02/20/2025
The Destructive Character: A Cover
A monologue in which our host, Professor Robert Harrison, performs a “cover” of Walter Benjamin’s essay titled “The Destructive Character,” first published in 1931.
02/20/2025
The Destructive Character: A Cover
A monologue in which our host, Professor Robert Harrison, performs a “cover” of Walter Benjamin’s essay titled “The Destructive Character,” first published in 1931.
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It could occur to someone looking back over the debris of history that many of the calamities
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befalling peoples and nations originated in persons who had the traits of a destructive character.
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He would stumble on this fact one day, perhaps by chance, and the heavier the shock dealt
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to him, the better his chances of representing the destructive character of his own time.
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The destructive character knows only one watchword, make room, and only one activity, clearing
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away.
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His delight in tearing down is stronger than any hatred of what others have built up.
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Destroying rejuvenates because it clears away the traces of age.
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It cheers because everything cleared away means to the destroyer a complete reduction, indeed
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a rooting out of his own condition.
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What contributes most of all to the destroyer's Apollonian image is the realization of how
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the world is simplified when tested for its worthiness of destruction.
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The clarity that comes from demolition is the great bond embracing and unifying all that
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exists.
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It is a sight that affords the destructive character a spectacle of deepest harmony.
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From that spectacle comes his love of the stage and the exuberant leap of his musketeer.
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The destructive character is always blithely at work.
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It is nature that dictates his tempo, indirectly at least, for he must forestall her.
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Otherwise, she will take over the destruction herself.
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No vision inspires the destructive character.
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He has few needs, and the least of them is to know what will replace what has been destroyed.
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First of all, for a moment at least, empty space where the offices of the rest publica
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stood or the victim lived.
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One is sure to be found who needs this space without its being filled.
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Just as the creator seeks solitude, the destroyer must be constantly surrounded by people,
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witnesses to his efficacy.
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The destructive character is a signal.
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As a trigonometric sign is exposed on all sides to the wind, so he is exposed to rumour.
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To protect him from it is pointless.
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The destructive character has no interest in being understood, attempts in this direction
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he regards as superficial.
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Being misunderstood cannot harm him.
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On the contrary, he provokes it, just as oracles, those destructive institutions of the
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state provoked it.
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His understanding and chaos are his native element when others flail, he thrives.
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The destructive character is the enemy of the Itwee Man.
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The Itwee Man looks for comfort, and the ornamental case is its quintessence.
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The inside of the case is the velvet line trace that he has imprinted on the world.
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The destructive character obliterates even the traces of destruction.
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Not Athena, but Maga Cersei is his goddess.
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She of the magic potions who reduces her offenders to animals and psycho fans.
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The destructive character stands in the front line of the traditional lists.
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Some people pass things down to posterity by making them untouchable and thus conserving
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them.
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Others pass on situations by making them bracketable and thus liquidating them.
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The destructive character loaths the world for the fact that he is a late comer to it.
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Since its story unfolded without him, only in its unmaking does it become great again.
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The destructive character has the consciousness of historical man, whose deepest emotion
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is an insufferable mistrust of the course of things, and a readiness at all times to recognize
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that everything can go wrong.
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Therefore the destructive character is reliability itself.
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The destructive character sees nothing permanent.
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But for this very reason, he sees ways everywhere.
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Where others encounter walls or mountains, there too, he sees away.
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But because he sees away everywhere, he has to clear things from it everywhere.
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Not always by brute force, sometimes by the most refined.
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Because he sees ways everywhere, he always stands at a crossroads.
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No moment can know what the next will bring, what exists, he reduces to rubble.
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Not for the sake of rubble, but for the way leading through it.
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The destructive character lives from the feeling, not that life is worth living, but that
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suicide is not worth the trouble.
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The destructive man is essentially incredulous.
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He cannot believe his good fortune.
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When he cannot understand, and the question he takes with him to the grave is why God
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seems to love him.
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