Politics of the Flesh

1 metaphysics in postmetaphysical times

The American literary scholar Eric Santner is one of the most influential intellectuals of his generation since he succeeds in numerous publications to link the globally diagnosed spread of the predominance of economic conditions of existence with questions of their unacknowledged metaphysical need for redemption. Santner systematically combines psychoanalysis, political theology, and Karl Marx’s theory of commodity-fetishism with Michel Foucault’s and Giorgio Agamben’s analyses of power. The relevance and significance of the theses presented by him in numerous publications (like The Royal Remains; The Weight of All Flesh; Sovereignty, Inc.; Untying Things Together, etc.) will be discussed in the following papers of this special issue – many of which were given at the international conference “The Weight of All Flesh. On Eric Santner’s Philosophy” at the Munich School of Philosophy – Faculty of the Jesuits, in June 2023.

Santner presents through multiple layers within the history of ideas a contemporary analysis of current living conditions with the help of concepts presented by such diverse authors as Luther, Marx, Freud, Lacan, Benjamin, and Sebald, to name but a few. In particular, however, he repeatedly refers back to Ernst Kantorowicz’s historical study of medieval political theology, The King’s Two Bodies (1957), to show how the formerly sublime and transcendent body of the king not only supplements the biological body of the sovereign but also morphs literally, after the French Revolution and the demise of European monarchies, into the modern body of “the people” (Santner, Royal Remains 33–62). From now on it’s the people’s will, but also the constant lack thereof through the “empty place of power” which rules the space of political reason (Lefort 21). Kantorowicz investigated how the sovereign united two bodies in the late Middle Ages on the historical threshold to modern times: a sublime, symbolic body of his political-theological mandate and the natural-mortal body of his ordinary status of being a man. The sovereign thus contained something in him that was more in the king than the king himself granted through his contingent personality. As king by divine right the sovereign was not only a representative of Christ on earth, but guaranteed a metaphysical bond between the body of his people and the basic structures of reality. That which was “more” in the king was bound through a metaphysical mandate. The latter was not up for debate. It could not be questioned by voting rights. This had, according to Santner, in return a relieving effect on the king’s subjects. Questions of transcendence were not “free floating rationales,” so to speak, but localized in his person and, as such, “bound” to a metaphysical schematism of social meaning-formation. The people as the multitude of his subjects were literally relieved of the pressure to think about their own representation in this world. With the departure of the sovereign (e.g., through the French Revolution) and the transfer of his mandate to the people as sovereign, the sublime body, which was more in the king than himself, is now inscribed in all bodies (Santner, Royal Remains 51, 89). Now the people, that is, we, suffer this pressure of the normative, which previously – according to Santner/Kantorowicz – only the royal sovereign had suffered for us. Theological sovereignty becomes political theology, “biopolitical pressure” (xi), and ultimately political-theological economy, the effects of which are examined both in contemporary sociology as well as in Santner’s later publications (Weight of All Flesh 43–79; Sovereignty, Inc.).

In his early work entitled My Own Private Germany, Santner interprets the schizophrenic son of the founder of the “Schrebergarten” (allotment garden) movement as a subject under modern-secular conditions who, in his inability to assume a symbolic mandate, expresses a new predicament of modern humanity (11–12). Schreber’s fate is outstanding because it illustrates the power of normative overabundance in symbolic investments under pseudo-secular conditions. Schreber was unable to cope with the spectral presence of symbolic investiture as President of the Senate at the Dresden Higher Regional Court and fell into a permanent psychic state of psychotic insanity. For Santner however, Schreber reveals – together with the fates of individuals described by Franz Kafka and together with Walter Benjamin’s analyses of the power of modern legal authority (Santner, My Own Private Germany 12–14, 43–44) – a new restlessness that, due to a social-ontological spectrality of political transcendence, brings the psyche into conflict with the sublime side of its conditions of existence: “The fundamental restlessness or unsettledness of the human mind […] is, in large measure, one pertaining to the constitutive uncertainties that plague identity in a universe of symbolic values” (Santner, On the Psychotheology 51).

In other words: the modern body of the people, to which Schreber belonged as a judge and civil servant being responsible for performative acts of law-making in the name of the people, is no less characterized by transcendence than that of its premodern ancestors, but more so. The transcendent surplus of meaning which was once bound to the sublime body of the individual king must under post-revolutionary and democratic conditions appropriate new media of investment: from the status of work so dear to Martin Luther, for example, to questions of vocation in science and politics, to questions of self-identity (see Santner, On Creaturely Life), to questions of self-presentation in the age of transnational media and corporate “branding” (see Santner, “Rebranding” 19–111).

What Kafka in his most famous novel-fragments, The Trial and The Castle, interprets as an unmanageable bureaucratic apparatus which no longer acts homogeneously at the level of political power and, as such, neuroticizes its subjects, concerns today the social structure of subordinate groups in Western societies as the rising numbers of so-called “singularities” reveal (Reckwitz). A contemporary Josef K. should therefore no longer be neuroticized only by the enigmatic messages of a political superstructure that has validity but no meaning, but by a multitude of often market-oriented appeals, for example, in the duty to be oneself authentically, to be autonomous and, of course, responsible for the wellbeing of the world and the fellow citizens. As Matthew Flisfeder shows, the role of the now decentered big Other is today compensated for in this context. According to Flisfeder, modern Internet platforms such as Instagram, X, and Facebook are taking on the big Other’s role. In them, subjectivity unfolds in structures of market-oriented and liberal-democratic subjugation and, allegedly, out of free will.

With the demise of the power of royal sovereignty and its relocation into the volonté générale of popular rule, the sublime body is not simply lost in the history of ideas, according to Santner. What is more in the king than himself emanates into what Santner conceptually calls the “flesh” of the modern body of the people. The metaphor of the flesh articulates the new state of aggregation, the particular materiality of the new symbolic body of rule, which is not a place in time and space like the territorial body of the modern nation state. Rather, the social and symbolic ties of this political body are libidinal and affective and have a tissue-like, intangible structure (“flesh”). Due to their shapelessness, they offer the perfect prerequisite for being constantly reshaped within the framework of a (late) modern political economy, which can release a special libidinal dynamic onto its subjects. A new restlessness therefore drives this popular body, which has to do with the production of fantasies that seek to bind and diminish the stress of invocations of a transcendence that is unbound and, as such, radically spectral and ephemeral. Santner diagnoses the first traces of the aforementioned “flesh” especially in twentieth-century modernity: in the works of Kafka, Rilke, and Benjamin, among others, but also, as mentioned, in Daniel Paul Schreber’s memoirs. The monograph My Own Private Germany (1996) marks the beginning of a historical-philosophical genealogy in which the relationship between transcendence and immanence under modern and contemporary conditions is defined in more detail. Publications such as On the Psychotheology of Everyday Life (2001) and The Royal Remains (2011) expand the semantic roles of speculative concepts in this genealogy, which ultimately experience their cultural-philosophical syntheses in Santner’s most recent publications The Weight of All Flesh (2016), Sovereignty, Inc. (2019), and Untying Things Together (2022). Santner’s thesis is also linked to a large amount of research in recent years in various areas of the humanities, in which a revised understanding of secularization and the often prematurely proclaimed “end of metaphysics” has often been discussed.

Santner’s enlightening publications evoke numerous questions. How exactly should his theses be interpreted? Is the present really characterized by an unacknowledged need for redemption, which – in the absence of a clear form and perspective of redemption – is carried out through restless activity? Are new forms of sublime “flesh” cultures returning to Internet platforms such as Instagram and Meta? Would overcoming capitalism be the necessary condition for a new form of freedom or liberation? Some of these questions will be discussed in the following papers, some may be open for future debates. The editors of this special issue hope that it will encourage scholars in the broad field of philosophy, theology, literary and cultural theory to add answers to the questions raised by Eric Santner’s work. The editors thank everyone involved in making this special issue possible.

2 the articles

Mladen Dolar’s paper, “Too Muchness, the Surplus of Immanence, Manatheism,” navigates through some of Eric Santner’s most important books, beginning with his analysis in My Own Private Germany which sets a foundation for understanding the “secret history of modernity.” It interprets the interplay between Daniel Paul Schreber’s painful investiture, the academic discourse of the physician treating Schreber, Dr Flechsig, and Schreber’s symptomatic response to modern progress. The paper then examines Santner’s concepts: “too muchness,” “surplus of immanence,” and “manatheism,” as tools to dissect modernity’s ruptures. Lastly, it discusses Santner’s use of wordplays as a method to – through puns of reason – unravel paradoxes in concepts and their universal properties.

Ino Augsberg analyzes in his paper, “The Flesh of All Words: Santner, Rosenzweig, Ebner, and the ‘Encystance’ on Language,” Santner’s self-reflection on his methodologies in Untying Things Together. The paper suggests that Santner’s academic pursuit might be encapsulated in a concept termed “the flesh of all words.” Augsberg begins by exploring Freud’s unique conceptual approach in The Interpretation of Dreams and proceeds to scrutinize the works of Franz Rosenzweig, which had a significant influence on Santner since On the Psychotheology of Everyday Life. The paper delves into Rosenzweig’s self-analysis in “The New Thinking” and contrasts it with Ferdinand Ebner’s principles, highlighting Rosenzweig’s recognition of their similarities.

Robert Buch’s article, “The Vicissitudes of the Flesh and the Dreamwork of Modernism,” investigates interconnected ideas within Santner’s publications, giving special attention to the concept “flesh” (as presented in The Royal Remains) and newer terms like “void of knowledge” and “surplus scarcity” (as presented in Untying Things Together). The article analyzes how these concepts interplay, revealing both tensions and insights in Santner’s examination of the human condition. Alfred Döblin’s Berlin Alexanderplatz is used as an example and counterexample to illustrate with Santner the “dreamwork of modernism.”

The paper “Exodus into Ordinary Life,” written by Agata Bielik-Robson, examines Santner’s psychoanalytic re-reading of a pivotal Jewish symbol, the exodus from Egypt, as an escape from “Egyptomania.” This concept, introduced by Santner himself in On the Psychotheology of Everyday Life, recurs in his later works on political theology. “Egyptomania” refers to the burdensome excess of meaning and the onerous demands for ultimate self-justification. Santner presents Judaism (especially in contrast to Hegel’s comments on Judaism) as a faith of radical desublimation, emphasizing immanent transcendence and the radical otherness of the neighbor/stranger. Judaism is not a quest for otherworldly transcendence. The Exodus symbolizes on the contrary an emancipation from metaphysical stasis and the false lure of immortality.

Luca Di Blasi’s paper, “The Two Bodies of the King of the Jews: From the Guilt of Politics to a Politics of Guilt,” investigates Freud’s challenging ideas on Christian anti-Judaism, focusing on the distinction early Christians made between Jesus Christ and Jesus Barabbas to distance themselves from political messianism (“Barrabas”) and assume collective responsibility for Jesus’ death. This early delineation though led to a “politics of guilt,” fueling Christian anti-Judaism. Freud’s theory, resonating in post-World War II Germany’s collective guilt-syndrome, suggests a complex societal bond maintained through both recognized and unrecognized history, affecting both, on the one hand, an official “Verfassungspatriotismus” (Constitutional patriotism) and, on the other, a communal sense of political guilt.

Dominik Finkelde shows in his article, “The Pathological A Priori: On Guilt and Shame in Creaturely Life,” how in the context of Radical Democracy Theory, authority assumes a negative form, contrasting with the positivistic nature of classical authority. The effect is a modern version of what Santner calls “creaturely life.” While classical authority produced “guilt,” the negative form of authority engenders “shame.” It becomes a fundamental pathological condition of modern political identity. Shame arises as a form from a perceived failure to meet the everlasting expectations of the “coming community,” as proclaimed by Derrida for an entire generation of academics – a community that is always anticipated but never arrives, making the current state of the body politic feel deficient. To feel ashamed is to see oneself as not yet adequate for what the future community demands.

Rebekka Klein evaluates in her paper, “Desecularizing Santner’s Psychotheology,” the concept of “political flesh” through a dialog of Santner with current debates on corporality/physicality and spirituality in the field of the philosophy of religion and of Christian theology. Santner’s insights prove to be unique since his neologistic concept “flesh” presents a form of corporality that resists the theological concept of incarnation, countering harmonic theories of “embodiment.” Santner’s approach underscores the conflict inherent in human corporeality, often neglected by contemporary theoreticians in the fields mentioned. In addition, the paper revisits theologies of Barth, Schleiermacher, and Calvin, proposing that the Protestant church embodies a spectral presence, specifically the “undead flesh” of Christ. The conclusion contemplates this undead figure of Christ as a potential critical intervention in the tradition of Santner’s thought.

In “The Inertia of All Flesh: On the Protestant Universalization of Acedia,” Rasmus Nagel extends Santner’s discussion on the profound “weight of all flesh” and his insights on the sovereign’s dual nature as presented in The Royal Remains. Within Protestant theology, the paper examines the theopolitical implications of democratizing sovereignty as outlined by Santner. It presents two main arguments: that the democratization mirrors and possibly stems from Protestant critiques of the church’s representational role; and that it allows a theological unpacking of the “inertia of the flesh,” reconsidering what the weight of collective human existence under modern conditions stands for.

Clemens Pornschlegel’s “Spiderman’s Body: On the Political Theology of Superheroes” presents the narrative of US-American superheroes as agents of a grand, metaphysical struggle for salvation and redemption. These characters are envisioned as the ultimate successors to the mythic heroes of antiquity, endowed with extraordinary human and technological prowess. The narratives in question frame the United States as a culmination of history, awaiting an apocalyptic finale, with the interlude occupied by the entertainment industry.

Daniel Weidner analyzes in his paper, “Till Death Do Us Part,” the so-called “Kulturkampf,” the conflict between the German Reich and the Catholic church in the 1870s and 1880s. He argues that it is one of the most important ideological conflicts of the late nineteenth century and reveals a political theological dynamic characteristic of the modern (German) nation state. The paper analyzes the paradoxes of this conflict along the lines with Santner’s analysis of political representations. During the “Kulturkampf,” catholic citizens were publicly suspected of not being loyal Germans, and the Catholic church is widely figured as an (inner) enemy in the liberal press and in modern caricatures. In these polemics, numerous political-theological figures emerge: images of a gendered relation of domination of the (female) church by the (male) state, phantasies of the body politic and its precarious unity as well as of its purification of what is different to itself.

Finally, Eric Santner shows in the last paper of this special issue with the title “Negative Anthropology in Shakespeare, Sophocles, and Freud” how in The Man without Qualities, Robert Musil presents the figure of Clarisse musing on a profound discussion between her husband and Ulrich, Musil’s protagonist, about the elusive connection between art and existence. She contemplates the essence of the human condition as a ring encompassing a central emptiness, symbolizing life’s circular nature around an unseen core. The essay expands on Clarisse’s insight, exploring the concept of this central “nothingness” as it relates to symbols of authority, like the “hollow crown” referenced by Shakespeare’s Richard II, and the dynastic conflicts in Sophocles’ Antigone. The paper examines the characters’ deep mourning, which is tied to this undefined void, and their personal rebellion, representing an emotional response to an ambiguous absence.