Myth and politics

notes on the concept of destiny in the "young " Benjamin

Abstract

The concept of myth is one of the keys to understand the thought of Walter Benjamin. The aim of this paper is to follow its genesis from the first formulations of the concept of "destiny", as presented in Destiny and character, written in 1919. The present paper is divided in two parts. The first reconstructs Benjamin's arguments, showing them tobe within the domain of the theory of rights and their necessary insertion in a "temporality" mode, defined by "repetition"; the second part attempts to demonstrate that Benjamin's positions were closely linked to a political stand: their aim was, in name of an avowed anarchism, to fight against all nationalist "myths" (that brought Germany to war) and the need of "leaders" (Führer) for the people. Examples of this political bias, based on Benjamin's confrontation with Zionism, are presented.