Kierkegaard's indirect politics : interludes with Lukács, Schmitt, Benjamin and Adorno

297 Pages·2014·2.32 MB·English

by  Adorno

KIERKEGAARD’S INDIRECT POLITICS
VIBS
Volume 269
Robert Ginsberg
Founding Editor
Leonidas Donskis
Executive Editor
Associate Editors
G. John M. Abbarno Richard T. Hull
George Allan Michael Krausz
Gerhold K. Becker Olli Loukola
Raymond Angelo Belliotti Mark Letteri
Kenneth A. Bryson Vincent L. Luizzi
C. Stephen Byrum Hugh P. McDonald
(cid:2)(cid:3)(cid:4)(cid:5)(cid:6)(cid:7)(cid:8)(cid:9)(cid:10)(cid:8)(cid:11)(cid:5)(cid:12)(cid:13)(cid:14)(cid:3) Adrianne McEvoy
Rem B. Edwards J.D. Mininger
Malcolm D. Evans Danielle Poe
Roland Faber Peter A. Redpath
Andrew Fitz-Gibbon Arleen L. F. Salles
Francesc Forn i Argimon John R. Shook
Daniel B. Gallagher Eddy Souffrant
William C. Gay Tuija Takala
Dane R. Gordon Emil Viš(cid:2)ovský
J. Everet Green Anne Waters
Heta Aleksandra Gylling James R. Watson
Matti Häyry John R. Welch
Brian G. Henning Thomas Woods
Steven V. Hicks
a volume in
Philosophy, Literature, and Politics
PLP
Edited by Leonidas Donskis and J.D. Mininger
KIERKEGAARD’S INDIRECT POLITICS
Interludes with Lukács, Schmitt, Benjamin and Adorno
Bartholomew Ryan
Amsterdam - New York, NY 2014
Cover image: Feininger, Lyonel (1871-1956): El hombre blanco/The White
Man, 1907. Oil on Canvas. Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection on
deposit at Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza © Photo SCALA, Florence
Cover design: Studio Pollmann
The paper on which this book is printed meets the requirements of “ISO
9706:1994, Information and documentation - Paper for documents -
Requirements for permanence”.
ISBN: 978-90-420-3813-4
E-Book ISBN: 978-94-012-1060-7
© Editions Rodopi B.V., Amsterdam - New York, NY 2014
Printed in the Netherlands
Philosophy, Literature, and Politics
(PLP)

Leonidas Donskis and J. D. Mininger
Editors

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For my parents Conor and Eilis
It is not down on any map; true places never are.
Herman Melville, Moby Dick, 1851

Restlessness, in the sense of the hubbub of finitude, soon palls; but
restlessness in the pregnant sense, the restlessness of infinity, the joyous,
robust originality that, rejuvenating, invigorating, healing, stirs the water is a
great rarity, and it is in this sense that she is restlessness. Yet in turn this
restlessness signifies something, and something very great; it signifies the
first fieriness of an essential genius. And this restlessness does not signify
anything accidental; it does not mean that she cannot stand still; on the
contrary, it signifies that even when she is standing still one has an
intimation of this inner restlessness, but, note well, in repose. It does not
mean that she comes running onto the stage; on the contrary, it means that
when she is merely moving one has an intimation of the impetus of infinity.
It does not mean that she talks so fast that one cannot follow her; on the
contrary, it means that when she speaks very slowly one senses the
animation and inspiration. This restlessness does not mean that she must
very soon become tired; just the opposite, it discloses an elementary
indefatigableness, like that of the wind, of the sounds of nature; it discloses
that her roguishness is inexhaustibly rich, so that it continually only betrays
that she possesses ever so much more; it discloses that her coquetry (and a
character such as this utterly without coquetry is unthinkable) is nothing else
than a happy, innocent mind’s joyful, triumphant awareness of its
indescribable good fortune.
Inter et Inter, The Crisis and a Crisis in the Life of an Actress, 1848
CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS x iii

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS xv

EDITORIAL FOREWORD xix

PREFACE BY GEORGE PATTISON xxiii

INTRODUCTION 1

1. Indirect Politics as Interlude (Mellemspil) 1
2. Reliving the Present Age 4
3. Images, Figures, and Drama Motifs 6
4. Interludes with Lukács, Schmitt, Benjamin and Adorno 8

ONE Crossroads of Revolution and Reaction 13

1. The Significance of 1848 13
2. The Skillevei 20
3. Ambiguities in the Individual and Society 27
4. Discourses for the ‘Present Age’ 3 6

TWO Inwardness as an Expression for Revolutionary Praxis 43
(Georg Lukács)

1. The Faustian Phase 44
2. Inwardness as an Expression for Revolutionary Praxis 52
3. The Reckoning 6 2
4. Dialectics of Totality and Disintegration 74

THREE Zones of Exception (Carl Schmitt) 89

1. The Exception 91
2. The Question of Political Romanticism 1 02
3. Political Despair 1 13
4. Kierkegaardian Praxis 1 23
xii KIERKEGAARD’S INDIRECT POLITICS

FOUR Loafers of History (Walter Benjamin) 135

1. Dagdrivers and Flâneurs 136
2. Tradition and Destruction 149
3. The Messianic, Awakening, and Politics as Nihilism 163

FIVE Out of the Petrified Primordial Landscape 177
(Theodor Adorno)

1. Inwardness as a Petrified Primordial Landscape 179
2. Dialectical Journeys 193
3. Melancholy and Myth 207
4. “Who’s There?” 2 20

CONCLUSION 233

1. Against the Tide 233
2. Incognito or Set of Masks 2 34
3. Keeping Open the Wound of Negativity 236

NOTES 239

BIBLIOGRAPHY 253

ABOUT THE AUTHOR 267

INDEX 269