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Diacritics.
http://www.jstor.org
TAKING EXCEPTION
TO DECISION:
WALI'ER BENJAMIN AND
CARL SCHMITT
SAMUELWEBER
EsteemedProfessor Schmitt,
Youwill receive any day nowfrom thepublishermy book The Originof the German
MourningPlay. Withthese lines I would like not merelyto announceits arrival, butalso
to express myjoy at being able to send it to you, at the suggestionof Mr.AlbertSalomon.
Youwill veryquicklyrecognizehow muchmybook is indebtedto youfor itspresentation
of the doctrine of sovereignty in the seventeenthcentury. Perhaps I may also say, in
addition, that I have also derivedfrom your later works, especially the "Diktatur,"a
confirmationofmymodesof researchin thephilosophyofartfromyours in thephilosophy
of the state. If the reading of my book allows thisfeeling to emerge in an intelligible
fashion, then the purpose of my sending it to you will be achieved.
6
Precisely a philosophy of concrete life must not withdrawfrom the exception
and the extremecase, but must be interestedin it to the highest degree. The
exceptioncan be more importantto it than the rule, not because of a romantic
ironyfortheparadox,butbecause theseriousnessof an insightgoes deeperthan
the clear generalizations inferredfrom what ordinarily repeats itself. The
exception is more interesting than the rule. The rule proves nothing; the
exceptionproves everything: it confirmsnot only the rule butalso its existence,
which derives onlyfrom the exception. [15]
The idea is best explained as the representationof the context in which the
uniqueand extreme[Einmalig-Extreme]standsalongside its counterpart.It is
thereforeerroneousto understandthe mostgeneral referenceswhichlanguage
makesas concepts, insteadof recognizingthemas ideas. It is absurdto attempt
to explain the general as the average. Thegeneral is the idea. The empirical,
on the other hand, can be all the moreprofoundlyunderstoodthe more clearly
it is seen as an extreme. [35]
The circle of extremes can be traversedonly potentiallynot only because the extremes
themselves areneverfully presentor realizedas such. Rather,they articulatethemselves
historicallyin termsof a split into a Vor-undNachgeschichte. This pre- andposthistory
of the singularidea constitutes "the abbreviatedand obscuredfigure of the remaining
world of ideas" [47].
This figure is to be deciphered(abzulesen). And it is here, precisely, thatBenjamin
finds himself faced with a problemthatseems to beara particularrelationto the German
baroqueand its interpretation:
diacritics / fall-winter 1992 7
That characteristic feeling of dizziness which is induced by the spectacle of the
spiritual contradictions of this epoch is a recurrent feature in the improvised
attempts to capture its meaning.... Only by approaching the subjectfrom some
distance, and initially, forgoing any view of the whole, can the mind be led,
through a more or less ascetic apprenticeship, to the position of strength from
which it is possible to take in the whole panorama and yet remain in control of
oneself. [56]
8
2
The paradoxor aporiaof Schmitt's position is suggested here by the conclusion of the
passage just quoted. For if the "decision"is as radically independentof the norm as
Schmittclaims, it is difficult to see how the decision of the state to suspendits laws can
be justified at all, since all justificationinvolves precisely the appealto a norm. This is
why, in appealingto a "rightto self-preservation,"Schmittacknowledgesthatthe term
is more "a way of speaking"thana rigorousconcept: "Thestate suspendsthe law in the
exception on the basis of its rightof self-preservation,as one says."
On the one hand,then,the sovereigndecision marksthe relationshipof the orderof
the general-the law, the norm,the concept-to thatwhich is radicallyheterogeneousto
all such generality. In this sense, the decision as such is sovereign, thatis, independent
of all possible derivationfrom or subsumptionto a more generalnorm. It is a pureact,
somewhatakin to the act of creationexcept thatwhat it does is not so much to createas
to interruptand to suspend. If such interruptionand suspensioncan never be predicted
ordeterminedin advance,theyarenonethelessnotarbitraryinsofaras theyareunderstood
as necessaryin orderto preservethe state as the indispensableconditionof all possible
law and order.
And yet, precisely insofar as it is situated in this temporalityof repetition and
reproduction,the decision cannotbe considered,Schmittnotwithstanding,to be entirely
absolute. Rather,it constitutes itself in and as a break with . . ., an interruptionor
suspensionof... a norm. In separatingwhat belongs to the normfrom what does not-
andin thissense everyauthenticdecision,as Schmittasserts,hasto do withanexception-
the decision distinguishes itself from the simple negation of order, from "chaos and
anarchy,"as Schmittwrites,andcanindeedlay claimto havingsome sortof "legalstatus."
Theproblem,however,is thatsucha claimcanbe evaluatedandjudgedonly afterthefact,
as it were, which is to say, froma pointof view thatis once againsituatedwithina system
of norms. For Schmitt,this paradoxis articulatedas the fact thatthe state, which is the
condition of all law and order, is itself constitutedby a decision that is prior to and
independentof all such considerations: "Authorityproves thatin orderto createrights,
it need not be right"[20]. On the otherhand,the nonlegalor alegal statusof the sovereign
and exceptionaldecision is justifiable and indeed identifiableonly insofaras it provides
the conditionsfor the reappropriation of the exceptionby the norm. The statethushas the
first and the last word in Schmitt's theoryof sovereignty.
This brings us to a second aspect of Schmitt's thought. Up to now, we have been
considering it in terms of a relatively abstract,general, and quasi-logical theory of
10
decision; but Schmitt's thinkingis also historical,as the very title of his book, Political
Theology, suggests and as the following passage makes manifest:
All significant concepts of the modern theory of the state are secularized
theological concepts not only because oftheir historical development-in which
they were transferred from theology to the theory of the state, whereby, for
example, the omnipotent God became the omnipotent lawgiver-but also
because of their systematic structure, the recognition of which is necessary for
a sociological consideration of these concepts. The exception in jurisprudence
is analogous to the miracle in theology. Only by being aware of this analogy can
we appreciate the manner in which the philosophical ideas ofthe state developed
in the last centuries. [36]
To the conception of God in the seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries belongs
the idea of his transcendence vis-a-vis the world, just as to that period's
philosophy of state belongs the notion of the transcendence of the sovereign vis-
a-vis the state. The nineteenth century was increasingly governed by represen-
tations of immanence. [49]
To these "representations
of immanence"belong the identificationof rulerandruledand,
above all, that of the state with the legal order (Identitit des Staates mitderRechtsordnung)
[49/63]. But if the developmentof modem thoughthas thustendedto efface the originary
and constitutiverelationshipof the political to transcendence,in the name of notions of
autonomyand self-identity,Schmitt's own approachdoes not seem to be entirelyfree of
suchtendencies. This canbe seen in the mannerin whichhe conceives the "consciousness
of the analogy"between political and theological categories,which for him is the key to
authenticallyhistoricaland systematicalunderstanding.
For what emerges in Schmitt's discussion of the relationof politics and theology is
thathe construesthe analogy between them above all in termsof identity,ratherthanin
terms of transformationor of alteration. For instance, he finds confirmationof his
theological-political thesis in the position of Atger, for whom "the monarch in the
seventeenth-centurydoctrineof the statewas identifiedwithGodandoccupiedin the state
the position precisely analogous to that occupied in the world by God in the Cartesian
system" [45]. The methodthat Schmitt advancesin Political Theology,which he calls
"the sociology of concepts," thus employs the notion of "analogy"in orderto reduce
difference to identity, as the following programmaticdeclarationclearly demonstrates:
"Themetaphysicalimagethata particularepochforgesof the worldhas the samestructure
as what the world immediatelyunderstandsto be appropriateas a form of its political
organization. The determinationof such an identity is the sociology of the concept of
With the ambivalenceof Schmitt's approachto the political in mind, let us now turnto
the mannerin which the question of sovereignty emerges in Benjamin's study of the
Germanbaroquetheater:
A note at the end of this passage refers to Political Theology. And yet the very words
whichseem only to paraphraseSchmittconstitutein facta slightbutdecisive modification
of his theory. Schmitt,we remember,defines sovereigntyas constitutedby the power to
make a decision that consists of two moments: first, the determinationthat state of
exception exists, and second, the effective suspensionof the stateof law with the end of
preservingthe stateas such. ForSchmitt,then,the stateof exceptionmustbe "removed,"
beseitigt, "done away with," but only in each particular case, never as such: that is
precisely what Schmittcriticizedmoder political theoryfor tryingto do, by excluding
considerationof the stateof exceptionfromthe determinationof sovereignty. Benjamin,
by contrast,describesthe taskof the sovereignin the very termsthatSchmittrejects: the
sovereign is charged with the task of "excluding" the state of exception, "den
auszuschliessen."In short,thatwhich is already"exterior,"the Aus-nahmezustand,is to
be exteriorizedonce again, aus-geschlossen, and this applies not simply to the state of
exception as an individual,determinatethreatto the state-the position of Schmitt-but
to the state of exception as such, thatis, as that which transcendsthe state in general.3
In short, the function assigned to the sovereign by the baroque, according to
Benjamin,is thatof transcendingtranscendenceby makingit immanent,an internalpart
of the state and of the world, of the state of the world. And the reasonwhy the baroque
is so attachedto the state of the world Benjaminexplains as follows:
The religious man of the baroqueera clings so tightlyto the world because of
thefeeling thathe is being drivenwithit towarda cataract. Thebaroqueknows
no eschatology;andfor thatveryreason itpossesses no mechanismby whichall
earthlythingsare gatheredtogetherand exaltedbeforebeing consignedto their
end. Thehereafteris emptiedof everythingwhichcontains the slightestbreath
12
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of this world, and from it the baroque extracts a profusion of things which
customarilyescaped the grasp of artisticformulation and, at its high point,
brings them violently into the light of the day, in order to clear an ultimate
heaven,enablingit, as a vacuum,one day to destroythe worldwithcatastrophic
violence. [66]
The antithesis betweenthe power of the ruler and his capacity to rule led to a
featurepeculiar to theTrauerspiel,whichis, however,onlyapparentlya generic
feature and whichcan be illuminatedonly against the backgroundof the theory
of sovereignty. The prince, who is responsiblefor making the decision to
proclaim the state of emergency, reveals, at the first opportunity,that he is
almost incapable of makinga decision. [70-71 ]
14
interruptions.The sovereign reacts by seeking to gatherall power and thus becomes a
tyrant;and yet the more power he has, the more he demonstrateshis incapacityto arrive
at an effective decision. Faced with this situation,the tyrantcan easily turninto a martyr.
Both figures,Benjaminobserves,arefor thebaroqueonly two sides of the samecoin, "the
Janus-headsof the crowned... the necessarilyextremeforms of the princelycharacter"
[69].
In emphasizingthe dictatorialtendencyof the sovereign,Benjaminfollows Schmitt
here practicallyto the letter ("Thetheoryof sovereignty,which takes as its example the
specialcase in which dictatorialpowersareunfolded,positively demandsthe completion
of the image of the sovereign, as tyrant"[69]). But in so doing, he arrivesat a resultthat
is almost diametricallyopposed to thatof Schmitt: the very notion of sovereigntyitself
is putradicallyinto question. One extremeillustrationof this is the figureof Herod,Kind
of the Jews, "who,as autocratgone mad,becameemblematicof a derangedcreation"and
as such also an exemplaryillustrationof the fate of the "sovereignfor the seventeenth
century":"thesummitof creation,eruptinginto madnesslike a volcano and destroying
himself andhis entirecourt.... He falls victim to the disproportionbetweenthe unlimited
hierarchicaldignity with which he is divinely invested and the humble estate of his
humanity"[70]. The key to the secularizationof which the Germanbaroqueis the result
is thus for Benjaminnot so much an analogybased on proportion,andhence on identity,
as a relation based on disproportion, on a Missverhaltniss.
The effects of this disproportiondo not stop at the dismantlingof the sovereign,who
is split into anultimatelyineffective if bloody tyrantanda no moreproductivemartyr;nor
does it come to rest at any of the compromisespossible betweenthese two poles, such as
that representedby the "stoic ostentation"that often characterizesbaroquerepresenta-
tions of the prince. Rather,the splittingof the sovereignis accompaniedby theemergence
of a thirdfigure, who standsin radicaldissymmetryto the othertwo. That figure, who
completes the baroque "political anthropology and typology," is the "plotter,"the
Intrigant:andit is he who turnsoutto hold thekey to thefate of sovereigntyin the German
baroquemourningplay.
From this accountit is clear thatthe dilemmaof the sovereign in baroquedramais also
and above all thatof the subjectas such: it is no longer determinedby its "head"-that
is, by its consciousness,its intentions-but by forces thatareindependentof it, thatbuffet
anddrive it fromone extremeto another. A powerfuldynamicis thusunleashed,which,
however, does not really go anywhere. Instead,like "tornflags" whippedaboutin the
wind, the baroquefiguresaredrivenby "tempestuousaffects"over which they have little
control. Whatresultsis a rhythmof abruptand unpredictablechanges and shifts, and it
is this rhythmthatdeterminesthe structureof the "plot"in the Trauerspiel. Moreover,
since neitherplot nor characteris sufficientlyunified or consistentto providea compre-
hensive framework for the play, this framework must be sought elsewhere. That
elsewhere turnsout to be the theateritself, as stage, as artifice,and as apparatus.This is
implicitin thepassagecited, which describeshow the "theatricalfiguresof the age appear
imgrellen Scheine"-in the "harshlight"-"of theirchangingresolve." The dismantling
of decision, of a definitive, ultimate,and absoluteact, gives way to a differentkind of
acting: thatwhich takesplace on a stage lit up by spotlights;the phrasegrellen Scheine,
which recursfrequentlyin Benjamin'stext, recalls the Scheinwerferof the theater.
In the theatricalspace thusopenedby the dislocationof the actionandof the subject,
and in the confusion thatresults,the sovereigntyof the tyrantis replacedby the mastery
of the plotter: "Incontrastto the spasmodicchronologicalprogressionof tragedy,the
Trauerspieltakes place in a spatial continuum,which one might describe as choreo-
graphic. The organizerof its plot, the precursorof the choreographer,is the intriguer"
[95]. The discontinuous temporality of decision, here associated with tragedy, is
replaced-that is, resituated-within a "spatialcontinuum"in which exceptionalinter-
ruptionsareno longerpossible because they have become the rule. The regularnatureof
the interruptionparadoxicallybecomes programmable,and the programmer,or "chore-
ographer,"is the"intriguer."The etymologyof thewordin-trigare,to con-foundandcon-
fuse, is all the more appropriatein a world in which the clear-cutseparationof the de-
cision is no longer effective. The intrigueor plot is thus designatedby Benjaminas a
Verwicklung: an imbroglio or entanglement,but one that is organized. The baroque
dramathus depends upon a plot that is based not upon a sovereign subjectbut upon a
masterfulorganizeror promoter(Veranstalter). It is precisely the calculating natureof
thismasterythatfascinatesthebaroqueaudience:"Hiscorruptcalculationsawakenin the
spectatorof the Haupt-undStaatsaktionenall the moreinterestbecausethe latterdoes not
recognizehere simply a masteryof the workingsof politics, butan anthropological,even
a physiologicalknowledgewhich fascinatedhim"[95]. The amoralcalculatednessof the
plottercontrastsradicallywith the attitudesof both the tyrantand the martyr. For only
the intriguerconfrontsa stateof the worldin whichtheexceptionhas becomethe rule,and
thereforein which universalprinciples-and be it the principle of the interruptionof
principlequa decision-can no longer be counted upon. The intriguerexploits mecha-
nisms of humanactionas the resultof forces over which therecan be no ultimatecontrol,
but which can thereforebe made the subjectof probabilisticcalculations.
The contingencyof such calculationsturnsthe "intrigue"into somethingcloser to a
game or to the exhibitionof a certainvirtuosity,ratherthanto the expressionof a cosmic
strategy for the good of all or of the state. Thus, not only the subject matterof the
Trauerspiel-historical action-changes, but its dramaturgicalstructureas well. The
plot is replacedby plotting: "Baroquedramaknows no otherhistoricalactivity thanthe
16
corruptenergy of schemers"[88]. At the same time, however, the structureof the plot
changes:
The legal analogy may reasonably be takenfurther and, in the sense of the
medievalliteratureoflitigation, one mayspeakof the trialof the creaturewhose
charge against death-or whoever else was indicatedin it-is only partially
dealt with and is adjournedat the end of the Trauerspiel. Its resumptionis
implicit in the Trauerspiel.... [137; my emphasis]
WORKS CITED
Benjamin,Walter. Briefe [Correspondence]. Ed. GershomScholem and TheodorW.
Adomo. Frankfurtam Main: Suhrkamp,1966.
. The Originof GermanTragicDrama. Trans.JohnOsborne. London:New Left
Books, 1977. Translationsoccasionally modified.
GesammelteSchriften. Frankfurtam Main: Suhrkamp,1980. [GS]
. Ursprungdes deutschenTrauerspiels. Frankfurtam Main: Suhrkamp,1963.
Garcia-Dtittmann, Alexander. Das Geddchtnisdes Denkens: VersuchiiberAdornound
Heidegger. Frankfurtam Main: Suhrkamp,1991.
Schmitt,Carl. Political Theology:Four Chapterson the Conceptof Sovereignty.Trans.
George Schwab. Cambridge,MA: MIT P, 1985. Translationsoccasionally modi-
fied.
Politische Theologie, Vier Kapitel zur Lehre von der Souverinitit. Berlin:
Duncker& Humblot, 1985.
18