The roots of Benjamin

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Hi,

I came across this beautiful quote by Mark Dery and I have a question for you.

The quote is:

"The Walter Benjamin in him is trying to make peace with his inner Georges Bataille"

"Aesthetically, however, I'm interested in the unlit, unfrequented corners of society, the nethermost regions of the self: freaks, forensic pathology, true crime, conspiracy theory, cannibalism, madness, medical museums, Art Brut, weird science, sexual deviance, soft tissue modification (by tribal peoples and postmodern primitives), creature features, alien abductions, insects, Situationism, Surrealism, science fiction, the gothic, the grotesque, the carnivalesque -- in short, extremes and excess of every sort. I want to induce, in my reader, the vertigo that comes from leaning too far over the edge of the cultural abyss." -- Mark Dery http://www.levity.com/markdery/inform.html

The question is: If Georges Bataille can be traced back to De Sade, who would the forerunner of Benjamin be?

(I really have no idea myself)

― Jan Geerinck (jahsonic), Monday, 26 May 2003 06:17 (twenty-two years ago)

sabbatai sevi

― mark s (mark s), Monday, 26 May 2003 10:30 (twenty-two years ago)

http://www.google.com/search?q=%22Sabbatai+Sevi%22+%22walter+benjamin%22&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=fr&lr=

Whereby Sevi=Good and De Sade=Evil?

Jan

― Jan Geerinck (jahsonic), Monday, 26 May 2003 11:49 (twenty-two years ago)

they both = good-bad but not evil surely?

(in this context i mean)

― mark s (mark s), Monday, 26 May 2003 13:05 (twenty-two years ago)

De Sade is merely mediocre (when it comes to style). Oh phear Gilles De Rais!

― nathalie (nathalie), Monday, 26 May 2003 13:12 (twenty-two years ago)

(esp. in luc besson's versh of "joan of arc", which TOTALLY FKN ROXORS DooDz)

(sorry jan)

― mark s (mark s), Monday, 26 May 2003 13:15 (twenty-two years ago)

i just finished zee damned (oh la-bas! regarde! c'est un incubus!).

― nathalie (nathalie), Monday, 26 May 2003 13:16 (twenty-two years ago)

of course I meant to say bad in stead of evil

found Besson's movie http://us.imdb.com/Title?0151137

but not The Damned Nathalie, Amazon ref?

Jan

― Jan Geerinck (jahsonic), Monday, 26 May 2003 13:41 (twenty-two years ago)

Who would the forerunner of Benjamin be?

I don't think it's easy to find a single John the Baptist figure for Benjamin. According to Momme Brodersen, the young Benjamin was influenced by idealism, socialism and Zionism:

German Idealism
Kant, Fichte, Hegel, Schelling
http://www.lclark.edu/~idealism/

German socialism
Feuerbach, Marx
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/german-ideology/

Zionism
Theodore Hertzl
http://www.jewishmag.com/9mag/herzl/herzl.htm

― Momus (Momus), Monday, 26 May 2003 17:05 (twenty-two years ago)

he wanted to redeem everything

― mark s (mark s), Monday, 26 May 2003 17:21 (twenty-two years ago)

the unlit, unfrequented corners of society, the nethermost regions of the self: freaks, forensic pathology, true crime, conspiracy theory, cannibalism, madness, medical museums, Art Brut, weird science, sexual deviance, soft tissue modification (by tribal peoples and postmodern primitives), creature features, alien abductions, insects, Situationism, Surrealism, science fiction, the gothic, the grotesque, the carnivalesque -- in short, extremes and excess of every sort.

Yikes! Those have been the overlit, overcrowded downtown slums for--what?--ten years now! Remind me to go somewhere else for dinner! It's been a while since I've seen a list quite that comprehensive of expired goods.

― Uncle (Methuselah), Tuesday, 27 May 2003 03:03 (twenty-two years ago)

i just peed my pants! vincent cassel is gilles in zat moveee! oh MY! :-)

― nathalie (nathalie), Tuesday, 27 May 2003 06:30 (twenty-two years ago)

And if we would leave Benjamin out of the equation and simply

Bad [Devil]: De Sade (with broadest popular appeal and commonly used word (sadism, sadomasochism paraphelia) named after him),
Good [God]: X (with broadest popular appeal and commonly used word named after him/her)

Vincent Cassel is very beautiful, I saw him last week in L'Appartement and I hadn't realised that it was the same guy as Irréversible.

― Jan Geerinck (jahsonic), Tuesday, 27 May 2003 10:54 (twenty-two years ago)

Like many famous thinkers, Benjamin was influenced most by the generation immediately before him, who happen not to be so famous now: e.g. the Marburg and the (other place I can't remember) neo-Kantians. (Cohen etc.) This explains why WB is so weak on Hegel. Simmel is another guy WB owes props to.

― alext (alext), Tuesday, 27 May 2003 15:23 (twenty-two years ago)

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