Kevin Hess

Response to Benjamin’s Author as Producer

 

In “The Author as Producer,” Walter Benjamin seeks to define the role of the author as a member of a society who inexorably must address class struggle. To Benjamin, the concept of the author must be rethought since s/he is part of an industry whose framework is defined by mode of production. Unable to escape the class conflict that circumscribes the writing process, the author, whether s/he is aware of it, chooses sides. Benjamin clearly calls for the author to choose one side: “[The author’s decision], made on the basis of a class struggle, is to side with the proletariat” (220). In its totality, Benjamin’s essay underscores the ways in which the author can successfully side with proletariat without compromising his/her intentions.

 

To begin, Benjamin asserts the need for the author to consciously take sides. He dispels the critic’s notion of tendentiousness, which is a catchword used to denigrate the artistic status of a work. A tendentious work often will be perceived as sacrificing quality for political correctness. Benjamin, on the other hand, asserts that quality and tendency are inextricably linked and should not be separated. He posits, “A work that exhibits a correct tendency must of necessity have every other quality (221).”

 

Benjamin, of course, does not simply state that a work that seems to side with the proletariat automatically is of high quality. His rigid rubric for the political work of high quality does not arise out of the simplistic question of, “What is the attitude of a work to the relations of production of its time? (222). This question presupposes that the work is somehow outside of the production process. Benjamin urges that the question to ask is, “What is its position in them?” To Benjamin, a work’s literary technique is what places it within the framework of the mode of construction. The technique of the work, thus, is similar to infrastructure of a factory. Just as the production process in a factory is inseparable from the superstructure, the technique of a work is inseparable from its message, which, in terms of the works that Benjamin addresses in this essay, concerns class consciousness. Furthermore, Benjamin stresses that a work must have a progressive technique to result in change.        

 

Benjamin then moves on to explore the progressive techniques that a work can employ to side with the proletariat. He begins by describing the transformation of the literary process in Russia and Russian journalism. “Operating writers” in Russia challenge the notion of the role of the writer as a spectator looking at his object. The operating writer becomes part of the struggle that s/he is addressing and no longer simply reports as is done in the traditional realist novel. Benjamin embraces this progressive change and progressive change in general when he writes, “There were not always novels in the past, and there will not always have to be…” (224). The operating writer seeks not to reinforce the status quo, but to change the technique and, therefore, inherently questions the mode of production. Benjamin’s second successful example, Russian journalism, has essentially done the same thing: the line between writer and the reader has been blurred, leading to a less bourgeois press. The technique has changed in favor of the proletariat, thus subverting the hegemony. It is important to note that the paradigmatic change in Russian journalism represents the disintegration of barriers to Benjamin; genres, media, relationship between writer and author, etc. dissolve.

           

After being supremely optimistic about Russia and its progressive techniques, Benjamin then returns to the Frankfurt School mentality to which we have grown accustomed, alleging that Western Europe is much different and controlled by the “opposition” (225). For much of the rest of the essay, Benjamin explores works that merely shallowly side with the proletariat. He divides these uncritical works into two camps: Activist and New Matter-of-Factness. The bourgeois left that falls under the category of Activism is characterized by its desire to find a place “beside” the proletariat and deny the value of joining the fight (see Doblin). The New Matter-of-Factness is characterized by its use of a “productive apparatus” that stops short of progressively changing the technique of production, thereby obviating the chance of sending a serious message concerning class struggle. Benjamin uses the Dada photomontage as a revolutionary example that never truly came to fruition as a progressive technique. What could have been used progressively, Benjamin attests, is used for one end now: “to renew from within…the world as it is (230).” In order for the photograph to become progressive, Benjamin suggests that it break down the barrier between writing and image (see question 4 below).  Benjamin writes, “What we require of the photograph is the ability to give his picture the caption that wrenches it from modish commerce and gives it a revolutionary useful value” (230). Benjamin’s hope demands for the photograph demonstrates the way in which the progressive use of the photograph has not been realized and underscores Benjamin’s belief in the demolition of barriers between media in progressive works.

 

Benjamin then reverts back to refreshing optimism, praising Brecht for his progressiveness. As we have seen previously in “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” Benjamin holds Brecht in high regard for his ability to distract his audience and then shock him or her with a theatrically awkward moment that exposes the shortcomings of modern life. This, in essence, is a change in technique. Brecht rescued theater from its traditional Aristotelian values: he jettisoned the notion of wide-ranging plots and changed the relationship between “stage and public, text and performance, director and actor” (234). Benjamin describes Brecht’s process as closely akin to montage; Brecht “constantly counteracts an illusion in the audience” (235). Thus, Brecht changes technique to show “present-day man: a reduce man, therefore, chilled in a chilly environment” (235). Brecht represents the author as a producer who, in Benjamin’s words, demands the writer “to reflect upon his position in the process of production” since he consciously changes the technique of production to rebel against the status quo of the industry.

           

The essay closes by referring back to the beginning. Benjamin reiterates the need for the author to side with the proletariat by fighting with them. The author as producer can fight with the proletariat by betraying his class origins and the mode of production whence his work arises by changing technique and apparatus. As Benjamin is wont to do, he brings up fascism at the end, linking the work that “lays claim to ‘spiritual’ qualities” and claims to be outside of the process of production to fascistic practice. The author as a producer must combat the fascist spirit that hides beneath the capitalist mode of production and prevents the proletariat from rising up.    

 

Questions:

 

1. BenjaminÂ’s discussion of the destruction of barriers is prevalent throughout the essay. Particularly valuable today is the discussion of Russian journalism and the dissolution of barrier between the writer and reader. To what extent has the blog changed the technique of journalistic authorship? How does television media hinder this democratization of information? (subquestion: how fascist are Lou Dobbs and Sean Hannity?)
2. How does BenjaminÂ’s privileging of the montage in cinema resonate within this essay?
3. How does this essay relate in its formulation to “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction?” Especially concerning socialism versus fascism.
4. To those in Dada/Surrealism: To what extent did the Dada photomontage blend image and word for progressiveness in Berlin Dada? (Heartfield, Haussman, Hoch)
5. The cliché meta-essay question: Benjamin is obviously an author, producing a message that favors the proletariat. How does the technique of his essay fit into his arguments? If anyone links this to Adorno’s “Essay as Form,” I will drop out of college.
6. The concept of the proletariat largely has been rendered obsolete by the rise of the middle class.  Are there works out there using progressive techniques and apparatuses that have stirred up class-consciousness and provoked change?