Discontinued Thinking: A Review of Walter Benjamin's Selected Writings, Volumes 1-4

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The publication of Walter Benjamin's selected writings raises anew the question of the recognition of his thinking. Not only because the sheer quantity of works contained in these volumes might in itself suggest that we have missed important aspects of such a complex thought, but, primarily, because through it we come to understand that recognition is internal to the emergence of its truth. The claim made on us by the writing does not arise from the obvious lack of acknowledgment Benjamin suffered in his lifetime, nor are we absolved from it by his posthumous fame.

Although what recognition is must itself be learned by way of reading, its precondition appears to be the presentation of a physiognomy of thinking, sketching a portrait of this body of writing if not systematically, then at least with an inner unity that would make its features recognizable. Yet, aspects of Benjamin's thinking make the drawing of such a figure of thought immensely difficult, if not in principle impossible.

What might initially stand in the way of recognizing the truth of Benjamin's thinking is, paradoxically, an insistence on his uniqueness. While undeniable, such uniqueness may too easily be formulated by resorting to the idea of his magical insights, his mysterious genius, or the irreproducible singularity of his modes of experiencing the world: "In [Benjamin's] presence one felt like a child at Christmas the instant the door cracked open to the living room and an overwhelming flood of light fills the eyes with tears; a light more shattering and certain than any dazzling light seen directly when one is finally called to enter the room." ¹ Such no doubt powerful images could induce us to treat Benjamin's writing as a disparate collection of polished gems and pearls, something "rich and strange." ² So figuring a writing that is always delicate but never precious would encourage the reader to remain amazed, with eyes wide open, even require of him or her inspiration commensurate to the supposed brilliant esotericism of the work. It would not only preclude grasping the sober and rigorous philosophical nature of the writing but also not allow placing Benjamin within a tradition of thinking. Instead of opening the possibility of inheriting him, it would posthumously isolate him. Though one might very well agree that recognition implies a sense of discovery that is not compatible with placing thought under given categories, or even with giving it the form of a system, nevertheless strenuous conceptual elaboration is patent in Benjamin's writing. It imposes on the reader the demand to enter the work rather than absorb its aura, en passant, in the idle spirit of the holiday.

In her introduction to the first English collection of Benjamin's writing, Hannah Arendt chooses to contrast his originality to that of the "typical" genius, branding him "absolutely incomparable," or "unclassifiable," which leads her to describe his work by way of "a great many negative statements." ³ Such "via negativa" approximating endlessly by counterbalancing our existing categories would inevitably miss the finality and utter positivity of Benjamin's thinking. For Benjamin is a thinker of precision, of small and accurate measures. When his writing touches, it is not just right but always strikingly just right, therefore lending his pronouncements their peculiar oracular quality. Its sometimes scholarly deployment of concepts and display of knowledge, rather than constructing a theoretical armature, serves the purpose of distinguishing content to the extreme, as if to make a point in every sentence. His thinking is one of "both/and" rather than "neither/nor," meaning that it is a dialectical thinking that can encompass oppositions without movement in complete positivity. Such positivity, not necessarily implying the intuition of a unique essence, does require placing every part in relation to others, in the arresting figure of a constellation balanced by its inner tensions.

Ideally, reading Benjamin would require having...