the future of emancipationBenjamin and Žižek: Materialism and Theology
Walter Benjamin quite famously opens his much-quoted Theses on the
Philosophy of History, also known (perhaps more accurately) under the
title On the Concept of History, by presenting the reader with something
in the order of a parable:
The story is told of an automaton constructed in such a way that it
could play a winning game of chess, answering each move of an
opponent with a countermove. A puppet in Turkish attire and with a
hookah in its mouth sat before a chessboard placed on a large table. A
system of mirrors created the illusion that this table was transparent
from all sides. Actually, a little hunchback who was an expert chess
player sat inside and guided the puppet’s hand by means of strings. One
can imagine a philosophical counterpart to this device. The puppet
called “historical materialism” is to win all the time. It can easily be a
match for anyone if it enlists the services of theology, which today, as
we know, is wizened and has to keep out of sight.^2Let us, once more — assuming that we have done it before — read these
words carefully, especially the last two or three sentences. The
philosophical counterpart to the device, which only appears to be an
“automaton,” a chess computer before the fact that is supposed to be
absolutely (and automatically) invincible, would be an apparatus
where the puppet is played by something called “historical materialism,”
and the dwarf, the hidden midget that, according to Benjamin’s
German, is so small and ugly (klein und häßlich)^3 that it is just as well
that we do not have to face it, is to be played by theology. In other
words, historical materialism, by which term we are doubtless expected
to conjure up images of Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Lenin, and even
Stalin — let us keep in mind that the text dates from the very last years
of Benjamin’s life, i.e., 1939–40 — can only fulfill its own ambition, so
aptly described by Benjamin as “winning all the time,” if it takes
- Walter Benjamin, “Theses on the philosophy of history,” Illuminations, trans-
lated by Harry Zorn, London: Pimlico, 1999, 245. Henceforth, page references to
this text are given in parentheses in the main text. - See Walter Benjamin, “Über den Begriff der Geschicte,” in Sprache und Ges-
chichte: Philosophische Essays, ed. Rolf Tiedemann, Stuttgart: Phillip Reclam, 141.