The concept of violence-power and the paradoxical character of legal power in Walter Benjamin

Abstract

In this article, we introduce the concept of violence-power in Walter Benjamin (1892 – 1940), based on the essay entitled Towards the critique of power, critique of violence [Zur Kritik der Gewalt]. We use as the starting point of the criticism here in question the consideration of violence-power in the proper motion of the text by Walter Benjamim. Accordingly, this presentation has the following sequence: a) the refusal of methodological critique of the assumptions of legal positivism and natural law; b) the definition of the procedure of philosophy of history to establish the criteria for evaluation of power-violence; c) the identification of two principles: the inherent right of law-establishing violence (Rechtsetzende Gewalt) and law-preserving violence (Rechtserhaltende Gewalt). From there, we have established the following suspicious or hypotheses: 1) the right or legal power has a paradoxical role, establishing and maintaining dimensions of power-violence, i.e., insofar as the right or legal power claims, it creates its own suspension, produces the exception. 2) This contradiction is not explicit in the letter of the law, not explained by its formal character, but in reality in the historical sense discussed by Benjamin.