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Ziqian Zhang

Prof. Guilhem Causse (Centre Sèvres)

Fall 2015

Nomos or Anomia:

On the Dissension between Carl Schmitt and Walter Benjamin

In late 1920, Walter Benjamin embarked on the project entitled “Politik,” starting with

“Der wahre Politiker,” after which was to follow “Die wahre Politik,” comprising two chapters:

“Abbau der Gewalt” and “Teleologie ohne Endzweck.” In 1921, the former chapter developed

into the article now known as “Zur Kritik der Gewalt,” which was initially published in the

Archiv für Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik. Carl Schmitt, according to Giorgio Agamben’s

State of Exception (SE), was an avid reader of the journal, and he must have noticed Benjamin’s

essay on violence; further, his Politische Theologie could be interpreted as a theoretical response

to Benjamin (52-54). Although Agamben has outlined the Gigantomachy by opposing Schmitt’s

re-location of Benjamin’s pure violence (reine Gewalt) within the juridical context to Benjamin’s

definition of the baroque sovereign as the one incapable of deciding, I shall approach the debate

from another perspective—with respect to the formulations of humanity: the dissension between

Schmitt’s decisionism and Benjamin’s messianic anarchism can ultimately be derived from their

different presuppositions of human nature; correspondingly, in the sphere of profane politics,

whether nomos (norm, order, including the anomie that is inscribed in the juridical context) or

anomia (lawlessness, disorder, which may activate Benjamin’s real [wirklich] state of exception)

should be enacted is contingent upon their respective understandings of human nature.

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“THE ORDER OF HUMAN THINGS”: MAN IN NEED OF DOMINION

In Der Begriff des Politischen (BP), Schmitt suggests that “all genuine political theories

presuppose man to be ‘evil’ (böse), i.e., by no means viewed as an unproblematic, but as a

‘dangerous’ (gefährliches) and dynamic being” (61). Indeed, böse is different from schlecht, for

it denotes “moralisch schlecht” (“böse.” Duden), so böse is not neutral originally. However, in

“Notes on Carl Schmitt, The Concept of the Political” (NCS), Leo Strauss contends that when

Schmitt understands “evil” as “dangerous,” he has actually substituted animal power for human

inferiority, naturae potentia for humana impotentia, thus neutralizing the distinction between

“evil” and “good,” as the Hobbesian innocent evil does (NCS 109). Hence, with böse related to

the amoral or anethical conception of evil, Schmitt in fact falls under his own criticism of

liberalism, which aims at the neutralization of the political—depoliticization. Strauss therefore

indicates that “Schmitt undertakes the critique of liberalism in a liberal world, . . . his critique of

liberalism occurs in the horizon of liberalism” (NCS 119).

Nevertheless, Schmitt’s concept of evil is not so neutral as it may seem. Although Schmitt

explicitly states that “the distinction is completely summary and not be taken in any specifically

moral or ethical sense” (BP 59), his translation of “evil” into “dangerous” could induce a moral

or ethical implication in practice, for Schmitt’s Hobbesian formulation of the dangerous man as a

mere beast in the status naturalis, corroborated by the animal fables (Tierfabeln) aptly applied in

an actual political situation, demands that measures be taken to subdue the dangerousness of man

as if it is an evil that is supposed to be overcome, which is evidenced by Schmitt’s quotation of

Wilhelm Dilthey’s comment on Machiavelli (BP 59). Therefore, in terms of its methodological

consequence, the dangerousness of man is essentially moral or ethical.

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For Schmitt, as Strauss points out, “dangerousness means need of dominion. . . . Man’s

dangerousness, revealed as a need of dominion, can appropriately be understood only as moral

baseness” (NCS 109-111). Identified as “moral baseness,” therefore, man’s dangerousness is not

neutral but moral or ethical; as a result, dangerousness would call forth dominion, which induces

order against disorder, i.e., nomos against anomia. As George Schwab clarifies: “Given Schmitt’s

anthropological understanding of the nature of man as basically dangerous, the raison d’être of

the state, according to him, is to curb his aggressive nature by ensuring an orderly, peaceful, and

stable societal order in the territorially-enclosed configuration called the state” (vii).

Consequently, Schmitt’s vision of the political presupposes nomos, for without nomos,

dominion as the governmental structure could not be secured; that being the case, dangerousness

would unfold itself and lead to the Hobbesian status naturalis of all against all. Although Schmitt

upholds the status naturalis where “the abandonment (Verzicht) of the security of the status quo”

(BP 93) occurs, as a critic of liberalism who is confined within the horizon of liberalism, Schmitt

nevertheless negates the status belli of actual fighting (BP 37). Thus, man’s dangerousness must

be curbed under nomos, which could be enacted through decisionism.

Schmitt’s decisionism could (re-)establish nomos through invoking the state of exception.

As stated in Politische Theologie: “In its absolute form, the exception has then happened, when

the situation—where legal dictates can be valid (gelten)—must first be made” (19). Accordingly,

Agamben reiterates: “In the decision on the state of exception the norm is suspended or even

annulled; but what is at issue in this suspension is, once again, the creation of a situation that

makes the application of the norm possible” (SE 36). Thus, in the state of exception, the decision

(Entscheidung) of the sovereign aims to unfold a zone where nomos could (re-)appear.
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Although nomos primarily emerges in the application of the norm, it could be affirmed

even without such an application: the decision on exception would transform the suspended law

to the force-of-law, i.e., the norm that “is in force (vige) but is not applied” (SE 38), which could

enact the “pure inclusion of life” (SE 73)—the inclusion of bare life in the juridical order (diritto)

above the systems of law (legge)—and thus situate the state of exception in the juridical context

of nomos rather than relating it to anomia. As Agamben demonstrates in Homo Sacer: “The state

of exception . . . is not external to the nomos but rather, even in its clear delimitation, included in

the nomos as a moment that is in every sense fundamental” (37).

In conclusion, Schmitt is committed to the (re-)founding of nomos through decisionism

for he holds what Strauss refers to as “the ultimate presupposition of the position of the political”

(NCS 106), i.e., man’s dangerousness, which affirms that man is in need of dominion. Contrary

to Hobbes, who denies original sin by positing the innocence of evil (NCS 109), Schmitt derives

his understanding of man’s evil nature as dangerousness from his faith in the Christian doctrine

of original sin (Meier 50ff.), as opposed to the optimistic worldview of liberalism—the negation

of the political: “The theological basic dogma of the sinfulness (Sündhaftigkeit) of the world and

of man leads . . . to a ‘distancing’ (Abstandnahme), and makes the undifferentiated optimism of a

universal concept of man impossible” (BP 64). Accordingly, “the methodological connection of

theological and political presuppositions of thinking is clear” (BP 64), for both of them posit man

as an inherently evil being. Thus, for Schmitt, man could not have escaped his dangerousness as

he could not have extricated himself from his original sin. Ultimately, the theological concept of

original sin justifies the presence of nomos along with the application of decisionism. In contrast,

Benjamin holds a different presupposition of human nature.

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“FATE IS THE GUILT-CONTEXT OF THE LIVING”: HYBRIS MYTHICIZED

Unlike Schmitt, who formulates the evil nature of man in terms of Christian theology, Benjamin

argues that the guilt is not rooted in man’s existential dimension; thus, the Christian doctrine of

original sin should be called into question. However, Benjamin does not squarely propound his

understanding of human nature, so I shall proceed through a reading of “Zur Kritik der Gewalt”

and “Schicksal und Charakter” in Gesammelte Schriften (GS).

In “Zur Kritik der Gewalt,” Benjamin distinguishes two forms of violence: law-imposing

violence (rechtsetzende Gewalt) and law-preserving violence (rechtserhaltende Gewalt). While

the former founds a law to bind the subjects, the latter ensures law’s binding of its subjects. But

since “law can only be preserved by reiterating its binding character,” as Butler argues, “the law

is ‘preserved’ only by being asserted again and again as binding” (72); hence, as legal violence

(Rechtsgewalt), these two forms of violence transcend the scope of mere Gesetz (legge, loi) and

thus disclose the problematic of nomos—Recht (diritto, droit), which may expose human beings

to the binding par excellence: the force-of-law that manifests itself in the state of exception.

Benjamin also refers to these two forms of violence as “mythic violence” (mythische Gewalt),

which originates in the world of myth. As told, Niobe, the queen of Thebes, gives birth to seven

sons and seven daughters. In a fit of hybris, she starts boasting of her fecundity in a ceremony

held in honor of the Goddess Leto, who is only blessed with two children, Apollo and Artemis.

Enraged, Leto sends her divine twins to slay all of Niobe’s children. While Niobe survives Leto’s

punishment, she is eventually turned into a weeping stone by Zeus. Nevertheless, for Benjamin,

the killing of Niobe’s children is not merely a punishment:

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Although it could seem that the action of Apollo and Artemis is only a punishment

(Strafe). But their violence is to establish a law (Recht) much more than to punish

the violation (Übertretung) of a existing [law]. The arrogance (Hochmut) of Niobe

calls down the disaster upon itself, not because it breaks the law, rather because it

challenges the fate (Schicksal)—in a fight, in which it must triumph and brings to

light a law only possibly in the triumph. (GS II 197)

When Niobe attempts to transcend the “boundary stone (Markstein) of the limit between men

and gods” (GS II 197), fate, which “in all cases underlies legal violence” (GS II 197), induces

mythic violence to bind Niobe with a newly founded law. But the establishment of the law only

affirms the guilt of Niobe rather than any violation, since “The law does not condemn (verurteilt)

one to punishment, but to guilt” (GS II 175). In line with the mythic thinking, Niobe seems to be

guilty of hybris, owing to which mythic violence punishes Niobe to achieve mythic justice.

Against the mythic thinking, however, Benjamin has undertaken a paradoxical project: to

defend Niobe’s innocence in spite of the fact that she is guilty of hybris. In other words, hybris—

which is taken as the “gravest guilt (Verschuldung)” (GS II 174)—could incriminate Niobe but

could not make Niobe accountable for the guilt. As a result, “divine violence” (göttliche Gewalt)

is invoked by Benjamin to counter mythic violence, even though the latter is the mythically just

means to expiate Niobe’s guilt. However, once mythic violence—which could atone for the guilt

of hybris together with all other forms of guilt—is denied by Benjamin, then not merely hybris,

but precisely guilt in totality, could not account for man’s accountability for guilt. Benjamin’s

de-construction of hybris thus represents his anti-mythic conception of guilt, which demonstrates

that hybris in itself could not constitute guilt, and further, the nature of man is innocent.
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Early in 1916, five years before his composition of “Zur Kritik der Gewalt,” Benjamin in

“Das Glück des antiken Menschen” has proposed a conception of hybris that is untinged with

original sin. Contrary to the Christian conception of hybris as the original sin of the tragic hero,

Benjamin contends that hybris—“the attempt to demonstrate himself . . . as bearer (Träger) of

happiness” (GS II 128)—is not a manifestation of guilt, but fundamentally related to “victory and

celebration, merit (Verdienst) and innocence (Unschuld)” (GS II 128, emphasis added).

Although Benjamin notes that “happiness is nothing, if not this—that the gods destine

(verhängen) it on him, and his destiny (Verhängnis) is, if he wants to believe, that the gods have

given it to him and to him alone” (GS II 128), man nevertheless could not be deemed guilty for

the happiness received in the ἀγών (“contest”), as “visible to all, lauded by the people, the victor

stands there, innocence is definitely necessary to him” (GS II 129). Hence, the victor’s hybris

affirms his innocence and he is justified to demonstrate the gift of victory gained with his merit.

But the gods “can destine unprecedented unhappiness to the victor every hour (as to the home-

returning Agamemnon)” (GS II 128), thus turning the victor into the guilty victim.

Benjamin’s conception of hybris echoes W. H. Auden’s account in “The Greeks and Us.”

From the perspective of Auden, the Homeric hero is the aristocratic ideal—“what every member

of the ruling class should try to imitate, . . . the closest approximation to a god—the divine being

conceived as the ideally strong—possible to man” (18-19). But the tragic hero is “not an ideal

but a warning, and the warning is addressed not to an aristocratic audience, i.e., other potentially

heroic individuals, but precisely to the demos, i.e., the collective chorus” (19). As in the Greek

tragedy, the tragic hero appears to be of unsurpassable fortune and thus superior to the chorus at

the beginning, but he is destined to suffer more than the chorus at the end of the play.
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On the one hand, therefore, the slaughter of Niobe’s children is a warning for one who

challenges the fate with hybris, i.e., “an overweening self-confidence which makes him believe

that he, with his arete, is a god who cannot be made to suffer” (19); on the other hand, gods are

destined to enforce their mythic justice by putting the Greek tragic hero into a misery where he

involuntarily realizes that he could never be godlike, thus free from any suffering:

The typical Greek tragic situation is one in which whatever the hero does must be

wrong—Agamemnon must either kill his daughter or betray his duty to the army,

Orestes must either disobey the order of Apollo or be guilty of matricide, Oedipus

must either persist in asking question or let Thebes be destroyed by plague,

Antigone must violate her duty either to her dead brother or to her city, etc. (19)

The fate of Greek tragic hero evinces that gods punish man for guilt, but not for any violation;

otherwise, there should not be a dilemma to necessitate the punishment. Likewise, the possibility

of killing his father and marrying his mother is fulfilled in fate to punish Oedipus for his hybris;

but for Auden, “It is only when in fact they turn out to be his father and mother that he becomes

guilty” (20). Thus, prior to punishment guilt is not, and it is through punishment—which induces

misfortune—that hybris instantaneously becomes guilt, as “every legal guilt is nothing other than

unhappiness (Unglück)” (GS II 174). Consequently, the guilty aspect could be abstracted from

hybris for it is superimposed on hybris through the punishment, or rather, the guiltiness of hybris

could only be actualized in the punishment. As Paul Ricœur explicates in La symbolique du mal,

“the hybris alone (seule) is not tragic” (209), which intimates that the “tragicization” of hybris—

which consists in the destructive fate that affirms the status of hybris as guilt—has to be achieved

through the operation of the external factor, i.e., “κακός δαίµων” (dieu méchant).
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Correspondingly, Benjamin underscores the externality of guilt: “fate is the guilt-context

of the living (der Schuldzusammenhang des Lebendigen)” (GS II 174). “Schuldzusammenhang,”

which first appears in “Goethes Wahlverwandtschaften” (GS I 138), brings to light the operation

of fate by which the unredeemed—the living captured in his bare life—is arrested in the nexus of

guilt even without being accountable for his guilt, as “with the disappearance of the supernatural

life in man, his natural [life] becomes guilt without sinning against morality in action (ohne daß

es im Handeln gegen die Sittlichkeit fehle)” (GS I 139, emphasis added). Accordingly, insofar as

“every legal guilt is nothing other than unhappiness” (GS II 174), then it is the punishment that

brings the guilt into bare life and imposes the fictitious accountability on man: “The punishment

produces the subject bound by law—accountable, punishable, and punished” (Butler 78). Thus,

for Benjamin, guilt should not be traced back to the living, but to the dieux méchants.

As Roberto Esposito asserts in Immunitas: “guilt is the outcome rather than the reason for

the condemnation. Life is not condemned because it is guilty, but rather in order to make it

guilty. . . . Life is not judged because it is guilty; life is made guilty so that it can be judged—and

condemned” (32). The juridical order thus reproduces itself as the arbiter of guilt by producing

the subject as the culprit in the judgment, which culminates in the carrying out of the judgment—

punishment. In line with the reversal, for Benjamin, guilt is merely a juridical fiction that arises

post hoc from the punishment, but it is prone to be misidentified as the origin of the punishment.

Thus understood, it is the punishment introduced in the order of fate through the mythic violence

of gods that should account for the guilt—a juridical factum (from facere “make”)—rather than

man himself. Consequently, man could not be accountable for guilt and, therefore, innocent.
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“BUT WE ARE ABOVE FATE”: ANOMIA AS REDEMPTION

Although Benjamin’s position on human nature is made clear, his messianic anarchism remains

obscure, because Benjamin’s anarchism participates in the intersection of politics and theology,

and thus, to relate Benjamin’s view of human nature to the messianic anarchism, profane politics

must be captured within the eschatological vision of redemption—the pursuit of happiness.

Originally, hybris only betokens the happiness (Glück) of man in the reign of fate, rather

than the denouement of misfortune, as shown in “Das Glück des antiken Menschen.” Auden also

asserts: “Nobody can be tempted into hybris except one who is exceptionally fortunate” (21).

Thus, happiness and hybris are originally linked, but once the gods feel resentful of man’s hybris,

mythic violence, as “the pure manifestation of gods” (GS II 197), would induce the punishment,

through which hybris is transformed into guilt. As Benjamin points out:

Thus, the relation to innocence does not appear in the fate. And—this question

still strikes deeper—then, is there a relation to the happiness in the fate? Is the

happiness, so as the unhappiness (Unglück) without doubt, a constitutive category

for the fate? The happiness is, rather, what releases the happy [man] from the

nexus (Verkettung) of fate and from the net of his own [fate]. Hölderlin does not

name the blissful gods “fateless” (Schicksallos) for nothing. (GS II 174)

Given the distinction between the profane order and the divine order (GS II 203-204), Benjamin

distinguishes two types of happiness—the happiness in fate and the happiness beyond fate: with

respect to the former, as human beings are exposed to the arbitrary force of mythic violence, it is

eventually unhappiness; concerning the latter, as the redeemed man would have been released

from the nexus of guilt, no punishment is possible, so it is the happiness proper:

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Happiness and bliss thus escape the sphere of fate, just as innocence. . . . (insofar

as something is fate, it is unhappiness and guilt) . . . The laws (Gesetze) of fate—

unhappiness and guilt—elevates the law (Recht) to measures of the person; it

would be false to assume that only the guilt alone finds itself in the law-context

(Rechtszusammenhang); rather, it is demonstrable that every legal guilt is nothing

other than unhappiness. (GS II 174)

It is at this moment that Benjamin undertakes the critique of nomos—the fate, the guilt-context,

the law-context, or the juridical order (diritto, droit), all of which are established through mythic

violence. For Benjamin, although man is destined for happiness (GS II 203), happiness could not

be truly obtained in the order of fate, where life is solely governed by mythic violence. Granted,

mythic violence would be just if man is guilty and accountable, but as Benjamin demonstrates, in

the reign of fate, man could be guilty without committing any act against morality, so the guilt is

merely externally imposed on him, and therefore, man is not accountable and de facto innocent;

correspondingly, mythic justice—which deprives man of the innocence that he claims in his own

right and the happiness that he is destined for—is unjust. Benjamin thus observes a “confusion

with the realm of justice (Gerechtigkeit)” (GS II 174): mythic violence seems to enforce justice

through the punishment, but it merely makes the unaccountable accountable and ultimately turns

the innocent subject into the guilty victim, and nomos thereby embodies the moment of injustice

inserted into the profane order. That being the case, Schmitt would fall under Benjamin’s critique

of nomos, as nomos is justified by Schmitt through man’s dangerousness as his original sin, but if

guilt is the outcome of the juridical regulation, rather than the reason, then it is unjust to retain

nomos through mythic violence in the name of expiating guilt or achieving justice.
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For Schmitt, “the political has its deepest foundation in original sin” (Meier 53), and thus

“Original sin is the central point around which everything turns in his anthropological confession

of faith [Glaubensbekenntnis]” (Meier 57; cf. BP 58). Hence, Schmitt conceives the theological

—which presupposes man to be evil by nature—as the basis a priori for the political; Benjamin

rather demonstrates that the theological, regarding its presupposition of the guilty nature of man,

could only be comprehended as the post-political. In other words, the guilt should be grasped as

the (by-)product of the political in the form of juridical process that aims to distinguish the guilty

from the innocent, as clarified by Agamben’s interpretation of Kafka’s The Trial (Der Process) in

Remnants of Auschwitz: “‘The court wants nothing from you. It welcomes you when you come;

it releases you when you go.’ The ultimate end of the juridical regulation is to produce judgment;

. . . Judgment is in itself the end” (19). According to Agamben, the juridical order is essentially a

self-referential system—judgment aims at the reproduction of itself through producing the guilty

subject; but following Salvatore Satta’s Il mistero del processo, Agamben further indicates that

“nullum judicium sine poena” (19)—i.e., “no judgment without punishment”—by quoting Satta:

“One can even say that the whole punishment is in the judgment, that the action characteristic of

the punishment—incarceration, execution—matters only insofar as it is, so to speak, the carrying

out of the judgment” (qtd. in Remnants of Auschwitz 19). Since “nullum judicium sine poena,”

the guilt must be accomplished in the judgment through the punishment, but the punishment—

which induces the government of the innocent over the guilty—is rooted in the political; hence,

the notion of guilt arises post hoc from the political (cf. Rom. 4.15). Correspondingly, to achieve

justice by absolving the fabricated guilt, the core of the political—nomos, which asserts the guilt

through mythic violence—must be annihilated, thus invoking anomia by divine violence:

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If the mythic violence is law-imposing, the divine [violence] is law-destroying; if

the former sets limits, so the latter destroys without limit, if the mythic [violence]

is sin-incurring (verschuldend) and sin-expiating (sühnend) at once, so the divine

[violence] is absolving (entsühnend), if the former is threatening, so the latter is

striking, the former bloody, so the latter lethal in bloodless way. (GS II 199)

The telos of politics for Benjamin is the restoration of happiness, which enacts the fulfillment of

justice in anomia through divine violence—the destruction of fate. In his Address to the Greeks,

Tatian, as a Christian who rejects the fatalistic vision of the pagan world—which is evidenced by

the judgment of Prometheus—proclaims that the Greek gods are mere demons (daimones) who

introduce injustice by imposing the fate on man (chap. VIII, IX; cf. “Dämonen” in GS II 174);

Tatian therefore declares: “But we are above fate” (hēmeis de kai heimarmenēs esmen anōteroi)

(chap. IX). Following Tatian, Henri de Lubac asserts that “The fable of Prometheus, . . . is not a

Bible story” (419) and “Christianity was from the outset . . . a ‘revolt against destiny’” (420). In

the same vein, Gershom Scholem in his “Thesen über den Begriff der Gerechtigkeit” notes that

“Justice is the elimination of fate from the actions” (qtd. in Jacobson 180). Along the same lines,

to sever justice from fate, in his “Notizen zu einer Arbeit über die Kategorie der Gerechtigkeit”

Benjamin posits the distinction between mythic justice and justice proper: the juridical order that

Schmitt’s decisionism upholds represents ius in Latin, themis in Greek, and mishpat in Hebrew;

Benjamin’s vision of anarchism rather aims to destroy nomos (including iustitium), thus fulfilling

anomia in fas, dike, and zedek (qtd. in Jacobson 169). In “Theologisch-politisches Fragment,”

therefore, Benjamin characterizes his anarchistic approach to accomplishing the telos of politics

as “nihilism” (GS II 204)—the destruction of nomos and the fulfillment of anomia.

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However, the anarchism proposed by Benjamin as the fulfillment of anomia is endowed

with a messianic character, for Benjamin considers that anomia, understood as the attainment of

human happiness, would resonate with the redemption (Erlösung) of the past (GS I 693). Further,

Benjamin contends that the past related to redemption could not be grasped as the historicist past

of the chronicler, e.g., the past that Leopold von Ranke searched for “wie es eigentlich gewesen,”

as “only to the redeemed humanity (erlösten Menschheit) falls its past” (GS I 694). Accordingly,

as Agamben states, Benjamin’s redemption of the past “in no way signifies the reconstruction of

something as it once was” (“Walter Benjamin and the Demonic” 152). In fact, the genuine past is

conceived by Benjamin as origin (Ursprung) rather than genesis (Entstehung), and the difference

between these two types of past is captured in Ursprung des deutschen Trauerspiels:

Origin, although an absolutely historical category, still, has nothing in common

with genesis. In the origin, intended (gemeint) is no becoming of the having

originated (Werden des Entstehungen), rather, [intended is] the originating from

the becoming and passing away (dem Werden und Vergehen Entspringendes). . . .

Thus, the origin does not elevate itself from the factual findings, but rather, it is

related to the pre- and post-history (Vor- und Nachgeschichte). (GS I 226)

In order to achieve the restoration of the happiness of man in anomia, the “restitutio in integrum”

(GS II 204) must be accomplished, which, nonetheless, cannot be enacted in history, for history

could only manifest itself as the “process of inexorable decline (Vorgang unaufhaltsam Verfalls)”

(GS I 353), i.e., the process in which each moment of the past has been tainted by nomos in fate.

Thus, the redemptive anomia demands an eschatological invocation of the untainted origin with

divine violence, as the maxim of Karl Kraus unveils: “Origin is the goal” (GS I 701).
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The eschatological invocation of divine violence to achieve anomia in the origin could be

apprehended as the operation of citation; as Benjamin notes, citation “invokes the word in name,

destroying (zerstörend), breaks it out of the context (Zusammenhang), but precisely thereby also

invokes the same [word] back to its origin” (GS II 363). With the citation accomplished through

language, “language proves itself to be the mother of justice” (GS II 363). Likewise, at the end

(eschaton) of history, divine violence would be present and induce the original anomia to redeem

the innocent from the guilt-context, thus fulfilling the ideal of divine justice.

Still, man could not decide “when pure violence was actual (wirklich) in a determinate

case. For only the mythic, not the divine [violence], will be able to be recognized as such with

certainty. . . . because the absolving power of violence does not appear to man” (GS II 203)—

man could only await the consummation of Benjamin’s messianic anarchism, as “every second is

the small gate through which the Messiah could enter” (GS I 704).

CONCLUSION

For Schmitt, man is presupposed to be a dangerous being, which requires the presence of nomos

to avert the status belli of actual fighting, and decisionism is thus necessary, as the force-of-law

could ensure the (re-)establishment of nomos in the state of exception. For Benjamin, however,

man is innocent, as the guilt is externally imposed on him through the punishment, and nomos—

which enacts the punishment with mythic violence—is therefore unjust and should be eliminated

with divine violence to actualize the eschatological justice in the a-historical origin of anomia.

Ultimately, Benjamin hopes to transcend profane politics with messianic anarchism, which could

accomplish the restoration of man’s happiness—the redemption of humanity.

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Works Cited

Agamben, Giorgio. Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life. Trans. Daniel Heller-Roazen.

Stanford, CA: Stanford UP, 1998. Print.

---, Remnants of Auschwitz: The Witness and the Archive. Trans. Daniel Heller-Roazen.

New York, NY: Zone Books, 1999. Print.

---, State of Exception. Trans. Kevin Attell. Chicago, IL: U of Chicago P, 2005. Print.

---, “Walter Benjamin and the Demonic: Happiness and Historical Redemption.” Potentialities:

Collected Essays in Philosophy. Trans. Daniel Heller-Roazen. Stanford, CA: Stanford

UP, 1999. 138-159. Print.

Auden, W. H. “The Greeks and Us.” Forewords and Afterwords. New York, NY: Random House,

1973. 3-32. Print.

Benjamin, Walter. “Das Glück des antiken Menschen.” Gesammelte Schriften, Bd. II. Ed. Rolf

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