put an end to the false aesthetic situation shrouding that nothing. Just as the formerly
experienced higher mystery pushes those oriented toward it across the midpoint, whose
limit is defined by the law, so does the mystery—which is the distortion of the higher
ground and as such the utmost abstraction of the dangers that disrupt immanent life—
relegate one to the lapsed neutrality of the meaningless beginning from which the
pseudo-middle arises. It hinders the outbreak of differentiations in the service of
emancipated Ratio, which strengthens its victory over the Something in the hotel lobby
by helping the conventions take the upper hand. These are so worn out that the activity
taking place in their name is at the same time an activity of dissimulation—an activity
that serves as protection for legal life just as much as for illegal life, because as the empty
form of all possible societies it is not oriented toward any particular thing but remains
content with itself in its insignificance...
NOTE
1 This hallmark phrase from Kant’s Critique of Judgement is put in quotation marks in the later
republication of the essay.ON EMPLOYMENT AGENCIES: THE CONSTRUCTION OF A
SPACE
Each social stratum has a space that is associated with it. Thus, that Neue Sachlichkeit
study, which one recognizes from films but which often fails to live up to the original,
belongs to the managing director. One is deceived by sensational literature: most often it
remains far behind reality in its inventiveness. As the characteristic location of the small
dependent existences who still very much like to associate themselves with the sunken
middle class, more and more suburbs are formed. The few inhabitable cubic metres,
which cannot even be enlarged by the radio, correspond precisely to the narrow living
space of this stratum. The typical space for the unemployed is more generously
proportioned but as a result is the opposite of a home and certainly not a living space. It is
the employment agency. An arcade, through which the unemployed should once more
attain a gainfully employed existence. Today, unfortunately, the arcade is heavily
congested.
I have visited several Berlin employment agencies. Not in order to indulge the
enjoyment of the reporter who commonly with a sieve creates things out of life, but rather
in order to ascertain what position the unemployed actually occupy in the system of our
society. Neither the diverse commentaries on unemployment statistics nor the relevant
parliamentary debates give any information on this. They are ideologically permeated
and, in one sense or another, straighten out reality. In contrast, the space of the
employment exchange is filled by reality itself. Each typical space is brought into being
by typical social relationships that, without the distorting intervention of consciousness,
express themselves in it. Everything that is disowned by consciousness, everything that
would otherwise be intentionally overlooked, contributes to its construction. Spatial
images are the dreams of society. Wherever the hieroglyphics of any spatial image are
deciphered, there the basis of social reality presents itself.
Siegfried Kracauer 57