Walter Benjamin and Judith Butler: towards a critique of violence

Abstract

The following article poses some questions about violence in the articulation of critical considerations contained in texts by Walter Benjamin and Judith Butler. We recognize Butler as an attentive reader of Benjamin's work, who has been able to take up the power of his work and turn it into a valuable theoretical input for her reflections. Through an anachronistic journey through texts and commentaries, the reading hypothesis rehearses a dialogue that explores points of rapprochement and distance in relation to the form that the critique of violence has taken in each author. Considering the points of rapprochement and distance, the discussion on the true state of exception, the link between Messianic reflection and ethics, temporality, and interruption as a mode of political intervention appears. A dialogue that attempts, in summary, a critical task of violence attentive to its reproduction but also to its points of escape.