Walter Benjamin's "The work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction"

Walter Benjamin’s essay explores the loss of originality in the mass, mechanical reproduction of art but also (most importantly) how easily art is manipulated by Fascism into an aesthetic of war. He writes, “The growing proletarianization of modern man and the increasing formation of masses are two aspects of the same process. Fascism attempts to organize the newly created proletarian masses without affecting the property structure which the masses strive to eliminate. Fascism sees as its salvation in giving these masses not their right, but instead a chance to express themselves” (241).

It is not clear from this excerpt what way that Fascism allows the masses self-expression. Perhaps it is through the cult of the leader, the adoration fostered by Fascist propaganda that both raises someone like Hitler to the point of public worship and yet, still paints him as being a servant of the German people? A father? The father? I don’t know.
Anyhow, what I really loved about Benjamin’s essay is his exploration of the relationship between fascism and an “art” of war. He writes, “All efforts to render politics aesthetic culminate in one thing: war. War and war only can set a goal for mass movements on the largest scale while respecting the traditional property system. …Only war makes it possible to mobilize all of today’s technical resources while maintaining the property system” (241).

I took this from a Marxist perspective. Perpetual war, would be necessary in a fascist state to justify the extreme spending and expropriation of resources (labor, lives, natural resources, money for health, education, social needs) to feed the military machine, which in turn preserves the status quo. How? By ensuring that those who go to fight/die are always the poor or the lower middle class or at the very least, those who do not control the means of production (officers notwithstanding). How would you convince people that perpetual war is necessary or even good for the state? This is, where creating the aesthetic of war becomes relevant. Benjamin’s essay made me think of all of the U.S. propaganda posters from WWII that glorified the nation and the role of the soldier in defending the nation. These posters conveyed a society in which the effort of every ‘citizen’ was needed to support the nation. To defend democracy and freedom. To defend ‘American values.’ What is ingenious about those posters is how, when mass-produced, they diverted the war-weary American public’s attention from the promises made by Wilson to keep us out of Europe’s war. In a way, these images coupled with the attack on Pearl Harbor channeled the anger of the American public into a readiness for war. Today, we also have mass-produced images that serve to divert our attention as quickly as they divert our tax dollars. We have the repeated references to and haunting images of the planes crashing into the Twin Towers on September 11th. We have those little yellow flags and now bumper sticker yellow flags and bumper sticker American flags and Wal-Mart five-dollar American flags (often mass produced in China) to rally us, once again, as a nation around war. Or as Bush & Co. like to say, around the troops. I want to quote here, Benjamin’s quote of Marinetti who wrote a manifesto about the Ethiopian colonial war. Marinetti argues, “…War is beautiful because it establishes man’s dominion over the subjugated machinery by means of gas masks, terrifying megaphones, flame throwers, and small tanks. War is beautiful because it initiates the dreamt-of metalization of the human body. War is beautiful because it enriches a flowering meadow with the fiery orchids of machine guns. War is beautiful because it combines the gunfire, the cannonades, the cease-fire, the scents, and the stench of putrefaction into a symphony. War is beautiful because it creates new architecture, like that of the big tanks, the geometrical formation flights, the smoke spirals from burning villages, and many others…Poets and artists of Futurism! …remember these principles of an aesthetics of war so that your struggle for a new literature and a new graphic art … may be illumined by them!” (242)

Marinetti’s words are incredible. I never thought of war as anything beautiful and I don’t think most people do. Yet this quote made me think about those who design the latest greatest weapons, those tanks, those fighter planes, those “smart weapons” and even those who lay out battle plans and carve up cities and entire nations with a delicate passionate precision. I think that they probably do see a beauty in warfare. If not, how could they send countless people to die and feed their need for war? What about others who turn war into a cause by and through their art and poetry, as Marinetti suggests?
What about the artists who drew up the first drafts for those mass-produced propaganda posters? How must they feel knowing that their work inspired people across the nation to enlist in a service that they may not live through? What about those who use their art to resist the lure of the twin towers of feverish nationalism and hyper-militarism? Are they, as Fox News might suggest, just as guilty as those who turned planes and passengers into giant bombs? I am fascinated by this quote because I am not sure if Marinetti was serious or being sarcastic. However, I do see in his words, how people can and do enjoy war as an art and not just some dirty necessity to “protect/defend/promote” the values of the status quo. There might well be a beauty in the way a bomb explosion cuts the sky until it bleeds such awesome, unthinkable color. There probably is an admirable craftsmanship to be found in the imagination that designs even stealthier fighter planes and even more strategically effective missiles. This isn’t too hard to fathom. What is interesting about the quote is that Marinetti tells the poets and artists to let their work be “illumined” by war. So are they creating this aesthetic of war or simply building upon or adding to it? Benjamin suggests that the aesthetics of war stems from the need to justify its destructive nature as being necessary, when really, he sees war as resulting from society’s inability to “incorporate technology” and “cope with the elemental forces of society” (242). He explains that our mass-production leads us to produce more than we can consume, leading in turn to imperialism and imperialist wars. He writes, “Imperialistic war is a rebellion of technology which collects, in the form of “human material,” the claims to which society has denied its natural material. Instead of draining rivers, society directs a human stream into a bed of trenches; instead of dropping seeds from airplanes, it drops incendiary bombs over cities; and through gas warfare the aura is abolished in a new way”(242). What is fascinating about this argument is not that he is right, but the way in which imperialistic war has evolved through capitalism and mass-produced propaganda masquerading as public “art.” Or has capitalism evolved through imperialistic war? My friend today was speaking about “the lessons of Vietnam” to which I replied, “The only lessons our government has learned from Vietnam is how to avoid and/or ignore mass protest by 1. Not reinstating the draft but rather creating a perpetual surplus of soldiers through the ingenious “stop-loss policy” and 2. Keeping an even tighter control over the U.S. mainstream media. Thus ensuring no pervading images of flag-draped coffins, maimed bodies (military and civilian) and deciding what makes the news and what does not.” So, I return to my question, has capitalism evolved thanks to imperialistic war or has imperialistic war transformed capitalism to the point to which people are hesitant to call a war imperialistic?

I also like Benjamin’s image of society directing “a human stream into a bed of trenches.” That is such a powerful image of, what would seem, the final transformation of man into a commodity, a human being into a war machine or a machine of/for war.
Is a soldier separate from the mechanized killing of war or is he or she transformed by virtue of a military occupation into the working heart of that machine? Art then, as Benjamin defines it (film and photography especially) would make up the blood of that machine as it (along with economics, tradition and education) helps ensure a constant supply of new soldiers into the war machine. So I wonder, does Fascism depend upon imperialist war to perpetuate the strong State and the “need” for an ever expensive and expansive military or does imperialist war require Fascism? What is the relationship between the two? What is the relationship between imperialism, fascism and capitalism? Are the three forever mutually entwined with war the central binding knot? I have to admit, I HATED the entire essay between the prologue and the epilogue. Having said that, the epilogue offers so much to consider, that I wonder why he didn’t reduce this essay to the first and last parts. I am curious, are the aesthetics of war Fascism’s ability to mass-produce a consumable image of war that dissolves within it all doubt and questioning to the necessity of war or are they found in the instruments of war and the mechanization of war, the ability of the war machine to turn human beings into a for-profit assembly line of death and destruction, that gives it a distinction of being an art or Art?

Benjamin's ending of the essay is also a perfect end to this post. He explains of mankind, "Its self-alienation has reached such a degree that it can experience its own destruction as an aesthetic pleasure of the first order. This is the situation of politics which Fascism is rendering aesthetic. Communism responds by politicizing art" (242).

I do not think you could find greater proof to support Benjamin's (seemingly pessimistic) view of mankind as he depicts here, than the prelude to the latest Iraq war. Think about the televised bloodless war invented by the Pentagon and delivered straight and hot to your television from the "frontlines" by "embedded journalists" and NBC, CNN, FOX, and the like. Why didn't anyone stop to ask, how can a war have no blood, short of the wonderfully televised rescue of Jessica Lynch? That is the best war movie I have ever seen, far outweighing anything Hollywood filmakers could have produced. We got to watch war (and war strategy!) played out live, right before our very eyes, and you didn't even have to have cable to take part. It was on almost every channel, almost every hour of almost every day. I sought refuge from the visual onslaught of reality t.v. recruiter style in the internet indy media sources. There, you'd see the reality of the video game war that NBC and CBS woudn't show. Who needs a recruiting poster propaganda campaign like that waged in WWII when you have a live feed propaganda campain that can magically depict a war as being virtually bloodless and damn near always victorious. It felt more like watching one of those John Wayne films with the clearly distinguishable good guys and bad guys, where the good always win and the bad are always punished. Hell, it even came complete with the cowboy (president) riding off into the sunset on an aircraft carrier, with a thumbs up, "Mission Accomplished," smirk and speech that drove the crowds wild.
I wonder what Hitler would think of America now.

Peace!