Theodicies of Violence: From Benjamin to Žižek (original) (raw)
2023, article in Stasis nr 15 (1/2023)
The purpose of this essay is to analyze the theodicy of violence in its two different forms: the antinomian and the hypernomian. The theodicy of violence deliberately blurs the lines between the messianic idiom of Walter Benjamin's Toward the Critique of Violence (2021), with its stark contrast between mythic and divine violence, and the Lacanian idiom of various subjective positions toward the symbolic order. While the antinomian line turns out to be close to the discursive strategies of the Hysteric, the hypernomian line resembles those of the Pervert. My goal is to present them in purely descriptive and value-free terms. I will thus begin with the close reading of the Critique of Violence, which is, in fact, an apology of a certain form of political violence, and then juxtapose it with another praise of violence, originating in Slavoj Žižek's deliberately "perverse" reading of both Paul and Benjamin. The difference between them will be revealed by the Benjaminian phrase: for the sake of the living. I will try to prove that while violence for the antinomian/hysterical line can be justified only with regard to life conceived as survival, for the hypernomian/perverse line violence becomes a goal in itself.
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