2 Scholars who have paid it attention have highlighted it as a sign of the author's preoccupation in this text with World War I in its immediate aftermath, 3 and have noted its autobiographical significance given Benjamin's own troubles with the wartime draft. The focus of this article is Benjamin's discussion of general conscription, briefly held out to us in the course of the “Critique.”Ĭompared to the allure held by some of the other manifestations of violence that Benjamin discusses in the essay, such as the strike or the death penalty, the discussion of compulsory military service remains a relatively underexplored element of this much commented on text. For many who have attempted to grapple with this challenging and fascinating essay, these discussions have served as keys not only to its unique vocabulary but also to the distinctive movement and style of critique that it performs.

He presents each as if exposing a rare mineral formation to light: held at a peculiar angle, it shines briefly, revealing “something more and something different than may perhaps appear” (§1), before it is hastily put away for the sake of the next exhibit. While these can be read as linking the text to socialist and anarchist debates on militarism and war, in which some of these topics appeared in various permutations in the preceding decades, Benjamin's treatment is rather unique. After the opening paragraphs, we find ourselves skipping from punishment in education to the figure of the great criminal, to the right to strike, to military violence, to general conscription, to the death penalty, to the ghostly nature of the police, to parliamentarianism and beyond-all within the matter of a few pages. Walter Benjamin's “Toward the Critique of Violence” 1 presents a rather dense compilation of curious examples that are wide in their reach and range, and move the text along at a rapid pace.

Critique of violence, Walter Benjamin, compulsory military service, modern law, legal subjectification The Exhibit

Half life 2 conscripts