Agamben, Benjamin and Schmitt (Telos)

"The modern world is becoming a gigantic prostitution into noise; therein is instituted the self-consciousness of machination - indeed noise is the basic form of its self-consciousness, and the latter constitutes an essential moment of subjectivity.  Noise is the promulgation in that publicness which first lets something count as a being.  Noise is the swagger of every undertaking."

-M. Heidegger

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Benjamin contra Schmitt: A Reappraisal of Agamben through “Critique of Violence”

By Erik Pomrenke  ·  Tuesday, September 26, 2017
...Many concepts of central importance to Agamben’s thought can be traced directly to Benjamin’s esoteric essay “Critique of Violence.” Perhaps the most significant is mere life as the bearer of juridical violence, but other concepts such as the decision as metaphysical category, divine violence as sovereign violence, and the sacredness of life also occupy central positions in Agamben’s thought. It is telling that many of these concepts seem already cross-pollinated by Schmitt, but Kotsko claims that this symptomatic of Agamben’s privileging Schmitt over Benjamin. Indeed, sovereignty barely plays a role in the essay except for the cryptic ending: “Divine violence, which is the sign and seal but never the means of sacred execution, may be called sovereign violence.”^{[1] 
                                                                                                                                                       ...Telos}