Walter Benjamin's Theory of Distraction

Yesterday I was informed via Twitter that it was Walter Benjamin's birthday. And as someone who's lately needed occasions (however arbitrary) for reading, I pulled one of his books off the shelf: the third volume in a set of anthologies I've up to this point mostly ignored. (I always figured Illuminations and Reflections were sufficient surveys of Benjamin's writing.) In it, I found this fragment, a list of speculative theses and directions for thinking about the development of technology and its role in the regimes of art, perception, and politics. Not surprisingly, the anthology associates it with the composition of what is probably Benjamin's most read essay, "The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducability," and dates its writing between 1935-1936.

Theory of Distraction
Attempt to determine the effect of the work of art once its power of consecration has been eliminated
Parasitic existence of art as based on the sacred
In its concern with educational value, "The Author as Producer" disregards consumer value
It is in film that the work of art is most susceptible to becoming worn out
Fashion is an indispensable factor in the acceleration of the process of becoming worn out
The values of distraction should be defined with regard to film, just as the values of catharsis are defined with regard to tragedy
Distraction, like catharsis, should be conceived as a physiological phenomenon
Distraction and destruction as the subjective and objective sides, respectively, of one and the same process
The relation of distraction to absorption must be examined
The survival of artworks should be represented from the standpoint of their struggle for existence
Their true humanity consists in their unlimited adaptability
The criterion for judging the fruitfulness of their effect is the communicability of this effect
The educational value and the consumer value of art may converge in certain optimal cases (as in Brecht), but they don't generally coincide
The Greeks had only one form of (mechanical) reproduction: minting coins
They could not reproduce their artworks, so these had to be lasting; hence eternal art
Just as the art of the Greeks was geared toward lasting, so the art of the present is geared toward becoming worn out
This may happen in two different ways: through consignment of the artwork to fashion or through the work's refunctioning in politics
Reproducibility–distraction–politicization
Educational value and consumer value converge, thus making possible a new kind of learning
Art comes into contact with the commodity; the commodity comes into contact with art

From Walter Benjamin: Selected Writings, Vol. 3, 1935-38. Trans. Edmund Jephcott, Howard Eiland et. al. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006.

internet wins

Last weekend's edition of the National Post featured an article by Dave Bidini that lists dominant cultural forms and their current successors: internet is the new tv; tv is the new cinema; cinema is the new literature; literature is the new theatre; theatre is the new poetry. Having just downloaded and viewed all five seasons of The Wire on my laptop (as well as various films), I can't resist qualifying Bidini's list. I realize that Bidini isn't only talking about forms of access; he's also describing popular reception in the midst of evolving cultural trends: i.e., the way people currently talk about and obsess over shows like Mad Men (not to mention the status of the actors, production value and all the careful cinematography) has reached a level that used to belong to the cinema; or, the reverence we once had for Great American Novelists has become a reverence for Great American Film Directors. But in my mind there's really no contest between television and cinema. In the end the internet wins at both. Now I just need to get my hands on a Kindle.

With old books and manuscripts one can hardly be too careful. These hides once belonged to animals whose natural oils made for versatile leaves - an ideal base for the scripts that decorate them. As historical objects, manuscripts are invaluable. At least, this is the general protocol for English students like myself.

In class a couple days ago, we ended with the question of conservation vs. use, with regard to the old, rapidly deteriorating texts that fill the University of Manitoba's archives. It struck me that the very question we're asking here --whether it's better to guard and protect these manuscripts from the consequences of time or to use them in an academic context as objects of study-- indicates our that our culture understands books in a way very different from those who once depended on these manuscripts for devotions, worship and entertainment.

While old books were certainly valuable in their day (some obviously more than others) the question of obsolescence is a recent one. Sometimes it seems like academic culture doesn't really know how to deal with old, dying things. Can we let go of an old manuscript? Better to put it box and hide it away in a dark archive so that it is still somehow "there" for us to imagine, if not to use.

For this same class, I'm reading two recent bestsellers that feature old books - The People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks and The Rule of Four by Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomason. Both tend to sensationalize the field of book history, using old texts as vehicles for modern ideas about religion, tolerance and human knowledge (Brooks especially has some deeply problematic platitudes about the Haggadah, re: what and who it's for). To engage these contemporary constructions of manuscript culture, I'll be presenting on Mary J. Carruthers' The Book of Memory, contrasting the popular notion of the book as a reified object with Carruthers' presentation of the book as a guide or intermediary for the medieval imagination.