Benjamin & Chaplin

“For without exception the cultural treasures he surveys have an origin which he cannot contemplate without horror. They owe their existence not only to the efforts of the great minds and talents who have created them, but also to the anonymous toil of their contemporaries. There is no document of civilization which is not at the same time a document of barbarism.”

I chose this quote because it reminded me a lot of a theme that I developed on in my last blog entry.  It is interesting because Junger and Benjamin come from completely different backgrounds and met completely different ends; Junger was a early Fascist supporter and glorifier of war while Benjamin was a Marxist in the Luxembourg-type. But here, I think they strike a similar chord in the duality of civilization and barbarity.  

In this quote, Benjamin opines in this contradictory push and pull of civilization and barbarism.  We look at the pyramids and wonder at the greatness of man; one could argue that the pyramids, created thousands of years ago, is the apex of human civilization.  But think about the lives that it took to build the massive object and it was of course built by slave labor.  In other words, in the sheen of civilization there lies a large dose of barbarism, of the worst instincts of human behavior.  

Regarding the Chaplin movie, I didn’t see a lot of similarities with Dada, which is interesting because Benjamin argues the ultimate goal of Dada was what turned out to be film.  I think the biggest difference is the fact that the Chaplin film has a purpose.  Dada artists said that that since life was inherently ugly and futile, the art that should reflect that as well.  Contemporary art did not reflect the realities of life, which was war, misery, and social failure; art was seen a way to tear down society, which was rotten to the core.  The Dada art had no “message”.  But the Chaplin film is quite preachy and certainly does have a message.  In the film’s final scene, Chaplin gives a speech about human respect, love, and freedom.  He drops the Hitler imitation to give a heartfelt speech that he doesn’t want to rule over everybody; what society needs now is human kindness. Such sentiment would certainly not be given by a Dada artist.    Not only this, the goal of Dada was to make ugly art, “anti-art”.  But in the Chaplin film, even an ameteur can see the incredibly hard work that Chaplin puts into his films.  Chaplin was not making a mockery of art; he was embracing it to create the best possible work possible.