception
of
history
as a continuous
narrative,
Benjamin
stresses that
any truly insightful image
of the
past
as it
presents
itself
to the
present
observer is
inherently
transient: "Das wahre Bild der
Vergan
genheit
huscht vorbei. Nur als
Bild,
das auf Nimmerwiedersehen im
Augenblick
seiner Erkennbarkeit eben
aufblitzt,
ist die
Vergangenheit
festzuhalten"
(1.2,
695).
This
fleetingness requires
a
perceptual
response
which is
diametrically
opposed
to the above model of
contemplation;
as
Benjamin
writes,
"Geistesge
genwart
als das
Rettende;
Geistesgegenwart
im Erfassen der
fl?chtigen
Bilder;
Geistesgegenwart
und
Stillstellung" (1.3,1244).15
Given the
fleetingness
of the
past
as it
emerges
in the
process
of historical
enquiry,
presence
of mind is the historian's
most essential
tool,
since it enables
him to seize the
past
moment and to arrest it for the sake of critical
analysis
and
reflection. In this late
text,
Benjamin
thus returns to an
argument
made almost 2 0
years earlier;
as in "?ber das
Grauen,"
Geistesgegenw?rtigem
arises from
(quasi-)
religious contemplation,
thus
underlining
the dialectical relation between
these two states of mind. At the same
time,
Benjamin's theory
of
history
is
also indebted to his
writings
on modern
mass
culture;
while the historian's
Geistesgegenwart
arises out of a state of
contemplative
meditation,
it is also
an
implicit
reflection of modern
life,
whose shocks and attractions
require
a
state
of
perpetual
alertness. In their
fleetingness,
the
images
of the
past
have a
distinctly
filmic
character;
crucially,
however,
the task of the materialist histo
rian?whom
Benjamin
elsewhere
compares
to a
photographer (1.3,1164f.)?is
to seize these transient
sights, arresting
them for the
purpose
of
contemplative
reflection and
critique.
While the historian's
Geistesgegenwart
thus reflects the
of modern
life,
his stance is also a reaction
against
a more serious threat
con
tained within the
process
of historical
enquiry
itself. As
Benjamin
notes in the
Passagen-Werk:
Es ist die
Beziehung
zwischen der
Geistesgegenwart
und der 'Methode'
des dialektischen Materialismus
zu etablieren. Nicht
nur,
da?
man in der
Geistesgegenwart
als einer der h?chsten Formen
sachgem??en
Verhaltens
immer einen dialektischen Proze? wird nachweisen k?nnen. Entscheidend
Carolin
Duttlinger
47
ist
weiterhin,
da? der Dialektiker die Geschichte nicht anders denn als eine
Gefahrenkonstellation betrachten
kann,
die
er,
denkend ihrer
Entwicklung
folgend,
abzuwenden
jederzeit
auf dem
Sprunge
ist.
(VI, 586f.)
This
passage
makes it clear that
Geistesgegenwart
is more than
just
an intellectual
tool of historical
enquiry.
Presence of mind is here defined in
quasi-behaviorist
terms as an instinctive
response
to
history
conceived as a
"Gefahrenkonstella
tion." In "?ber den
Begriff
der
Geschichte,"
Benjamin specifies:
"Dem histo
rischen Materialismus
geht
es
darum,
ein Bild der
Vergangenheit
festzuhalten,
wie es sich im
Augenblick
der Gefahr dem historischen
Subjekt
unversehens
einstellt"
(1.2, 695).
These comments echo the "Kunstwerk"
essay,
where the
Geistesgegenwart triggered by
film is associated with the audience's
adaptation
"an die sie bedrohenden Gefahren"
(1.2, 503). Benjamin's
historical
explora
tions lend these threats a more distinctive outline. Because of his
alertness,
the
historian can
recognize
not
only past
structures of
oppression
and domination
but
also,
more
importantly,
the more imminent
perils
of the
present?which
for
Benjamin
had
immediate,
even existential
implications.
The
personal significance
of alertness in the face of
danger
is
highlighted by
Benjamin's
childhood memoirs Berliner Kindheit um Neunzehnhundert
(1932
38).
Although
this text
engages
with a far smaller
spatio-temporal
realm than
the
Passagen-Werk,
it
displays
some notable similarities to
Benjamin's
historical
project, complementing
it from a
personal, literary perspective.
In its
fragmen
tary, episodic
character,
Berliner Kindheit resists the conventional
teleology
of
the
Bildungsroman.
Its
underlying
focus is
distinctly non-personal;
rather than
exploring
the child's
psychological development,
the narrative is centered on
objects
and
places
which act both as sites of
memory
and as a
"Deponie
des
Unbewu?ten und
Vergessenen"
(Lindner 29).
Correspondingly,
the narrative
process
of recollection is not without obstacles.
In the
preface, Benjamin
states his intention "der Bilder habhaft zu
werden,
in denen die
Erfahrung
der Gro?stadt in einem Kinde der
B?rgerklasse
sich
niederschl?gt.
[...]
Ihrer harren noch keine
gepr?gten
Formen,
wie sie im
Naturgefuhl
seit
Jahrhunderten
den
Erinnerungen
an eine auf dem Lande
verbrachte Kindheit zu Gebote stehen"
(VII. 1, 385).
The
argument
that the
memory
of an urban childhood
requires
a
fundamentally
different
strategy
than that of a traditional rural
upbringing
reflects
Benjamin's
observations on
modern mass culture.
Indeed,
the
of urban life take on a
particular significance
in relation to the child. Since his
psychological
defense
mechanisms have not
yet
been
fully
formed
through long-term
exposure,
the
child takes in the
sights
of the
city
in a more immediate
manner,
and his un
guarded gaze provides
an alternative
perspective
on urban
as
well as domestic
life. In this
respect,
the childhood scenes recounted in Berliner Kindheit offer
(2007)
a
unique opportunity
for
a
poetics
of attention unrestricted
by
the habitual
limitations of adult
perception.
That
said,
the child's
particular capacity
for attention is not without inher
ent tensions. On the
one
hand,
he lacks "die
Geistesgegenwart,
das wache
Aufmerken auf die
Forderungen
der realen Welt"
(St?ssi 67)
which character
ize the adult
experience
of the modern
city.
The child
experiences
the world
in a
semi-conscious
state in which the encountered
impressions
flow
past
in a
dream-like
manner: "Es
geht
ihm wie in Tr?umen: es
kennt nichts
Bleibendes;
alles
geschieht
ihm,
meint
es,
begegnet
ihm,
st??t ihm zu. Seine
Nomadenjahre
sind Stunden im Traumwald"
(IV1, 115).
This fluid
perception
is, however,
coupled
with a
heightened capacity
for attention. As
Benjamin critically
remarks,
pedagogy
since the
Enlightenment
has
ignored
the fact that "die Erde voll
von
den
unvergleichlichsten Gegenst?nden
kindlicher Aufmerksamkeit und
?bung
ist." While
previous generations helped
children to make sense of their "Trau
merfahrungen" through religious
instruction,
modern educational
psychology
is
solely
aimed at the
"Zerstreuung
der Kinder"
(V1,490), conceiving play
as a
preparation
for adult life. For
children, however,
the most valuable educational
tools
are not
"Anschauungsmitteln, Spielzeug
oder B?chern" but "Abfall
[...],
der beim
Bauen,
bei Garten- oder
Hausarbeit,
beim Schneidern oder Tischlern
entsteht" and which can be
playfully
put
into
"neue,
sprunghafte Beziehung"
(IV1,92f.).
On account of his interest in
scraps
and
debris,
the child resembles
the materialist historian
who,
as a
Lumpensammler, presents
his finds in un
expected configurations.
More
importantly,
the child's
non-instrumentalizing
mode of attention facilitates
a
particular
model of recollection which
parallels
that of
Benjamin's
historical
writings.
The
episodes
of Berliner Kindheit
amply
illustrate the child's
unique capac
ity
for attention.
Objects,
spaces,
and
even words take on a
different,
at once
fascinating
and
uncanny,
character as
they
are
explored
outside the realms of
habit and convention. Whether faced with the
parental telephone,
a
pair
of
rolled
up
socks or a
sewing
box,
the child
frequently undergoes
a
quasi-mimetic
identification with the
objects
he encounters. This dialectical
model,
whereby
heightened
attention results in a
loss of
self-awareness,
is crucial for the text's
conception
of
memory
as it enables the narrator to reconstruct these childhood
scenes in
striking
vividness.
This mechanism is made
explicit
in the book's last
chapter,
entitled "Das
bucklichte M?nnlein." Here
Benjamin
cites the children's
song
of the same
title to lend
a voice to an
intangible yet pervasive
threat which haunted his
childhood. The
imaginary figure
of the little hunchback
appears
as a rather
sinister creature which follows the child
on
every step, observing
his
every
move:
"Wen dieses M?nnlein
ansieht,
gibt
nicht acht. Nicht auf sich selbst und auf
das M?nnlein auch nicht. Er steht verst?rt vor einem Scherbenhaufen"
(IV1,
303).
As in turns
out,
the hunchback's
distracting
presence,
which undermines
Carolin
Duttlinger
49
the child's
(self-)awareness,
has an effect far
beyond
the narrator's childhood:
Wo es
erschien,
da hatte ich das Nachsehn. Ein
Nachsehn,
dem die
Dinge
sich
entzogen,
bis aus dem Garten ?bers
Jahr
ein
G?rtlein,
ein K?mmerlein
aus meiner Kammer und ein B?nklein
aus
der Bank
geworden
war. Sie
schrumpften,
und es
war,
als w?chse ihnen ein
Buckel,
der sie selber
nun
der Welt des M?nnleins f?r sehr
lange
einverleibte.
[...]
Doch sonst tat er
mir
nichts,
der
graue Vogt,
als von
jedwedem Ding,
an das ich
kam,
den
Halbpart
des
Vergessens
einzutreiben.
(IV. 1, 303)
The
mysterious shrinking
which affects the child's
surroundings
reflects the
process
of
growing up,
whereby things
that
initially
seemed
large
and unknown
become small and familiar.
Underlying
this
change
in size
is, however,
a more
general perceptual
transformation,
as the child's
unguarded
fascination with
his
surroundings
is
superseded by
the more
detached,
habitual mode of adult
perception.
The narrator associates this
change
with
an
underlying
erosion
of
memory, whereby early experiences
fall
prey
to oblivion as
they
become
incorporated
into the hunchback.
Importantly,
however,
this oblivion is not a
permanent
state,
but
only
one
lasting
"sehr
lange";
as is revealed at the
very
end of Berliner
Kindheit,
the distraction which affects the child's
experiences
subsequently
enable their
recovery
and recollection.
Taking
stock of the various
episodes
recounted in the
text,
the adult narrator
describes them as "Bilder
[...],
wie sie das M?nnlein von uns
allen hat" and
which
present
themselves in a
peculiarly
transient manner:
Sie flitzen rasch vorbei wie
jene
Bl?tter der straff
gebundenen
B?chlein,
die einmal Vorl?ufer
unserer
Kinematographen
waren. Mit leisem
Druck
bewegte
sich der Daumen an ihrer Schnittfl?che
endang;
dann
wurden sekundenweise Bilder
sichtbar,
die sich voneinander fast nicht
unterschieden. In ihrem
fl?chtigen
Ablauf lie?en sie den Boxer bei der
Arbeit und den
Schwimmer,
wie er mit seinen Wellen
k?mpft,
erkennen.
Das M?nnlein hat die Bilder auch von mir.
(IV1, 304)
The
flick-book,
an
optical toy popular
around
1900,
here becomes a medium
of
memory
in its own
right.
Its
fleeting images
evoke
Benjamin's theory
of
historical
enquiry,
in which the
past
is said to flit
past
in an
equally
transient
manner. In the
memoirs, however,
this model is invested with
a
subtext both
literary
and
psychological inspired by
his
engagement
with Marcel Proust's A
la recherche du
temps perdu.
In a
short text entitled "Aus einer kleinen Rede ?ber
Proust,
an meinem
vierzigsten Geburtstag gehalten," (1932) Benjamin
writes:
Zur Kenntnis der m?moire involontaire: ihre Bilder kommen nicht allein
ungerufen,
es handelt sich vielmehr in ihr um
Bilder,
die wir nie
sahen,
ehe wir uns ihrer erinnerten.
[...]
Man k?nnte
sagen,
da? unsern tiefsten
(2007)
Augenblicken gleich jenen P?ckchenzigaretten?ein
kleines
Bildchen,
ein
Photo,
unsrer selbst?ist
mitgegeben
worden. Und
jenes "ganze
Leben"
das,
wie wir oft
h?ren,
an Sterbenden oder an
Menschen,
die in der Gefahr
zu sterben
schweben, vor?berzieht,
setzt sich
genau
aus diesen kleinen
Bildchen
zusammen. Sie stellen einen schnellen Ablauf dar wie
jene
Hefte,
die Vorl?ufer des
Kinematographen,
auf denen wir als Kinder einen
Boxer,
einen Schwimmer oder
Tennisspieler
bei seinen K?nsten bewundern
konnten.
(GS 11.3,1064)
The similarities between this
passage
and the
ending
o? Berliner Kindheit
align
Benjamin's
own
concept
of
memory
with the Proustian m?moire involontaire.
According
to
Benjamin,
the
precondition
for this
involuntary
recollection is
a lack of conscious
(self-)awareness
at the time the remembered
scenes were
experienced
in the first
place?a
state of
oblivion,
which in the memoirs is at
tributed to the little hunchback.
Ultimately,
then,
the hunchback
emerges
as an
agent
not of
forgetting
but of
recollection,
as
his
distracting
presence
enables
these childhood scenes to be
preserved,
and
subsequently
remembered,
with
hallucinatory
vividness.
This model of
memory, however,
once
again
relies on a
particular
form of
attention.
Benjamin argues
that Proust's Recherche is characterized
by
the "un
ausgesetzte
Versuch,
ein
ganzes
Leben mit der h?chsten
Geistesgegenwart
zu
laden"
(II.l, 320),
and a similar
strategy
also underlies his own memoirs. It is
no coincidence that the
flick-book,
which features both in the Proust
speech
and in Berliner
Kindheit,
is
a
predecessor
of film. Like the cinema
audience,
which is forced to
adopt
a
heightened
level of
alertness,
the narrator
requires
a
similar
Geistesgegenwart
in order to seize the
fleeting
childhood memories.
Revealingly,
however,
the
images
attributed to the flick-book?the boxer do
ing
his
"job"
and the swimmer
"wrestling"
with the
waves?depict figures
in a
state of
struggle
and crisis.
Indeed,
this latent
atmosphere
of
danger
extends far
beyond
the flick-book
illustrations,
as it also affects the
person attempting
to
seize these transient
sights.
As
Benjamin
writes in Berliner
Kindheit,
"Ich denke
mir,
da?
jenes 'ganze
Leben,'
von dem
man sich
erz?hlt,
da?
es vorm Blick der
Sterbenden
vorbeizieht,
aus solchen Bildern sich
zusammensetzt,
wie sie das
M?nnlein von uns allen hat"
(IV1, 304).
In his
speech
on
Proust,
he makes
a
similar
point, arguing
that such
involuntary
memories
appear
to
"Menschen,
die in der Gefahr
zu
sterben schweben."
These remarks
complement Benjamin's
theories of
history
and modern
mass
culture,
where the
required
stance of
Geistesgegenwartis
likewise motivated
by
an
underlying
sense of
danger.
Yet whereas in the theoretical
writings
this
danger
is located on a
socio-historical and
political
level,
in the memoirs it takes
on a
deeply personal,
existential character.
Shordy
after his fortieth
birthday
in 19 3
2,
Benjamin
made careful
preparations
to
carry
out his
long-considered plan
for
Carolin
Duttlinger
51
suicide, yet
for unknown reasons he did not
go through
with his intention
(Witte
98f.).
Immediately
afterwards, however,
he
began
to work on Berliner
Kindheit,
a text whose
fragmentary, episodic
structure mirrors the flash-like
memory
im
ages
that
are said to
present
themselves in the moment of death. Even after this
crisis, however,
and until his eventual suicide in
1940,
heightened
alertness in
the face of
danger
remains an
essential concern of
where
the
imperative
for
Geistesgegenwart underpins
his critical
exploration
of both
the
past
and the
perilous present.
Despite
the
complex
twists and turns of his theoretical
stance,
Benjamin's
writ
ings
on attention
display
a
notable element of
consistency
in their
rejection
of
solipsistic contemplation
in favor of a more
flexible,
perpetually
alert
pres
ence of mind. In a theoretical framework where crucial
insights emerge only
in
fleeting
moments of
illumination,
the critic's
Geistesgegenwart
is his
primary
tool,
enabling
him to
respond
to
phenomena
inaccessible to more
contempla
tive modes of
enquiry
and reflection. This form of
attention,
which is dialecti
cally
linked to both distraction and
more habitual modes of
perception,
is not
only extensively
thematized
by Benjamin
but also underlies his overall critical
approach.
His
rejection
of
contemplative
modes of
engagement
informs his
methodology,
where his
profound suspicion against argumentative
closure and
systematic
coherence results in the embrace of more
provisional, fragmentary
modes of
reflection;
as
Benjamin puts
it in a letter to Gershom
Scholem,
the
thrust of his
thought
is "immer
radikal,
niemals
konsequent" (Briefe
425).
Although Benjamin persistently
adheres to this
approach,
it
ultimately
comes at a
high
cost,
reflected not least in his
lifelong struggle
at the
mar
gins
of intellectual circles and academic institutions.
Indeed,
his defense of
distraction formed one of the main
points
of
disagreement
between him and
his friend
Adorno,
who was unable to
recognize
its role
as
part
of a dialectical
configuration.
Even
today,
however,
where
Benjamin's
intellectual "cult" status
might
indicate the end of such
misunderstandings,
the
question
of attention
highlights
the continued
challenges posed by
his
thought.
While some readers
subject
individual texts to a kind of
contemplative
meditation,
attempting
to
reconstruct from them
a
coherent theoretical
edifice,
others
cheerfully appropri
ate
Benjamin
as
the
precursor
of
postmodern
arbitrariness,
fragmentation,
and
distraction. Both
approaches,
however,
fall short of the
challenge
whose fruitful
yet deeply precarious implications
are
exemplified by Benjamin's
own
writings:
to maintain
a
form of attentiveness whose
openness
towards the
marginal,
the
overlooked,
and the
forgotten collapses
neither into
solipsistic absorption
nor
into endless
dispersal.
(2007)
1
ADD has been the
subject
of a
flurry
of books and articles both academic and
popular
in focus. For an overview over the current
debate,
and its
underlying
causes in a culture
of
aggressiveness, discipline,
and
productivity,
see
Jonathan
Crary (35-37).
I am
greatly
indebted to
Crary's study
on
nineteenth-century
art and
culture,
which is a milestone
in
scholarship
on the
history
of attention. I am also
grateful
to Christina Striewski for
sharing
her research into this
topic
with me.
2
Authors such
as
Georg
Franck and Michael Goldhaber have
recendy
contributed to this
debate from a rather different
angle, arguing
that attention has overtaken
money
as the
most coveted economic resource in
contemporary
mass culture. Given the abundance
of available entertainment and information
technologies,
it is the attention attracted
by
particular products,
events or individuals that defines their status and
significance.
3
That
said,
in the
German-speaking
context,
the
precarious relationship
between at
tention and its
opposites
was,
as Schneider
demonstrates,
the
subject
of
philosophical
debates
long
before the onset of
modernity
4
To illustrate this sudden
upsurge
in interest in the
question
of
attention,
Crary
cites
the
example
of William B.
Carpenter's hugely
influential textbook on human
physiol
ogy;
while the 1853 edition
only
contains one
single paragraph
on
attention,
20
years
later,
in the 1874
edition,
the same
topic
takes
up
over 50
pages (21).
5
Benjamin's thought
is,
as
Ansgar
Hillar
points
out,
"nicht vom Willen zur
begrifflichen
Determinierung getragen"
(189).
6
References to
Benjamin's
Gesammelte
Schriften
are
given parenthetically
in the
text,
citing
volume and
page
number.
7
It is no coincidence that another side effect of this state is the loss of
language
as a
means of
expression
and communication
(VI, 77),
which underscores the
collapse
of an
interaction between self and other.
8
Kants
Anthropologie
in
pragmatischer
Hinsicht
already
stresses the
importance
of such a
balance in the interest of
sanity, warning
that
"gro?e
oder anhaltende
Aufmerksamkeit,"
if
continually
focused on the same
object,
can "in Wahnsinn
ausschlagen" (206?).
9
This
impassive
mode of
consumption
had
already
been
diagnosed
30
years
earlier
by
Georg
Simmel when
describing
the audience of the 1896
"Gewerbe-Ausstellung"
in
Berlin
which,
as he
observes,
"erzeugt
eine
Paralyse
des
Wahrnehmungsverm?gens,
eine wahre
Hypnose,
in der der einzelne Eindruck nur noch die obersten Schichten des
Bewu?tseins streift"
(71). Hypnosis generally plays
a central role around
1900,
when its
discussion filters down from
psychology
into
popular
debates about mass
culture,
and
in
particular
about the "tiefe und oft
nachhaltige Suggestivwirkung"
of the cinema on
its
impressionable
audience
(Gaupp
110;
see also
Adriopoulos).
10
Brecht's own
writings
echo
Benjamin's argument,
for instance when in the "Kleines
Organon
fur das Theater" he
compares
the audience of traditional theater to "lauter
Schlafenden,
aber
solchen,
die
unruhig
tr?umen,
weil
sie,
wie das Volk von den Alb
tr?umern
[sie] sagt,
auf dem R?cken
liegen.
Sie haben freilich ihre
Augen
offen,
aber sie
schauen
nicht,
sie
stieren,
wie sie auch nicht
h?ren,
sondern lauschen"
(75).
11
Cf.
Benjamin's
comments about the
essay's programmatic
character in his letters
{Gesammelte Briefe
193; 209).
12
In his 1926
essay
"Kult der
Zerstreuung,"
Kracauer still embraces distraction as a tool
of
political
mobilization,
arguing
that the
superficiality
and
heterogeneity
of mass culture
would
eventually trigger
a
process
of self-reflection in the
audience,
forcing
them to
confront their
own
objectified
and aliened existence:
"Hier,
im reinen
Au?en,
trifft
[das
Carolin
Duttlinger
53
Publikum]
sich selber
an,
die zerst?ckelte
Folge
der
splendiden
Sinneseindr?cke
bringt
seine
eigene
Wirklichkeit an den
Tag" (315).
Four
years later, however,
in his
study
Die
Angestellten,
Kracauer
radically
reverses his earlier
position.
Now the audience's
"Hunger
[...]
nach Glanz und
Zerstreuung" (285)
is no
longer
attributed a critical
potential
as it
merely
serves to
perpetuate
a state of individual as well as collective
denial,
the "Flucht
vor der Revolution und dem Tod"
(289).
13
Although
Horkeimer and Adorno describe the mental stance of cinema viewers in
very
similar
terms,
they
arrive at
exactly
the
opposite
conclusion: "Die Produkte selber
[...]
sind so
angelegt,
da? ihre
ad?quate Auffassung
zwar
Promptheit, Beobachtungsgabe,
Versiertheit
erheischt,
da? sie aber die denkende Aktivit?t des Betrachters
geradezu
verbieten,
wenn er nicht die vorbeihuschenden Fakten vers?umen will.
[...]
Von allen
anderen Filmen und Kulturfabrikaten
her,
die er kennen
mu?,
sind die
geforderten
Leistungen
der Aufmerksamkeit so
vertraut,
da? sie automatisch
erfolgen" (148). Here,
the
progressive
automization of alert
reception
is
figured
not as a tool of
emancipation
but,
on the
contrary,
as a
sign
of the viewers'
impassive conditioning by
the machineries
of the culture
industry.
14
Benjamin's
comments on these two
figures
are
shaped by
his
engagement
with the
texts of
Baudelaire,
which he
explores
both in the
Passagen-Werk
and in the related
essay
"?ber
einige
Motive bei Baudelaire"
(1939).
In this
text,
Benjamin
describes Baudelaire's
poetry
as
exemplary
of the
psychological
mechanism o?
Reizschutz,
whereby
the shocks
of modern existence are fended off
through
a
highly
mobile form of alertness. On the
whole,
some of the most
interesting
and fruitful
implications
of
Benjamin's engage
ment with attention
can be found in his
essays
on
literature;
in his
engagement
with
Baudelaire and
Kafka,
as well
as in his
essay
"Der
Erz?hler,"
he
applies
his theoretical
findings
to
literary
texts,
exploring
their
underlying poetics
of
attention,
which is in
turn embedded into wider cultural and historical structures. While these
literary
es
says
form an essential
part
of
Benjamin's writings
on
attention,
their
exploration
would
unfortunately
exceed the
scope
of this article.
15
Revealingly,
however,
attention is here
again part
of a dialectical
configuration;
as
Benjamin
notes to
himself,
"Definition der
Geistesgegenwart
hiermit zu
verbinden;
was hei?t das: der Historiker soll sich
gehen
lassen"
(1.3, 1244).
Works cited
Andriopoulos,
Stefan. Besessene
K?rper: Hypnose, K?rperschaften
und die
Erfindung
des Kinos. Munich:
Fink,
2000.
Benjamin,
Walter. Gesammelte
Briefe.
Vol. 5. Ed.
Christoph
G?dde and Henri
Lonitz. Frankfurt/Main:
Suhrkamp,
1999.
Benjamin,
Walter. Gesammelte
Schriften.
Ed. Rolf
Tiedemann,
and Hermann
Schweppenh?user.
7 Vols. Frankfurt/Main:
Suhrkamp,
1991.
Brecht,
Bertolt. "Kleines
Organon
f?r das Theater." Werke:
Schriften
3. Ed.
Werner Knecht et al. Berlin and Weimar:
Aufbau-Verlag;
Frankfurt/Main:
Suhrkamp,
1993.65-97.
Crary, Jonathan. Suspensions of Perception:
Attention,
Spectacle,
and Modern Culture.
Cambridge,
Mass.: The MIT
Press,
1999.
(2007)
Eiland, Howard,
"Reception
in Distraction."
Boundary
2 30
(2003),
51-66.
Franck,
Georg.
?konomie der
Aufmerksamkeit:
Ein
Entwurf.
Munich:
Hanser,
1998.
Freud,
Sigmund. "Ratschl?ge
f?r den Arzt bei der
psychoanalytischen
Behan
dlung."
Gesammelte Werke. Ed. Anna Freud et al. Vol. 8. London:
Imago,
1943.376-87.
Gaupp,
Robert. "Der
Kinematograph
vom medizinischen und
psychologischen
Standpunkt."
Medientheorie 1888-1933: Texte und Kommentare. Ed. Albert
K?mmel,
and Petra L?ffler. Frankfurt/Main:
Suhrkamp,
2002. 100-14.
Goldhaber,
Michael. "Kunst und die Aufmerksamkeits?konomie im wirkli
chen Raum und im
Cyberspace." Kunstforum
International 148
(1999/2000):
78-83.
Hillar,
Ansgar,
"Dialektisches Bild."
Benjamins Begriffe.
Ed. Michael
Opitz,
and
Erdmut Wizisla. Vol. 1. Frankfurt/Main:
Suhrkamp,
2000.186-229.
Horkheimer, Max,
and Theodor W. Adorno. Dialektik der
Aufkl?rung.
Gesam
melte Schriften 3. Ed. Rolf Tiedemann. Frankfurt/Main:
Suhrkamp,
1984.
Kant,
Immanuel.
Anthropologie
in
pragmatischer
Hinsicht.
Stuttgart:
Reclam,
1983.
Kracauer,
Siegfried.
"Die
Angestellten." Schriften.
Vol. 1. Frankfurt/Main:
Suhrkamp,
1971.205-304.
?.
"Kult der
Zerstreuung:
?ber die Berliner
Lichtspielh?user."
Das Ornament
der Masse. Frankfurt/Main:
Suhrkamp,
1977. 311-17.
Lindner,
Burkhardt. "Das
'Passagen-Werk',
die 'Berliner Kindheit' und die
Arch?ologie
des
J?ngstvergangenen." Passagen:
Walter
Benjamins Urgeschichte
des neunzehnten
Jahrhunderts.
Ed. Norbert
Bolz,
and Bernd Witte. Munich:
Fink,
1984. 27-48.
Liska,
Vivian. "Walter
Benjamins
Dialektik der Aufmerksamkeit
"
Aufmerksam
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Jan
Assmann.
Arch?ologie
der literarischen Kommu
nikation 7. Munich:
Fink,
2001. 141-49.
Schneider,
Manfred. "Kollekten des Geistes: Die
Zerstreuung
im Visier der
Kulturkritik." Neue Rundschau 2.2
(1999):
4^55.
Simmel, Georg.
"Die Berliner
Gewerbe-Ausstellung." Soziologische
?sthetik. Ed.
Klaus Lichtblau. Bodenheim:
Philo,
1998. 71-75.
St?ssi,
Anna.
Erinnerung
an die
Zukunft:
Walter
Benjamins
berliner Kindheit
um Neunzehnhundert."
G?ttingen:
Vandenhoeck &
Ruprecht,
1977.
Witte,
Bernd. Walter
Benjamin,
rowohlts
monographien. Hamburg:
Rowohlt,
1985.
Wohlfarth,
Irving.
"Et cetera? Der Historiker als
Lumpensammler." Passagen:
Walter
Benjamins Urgeschichte
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Ed. Norbert
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Between Contemplation and Distraction: Configurations of Attention in Walter Benjamin

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