Walter Benjamin's Dialectics of Attentiveness

Abstract

Walter Benjamin's literary, phenomenological, and analytical reflections on the concept of attentiveness reveal how distinctly his critical thinking was attuned to new forms of perception that arose from the cultural and aesthetic transformations taking place in the early twentieth century. Challenging existing distinctions between different modes of attentiveness—mainly absorption and concentration—he explores a radical form of attentiveness that enlists unexpected components, such as distraction or the power of habit. Tracing the development of a critical approach to the concept from the early to the late works, this article provides insights into Benjamin's alternative idea of attentiveness, one that emerges from a dialectics of opposites and is aligned with a “physical presence of mind” (“leibhaftige Geistesgegenwart”).

Notes

In the text citations, hereinafter SW refers to Benjamin, Selected Writings, accompanied by the volume and page number(s), and GS to Gesammelte Schriften VI.

In the Notes and Queries to the West Eastern Divan Goethe writes, “Eine solche Ehrfurcht vor allem was den Menschen Natürliches umgibt, leitet auf alle bürgerlichen Tugenden: Aufmerksamkeit, Reinlichkeit, Fleiss wird angeregt und genährt” (176; “A similar reverence with regard to the nature encompassing mankind has been conveyed to bourgeois virtues: attentiveness, cleanliness, diligence are encouraged and nurtured” [my translation]).