Abstract
Agamben recurrently works a somewhat Benjaminian conception of shame into his writings and especially into Quel che resta di Auschwitz (1999). This chapter is concerned quite specifically with shame as a gesture of philosophy. The shame is a gesture, for it recalls a force that dissociates from historical incarnations. The gesture of philosophic shame is not quite the discharge that is advocated by Deleuze and Guattari or the internalized community of sentiment that is formulated as shame by Bernard Williams. Benjamin’s Kafka-writings and Agamben’s relevant texts (with distinct nuances) concern shame that includes constant preparedness to dissociate from notions of discharge and from the conclusions of community sentiment. This dissociation is integral to the philosophic gesture of both Benjamin and Agamben.
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Notes
- 1.
See too II:3, 1214 and a note towards revision of the 1934-essay, II:3, 1261, as well as an early version of the essay, II:3, 1267.
- 2.
Deleuze and Guattari , Kafka, 46/ Kafka, 84 (emphasis added).
- 3.
Deleuze and Guattari , Kafka, 46, 49/ Kafka, 84, 89.
- 4.
See Deleuze and Guattari , A Thousand Plateaus, 259/ Mille Plateaux, 317.
- 5.
Deleuze and Guattari , A Thousand Plateaus, 400/ Mille Plateaux, 497–98.
- 6.
In a quite early note (dated at 1928 by the editors of GS), Benjamin still writes the following. “Disgust and shame: relationship of these two affects [Affekte] and their significance in Kafka” (II:3, 1191).
- 7.
See Hamacher , Premises, 294–336, and Weber, Chaps. 7 and 13.
- 8.
Deleuze and Guattari , What is Philosophy?, 107–8/ Qu’est.-ce que la philosophie?, 103.
- 9.
See Rosenzweig, 83–84/ 81. The question of “Orientalism” in Rosenzweig’s magnum opus will not be addressed here.
- 10.
See Kafka , Amerika: The Missing Person, 267–288/ Der Verschollene, ed. J. Schillemeit, KA, 387–417.
- 11.
See too II:3, 1246 (point 10).
- 12.
Deleuze and Guattari , What is Philosophy?, 107–8/ Qu’est.-ce que la philosophie?, 103.
- 13.
Deleuze and Guattari , What is Philosophy?, 108/ Qu’est.-ce que la philosophie?, 103.
- 14.
Deleuze and Guattari , What is Philosophy?, 38/ Qu’est.-ce que la philosophie?, 41.
- 15.
See again the letter of August 1934 to Scholem , (C, 453/ GB IV, 478) and notes towards that letter: II:3, 1246.
- 16.
See too the note in II:3, 1286.
- 17.
Williams , 80.
- 18.
Williams , 83–84.
- 19.
Williams , 86.
- 20.
Williams , 46, 74.
- 21.
Kafka says of this life and thought: “‘He does not live for the sake of his personal life, he does not think for the sake of his personal thought. He feels as though he were living and thinking under the constraint of a family …. Because of this unknown family … he cannot be released’” (Kafka, Tagebücher, eds. Hans-Gerd Koch, Michael Müller, and Malcolm Pasley, KA, 857).
- 22.
This reading of the “‘unknown family’” and of “gesture” differs, therefore, from the reading provided in Eli Friedlander, 219–20.
- 23.
In an earlier version of the Kafka-essay, Benjamin claims that the shame is “the most intimate gesture of the human” and “at the same time the most demanding societally” (II:3, 1269).
- 24.
With respect to early works by Benjamin, this has been outlined in Rrenban.
- 25.
And, again, see too II:3, 1246 (point 10).
- 26.
Scholem , On the Kabbalah and its Symbolism, 12/ Zur Kabbala und ihrer Symbolik, 22–23.
- 27.
Agamben, State of Exception, 64.
- 28.
This shame is distinct, however, from the shame detected by Günther Anders . Anders addresses a shame in the human being about its feelings of relative inadequacy and incompetence before technology (See Die Antiquiertheit des Menschen, vol. 1, especially 21–95). On the other hand, Anders also mentions a shame that could offset the total surrender of the human to its societal orders and organizations. This would be a shame about the shame that resigns and surrenders (vol. 1, 330; vol. 2, 232–35). The latter shame could qualify, perhaps, as Benjamin’s Kafkan historico-philosophic shame. Although much of Didier Eribon’s work concerns his shame of his working class origins and the shame he experienced as a gay kid, he includes reflections on the partial release enacted by shame about such shame (La Société comme verdict, especially 68; see too Retour à Reims).
- 29.
Plato , Theaetetus, trans. F.N. Cornford, 155c-d, The Collected Dialogues, 860.
- 30.
Aristotle , Metaphyica, trans. W.D. Ross, 982b8-13, The Basic Works of Aristotle , 692.
- 31.
Agamben , Idea of Prose, 83–84.
- 32.
Myth and the mythological are usually not strictly distinguished by Benjamin, perhaps because myth involves closure via mythology and mythology affirms a mythic outlook. See Menninghaus, 68–69, 71.
- 33.
Agamben, Homo Sacer, 29.
- 34.
Agamben, Remnants, 26.
- 35.
For Mesnard and Kahan’s criticism of Agamben’s handling of some details of Levi’s account of the report by the deportee-doctor Miklos Nyiszli , and for their critical remarks on Agamben’s extrapolation of the football match, see Mesnard and Kahan, 39–40. Mesnard and Kahan’s objections to Agamben’s account of the football match are echoed in Leys , 162–63.
- 36.
Agamben, Remnants, 17.
- 37.
Levi , The Drowned and the Saved, 55. See Agamben, Remnants, 25.
- 38.
Agamben, Remnants, 26 . For a similar point about disregard in the law (and based on an analysis of Kafka’s ‘Before the Law’), see Derrida , “Before the Law,” trans. Avital Ronell and Christine Roulston. Acts of Literature, 192, 194.
- 39.
Agamben, “K,” Nudities, 20–36.
- 40.
Agamben, Remnants, 26.
- 41.
See Green .
- 42.
Agamben , Remnants, 60. See Levi , The Drowned and the Saved, 82.
- 43.
Particularly detailed criticisms of this sort are to be found in Mesnard and Kahan , passim but especially 105–16. Some of these criticisms are given in very similar terms in Guenther, “Resisting Agamben.”
- 44.
Agamben, Remnants, 69.
- 45.
Agamben, Remnants, 130.
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Moran, B. (2018). Historico-Philosophic Shame. In: Politics of Benjamin’s Kafka: Philosophy as Renegade. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-72011-1_2
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