Cultural Studies With the Regard to Walter Benjamin’s Idea of the “European Barbarism” Essay

In “Theses on the Philosophy of History,” the German-Jewish philosopher Walter Benjamin makes a startling claim. “There is no document of civilization,” he writes, “which is not at the same time a document of barbarism”¹. To evaluate and analyze this claim, it would be relevant to suggest the following books and movies for the discussion: Franz Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis and Other Stories”, David Malouf’s “Remembering Babylon”, Joseph Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness” and the 1970’s videos – “Wild Child” (1970) directed by Francois Truffaut, “The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser” (1974) directed by Werner Herzog and “Aguirre, The Wrath of God” (1972) directed by Werner Herzog.

Analyzing the French film “Wild Child” (” L’Enfant Sauvage”), which follows the real-life story, with the view to Benjamin’s formulation it is necessary to outline the circumstances and social conditions in which the main hero, Victor from the Aveyron forest, operates. The action of the film takes place in the 18th century. The main hero of the film – a young boy whose original name is Jean – Pierre Cargol is found in the territory of the forest nearby Aveyron. The boy is considered mute, that is why Dr. Jean Itard supervises and treats him².

Itard gives a new name for the boy – Victor, what might be regarded as a new life chance for this child. In this context, there should be outlined doctor’s observation of Victor’s attempts to survive in a totally new, confusing, unknown, and dangerous world with its new life order and cruel social laws.

The statement made by Walter Benjamin in his “Theses on the Philosophy of History,” might be supported by the following episodes from this film. “Wild Child” represents a certain connection between the civilized aspects of cruel, rough, and harsh Parisian life and the animal, brutal laws of life in wild nature³. Here it would be relevant to point out that Victor finds a kind of balance in the windows that represents the transition between the confined interiors and the outer world. It is worth mentioning that mandoline airs and candles also influence him. But here is the paradox -Victor acquires the ability and knowledge to have social relations by forfeiting his capacity to live in wild nature as a savage⁴.

It should be also pointed out within the context of the problem of interest that the director of the film Truffaut raises a major social problem in this film – the growth of the young people who might be regarded as a pivot of the society and its future. Famous film critic Roger Ebert proves this by saying: “He tells it [the story of the film] simply and movingly. It becomes the most thoughtful statement on his favorite subject: The way young people grow up, explore themselves, and attempt to function creatively in the world…”⁵

Following this it would be relevant to discuss another film based on real events that discuss the life of the person socially isolated for a long time: it is a West German film called “The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser “(“Jeder Für Sich und Gott Gegen Alle”) directed by Werner Herzog. It is quite reasonable to mention the translation of the original German title of the movie -“Every man for himself and God against them all”. The above-mentioned title proves in a certain way Benjamin’s assumption under discussion.

The main hero of the given film Kaspar Hauser who has been locked for 17 years in a tiny cellar; the only thing that occupied his time was a toy horse⁶. Kasper is entirely isolated from the outer world and society and devoid of all contact with other human beings except the “superior” stranger who brings him food. He seems superior to Kaspar because he is in charge of the source of life – food (this child is not able to understand it from the point of the social structure issue because he does not know what that is, but the wild natural instincts lead him to such thoughts).

After being left by this stranger in Nuremberg, Kaspar faces the cruelty of the civilized world. Here can be observed the vivid example of the paradox illustrating such terms and commonly excepted values as “civilization” “civilized society” and “social order”: Kaspar becomes a subject of gibes, mockery, and humiliation from the society that acts brutally and expresses animal cruelty toward this boy. He is exhibited in a circus until rescued by Herr Daumer who feels sympathy for his destiny and gives him a life chance by making patiently attempts to teach him how to live in the society and “civilized world” ⁷.

The episode worth attention represents the situation when Kasper is given a logic problem that he must figure out. The problem goes like this; “there are 2 villages, in one of them everyone always lies and in the other everyone always tells the truth. You meet someone on a road between these two villages and by using only one question you must decipher which village he comes from.

The Professor asked the question then gives Kasper a few minutes to answer, and when he can not answer the Professor provides an extremely convoluted question that must be asked in order to decipher which village the person comes from. Kasper’s response is that he knows another, a much simpler question to ask. He would simply ask the person if they were a tree frog; if the person says yes then they are from the village where everyone lies, and if they say no then they are from the village where everyone tells the truth”⁸. The Professor mocks at this as there is no logical reasoning in Kaspar’s answer. However, it might be stated that Kasper’s answer to the riddle is no less logical than the given riddle itself.

Kaspar soon becomes a fully developed personality, thus he attracts the attention of society to himself. Here happens a situation that strongly supports Benjamin’s statement under consideration. The man, who left Kaspar on Nuremberg’s street, brutally and meanly attacks him and leaves unconscious with a bleeding head and stabbed in the chest. Here might be observed the wild cruelty of the man from the “civilized” society. While dying in his bed unconscious, Kaspar is not cursing or blaming that stranger, his thoughts are lofty and esthetic – he dreams about nomadic Berbers in the Sahara Desert⁹. That is why he might be regarded as a noble human being, a person who is above the cruelty and brutality of the “civilized” society.

Afterward, Kasper tells his dream about a blind man leading a caravan through the desert. “Everyone in the caravan wants to stop because they are heading directly toward mountains, but the blind man knows that the mountains are just mirages and that their destiny lies in the direction that they are moving”¹⁰. Kasper’s story represents the key idea of the film; only someone that is blind to societal conventions can really see the world as it is. One will never truly be able to think for oneself as long as one looks at the world through the eyes of society and not through one’s own eyes.

Following this, it would be relevant to discuss a film that describes not penetration of isolated from the society to the “civilized world”, but the interference of those, from such world in an unimpaired and different order world with the only aim and animal thirst for lucre. German film called “Aguirre, the Wrath of God” (“Aguirre, der Zorn Gottes”) directed by Werner Herzog tells the story of Spanish soldier Lope de Aguirre who is in charge of conquistadores that he leads to the Amazon River not to learn the culture of societies that live there, but to plunder the legendary gold city called El Dorado.

What is significant and supports Benjamin’s statement, is the minimum usage of story and dialogue in the film, which creates a mood and vision of wildness, madness, disparity, and folly which are opposed to the calmness of lush but so cruel Amazonian jungles¹¹. After Aguirre’s daughter is killed with an arrow in her chest during the Indians attack and all of his soldiers die, crazed and lone Aguirre speaks to monkeys: “I, the Wrath of God, will marry my own daughter and with her, I will found the purest dynasty the world has ever seen. We shall rule this entire continent. We shall endure. I am the Wrath of God!”¹²

Here might be stated that conquistadores considered themselves as civilized and native Amazonian tribes – as barbarians, but the circumstances reversed everything and showed the brutal nature of the “civilized” society, which again proves Benjamin’s point of view.

Now it would be relevant to refer to Franz Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis and Other Stories” and the attitude of the family, as a division of the “civilized” society, towards the main hero of the given book – traveling salesman named Gregor Samsa. The key idea lays in the issue that one morning he finds himself transformed into a “monstrous vermin”¹³ (generally called “bug”). In order to be able to relate the story of Gregor to Benjamin’s statement, it is important to acknowledge that Kafka was not trying to label Gregor as any specific thing, but instead, she strived to take across Gregor’s aversion of at his transformation.

Benjamin’s idea might be supported by the episode when his family uses Gregor’s room “to store excess furniture and other miscellanea”¹⁴, thus they insult Gregor’s feelings because he is not like them anymore, he does not belong to the society and can not be regarded as a part of it and, thus, he can not be regarded as a part of their family. The brutal and cruel attitude towards him might be viewed in the episode when Gregor shows up during Grete practicing her violin and scares her, and makes her upset at the same moment. At that moment Grete declares that “they must abandon the notion that this hideous bug is their dear Gregor”¹⁵.

Nobody cares about his subsequent death; his family members consider themselves as “civilized” ones while acting like cruel and callous barbarians: “The family takes a trolley out of the city and into the countryside. It is a beautiful, sunny day, and as Grete stretches out her limbs in the trolley car, her parents’ thoughts turn to find her a husband”¹⁶.

Another situation of social isolation is described in “Remembering Babylon” by book by David Malouf. The book tells the story of an English boy – Gemmy Fairley, raised by aborigines and of his attempts to adjust the European society’s traditions. The following episode from the book provides proof of Benjamin’s statement: “As Gemmy wrestles with his own identity, the community of settlers struggles to deal with their fear of the unknown”¹⁷. Relating this novel to Benjamin’s viewpoint, it is important to outline that it covers common problems caused by the cruelty and brutality of the society: hidden isolation from certain communities and living lonely on the edge of society and its consciousness and culture.

Another book that vividly describes and fully supports Benjamin’s statement is Joseph Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness”, which may be regarded as a part of the Western canon. Significantly, such a name was given to the African continent by European “civilized” societies. Throughout the given novel author develops a “tension in Marlow between the restraint of civilization and the savagery of barbarism”¹⁸. Though Marlow “cannot abide a lie” and subsequently cannot perceive civilization as anything but a veneer hiding the savage reality of the human condition, he is also horrified by the darkness of Kurtz he sees in his own heart”¹⁹.

As a conclusion, referring to the above-described resources, it would be relevant to say that there might be observed the situation when the positions of the sides become eventually reversed: those who were considered barbarians transform into those who morally stand above the “civilized” society and its cruel, brutal and indeed “barbarous” aspirations and the ways of the achievement of those aspirations. Following this, it is possible to make a strong statement that everything that is connected with such notions as “European civilization” and “civilized” societies may be considered and regarded as profoundly linked with and also as the “document of barbarism”²⁰.

Works Cited

Aguirre, The Wrath of God, directed by Werner Herzog, Germany, 1972.

Benjamin, Wendy. Theses on the Philosophy of History. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999.

Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness. London: JM Dent & Sons Ltd, 1974.

Ebert, Roger. Chicago Sun-Times, film review. 1970.

The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser, directed by Werner Herzog, Germany, 1974.

Kafka, Franz. The Metamorphosis and Other Stories, trans. Donna Freed. New York: Barnes & Noble, 1996.

Malouf, David. Remembering Babylon. Sidney: Knopf Publishing Group, 1993.

Norman, Sherry. Conrad’s Western World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1971.

Wild Child, directed by Francois Truffaut, France, 1970.

Footnotes

1. Benjamin, Wendy. Theses on the Philosophy of History. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999.
2. See Wild Child, directed by Francois Truffaut, France, 1970.
3. See Wild Child, directed by Francois Truffaut, France, 1970.
4. Same.
5. Ebert, Roger. Chicago Sun-Times, film review, 1970.
6. See The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser, directed by Werner Herzog, Germany, 1974.
7. See The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser, directed by Werner Herzog, Germany, 1974.
8. See The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser, directed by Werner Herzog, Germany, 1974.
9. Same.
10. Same.
11. See Aguirre, The Wrath of God, directed by Werner Herzog, Germany, 1972.
12. Same.
13. Kafka, Franz. The Metamorphosis and Other Stories, trans. Donna Freed. New York: Barnes & Noble, 1996.
14. Kafka, Franz. The Metamorphosis and Other Stories, trans. Donna Freed. New York: Barnes & Noble, 1996.
15. Same.
16. Same.
17. Malouf, David. Remembering Babylon. Sidney: Knopf Publishing Group, 1993.
18. Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness. London: JM Dent & Sons Ltd, 1974.
19. Norman, Sherry. Conrad’s Western World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1971.
20. Benjamin, Wendy. Theses on the Philosophy of History. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999.