This article discusses Walter Benjamin's complex treatment of attention in his writings. While Benjamin is known for advocating distraction as the proper perceptual stance for modernity, attention also plays a central yet complex role in his thought. The article examines how Benjamin assesses different cultural configurations of attention and their impact on perception and experience. It also analyzes how attention takes on a self-reflexive role, as Benjamin's exploration of it refers back to his own critical theoretical approach, which relies on a mobile form of attentiveness.
This article discusses Walter Benjamin's complex treatment of attention in his writings. While Benjamin is known for advocating distraction as the proper perceptual stance for modernity, attention also plays a central yet complex role in his thought. The article examines how Benjamin assesses different cultural configurations of attention and their impact on perception and experience. It also analyzes how attention takes on a self-reflexive role, as Benjamin's exploration of it refers back to his own critical theoretical approach, which relies on a mobile form of attentiveness.
This article discusses Walter Benjamin's complex treatment of attention in his writings. While Benjamin is known for advocating distraction as the proper perceptual stance for modernity, attention also plays a central yet complex role in his thought. The article examines how Benjamin assesses different cultural configurations of attention and their impact on perception and experience. It also analyzes how attention takes on a self-reflexive role, as Benjamin's exploration of it refers back to his own critical theoretical approach, which relies on a mobile form of attentiveness.
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 Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27668212 . Accessed: 25/09/2014 13:54 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. . The Johns Hopkins University Press and German Studies Association are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to German Studies Review. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 164.41.102.240 on Thu, 25 Sep 2014 13:54:30 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 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 This content downloaded from 164.41.102.240 on Thu, 25 Sep 2014 13:54:30 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 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 This content downloaded from 164.41.102.240 on Thu, 25 Sep 2014 13:54:30 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 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 religious contemplation 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 This content downloaded from 164.41.102.240 on Thu, 25 Sep 2014 13:54:30 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 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 religious contemplation 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: This content downloaded from 164.41.102.240 on Thu, 25 Sep 2014 13:54:30 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 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 This content downloaded from 164.41.102.240 on Thu, 25 Sep 2014 13:54:30 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 38 German Studies Review 30/1 (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 This content downloaded from 164.41.102.240 on Thu, 25 Sep 2014 13:54:30 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 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 This content downloaded from 164.41.102.240 on Thu, 25 Sep 2014 13:54:30 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 40 German Studies Review 30/1 (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 Benjamin's writings, 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 This content downloaded from 164.41.102.240 on Thu, 25 Sep 2014 13:54:30 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 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," religious contemplation 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 This content downloaded from 164.41.102.240 on Thu, 25 Sep 2014 13:54:30 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 42 German Studies Review 30/1 (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, This content downloaded from 164.41.102.240 on Thu, 25 Sep 2014 13:54:30 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 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 This content downloaded from 164.41.102.240 on Thu, 25 Sep 2014 13:54:30 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 44 German Studies Review 30/1 (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: This content downloaded from 164.41.102.240 on Thu, 25 Sep 2014 13:54:30 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 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 This content downloaded from 164.41.102.240 on Thu, 25 Sep 2014 13:54:30 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 46 German Studies Review 30/1 (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 perceptual challenges 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 This content downloaded from 164.41.102.240 on Thu, 25 Sep 2014 13:54:30 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 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 perceptual challenges 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 This content downloaded from 164.41.102.240 on Thu, 25 Sep 2014 13:54:30 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 48 German Studies Review 30/1 (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 This content downloaded from 164.41.102.240 on Thu, 25 Sep 2014 13:54:30 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 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 This content downloaded from 164.41.102.240 on Thu, 25 Sep 2014 13:54:30 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 50 German Studies Review 30/1 (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 This content downloaded from 164.41.102.240 on Thu, 25 Sep 2014 13:54:30 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 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 Benjamin's writings, 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. This content downloaded from 164.41.102.240 on Thu, 25 Sep 2014 13:54:30 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 52 German Studies Review 30/1 (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 This content downloaded from 164.41.102.240 on Thu, 25 Sep 2014 13:54:30 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 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. This content downloaded from 164.41.102.240 on Thu, 25 Sep 2014 13:54:30 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 54 German Studies Review 30/1 (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 keiten. Ed. Aleida and 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 des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts. Ed. Norbert Bolz, and Bernd Witte. Munich: Fink, 1984. 70-95. This content downloaded from 164.41.102.240 on Thu, 25 Sep 2014 13:54:30 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
Małgorzata Stępnik, Outsiderzy, Mistyfikatorzy, Eskapiści W Sztuce XX Wieku (The Outsiders, The Mystifiers, The Escapists in 20th Century Art - A SUMMARY)