Cool Conduct

weimar and now: german cultur al critic ism

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5. Profane Illumination: Walter Benjamin and the Paris of Surrealist Revolu-
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6. Hollywood in Berlin: American Cinema and Weimar Germany, by
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7. Walter Benjamin: An Aesthetic of Redemption, by Richard Wolin
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14. In the Shadow of Catastrophe: German Intellectuals between Apocalypse
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15. Walter Benjamin’s Other History: Of Stones, Animals, Human Beings,
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17. Cool Conduct: The Culture of Distance in Weimar Germany, by Helmut
Lethen, translated by Don Reneau
18. In a Cold Crater: Cultural and Intellectual Life in Berlin, 1945–1948, by
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Cool Conduct
The Culture of Distance
in Weimar Germany

Helmut Lethen
Translated by Don Reneau

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS

Berkeley · Los Angeles · London
The translations of Bertolt Brecht’s “Report on a
Tick” (chapter 1) and “On the Infanticide Marie
Farrar” (chapter 6) are from Bertolt Brecht Poems,
1913–1956, ed. John Willett and Ralph Manheim
(New York: Methuen, 1976). They are reproduced
by permission of Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am
Main.
University of California Press
Berkeley and Los Angeles, California
University of California Press, Ltd.
London, England
© 2002 by
The Regents of the University of California

Lethen, Helmut.
[Verhaltenslehren der Kälte. English]
Cool conduct : the culture of distance in
Weimar Germany / Helmut Lethen ; translated
by Don Reneau.
p. cm. — (Weimar and now ; 17)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn 0-520-20109-4 (alk. paper)
1. Conduct of life. I. Title. II. Series.
bj1583.l5713 2002
943.085 — dc21 2001027679

Manufactured in the United States of America

11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
The paper used in this publication meets
the minimum requirements of ansi/niso z39.
48-1992 (r 1997) (Permanence of Paper). 
Contents

Preface to the American edition ix

Acknowledgments xiii

1. Fending Off Shame: The Habitus of Objectivity 1

2. The Rapture of Circulation and Schematicism 21
3. The Conduct Code of the Cool Persona 33
4. The Cool Persona in New Objectivity Literature 101
5. The Radar Type 187
6. The Creature 195

Afterword 215

Notes 217

Index 239
Preface to the
American Edition

Distance and closeness between people in their social space is a cen-

tral concern of cultural sciences. Arthur Schopenhauer formulated the
necessity of solving this problem in his famous parable of the freezing
porcupines. On a cold winter’s day an assortment of porcupines needs
to set an adequate distance among its members. Being too close, they
risk mutual injury from their quills; being too far apart, they are bound
to die of exposure. The porcupines, as Schopenhauer writes, are torn be-
tween closeness and distance until they settle on a moderate temperature
at which they can tolerate their situation.
This book is about “adequate distance,” which is a construct of cul-
tural history. The historical setting is Germany from 1914 to 1945, the
time of a thirty years’ war. The book depicts the traumatic situation af-
ter the capitulation of 1918. The familiar horizons of the Wilhelmian
empire are gone. After the loss of the authoritative system, people expe-
rience the immediate confrontation with modernity as a freezing shock.
In counterreaction, the ideal of a glowing community displaces the cold-
ness of industrialized civil society.
In this situation of a cult of community with its fatal political conse-
quences, the philosophical anthropologist Helmuth Plessner intervenes
with a manifesto on cool conduct, Grenzen der Gemeinschaft: Eine Kri-
tik des sozialen Radikalismus (The boundaries of community: a critique
of social radicalism). It is a document of a culture of distance, rare
and precious because German cultural history never appreciated it.

ix
x Preface

Plessner escapes from the intelligentsia’s traditional views on civiliza-

tion to discover the open horizon of possibilities in the anonymity of
public existence. Grenzen is also an early manifesto against the “tyr-
anny of intimacy,” as Richard Sennett labels it five decades later. In 1924
Plessner states: “As a guiding principle, authenticity is not right for
strangers. . . . After a sudden collision, the coldness of outer space must
sink between them.”
Plessner’s manifesto interests us today because of its uncanny rele-
vance to the problems that have arisen in the debate on communitarian-
ism. In a harsh polemic against the cult of Gemeinschaft (community),
Plessner stresses the dark side of the communitarian ideology. He re-
spects the longing for community, inasmuch as it is a wish to avoid sepa-
ration from others. However, his critique addresses the shortcomings
of that concept. The German ideology of community obscures violence
and hatred inside a community; it overlooks the necessity of, and the
right for, spheres of mistrust. It forgets that it is only a part of the social
framework, that its critique of liberal society benefits from the latter’s
basic principles. And, finally, its fundamentalism strips away the bound-
aries of the individual’s body, destroys his personal space; its cult of au-
thenticity and the reign of terror are kindred spirits.
Plessner contrasts the identikit picture of community as a symbiotic
companionship with an idea of society that lacks idyllic features. It is an
open system of unencumbered strangers. Abstract juridical norms regu-
late its sphere, in which human beings appear only as persons. In order
to function according to its laws, they must forget their primal embed-
ding in community, distance themselves from those spheres of trust “in
which we still kept ourselves warm.” An absence of values, rather than
shared moral ideas, marks its public space. It comprises the spheres of
education, of state and economy. The subspheres’ moral values must not
influence the public sphere:

In every sphere of human interactions, the idea of realizable order must take
precedence over the law of pure values. That is because what dims and re-
fracts the pure light of values is the complete disjunction in human existence
between familiarity and objectivity.

The public sphere consists of equal, disconnected persons, “not because

they are equal to, but because they are equal for each other.” Plessner
knows that individuals must use force to free themselves from their fa-
miliar space of trust, and that life in the “coldness of society” involves a
permanent balancing act.
Preface xi

Leading a life in alienation is an art. To do so, people have to develop

rules of a social game that will allow them to “get close without violat-
ing each other, and to separate without injury.” Social rites bring relief
to this balancing act: ceremony, diplomacy, and tact. Supplied with these,
individuals can achieve elegance and power. In these reflections Plessner
touches problems that will resurface fifty years later in the debate on
communitarianism. But Plessner believes he solved the problems, in a
single stroke, by constructing an anthropology of the social person.
From a communitarian viewpoint, the concept of liberalism as repre-
sented in John Rawls’s Theory of Justice starts at the point where mem-
bership in society outranks membership in community. It obliges individ-
uals to let go of familiar moral values in community to prove themselves
as juridical persons in society. Communitarians attacked Rawls’s “un-
encumbered self” as a figure of coldness. Ralf Dahrendorf called liber-
alism itself a “cold project.”
Indeed the concept raises broad questions about violent abstraction
from community existence, questions that Rawls was unable to answer:

On which passions, hunger, longings, eros is the necessary separa-

tion from familiar bondage to be based? Which interest can form
the reason for the art of separation?
How violent must the force to abstraction be in order to make a
community being a juridical person? How can this force be institu-
tionalized? Can institutionalized power find a mooring in the hu-
man psyche?

As he addresses these problems, Plessner does not follow Thomas

Hobbes’s plan to impel human beings to submit to social norms. In-
stead, Plessner assumes that individuals develop their inner nature to the
full in a violence-based public life. That is because—as his paradox
says—“man is artificial by nature.” The violence-based artificiality of
civilization is the genuine medium of life! The leading principles of this
anthropology are succinct: at birth, man is in an “eccentric” relation to
his environment. He needs the artificiality of a second nature, a cultural
context that he weaves around him in order to survive. Man is naturally
a cultural being; he has to conduct his life.
“Artificiality in action, thought, and dreams is the inner means by
which man comes to terms with himself as a natural being.” All expres-
sion of his psyche is subject to the fluctuations of the laws of symbolic
order. This stroke of genius is to offset a shortcoming of German cul-
xii Preface

tural history. But there are traces of the project’s violence in several for-
mulations of Plessner’s work.
The present book examines the curious dimensions of the anthropo-
logical principle, “man is artificial by nature.” It reconstructs the prin-
ciple’s historical background, as well in its involvement in Nietzschean
aestheticism as in its affinity to the pronouncements of the European
avant-garde. The study questions how a brief alliance of this thought
with that of the legal theorist Carl Schmitt could have come about.
Schmitt found an anthropological basis for his political friend-enemy
formula in Plessner’s texts of the 1920s. For his part, Plessner referred
to Schmitt in political questions. One of them became the crown jurist
of the Third Reich, the other took refuge in the Netherlands as an exile.
The codes of cool conduct form a hidden intersection of the various po-
litical camps in pre-Hitler Germany. Underneath the political differences
fantastic alliances developed: all of a sudden we glimpse a subterranean
link between Ernst Jünger and Bertolt Brecht, Walter Benjamin in corre-
spondence with Carl Schmitt, Werner Krauss, a resistance fighter, in
touch with the dadaist Walter Serner.
All these unlikely neighbors venerated—and here is the secret cen-
ter of this book—a conduct code of the seventeenth century: the Art
of Worldly Wisdom, written in 1647 by the Spanish Jesuit Balthasar
Gracián.
Cool Conduct in fact tries some sort of “border-surfing” to find out
whether this phase of Germany’s classic modernity had a shared radical
core beyond the political rhetoric. Having defined this core in all its
strangeness, we can more easily dismiss a catastrophic epoch that held
us spellbound for so long.

Rostock, 22 May 1998

Preface translated by Caroline Sommerfeld
Acknowledgments

Without the friendly suggestions and criticism voiced in conversations

with Helga Geyer-Ryan, Hortense von Heppe, and Heinz-Dieter Kitt-
steiner, this work would never have been completed. My thanks go as
well to Inka Mülder-Bach, Regina Busch, and Ulrike Baureithel, who
commented on drafts; and to Carl Wege, Richard Faber, Rüdiger Sa-
franski, Hans-Thies Lehmann, Joachim von der Thüsen, and Bernd
Weyergraf, with whom I had subsequent discussions. The book bene-
fited from the advice and objections of Carrie Lee Asman, Friedbert As-
petsberger, Teja Bach, Susanne van Briemen, Jean-Luc Evard, Joachim
Fischer, Dieter Hensing, Tony Kaes, Volker Kaiser, Reinhard Kapp,
Martin Lindner, Crystal Mazur, Helga Moser, Manfred Moser, Peter
Oesterreich, Klaus Rathschiller, Friedrich Rothe, Georg Scherer, Renate
Schlesier, Nicolaus Sombart, Caroline Sommerfeld, Frank Trommler,
Renate Voris, Waltraud Wende, Hannes Wendt, Ernest Wichner, Hubert
Winkels, Heinz Wismann, Temilo van Zantwijk, and Carsten Zelle.
Karl-Heinz Barck was kind enough to arrange access to the Werner-
Krauss Archiv in the former Akademie der Wissenschaften, where I en-
joyed the assistance of Horst F. Müller and Karin Preisigke. I thank my
colleagues Jattie Enklaar, Gregor Laschen, and Peter Wessels for having
helped make this book possible.
At the invitation of Herbert Wiesner, I was able to present a few of
my ideas at the Literaturhaus Berlin. Winfried Menninghaus encour-
aged me to publish them.

xiii
xiv Acknowledgments

The work was written under the auspices of the research program of
the Onderzoekinstitut voor Geschiedenis en Cultuur at the University of
Utrecht and would never have been finished without the remarkable as-
sistance of Lilo Roskams.
Nearly all the persons named raised serious objections to the after-
word, which, consequently, is the only chapter short enough to be my
responsibility alone.
chapter one

Fending Off Shame:

The Habitus of Objectivity

THE NORTH STATION

At about 11:00 a.m. on the first or second of November 1918, a

thirteen-year-old boy waited at Vienna’s North Station for his father to
return from the front. He waited for some hours, enduring the ice-cold
wind blowing across the tracks. Decades later the boy will recall seeing,
among the disembarking passengers after the train finally arrived, an of-
ficer shouting at his orderly to pick up the pace. The Putzfleck—to use
the Habsburg imperial army’s label for such a servant—was loaded and
overloaded with baggage, bathed in sweat despite the cold, barely able
to lift his head. Still he mumbled all the while, “Yes, sir, your most obe-
dient servant, sir, at the ready.”
Suddenly his path was blocked by a young soldier. “Comrade,” said
the soldier, “what are you running for? There’s plenty of time. We all
have plenty of time.” The soldier began taking suitcases out of the ser-
vant’s hands. The servant motioned silently, warning of the presence of
a superior officer who, for his part, was already preparing a fitting re-
sponse to the mutiny. Coming closer, however, the officer noted that a
band bearing the Polish national colors had replaced the imperial cock-
ade on the soldier’s cap. His resolve began to waver, and now he found
himself surrounded by other hostile parties, one of whom knocked the
hat off his head. He reached for his saber, but already the Putzfleck had

1
2 Fending Off Shame

thrown off what remained of his load and pulled himself erect. Taller
now than the officer, he boxed the latter resoundingly on both ears.
Clearly the officer had realized by now, in the storyteller’s words, that
“some weirdness” was afoot. The underlings all around him appeared
suddenly as unpredictable as “monsters in a nightmare.” They were
laughing at him. Leaping over the tracks, he fled the scene.1
It is tempting to add to this story of a lightning-quick metamorpho-
sis at the Vienna train station the inscription natura facit saltus. But it
has been retold to us as part of the introduction to Manès Sperber’s Sie-
ben Fragen zur Gewalt, his reflections on political violence, offered in op-
position to strategies that would seek to accelerate the historical process.
Sperber’s emphasis therefore falls on the necessity of slow evolution-
ary development. Recalling the incident from sixty years’ remove, he in-
scribes it with the words natura non facit saltus.
The scene at the North Station will remain in Sperber’s memory all
this time, functioning as a mythical image informing his thought: he will
come to understand institutions as no more substantial than a feather,
as fragile as a house of glass. The child waits for his father to return in the
more or less heroic garb of a soldier and instead experiences this scan-
dal. It leaves its mark. Sperber does not question the authenticity of the
tale. He even accords it a certain historical legitimacy, given the dubious
status of the Habsburg monarchy. More generally, however, his recollec-
tion of the scene casts it in the form of a compensatory daydream. A sub-
ject suddenly finds itself inhabiting a space where the law of gravity has
been annulled. Traditional entanglements are simplified to the point of
vanishing. The dense past, which has been bearing down like a knapsack
on a servile back, is easily tossed aside, to be forgotten like so much cast-
off baggage. Sperber describes here a time in which the desire to be freed
of the gravitational force of one’s own mentality finds expression even in
the jargon of soldiers.2

There are a number of perspectives from which we might describe such

acts of instantaneous transformation. History, theology, the dramatic
arts, and finally sociology all have their explanations of the incident at
the North Station. Encouraged by the French annales school, historians
distinguish between “long” activities, events repeated in succession over
time, and “short” ones, occurring once or only a few times.3 From this
historical perspective, the latter are exotic rather than typical, and con-
sequently of little value as knowledge. Of greater interest is the structure
Fending Off Shame 3

of long-term or conjunctural processes. In any case, a train station—like

the Pyrenees or a bend in the Loire River—is not the sort of context that
remains constant over time.
The “historical moment” nevertheless remains a historical category
that helps us understand the incident at the North Station. Historians
conceive of such moments as an “empty field,” across which conscious-
ness draws a caesura. As it appears in the consciousness of an observer,
the historical moment resembles “a collision between two billiard balls;
having no materiality of its own, it is rather the result of complicated
physical processes going on all around it.”4
By the time the event at the North Station moves into the range of the
young boy’s consciousness, however, it is already a repetition. By the
time his memory recomposes it, it has already been rendered in dramatic
form. Were this not the case, those present at the station would not be
able to recognize in concert its farcical element, which is the condition
of the fun they have with the officer.
We could rest content here with a note to the effect that the notion of
the farce comes from Marx, writing about Bonaparte in the Eighteenth
Brumaire. Since a farce’s subject is always someone other than the ob-
server, this is one of a small number of Marx’s statements that generally
goes uncontested. But the larger point is that the historical understand-
ing of the incident suggested by the physical analogy obscures a critical
element. The two billiard balls—the subject of the instantaneous meta-
morphosis, their collision constituting the historical moment—remain
beyond the reach of our analysis. Having arrived at the point of colli-
sion, they take a course we can describe in the language of stimulus and
response, but only at the cost of leaving unanalyzed the inner structure
of their motion.
Examined in detail, the train station scene is more differentiated than
the billiard ball analogy suggests. Since the observers’ reaction at the
train station is coherent and collective, it suggests that they experience
in the moment of their reaction a high degree of shared awareness. But
Sperber’s telling of the story attributes this differentiation only to the of-
ficer. He is acutely sensitive to the “weirdness” inherent in the scene
as soon as he gets an unmediated glimpse, through the glasshouse of
etiquette, at the “animal realm” of rebellion. The macabre aspect of the
situation, with the exception of the boy waiting for his father, escapes
the rude public. Yet, even given this capacity for nuance in the officer’s
consciousness, neither he nor his servant can function as anchors for
4 Fending Off Shame

the sort of cunning we know from Hegel’s master-slave dialectic, which

comes of the attribution of a psychological disposition to anonymous
processes. Individuals act and are utterly realistic in doing so, with no
thought of snatching chestnuts out of the fire for the world spirit.

Although a theory of the historical moment can help clarify dramatic in-
stants, it leaves us wanting as soon as we inquire more deeply into the
nature of the actors. The scene at the North Station raises questions that
we can answer only if we know more than the tale tells us about their
psychological dispositions. For example, is the transformation revers-
ible? Can the rebel be turned back into a Putzfleck? We must look else-
where for answers to questions such as these.
When the social sciences look for guidance to psychological theories
of individual behavior, they run into problems explaining behavior in
exceptional circumstances. Pointing out that “the meaning of the excep-
tional condition for jurisprudence is analogous to that of a miracle for
theology,” Carl Schmitt suggests an alternative approach.5 Theology,
however, conceives of transformation as a sudden awakening. The light
of theological revelation comes to the individual from outside, “like a
bolt of lightning” in a moment “of crisis for the arts of human enact-
ment.”6 The directionality of this kind of change thus runs counter to
what we see when the Putzfleck suddenly comes alive. Since a theologi-
cal approach presupposes the failure of individual sovereignty, we can ap-
ply the model of revelation to the North Station only by labeling the Putz-
fleck a model proletarian suddenly illuminated by the spirit of revolt.
Our question pertains more to the nature of the underlying anthro-
pology that warrants a theological assumption of abrupt changes in per-
sonal orientation. Here we come on the notion of the garment, which
served for centuries, in the evidence of the Reallexikon für Antike und
Christentum, as the prevailing image of radical changes in an individ-
ual’s conviction and temperament as a change of clothes. “After he had
laid aside persecution and joined the Apostles,” we read in a description
of the converted Paul. Or, also in the context of rebirth: “to doff the sol-
dier and don the sophist”; “to take off the purple robes of darkness and
put on a new man.”7 We shall see that the aesthetic prevailing among
the new objectivity generation in the 1920s preferred the reverse proce-
dure. It liked to take off the expressionistic garment of the new man in
order to wrap itself in Lucifer’s cloak.
It is part of the cultural history of the modern conscience that such
Fending Off Shame 5

changes of persona, orchestrated by the Pietist clergy as late as the eigh-

teenth century, met with skepticism from the bourgeois classes. The prob-
lem lay in not being able to discount the possibility of a merely external
change in attitude.8 The Pietists, forerunners of our own “long-term
conscience,” welcomed signs of instantaneous awakening but could
not resist tormenting themselves with the problem of how to maintain
a transformation over the long run. They put considerable stress on in-
ner motivation, so, even while compelling the conversion of lower-class
types bound for the gallows, they viewed with mistrust any signs of
overly rapid changes. They could not altogether still their suspicion that
what motivated the sinners was the prospect of being led to their execu-
tion in the white robes of the converted. The idea of a complicated mech-
anism of self-direction as part of individual psychology—David Ries-
man’s inner compass, which resists any sudden change of orientation
brought about by an external stimulus—is a later product of bourgeois
modernity, laid superficially over an archaic constitution but never en-
tirely popular with the lower classes.

The phenomenon of a prebourgeois “rational type”—a person who was

able to adapt personal behavior to external influences with no feelings
of guilt—was the parallel discovery of a number of historical anthropol-
ogists in the 1930s. Norbert Elias, reconstructing martial scenes from
the Middle Ages, depicts the psychological apparatus of self-control
as scarcely developed. “Rather sudden transformations,” he finds, are
common, and threats of physical force always accompany the disciplin-
ing affects.9 After the First World War, of course, it was hardly necessary
to reach back to medieval times to reconstruct a military society. What
Sigmund Freud termed the “artificial groups” formed by institutions
like the army and the Freikorps were in evidence all around, and within
them there was nothing extraordinary about quick changes of persona.
Finding evidence of rapid reorientation on the part of soldiers leads
us back to the behavior of the character allotted the more differentiated
role in our scene at the North Station, namely, the officer.10 Failures of
conscience or nerve may have been most commonly attributed to the
masses, but we are not dealing here with an exclusively lower-class phe-
nomenon. In accomplishing sudden shifts from the formality of etiquette
to barbarism, leaders did not distinguish themselves from the team; it
would be more accurate to say that it was incumbent upon officers to be
able to make just that shift expertly.
6 Fending Off Shame

Psychoanalytic explanations of such sudden transformations assume

that the institution of the army, in the midst of industrial society, repre-
sents “cold culture.”11 It encourages the hibernation of the ego, which
is responsible for psychological self-direction. When the ego, the sup-
posed guarantor of coherence, balance, and continuity, loses its direc-
tion, quick transformations and discontinuities of motion become pos-
sible. The military has need of people who are specialized in quick
adaptation to extremely rapidly changing situations.
There is an extensive literature in which officers, indulging the aes-
thetic appeal of “horror,” depicted their own enactment of “behav-
ioral dissonance” (to use a contemporary term). They had no need to
reach back to prebourgeois sources in their search for representational
devices; images of a more archaic individual constitution, wholly suit-
able for producing uncanny effects, were ready to hand in the horror lit-
erature of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and keep us relatively
well informed about such changes of persona in the upper class.12
But when we turn to the proletarian literature of the time, it disap-
points our expectations. Since the characters of proletarian literature are
more often rooted in notions of a shared mentality, the few quick shifts
we do find tend to be bound more to the image of betrayal or ascribed
to the anarchism of marginalized groups. The functionary, on the other
hand, although belonging to the other-directed type, presents us with an
exemplary model of long-term internal affective stabilization: the func-
tionary is required to practice the art of executing changes in policy as
if they were not changes.
Nevertheless, it is finally in the literature of the avant-garde that our
findings become really rich. In the decades separating the first futurist
manifesto from Ernst Jünger’s Der Arbeiter (1932), the avant-garde
gives shape to a type displaying all the essential elements of a prebour-
geois subjective constitution.13 This reach back to a “subcomplex” sub-
ject distinguishes the avant-garde from modernists like Robert Musil,
Thomas Mann, or Hugo von Hofmannsthal, whose intricately difficult
subjects are able to endure the process of historical acceleration only
from a healthy distance. The artistic figure of the prebourgeois subject
was as if magnetically drawn to the military, less in pursuit of enlighten-
ment than a kind of wake-up call. We find characters here ranging from
those beset by “an electric bell going off nonstop inside them” (Ernst
Jünger) to mechanical men in the paintings of the Italian pittura meta-
fisica, to the constructs of the Proletkult.
It is tempting to draw into our discussion at this point the aesthetic
Fending Off Shame 7

of “suddenness,” with which Karl Heinz Bohrer illuminates the avant-

garde’s fascination with decisionism.14 The sign of suddenness, accord-
ing to Bohrer, comes in for particular dramatization toward the end of
the nineteenth century. For a generation of Nietzsche readers, temporal
awareness had concentrated on the “dangerous moment”: an instant in
which the “eruption of the irrational” becomes an aesthetic phenome-
non that is no longer embedded in any causal explanation.
But a simple transfer of Bohrer’s theory of suddenness to our scene at
the train station would force a drastic change in it. Sperber, the theorist
of evolutionary historical change, composes the scene as a panorama. To
turn the tale into a document in the history of the horror aesthetic, we
would have to limit the narrative perspective exclusively to the officer’s
perception. Encapsulation of the gaze in a single figure still believing
himself to be king of his castle makes it possible to see in the phenome-
non of rebellion a “horrifying cancellation of the reality principle.” But
the account would leave out the singularity of the officer’s horror, which
makes up only one element of the farce, whereas it is the farce as a whole
that serves as our medium of reflection.
Thus we can frame the anecdote in a way that directly counters the
theory of suddenness; in the end the theory serves only to double the per-
spectives of the self-assured actors it describes. And yet we could, from
Bohrer’s standpoint, raise an objection to Sperber’s recall of the scene
from memory: his recollection presupposes an epic sovereignty that is
wholly removed from the shock experienced by contemporary eyewit-
nesses; it reduces the stuff of dramatic fascination to material diced
neatly into moral categories.
What best serves our purpose here, however, is a closer look at the
rebellious young soldier’s statement. Against the backdrop of the era’s
characteristic speed fetish, his intervention may have been sudden, but
the burden of it was not: “We all have plenty of time”—as if time had
volume and could be divided into parts. For Marx, revolutions were the
speeding locomotives of history, but the soldier asks, why hurry? Unlike
the avant-garde, the soldier is not obsessed with tying his action to the
forward point of the arrow of time. He acts instead from the standpoint
of a multinational space, and his subversive action lays no claim to har-
mony with the accelerating thrust of modernization. With the disinte-
gration of a larger transnational political space, the factor of national
space comes to play a critical role.
The discipline of history, taking the categories of repetition and space
as its primary interest today, attributes a merely novelistic character to
8 Fending Off Shame

narratives of historical leaps. Fernand Braudel remarks dismissively on

the “myth” of the barbarians’ impact on Europe; they tarried long, he
says, at the door to the house of higher culture, knocking repeatedly, be-
fore they were ever allowed in. “Their triumph was short-lived, and they
were quickly reabsorbed into the very spaces they believed they had con-
quered.” And then, he summarizes, “the door of the conquered house
slammed shut again.”15
Did the European avant-garde, in the decades from 1910 to 1930,
suffer a similar fate? Do the spatial categories with which Braudel oper-
ates even retain any validity for bourgeois modernity? What seems to
comprise the larger space today is the world market, which reincorpo-
rates the other that it itself produces.

THE DRAMATURGY OF DISGRACE

Shame isolates. It operates on the “dark side of life, where an embar-

rassed silence descends over a feeling of having been wounded in one’s
dignity.”16 The acute breach of self-esteem the officer must have experi-
enced makes him the focus of a crowd, in which some members are
hostile, some indifferent. The sociology of shame tells us that his mood
at this moment is shot through by two simultaneous sensations, both
dreadfully certain, of being discriminated against, on the one hand, and
of being exposed just as ruthlessly, on the other. Shame is a reaction to
the perception of having been degraded in the eyes of others. The cap-
tain, in the language of the warrior caste to which he belongs, suffers
“disgrace.”
In Sperber’s scene, all the elements of a theatrics of disgrace are visi-
ble. The signs of disgrace are bound to bodies in action, so that few
words are required for its expression.17 “In a shame-based culture, the
subject is engaged in a never-ending drama,” “in a scene of projection,
mirroring, and remirroring, which is fundamentally distinct from the
theatrical form of the tribunal characteristic of a guilt-based culture.”18
Attitudes, gestures, and motor reactions are arrayed in opposition in the
enactment of shame at the station: excess and restraint, aggression and
flight, the sword and the hand, panic and calm, sovereignty and subordi-
nation—gradations are neither necessary nor present; attitudes change
abruptly, with no transition between being bowed and erect, between
being concealed and exposed. The nearly mute constellation of power is
static, like a woodcut.
But from the narrator’s perspective, the scene belongs to the genre
Fending Off Shame 9

marked most essentially by instability. From the angle of the “raw” pub-
lic, it is a farce: resounding laughter accompanies the flight of the cap-
tain. There is a tragic quality to the events from the viewpoint of the of-
ficer and those who sympathize with him; paralyzing horror, however,
is reserved for the boy waiting on the platform. Every disgrace seeks its
genre, the most popular of which is the farce.
The sociology of shame could take the scene at the North Station
as a textbook example of the way external regulators of social behavior
function. The mechanics of the interaction proceed without a hitch; in-
ternal guides to behavior are imperceptible, though their concealment in
no way interferes with understanding the scene. Among the antagonists
in the critical instant there is no misunderstanding. Such communication
in exceptional circumstances is as unfamiliar to the officer as it is to the
servant, yet both react automatically with the respective gestures of their
stations. The captain reaches for his sword, the underling strikes a blow.
The Putzfleck responds with an action that an officer in more stable times
would reserve for punishing an insult delivered by someone unworthy
of offering further satisfaction. By boxing the officer’s ears, the servant
manifests the sudden exchange of power positions.
The officer’s disgrace consists in having lost face, having been relieved
precipitously of the command he was in the act of exercising. And there
is no conceivable ritual that could restore his wounded honor before this
public. The diffuse gathering of the urban masses here is as typical as it
is accidental and formless; nevertheless, its laughter suddenly lends it the
appearance of homogeneity. Only the laughter makes it possible to talk
of a collective subject: the mutineers.
The officer persists in his domination past the moment of the train’s
arrival: he parts the masses like a snowplow. In being shamed at pre-
cisely that moment, he suffers a paramount disgrace. He is deluged,
swept away, in his defeat by the perceptions of countless witnesses. His
habitus—his constitution or demeanor; in this case the unstoppable mo-
mentum of his stride, the watchful gaze he tosses back at the crowd—is
subverted, violated: he becomes the object of an enactment of humilia-
tion. Perhaps the boy blushes in his stead, but the officer, in the grip of
his reflex to flee, spares himself the sight.
As we know, the scene is a harmless prelude to disgrace of a wholly
different caliber. Disgrace—Blamage—is one of the key words of the
postwar turmoil, and the officers’ revenge was not long in coming. It
turns out that the instantaneous metamorphosis of the Putzfleck was re-
versible, even if the system of resubjugation worked more slowly than
10 Fending Off Shame

the original transformation. From the battles that took place in the Ber-
lin newspaper district in 1919 to the Reichstag session in 1933 that
passed the enabling acts of the dictatorship, we find scenes of horrific
shaming and disgrace. To overcome shame, the offended parties donned
the masks of the new political movements. “In fact, the forms of humil-
iation to which the masked bands resort with impunity are endlessly
manifold,” as Léon Wurmser remarks about the Shrove Tuesday pro-
cessions.19 They would ultimately amount to something like a fascist
carnival.

“Status inconsistencies,” we learn from sociology, “are hothouses of so-

cial shame.”20 If that is accurate, the constant threat to distinct bound-
ary markings in the Weimar Republic generated considerable warmth.
People, seeking escape from the heat of shame, trying to establish them-
selves as separate from it, assumed a variety of attitudes marked by their
“coolness.” In doing so, they were obliged to elaborate doctrines of cool
behavior.
Members of the intelligentsia sought—as the young Sperber did in
our scene—to remove themselves from the mechanisms of disgrace by
becoming observers. Their success in doing so depended largely on be-
ing able to distinguish their own self-image from the frightening image
they constructed of the masses.21 We see this at the North Station. The
soldier’s mutinous act does not transform the crowd into a revolution-
ary mob but into an audience for a theatrical event appealing to “vul-
gar” tastes. “Gesture—not being,” says Karl Jaspers of the “masses” in
1931, and in this incivility he will glimpse an essential characteristic.22
Inhabitants of the hothouse culture of shame who manage to cool them-
selves will take every opportunity to note with fluent disdain the distinc-
tion between themselves and the visible gestural language they see all
around in their environment. “Experience rather than existence, end-
less mimicry”—this is Jaspers’s critique of the masses’ existence.23 In the
play of gestures offered to them on the platform, such masses get their
money’s worth. Like the officer, the readers of Gustave Le Bon’s 1895
study of mass psychology will learn to see in the servant a mere autom-
aton with no will of his own, dominated by base drives and destructive
energy.24 And—if they happen to be of a humanistic disposition—they
will identify with the boy, who involuntarily assumes the role of an eth-
nographer observing savages engaged in a primitive shaming ritual,
while waiting for the glorious father.25
Fending Off Shame 11

FORSAKING THE CULTURE OF CONSCIENCE

Among the distinguishing characteristics of the reaction to the shocking

experience of slaughter in World War I is an absence of tribunals, which
are among the rituals of a culture based on guilt. The fact that civilized
nations could engage in such horror, that individuals were able to
suspend conscience for the sake of military operations neither informed
introspection nor generated confessions. We would be much nearer
the mark in saying that the collective gaze following World War I was
averted from the complex of issues identified by a guilt culture.
Perhaps, in this averting of the gaze, a marginal artistic movement
such as dadaism coincides with the postwar mood of the simple infan-
tryman. Certainly, research identifies more and more signs that the pe-
ripheral current of dadaism lent expression to a widespread unwilling-
ness to go on applying the internalized lash of a guilt culture. “All the
symptoms of a bad conscience (ding!), guilt (dong!), like blushing, pal-
ing, stuttering, shifty eyes, a compulsion to utter the revealing word, and
so forth—per procura, nonsense,” we read in Walter Serner’s dadaist
manifesto of 1920.26 From another angle, Helmuth Plessner warns
against the fatal consequences for morality itself of an overemphasis on
conscience.27 Brecht’s “Report on a Tick,” in his Hauspostille (Devo-
tions), describes the torment of an internalized guilty conscience created
by Christian religion:

1
Through our dreams of childhood
In the bed of milky white
Round apple trees there haunted
The man in violet.
2
Lying in the dust near him
We watched how he sat. Idly.
And stroked his pigeon
And basked by the pathway.
3
He swigs blood like a tick
Cherishes the smallest gift
And all that is yours he’ll take
So that he’s all you have left.
4
And you who gave up for him
Your joy and others’ too
12 Fending Off Shame

And lie, a beggar, on the ground

He will not know you.
5
To spit right in your face
Is splendid fun, he’d think
And he will lie in wait
To catch you on the blink.
6
After dark he’ll stand and pry
Over your windowsill
And go off huffily
Remembering every smile.
7
And if you feel joyful
And laugh however low
Upon his little organ
A mournful tune he’ll play.
8
If someone mocks at him
He’ll plunge in heaven’s blue
And yet he made the sows
In his own image too.
9
Of all besides he loves
Most by deathbeds to sit.
He haunts our last fevers
That man in violet.28

The crisis of conscience produces a longing for the externalities of a

shame culture. This is not a new motif, and certainly Friedrich Nietzsche
had been there all along to reinforce it. Now, however—following
the debacle of the guilt culture in the world war—the motif falls on par-
ticularly favorable ground. The desire to throw off the “enormous com-
plication of the guilty personality,”29 in which nineteenth-century psy-
chology had entangled the image of the subject, finds expression in the
writings of the new objectivity. In new objectivity’s images, individuals
are no more than motion-machines, feelings are mere motor reflexes,
and character is a matter of what mask is put on. External judgments
and rules guide individual behavior, and response to the web of others’
perceptions helps define the self. The noise of the street penetrates into
the house of the psyche. Benjamin notes in 1921,

It is not possible to define a concept of an outer world in juxtaposition to the

bounded concept of the effect-producing individual. Interaction character-
izes everything between the individual and the outer world; the respective
Fending Off Shame 13

spheres of activity between inner and outer cross over into each other. . . .
The outer found by the acting individual can in principle be referred back in
whatever degree one likes to the inner, the inner in whatever degree back to
the outer.30

Critical contemporaries trace the change in norms to various factors. In

1915 Freud spoke in his Reflections on War and Death about the disen-
chantment born of the experience of seeing the lofty ethical norms of civ-
ilized states lose their validity overnight, of learning that people were ca-
pable of “deeds of such cruelty, maliciousness, betrayal, and brutality”
as would not have been thought possible for nations of that level of cul-
tural development.31 It was easier, on the basis of an observation like
that, to conclude that conscience owes its existence to external force and
social anxiety, that its purported moral framework could be thrown off
“like a coat” upon a change in the social constellation, and that the pro-
pensity for cruelty must be among the most basic of human drives: “The
war causes the primal self in us to make its reappearance.”32
If, however, the conscience is nothing but the internalization of a vio-
lent external authority, if the superego, which is supposed to hold aggres-
sion in check, is capable of suspending judgment in favor of external au-
thorities such as the military command, there seems no point in seeking
the source of personal “guilt” in a conflict of conscience. The gaze turns
outward; attention turns to the origins of moral norms and the genesis
of the conscience as their supervisory apparatus in violent society.
Here in 1915 (and again in 1930, at greater length in Civilization and
Its Discontents), Freud maintains that the conscience, which in a guilt
culture acquires the function of an internal regulator, actually devel-
ops only in an advanced stage in the history of civilization. This insight,
the late internalization of external authorities, inspired the cultural an-
thropology of the interwar years.33 Freud’s idea honed the perception of
ethnologists. It guided their search for examples of societies still in an
earlier evolutionary stage, in which individual consciousness of guilt, a
result of the tension existing between a strict superego and a subordinate
ego, had not yet taken form. The American anthropologists Margaret
Mead and Ruth Benedict found cultures of this type in their field re-
search and termed them “shame cultures.”
Although research since the Second World War has made it evident
that the strict polarization of guilt cultures and shame cultures cannot
be maintained on empirical grounds, it remains instructive for our pur-
poses as a historical model. The polarization is itself interesting as a
myth, the reality of a wish projection that was persuasive to a genera-
14 Fending Off Shame

tion of critical intellectuals. The construction of the antithesis in pure

form will enable us to see anew certain cultural aspects of the period fol-
lowing the First World War. Looking at these aspects in combination
with the other reigning dichotomy of the Weimar period, between cul-
ture and civilization, we see a shift.34 If the new objectivity intelligentsia
has a single common trait, it is a provocative decision in favor of the con-
cept of civilization.
The concept of culture, as developed in the German tradition, encom-
passes the intellectual, religious, and moral sphere, in sharp distinction
to the sphere of the economy and technology. The concept of civiliza-
tion, in contrast, favored in the English and French traditions, encom-
passes technology, science, and more diffuse worldviews. Alongside these
collective human accomplishments, the concept of civilization also in-
cludes behavior. During the war, the opposed “signal concepts” of cul-
ture and civilization had been supposed to stabilize the self-consciousness
of the national collective; 35 Thomas Mann’s reflections of a nonpolitical
man are to be counted among the symptomatic texts offered in oppo-
sition to the concept of civilization. From the perspective of culture,
“merely civil behavior”—and societies that appeared to content them-
selves with it—was judged deficient. As a cultural ideal, civilization
seemed to negate interiority, authenticity, and the subtleties of truth that
are not manifest in behavior.
In the decade of this new objectivity, from 1920 –30, the disappoint-
ment caused by a culture at war informs the intelligentsia’s critique,
which stresses the uncivilized nature of a culture capable of conducting
war. In the ideological sphere, the critique exposes the degree to which
culture allows barbarism and owes its existence to violence; in the sphere
of the sociology of knowledge, it concentrates attention on the func-
tional accomplishment of cultural values within civilization.
The turn of the new objectivity from a concept of culture, with a fo-
cus on the superego, to civilization keyed to behavior, does not escape
the polar tension; the exaggerated welcome bestowed upon civilization
itself betrays the unbroken presence of the German culture complex. A
further expression of the persisting tension is the hybrid structure of new
objectivity jargon, which continues to betray the pull exerted by two
poles, even if its typical formulations blatantly discount culture: 36
Radio, Marconigram, and telephoto release us from national isolation into
the world community. Our dwellings will become more mobile than ever:
the mass apartment complex, sleeping car, houseboat, and transatlantic
liner undermine the local concept of Heimat.37
Fending Off Shame 15

The specific energy channeled by Emil Fischer in synthesizing grape sugar

is a match for the greatest human accomplishments [1924].38
The most trivial fact concerning the connection between character and en-
docrine balances offers a better view of the soul than a five-story idealistic
system [1923].39
The proof that a newspaper is right is that someone buys it [1926].40
The way a man moves mirrors the meaning of his life [1930].41
The characteristic gaze of today, the mercantile gaze into the heart of
things, is the advertisement [1928].42

Looking at the turn toward a code of civil behavior in terms of a sche-

matic polarization between guilt and shame cultures, we can glimpse as-
pects of postwar German thought that its practitioners were less aware
of as they focused on civilization. Their exaggerated affirmation of a cul-
ture of exteriority, rooted in shame, could not nullify the effects of a per-
sisting internalized culture of guilt. As contemporary anthropologists
defined it, a shame culture amounted to a transparent complex of con-
ventions, in which the external compulsions regulating behavior are visi-
ble.43 The individual follows a self-enacted dramaturgy intended to se-
cure the respect of others for his or her person. Dignity is the keyword.
The appraisal of others’ visible behavior and reactions takes the place of
self-knowledge; subjective motives carry little or no weight for purposes
of public judgment, which, when it is negative, plunges the individual in
question into a profound sense of shame.
During the interwar years, critical minds found variants of a shame
culture captivating for a number of reasons. Fixing the genesis of inter-
nal authority in social violence, a shame culture enabled them to subvert
the fiction of the self-made individual that is part of the concept of a guilt
culture; and it offered a context for the construction of a self more able
to bear the immense pressures that rapid modernization placed on the
bourgeois individual.
What we would now describe as a mythical wish projection was
made up of both destructive elements and aspects of a necessary adap-
tation to modernization. The image of a society that had moved beyond
a culture of conscience held out to new objectivity intellectuals the con-
siderable and widespread appeal of suggesting the possibility of realiz-
ing social civility. Thus we find surprising correspondences between the
cultural anthropologists’ polarized schematic and the polarity that Peter
Suhrkamp and Bertolt Brecht proposed as the foundation for epic the-
ater.44 Brecht’s involvement in classic Japanese No theater, which itself
owes its origins to a cultural tradition of shame, offers a valuable hint.
16 Fending Off Shame

In both cases, attention is turned to external influence of convention,

which has the virtue of appearing artificial and potentially subject to
change.
In a culture based on shame, “perceived being” (Pierre Bourdieu) pre-
dominates over other possible constructions of existence. Interior signs
refer back to where they are grounded in the body; feelings are expressed
through physical gestures. By causing the self to appear as the object
of others’ perceptions, “shame documents itself through the body.”45
These various qualities recommend a shame culture to the new media:
In reality, what film requires is external action and nothing in the way of in-
trospective psychology. . . . Seeing from outside is appropriate to film and is
what makes it important. . . . If the individual appears as an object, causal
interrelations become decisive. The great American comedies also present the
individual as an object, and might as well have audiences made up entirely of
reflexologists.46

Since this “visible individual” (Béla Balázs) can be photographed, the

cinema can establish as its domain the once dark archive of the soul
enacting itself through gesture. In the context of a shame culture, the
arts can engage directly on the practical level in debates concerning the
meaning of “perceived being.”
If the projections of the civilized shame culture tend toward the ex-
clusivity of an isolated observer, they have the merit of offering insight
into the mechanisms of mass society, which can be studied with relatively
little anxiety. Karl Jaspers’s frightening image of the masses (“gesture—
not being”) acquires a certain value. In the eyes of new objectivity art-
ists, the masses at least have the advantage that their being is easily de-
cipherable, appearing to them in the status of an open book of gestures.
It is at this point, however, that minds begin to diverge. A compari-
son of images of a shame culture arising in the German context with
the even-tempered registration of mass social phenomena on the part of
American sociologists such as George Herbert Mead, David Riesman,
and Erving Goffman reveals that German writers, as a rule, present shame
culture as a model of modern behavior in a heroic world and conceive
of its inhabitants either in the context of a prebourgeois anthropology
or in anticipation of a futuristic machine man. The achievement of Amer-
ican sociologists in the 1920s consists in perceiving the phenomena of
mass society without deploring the loss of the subject or referring to a
heroic past and future while keeping an awareness of the genesis of ethi-
cal norms in social force.
There are two explanations for the typical German weakness for her-
Fending Off Shame 17

oism. First is the Nietzschean will, which operates in the realm of the he-
roic: a future humanity will be made up of “barbarians” who coura-
geously set themselves back a step on the evolutionary ladder in order to
attain civilization. Second is the felt experience that heroism is neces-
sary: when hopes for the positive forward movement of history are at an
end, half-measures will accomplish nothing.47 So it is that the new ob-
jectivity comes into being in the aftermath of expressionism, which it
sees as turbulent inner experience of loss stemming from the memory
of defeat and entangled in a culture of guilt. It bears the marks of a heroi-
zing shame culture. A favored slogan in this context, which can be read
in schematic polarization within the opera Mahagonny, runs natura fa-
cit saltus.48
The sentimental jargon of new objectivity thinkers, however, cuts
both ways, and in this it becomes apparent that their forthright attitudes
could do no more than draw a thin veil over the culture of guilt.49

CODES OF CONDUCT

Remarkably enough, the Weimar Republic, a time of extreme instabil-

ity, burgeoning status insecurity, and dramatic oppositional tension, of-
fered fertile ground for highly artificial elaborations of shame-based cul-
tures. The loss of undisputed legitimacy on the part of social institutions
was compensated for by the proliferation of codes of conduct, which in
times of normative transformation are generally produced in great num-
ber. When social crisis takes hold, the external voices to which individ-
uals have attended are no longer clearly audible and the interior seat of
judgment is no longer credited. In such circumstances, codes of conduct
operate as written receptacles for external directives to guide individual
behavior. They appear in a number of forms: as paeans to the objectiv-
ity of the scientific attitude or how-to books on marriage; as the cate-
chism of this or that political camp or Walter Serner’s Handbrevier für
Hochstapler, a guidebook for the confidence man; as the pedagogical
doctrine of architects or city planners; in the form of anthropological
theory or Brecht’s lyrical Devotions; or in the principles of the philoso-
phy of law. The dynamic element in these codes of conduct is a desire for
masking and concealment, which, in situations threatening shame, of-
fers protection:
The mask transforms a person who has been exposed in a shaming way into
a shameless performer; it turns one who is afraid of being perceived as weak
into someone who is seen and feared as being strong.50
18 Fending Off Shame

Amid the unmanageable complexity of postwar society, in situations of

economic insecurity and uncertain social status, the rules inscribed in
codes of conduct operate to draw elementary distinctions: between what
is one’s own and what is other; between inner and outer, male and fe-
male. They mark separate spheres; they regulate forms of expression
and realize the self’s equilibrium. They recommend and describe tech-
niques of mimicry in the face of a violent world, subordinating every-
thing to the protection of an individual’s defenseless objectivity. They
promise to lessen vulnerability, suggesting measures that will immunize
people against the shame to which the collective subjects them.
Modern codes of conduct encourage people to acquire the skills they
need for strategic self-enactment; the aim is the training of a functional
ego. The codes represent an attempt to turn the effects of social distinc-
tion over to the personal direction of the individual, transforming the
convivial arts of separating and combining into learnable techniques. In
doing so, they generate two paradoxes, which typify the dual nature of
objectivity. On the one hand, codes imply an acceptance of the individ-
ual’s status as an object; on the other, they stubbornly hold out the pos-
sibility of making that same individual the master of his or her fate.
Their affirmation represents a desperate attempt on the part of the new
objectivity generation to restore to itself a sense of agency by exploring
possible interventions into the workings of external influences. The goal
is, through the cunning of concession, to participate in the forces that
drive the historical process.
The strict observance of rules designed to vouchsafe distinction, how-
ever, necessarily causes the individual to lose hold of the levers of direc-
tion. Because the essence of the culture of conscience consists in the ex-
pectation that people will behave according to norms even without the
threat of external sanctions, the new rules of behavior must keep con-
sciousness alert to the uninterrupted presence of the supervisory gaze of
the other (see Figure 1). The rules’ promise of relief from self-directed
responsibility easily gives way to an imperative of absolute alertness,
and, as we shall see, in most cases the codes of conduct of the period set
a mood of “chronic alert.” Shame cultures never come into existence to
benefit individuals; they lead naturally to the next step, which is absorp-
tion into an institution: outside institutions, codes of conduct accom-
plish little. While suggesting the possibility of successful individual inter-
ventions into the social power struggle (through the mediation of rules),
all codes actually occasion is the self-expression of a lifestyle. Codes of
Fending Off Shame 19

1. The uninterrupted presence of the supervisory gaze of the other

(Herbert Bayer, Einsamer Großstädter [Lonely city dweller], 1932. With the permis-
sion of VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn, and Bauhaus-Archiv, Berlin.)

conduct thus become what their new objectivity creators want most to
avoid: they become documents of the expressivity of objectivity.51
In the 1930s the description of the great shaming theater of social
struggle rises to its literary high point. Elias Canetti’s Crowds and Power
offers a panoramic depiction of the mute constellations of power. Here
is a comprehensive interpretive analysis of body positions that builds on
descriptions of the shame culture by writers in the 1920s.52 Canetti de-
ciphers the sign language of subjugation and subordination. Fearing con-
20 Fending Off Shame

tact with others, individuals flee into the masses, where they find pro-
tection against shame. They are relieved of the discipline of distancing
themselves; there is no need to practice personal techniques of separa-
tion to mark off areas of trust from areas of otherness, because that task
is taken over by the mass formation itself, which simultaneously holds
out the promise of an enormous expansion of the boundaries of indi-
vidual personality. Canetti describes forms of mass behavior, but his ob-
servations apply much more readily to the mechanisms of “artificial
groups” (Freud), such as the army or a party apparatus. His book
on gestures becomes in fact a contribution to natural history. What
he holds up to view are creatures failing to escape the dictates inscribed
schematically in their bodies.
In the image of the creature, the cool persona’s central ambition to
become a self-conscious agent of history deteriorates into its opposite.
The suppressed sense of remaining subject to blind fate is the underly-
ing motivation for its magical thinking. What the present book demon-
strates is how uncannily close the two images are: the heroic images of
the self-confident subject striding across the civil war landscape, carry-
ing its slogans—natura facit saltus and distinguo, ergo sum—and the
images of the creature, whose bodily existence dictates its perceptual
and behavioral range.
c h a p t e r t wo

The Rapture of Circulation

and Schematicism
Beauty is either the end result of a parallelogram of forces, or
it does not exist at all.
Theodor W. Adorno, Funktionalismus Heute

On 11 March 1932, the Frankfurter Zeitung published a sketch by Sieg-

fried Kracauer of a gloomy railway underpass near the Charlottenburg
Station in Berlin. The ceiling, constructed of countless riveted iron gird-
ers, appears to the author to sink gradually deeper and deeper into the
earth, prompting comparison to a nightmare. Pedestrians passing
through the tunnel seemed gripped in permanent displeasure. A few
chronic inhabitants—a baker in white, a beggar with a harmonica, an
old woman—are reduced to reliefs against sooty brick walls, absorbed
into the functionality of the underpass while others, bent on their in-
dividual courses, lacking the purposefulness of a crowd, quicken their
steps.1 Why does this cellarlike passage made of bricks, iron, and con-
crete horrify the observer, although its usefulness is not in question?
“Probably the contradiction between the closed, immovable construc-
tion system and the streaming human chaos produces the horror,” Kra-
cauer speculates. What strikes him is the junction of the compact func-
tional structure and the fragmented crowd, the systematicity of dead
material and living chaos, the claim the underpass itself stakes on brute
endurance, in contrast to the transience of generations passing through
it. Sixty-five years later it is still there, as a trip to Stuttgarter Platz will
confirm.
Kracauer’s sensitivity might point to a bad case of claustrophobia if
the philosophical element in the sketch were not also evident. As a sym-
bol of the “sovereign indifference of actual history toward the demands

21
22 Rapture of Circulation and Schematicism

of its significatory logic” (Max Scheler, in 1926), the underpass reflects

the anxiety of an intelligentsia tuned for dialectics, confronting the un-
dialectical coarseness of history. People who count on the dialectic of the
historical process find themselves horrified when the course of things
deteriorates into a pointless muddle of functional “system” and random
anarchy.
Still, the plunge into childish fears the author reports, from simply
crossing through a cellarlike passage, scarcely seems an adequate ground
for his horror. His discontent stems more from the experience of his per-
ception of urban phenomenon suddenly splitting into “construction”
and “chaos,” which he had previously been able to blend together in an
image of a pulsing urban life. A polarity Kracauer believed he had long
since overcome in his encounter with philosophical vitalism confronts
him anew from without, as the irrefutable power of the object world.
The crass polarization of Kracauer’s sketch reflects the specific color-
ation of thought in the year 1932. The sketch is informed by a vision.
Kracauer calls for “more beautiful constructions”; he demands that they
also be made “to a certain extent of people.” But what can he have
meant by that? Crystalline housings, phalansteries in the spirit of the
French utopians a century past? Marching columns? What mass orna-
ments could he have had in mind that would promise an anxiety-free
passage through history, apparently transcending the indifference of me-
tallic systems and lived meaning?

POLARIZATION: PERSONA VERSUS CREATURE

Berlin in the 1920s is a “focal point of social disorganization.”2 The

trusted schemata of Wilhelmian social orientation are put to an extraor-
dinary endurance test. If a power structure is rocked by social change
and if, as a result, the conformity-inducing pressure of established liv-
ing schemata suddenly declines—then there will be some recoil. When
the external moorings of convention relax, when the blurring of famil-
iar boundaries and roles and ideological constellations stimulate fear,
elements of ideological stabilization and schematicism come more force-
fully into play.3 In a classification mania, contemporary observers of the
social field categorize phenomena ranging from body type to moral char-
acter, from handwriting to race.
Thus the 1920s appear to us both as a period of overheated social
mobility, blurred class distinctions, and exaggerated reassertions of old
Rapture of Circulation and Schematicism 23

orienting values and as a decade in which distinctions between friend

and enemy, between opposing fronts, are very clearly drawn.
If we had hopes that literature in such times managed to avoid the
schematicism of public discourse, the literature of the new objectivity
quickly disappoints these hopes. The arts of the new objectivity respond
to the times with a paradoxical maneuver. They react to schematicism,
on the one hand, by affirming the transitory reality of life in the indus-
trial world, which continues to go without its appropriate symbolic rep-
resentation. The arts formulate their opposition to the rigidity of the old
symbolic order by mimetically appropriating the forces of social dis-
organization, particularly whenever it appears in the form of the capi-
talist market. On the other hand, they respond by formulating a logic
that outbids the popular mania for classification, raising schematicism
to the verge of dead rigidity. Doing so, they expose the dubiousness of
the maneuver.
The images of human being conceived under the sign of the new ob-
jectivity are marked by the climate of polarization. The converse is also
true: new objectivity images lend impetus to polarization. The “naked
contemporary” as drawn by the literature of the decade swings between
extreme poles: between armoring and exposing; between fantasies of
unbridled agency and pitiful creatureliness. We see humanity repre-
sented in the form of media idols and earth spirits, as isolated moralists
or collective beings unburdening their conscience in social groups. Like
flaneurs, they display their eccentricities among the crowds, appearing
lost in the anonymity of a sociological type. The “photograph faces of
modernity” (Inka Mülder-Bach) make their appearance in the new ob-
jectivity decade; in them the signature of individuality is assimilated to
the homogenizing conditions of technical reproduction.
The icons of an armored ego go on parade (see Figure 2). A new type
joins them, the white-collar employee. As models for sociological con-
struction, these figures turn up in billboard simplicity and in intricate di-
alectical images: in all of them the subject reveals itself armored to the
extent that emptiness is all that remains to be protected. The represen-
tational maneuver signals at once a defense against and a lust for the de-
centering of the subject.
The climate of polarization has a complex relation to the ideology
of vitalism, which is widespread among intellectuals at the time.4 The
assumption here is that any particular life currents, viewed in sufficient
depth, are characterized by absolute continuity, even if what we see on
24 Rapture of Circulation and Schematicism

2. The icons of the armored ego go on parade

(Publicity still for the film Metropolis.)

the surface are discontinuous and contradictory rigidified forms. Life, in

this sense, has a polar structure, whereby polarity implies neither me-
chanical separation nor dualism. It is comparable instead to the polar op-
position found in magnetic fields, which, in their very polarity, represent
an indivisible unity.5 As Felix Weltsch had written in the Weiße Blätter
of 1913–14,
The most primal being of the individual is polar: duality and the desire for
unity: the tension of contradiction and the longing to overcome the tension.
. . . The tension between these two poles gives birth to the horrifying abyss that
appears at times in the relation of man’s spirit to its surroundings, that un-
canny strangeness of the object, that profound experience of the “something-
other” status of the world—which, as one side of a polar tension brought to
its highest pitch, drives toward some kind of overcoming of the tension.6

This testimony from the decade of expressionism allows us to iden-

tify a sense of life’s dynamism as an oscillation between two poles. But
in the new objectivity decade, when “polarized thinking” (Theodor Les-
sing) had in fact reached its high point, we learn that the pendulum mo-
tion can get stuck uncomfortably between the extremes. A central char-
acteristic of the cool persona’s habitus is its marking of boundaries
between spheres, causing the polar attraction to operate secretly beneath
the surface. Before the new objectivity construction, polarization was a
surface aspect of the life stream; now, as either a gradual development
of the concept or an abrupt effect of the shock of world war, the polar-
ity has worked its way into life itself, splitting it in two. Whatever idea
Rapture of Circulation and Schematicism 25

of a unified life remains in the arts of the new objectivity has so little
force as to rule out any chance for synthesis or any pleasure from oscil-
lation between the poles.
Moreover, phenomena produced by radical separation, in contradic-
tion to the idea of wholeness, begin now to exert a great aesthetic appeal.
Literary characters carry about with them the shadow of their counter-
poles: the “ice-cold” functionary stands out against the “warmth” of
traditional working-class culture; the creature in need of warmth exists
in contrast to the “glacial” types of civilization. A complex man is de-
picted in flight through a gallery of women. The restless street poet is
surrounded by sedentary hordes. The pressure to polarize divides char-
acters among mobile inhabitants of the cold system and those still living
in the world, among practitioners of the art of distinction and others
mired in their own being, among questing “gents” and clutching inno-
cents. The arsenal of human images compiled by new objectivity artists
lives off contrast:

On the one hand, glass— on the other, blood. On the one hand, fatigue—
on the other, ski jumps. On the one hand, archaic— on the other, con-
temporary, with a hat from Bond Street and a pearl tie tack from the rue
de la Paix.7

If the “phenotype” of modern literature, described here by Gottfried

Benn, retains contradiction within itself—revealing the action of diverg-
ing force fields through fissures in the character—the literary inhabi-
tants of the new objectivity still show the scars but behave as if they had
overcome the split. Should a character, contrary to the rule, appear as
a torn and problematic individual, what the narrative represents is his
inevitable downfall. Characters conceived as survivors lose all trace of
individuality.
What follows is a depiction of aesthetic figures, the “cool persona”
(see chapter three) and the other-directed “radar type,” as David Ries-
man would name it two decades later (see chapter five). What we shall
see in the two images are symbolic sleights-of-hand designed to free peo-
ple of the anxieties induced by the process of modernization, to open up
for them areas of free movement.
But anxiety falls away from the figure of the cool persona only to re-
turn in that of the Kreatur. The image of the creature was known from
primal sources; it was readily available for reuse. The process of think-
ing it through once again, in the absence of institutionalized ameliora-
tives (not even social welfare or therapy) represented a new challenge.
26 Rapture of Circulation and Schematicism

The peculiar positive revaluation of the creatural in this decade, in which,

under the sign of objectivity, the dominant character is some variant of
homo faber, serves to open a “sally port out of history.”8 “Natural char-
acters” suddenly appear, distracting attention from the dark side of the
historical process.

TRAFFIC AS A PERCEPTUAL MODEL

The central topos of new objectivity literature is “traffic” (Verkehr),

which transforms the avant-garde’s understanding of motion. The arrow
of progress now turns back on itself, describing a circle. The new topos
redirects wartime mobilization to civilian tracks; when the period of
stability and neutrality runs its course, the traffic flow will be militarized
once again.
Yet for the time, in the peaceful middle years of the republic, traf-
fic suggests the civilian sensitivity that blends functionalist percep-
tion and the idea of systems with revaluation of codes of conduct and
a delight in urban circulation. In 1924, Helmuth Plessner contrasts
the deadening air in a community to society’s “open system of traffic
among unconnected individuals.”9 In the space of this public medium
excessive demands imposed on individuals by fundamentalist values lose
their force:
In every aspect of the traffic system, the lawfulness of pure values must be sac-
rificed to the idea of a completely realizable order. The medium, the clear
light of which both distracts and obscures, is the inescapable disconnected-
ness among individuals operating in the existential sphere bounded on the
one side by familiarity and, on the other, by objectivity.10

Intersubjective traffic systems may be mechanical, but they safeguard

distance, which is to say, freedom of movement. The functional topos of
traffic promises to vent some of the heat generated by the oppositional
constellation of the postwar years.

The traffic image is neither self-evident nor self-supporting but appears

instead in alliance with the provocative appeal of Fordism, as evidenced
by Ezra Pound’s “Definitions,” published in the January 1925 issue of
Querschnitt:
1. A good state is one that impinges least on the activities of its citizens.
2. The function of the state is to facilitate traffic, i.e., the circulation of
goods, air, water, heat, coal (black or white), power, and even thought;
and to prevent citizens from infringing on one another.11
Rapture of Circulation and Schematicism 27

And the effects of the topos are considerable: traffic transforms moral-
ity into objectivity, compelling behavior appropriate to function. Taking
part in traffic is a provisional status; inserted in the prescribed current,
the individual derives from it a feeling of freedom. It is not a place to put
down roots. Expressive behavior, moreover, is of interest only as the play
of gesture. In traffic, an arena is identified in which every sign is a signal
guiding motion: stopping, jamming, releasing, regulating. Points of rest
are provisional: the waiting room, foyer, railway compartment, subway,
elevator, bus stop, reloading depot, planning office. What causes discon-
tent is the sudden interruption of the flow, the occurrence of tedious traf-
fic jams. Such blockages, in turn, can be referred back to some distur-
bance, the elimination of which can be effected by technical means. That
the traffic circulates around an empty center is all right, is not a dis-
traction. On the contrary, the loss of a center is animating; it allows the
senses to focus on circulation itself.
To be mentioned above all in this connection is the penetration from all sides
of rhythmic processes, and then the ensuing changes, how they give rise to high
speeds. There are already major areas in which our actions are becoming in-
creasingly oscillatory, becoming reflex; this is true in particular of traffic.12

Kracauer observes an astounding array of communicational forms

in the signs of traffic in 1926. The simple gesture with which a greeting
is exchanged between taxi drivers and traffic police, for example, tran-
scends the familiar categories we usually use to describe relations be-
tween state agents and private persons:
It is scarcely possible to measure how fleetingly the greeting is accomplished.
The policeman is occupied with difficult arm movements, which he must exe-
cute according to rigorously standardized stipulations. The driver, let us call
him A., must divide his attention between the steering wheel and the official
arm movements of the policeman.

Neither a hierarchical nor a collegial relationship characterizes their

greeting; Kracauer is more concerned to emphasize the context of the
encounter as effected by the system:
What connects the driver with the traffic police is the constant utilization of
the roadways for the sake of the generality of traffic. These two categories
of work contribute more to maintaining the flow than any others.

Traffic is not a dreadful image in the mid-1920s; the egalitarian joys of

circulation (“Everything traffics with everything else; all the barriers are
down”) echo the relief in an end to the horror of Wilhelmian rigidity.13
28 Rapture of Circulation and Schematicism

New objectivity writers always observe traffic with an ambiguous grin;

nothing must escape the functionalist gaze. Thus the term Verkehrsro-
man (traffic novel) accounts for a good portion of the prose, and we can
view both Kästner’s Fabian and Bronnen’s O. S. from that category’s
perspective. The designation Verkehrsdramen casts light on the stage
of new objectivity behavior, which twists communication, as in plays
by Ödön von Horváth, Marieluise Fleißer, and Bertolt Brecht, to the re-
quirements of the traffic paradigm.
The motto of the new objectivity—“Not expression—but signals;
not substance—but motion!” finds in traffic both a milieu and the nec-
essary latitude for movement. Whether behavior is appropriate or not,
extending all the way through to entire lifestyles, is judged according to
the model of traffic. “Streamlining” makes it possible “to overcome re-
sistance elegantly, not by increasing exertion, but by adapting smoothly
to the nature of the resistance.”14 From major urban squares to the liv-
ing room, arrangements are tailored to the traffic paradigm, as a func-
tional “system of movements” (Hannes Meyer). There is no room left
here for an alternative to a functionalist descriptive vocabulary. When
the Berlin city planner Martin Wagner defends his concept for the recon-
struction of Alexanderplatz, his new objectivity squares render excellent
service:
The major urban square is a nearly continually busy traffic channel, a
clearing-point for a network of arteries of the first magnitude. . . . The ca-
pacity of a square to bear traffic is in turn a function of the traffic capacity of
the streets leading into and out of the square. . . . Traffic flow on the square
must be set in relation to stationary traffic, which attracts the consumption
power of the masses of people crossing through the square (shops, bars, ware-
houses, offices, and such). . . . A major urban square is both a stopping-off
point and a channel for flowing traffic.15

Motion diagrams also set efficient mobility patterns between table, stove,
and pantry. Making work easier is equivalent to accelerating the pace.
Traffic does not oblige its participants to a heroic pose: the “achiev-
er’s face should remain unmoved,” runs the advice in 1932. “The mod-
ern smile has, among other functions, that of concealing all inner ten-
sion. The lady at the wheel of a car must at every moment maintain her
elegance unblemished by exertion.”16 If the avant-garde goes on declar-
ing the deautomation of perception and behavior as a goal, nevertheless
the choice of traffic as a topos identifies a context that calls for reflex-
driven behavior. The acceptance of reflex goes hand in hand with an-
other insight: “The human stream is also guided by habit. The power ex-
Rapture of Circulation and Schematicism 29

ercised by habit exceeds that of the great revolutions.”17 The traffic

model serves to bring to mind the superiority of the supra-individual
system that directs the behavioral forms. The simple observation of a
traffic signal leads to penetrating insights:
On the most important intersections in Berlin, as we know, colored signal
lights regulate traffic. The red stoplight does not, however, switch immedi-
ately to green, which signals the right of way, but changes first to a glowing
yellow. Yellow signals a transition from one determinate state to another. It
admonishes pedestrians and drivers to pay attention and relieves them of the
need to consider people and vehicles that a sudden change of signals would
otherwise require. To a certain extent, the use of a transitional light objecti-
fies consideration and takes the initiative out of human hands.18

Police, no longer carriers of sovereignty, turn into “traffic officers”;

the contents and typography of newspapers are determined by traffic, as
is evident in any streetcar; the market in signs and symbols adapts itself
to traffic; people are separated into “pedestrians” and “drivers,” and the
solitary figure moving against the flow is granted the special status of the
flaneur. Not only the engineer in general but the traffic engineer in par-
ticular becomes a prominent figure.
When traffic becomes the central topos, beings who want to put
down roots do not fare well: asphalt streets are taken for granted as the
condition of the modern traffic system. “Street poetry” is a medium that,
on the one hand, invents the mobile type, probing at the same time the
extent to which an individual in this mobility system can represent a dis-
turbance factor. In a certain sense, the civilian traffic topos of the middle
phase of the republic had a moderating effect: neither too much armor-
ing nor complete decenteredness is suited to traffic conditions.
The attack on the idea of the republic as a neutral space for traffic en-
sues from two sides. Carl Schmitt complains, in the tradition of Rathe-
nau’s cultural criticism, that in the “age of traffic” society is conceived
on the model of the factory, as a “plant, as the gigantic functioning
means to some miserable and senseless end,” as a system that wreaks
such destruction on individuals that “they do not even feel the way they
are being annulled.”19 The Marxists, who label the entirety of the social
conditions of production and exchange Verkehrsform,* use the traffic
paradigm in the first instance because it encourages a perspective ac-
cording to which all ideas can be first tested out in their functional as-

*Literally, “traffic form.” Verkehr has multiple English meanings, including “ex-
change,” as in this instance, but also communication, intercourse, circulation, and dealings.
30 Rapture of Circulation and Schematicism

pect. Likewise they relate language to the “necessity of traffic with other
people”; it is “practical and, for other people, existing consciousness.”
People are to materialize their powers in the forms of traffic. At the same
time the Marxists— especially under the influence of Georg Lukács’s vi-
talist update of Marx’s writings—lump together all the forms of social
traffic in relation to claims raised from the angle of their conception of
humanity. They warn against the “domination of objective relations”
over the individual and come to the conclusion that the modern forms
of Verkehr, in a society dominated by private property, will necessarily
become “destructive forces.”
By the beginning of the 1930s, new objectivity writers are themselves
discovering the traffic paradigm’s dark side. Images of life pulsing
through rationalized traffic constellations, unified and coherent in their
mid-1920s presentation, now fall apart again. The vitalist ideal of a dy-
namic flow, the sense of civilization as the circulation of commodities,
labor power, and money, which had for a moment blended seamlessly
together, now fractures irreconcilably. Kracauer’s image of the under-
pass introduces the split.
Does the traffic topos form the background structure of moderniza-
tion, with the agonistic images of polarization, armoring, and schemati-
cism occupying the symbolic foreground? The decade of the republic
offers no bounded horizon within which homogenous images could
ever arise. What it produces is much more in the way of a mixing. In the
literature of the new objectivity, the distant structure of circulation—
which is indeed impartial but also civil—moves for a historical moment
into the foreground. Literature represents a place where images of ar-
moring and polarization, amid the “frenzy of circulation” (Klaus Hein-
rich), can be mixed up, and the schematicism of the symbolic order de-
stabilized. At the beginning of the 1930s, a militarization of the traffic
paradigm begins. As Arnold Bronnen remarks in 1930,
The German, whose warrior nature embraces all its mutations, such as am-
bition, a challenging disposition, greedy commercialism, and contempt for
death, apprehends traffic, in the first instance, as a warlike state.

And, he continues, the German

climbs into the subway and streetcars as if they were transport trains to the
front. He scouts out suspicious signs of hostile intent in every passerby, in or-
der to be able to reciprocate immediately.20

In disastrous fashion, the dictatorship realizes the synthesis of people

and traffic constructions Kracauer hoped for.
Rapture of Circulation and Schematicism 31

Even before that point, in the middle phase of the republic—the time
of “exchange cynicism,” as Peter Sloterdijk terms it—the civilian topos
of traffic models possible images of human being. Quite understandably,
the externalities of visible behavior attract attention. Surface psychology
comes to dominate the field.

SURFACE PSYCHOLOGY

In the expressionist portrait of the individual, contours fragment, as if

the body’s surface were splintering under the force of energy radiating
out from a central stimulus. In the new objectivity model, contours
hold. Eyes peer out like spotlights from beneath a shielding brow, to in-
terrogate space; the body (usually encased in a uniform, for quick soci-
ological ranking) presents an occupational and class affiliation to the gaze
of others, who similarly present and interrogate others’ performance.
The dadaists had prepared the change of perspective. Setting aside the
expressionist representation, in which the head stores expressive ener-
gies, they opened skulls and put newspapers inside; they networked
brains with signs from the print and electronic media. The decade of the
new objectivity introduces a figure with his hat pulled down over eyes
that, in their expressive dimension, are no longer of interest. The pose of
indignation—raised head and steady gaze lending expression to the fig-
ure’s discontent—becomes antediluvian, an object of parody:
He strode down the street with his hat tipped back!
He looked each man in the eye and nodded
He paused in front of every shop window
(And everyone knows he is lost).
You ought to have heard him explain that he’d still
Got a word or two to say to his enemy
That the landlord’s tone was not to his liking
That the street had not been properly swept
(His friends have already given him up).
All the same he still intends to build a house
All the same he still intends to sleep on it
All the same he still doesn’t intend to rush his decision
(Oh, he’s lost already, there’s nothing behind him).
(That’s something I’ve heard people say before now.) 21

In new objectivity contexts the individual appears primarily as agent.

The category of social interaction models the characters of literary rep-
resentation. “Man,” in the definition of Plessner’s anthropology, “must
32 Rapture of Circulation and Schematicism

act in order to live. A single deed is not enough; instead, the restlessness
of constant activity.”22 To keep this energy directed along the proper
tracks, codes of conduct come into being in the decade of the republic.
The codes’ schematicism keeps people from getting lost in the frenzy of
circulation.
Observing processes of repetitive motion and specifying radii of ac-
tion move to the forefront in new objectivity literature: attack and de-
fense; crash and rise; circulation and exchange; boundary violations and
containment. Rather than introspection, the motto now is movement.
As everyone has learned by now, “The way a man moves mirrors the
meaning of his life.”23
“Study ritual—not belief” (Bronislaw Malinowski): the modern eth-
nologist’s methodology characterizes advanced literary discourse; it as-
sumes that perception of habitual behavior offers deeper insights into
the mentality of characters than study of what they believe. And the new
medium of film intensifies the shift we trace here. Film promises to re-
store “visibility” to reality, which seemed to have been on the verge of
vanishing into the medium of the printing press.24 The break from dark
familial deposits of the soul to externalities of human action proceeds by
way of polemics against psychology, which its critics take to cover every-
thing from depth psychology to cognitive approaches. “Psychology hul-
labaloo,” in their words, soaks up attention and almost succeeds in
making the physical environment invisible.25
The dispute has no place for subtleties: “Personal destiny, the private
orientation of the personality is unimportant. Psychology is cowardice.
The turn inward has become a turning out.”26 The crude formulation
almost conceals the elemental aspect of the shift: the unconscious id
has moved from the inside to the outside. An exploration of the orient-
ing mechanisms of the outside world emerges as the reversal of psycho-
analysis. A street had been run through the house of the psyche.
Instead of answers to inquiry into the nature of human beings, our in-
vestigation of the period leads to a telling disappointment. There is no
anthropology to be found; instead, codes of conduct.
chapter three

The Conduct Code

of the Cool Persona
Outside an earl, inside a pariah.
Gottfried Benn

The historical avant-garde of the years 1910 –30 is fascinated by char-

acters with simple contours. Free of the complexity of deep psychologi-
cal structures, these characters appear as “metallized bodies,” innocent
of organic frailty. Armored, they hold their own in the “force field of de-
structive currents.”1 They strive for the greatest possible mobility and
are constantly alert, “as if they had an electric bell going off nonstop in-
side them.”2 They avoid public displays of emotion. If they should hap-
pen to suffer fatigue, they say only, with Charles Lindbergh in Brecht’s
Ozeanflug: “Carry me off to a dark hangar, so no one sees my weak-
ness.”3 Walter Serner adds a laconic corollary in the Handbrevier:
“When you’re not doing well, make an effort to conceal it.”4
Characters with simple contours may indeed be “subcomplex,” but
they have the virtue of being able to make decisions. What they decide
on remains in the first instance abstract; what they want is to be in mo-
tion inside a process that compels mobility. Avant-garde literature fills
out the image, testing out how it will function in the organic world de-
fined by the body.

THE RETURN OF GRACIÁN’S COOL PERSONA

THE PRISONER’S MOBILITY DOCTRINE

“Man has one purpose: life, that is, to move,” notes Werner Krauss, a
specialist in romance literatures. It is 1943; he is awaiting execution in

33
34 Conduct Code of the Cool Persona

the Plötzensee prison.5 “I found myself in a unique situation,” Krauss

reports later, “without any consideration of its effect on a real or imag-
ined public, to capture the whole of my life in the presence of the word.
Ultimately I began an academic work about [Balthasar] Gracián’s life
precepts, which shortened for me many a dreadful hour.”6 So it is that
an appearance is put in at the prison by Fortuna, who (Krauss is quot-
ing Gracián) is not blind but has “the eyes of a lynx” (75), and can be
moved by an intellectual appeal.
Our question now concerns Krauss’s interest in The Art of Worldly
Wisdom, Gracián’s midseventeenth-century code of conduct, which he
reconstructs in the extreme isolation of his prison cell. What he finds in
the Jesuit’s precepts is first of all a challenge of intellectual engagement
in the “border area between humanism and barbarism.” Gracián appears
to Krauss as an advisor on how to behave in mined territory, where the
placement of every step requires caution. In this situation, morality is
not a compass you grip in your hand. If threats rain down from all sides,
Krauss learns from Gracián, “the whole of morality comes down to tac-
tical rules.” Gracián’s book offers guidance for situations in which exis-
tence has been rendered “incredible” and the truth, afflicted by “signs
of a severe flu” (83), has withdrawn to a distant corner.
These few words from Krauss’s Lebenslehre (1947) may suggest the
reason for the resistance fighter’s interest in the Spanish Jesuit. In a let-
ter of 26 March 1946 to Erich Auerbach, who was living in Istanbul in
exile, he offers a succinct account of the reasons for his imprisonment:

At the instigation of the former Dean Träger [dean of the Philosophische Fa-
kultät at the University of Marburg], who wanted to get rid of me, I was con-
scripted into the army in 1940. Ad arma cucurri, and I made it all the way to
lance corporal. But my brilliant career met a sudden end when I was arrested
at the end of 1942 for my part in the Harnack-Schulze-Boysen conspiracy. In
January 1943 I was sentenced to death, along with countless others, by the
Reich war tribunal. In May, after the judgment had been confirmed, I was
moved to Plötzensee for execution. . . . It was possible to manage a transfer
and, with the assistance of one of the tribunal justices (who committed suicide
after 20 July 1944), to arrange for my psychiatric examination. I was moved
from one prison to the other. Only at the end of 1944 was the death sentence
commuted to confinement in a penitentiary. New danger from the Gestapo,
which wanted to get me out of the military sentence and send me to Buchen-
wald. My salvation was the hasty evacuation of the Torgau fortress, when I
was able to take advantage of the confusion and flee in a hospital train.7

The commentary on Gracián took shape in this context.

Conduct Code of the Cool Persona 35

A list of fourteen of the three hundred behavioral precepts from the

Art of Worldly Wisdom will help clarify the reasons for Krauss’s attrac-
tion. The criteria of selection reflect their astounding correspondence
with precepts current in the 1920s:
Hope is a great falsifier of truth; let skill guard against this by ensuring that
fruition exceeds desire. (no. 19)
Know how to withdraw. If it is a great lesson in life to know how to deny,
it is still greater to know how to deny oneself as regards both affairs and
persons. (no. 33)
Think with the few and speak with the many. By swimming against the
stream it is impossible to remove error, easy to fall into danger. (no. 43)
Never be put out. ’Tis a great aim of prudence never to be embarrassed. It
is a sign of the real man, of a noble heart, for magnanimity is not easily put
out. The passions are the humours of the soul, and every excess in them
weakens prudence; if they overflow through the mouth, the reputation will
be in danger. (no. 52)
Observation and judgment. A man with these rules things, not they him.
He sounds at once the profoundest depths; he is a phrenologist by means of
physiognomy. (no. 49)
Find out each Man’s Thumbscrew. ’Tis the art of setting their wills in ac-
tion. . . . Have resort to primary motors, which are not always the highest
but more often the lowest part of his nature. (no. 26)
Do not wait until you are a Sinking Sun. ’Tis a maxim of the wise to leave
things before things leave them. One should be able to snatch a triumph at
the end. (no. 110)
Get used to the failings of your familiars, as you do to ugly faces. It is in-
dispensable if they depend on us, or we on them. There are wretched char-
acters with whom one cannot live, nor yet without them. (no. 115)
Never complain. To complain always brings discredit. Better be a model of
self-reliance opposed to the passion of others than an object of their com-
passion. For it opens the way for the hearer to what we are complaining of,
and to disclose one insult forms an excuse for another. (no. 129)
Never contend with a Man who has nothing to Lose; for thereby you enter
into an unequal conflict. The other enters without anxiety; having lost
everything, including shame, he has no further loss to fear. (no. 172)
Make an Obligation beforehand of what would have to be a Reward after-
wards. The same gift which would afterwards be merely a reward is before-
hand an obligation. (no. 236)
The Art of getting into a Passion. If possible, oppose vulgar importunity
with prudent reflection; it will not be difficult for a really prudent man. The
first step toward getting into a passion is to announce that you are in a pas-
sion. By this means you begin the conflict with command over your temper,
for one has to regulate one’s passion to the exact point that is necessary
and no further. (no. 155)
36 Conduct Code of the Cool Persona

Nothing depreciates a Man more than to show he is a Man like other Men.
As the reserved are held to be more than men, so the frivolous are held to
be less. (no. 289)
Be able to Forget. It is more a matter of luck than of skill. The things we re-
member best are those better forgotten. Memory is not only unruly, leaving
us in the lurch when most needed, but stupid as well, putting its nose into
places where it is not wanted. (no. 262) 8

All the core ideas of the 1920s cult of objectivity are present here: the
prohibition of ritual complaining; the disciplining of affect; the knack
of manipulation; the cunning of conformity; the armoring of the ego;
the practice of physiognomic judgment; and the reflection of behavior
within a parallelogram of forces.
Much of the advice is difficult of access. “Sitting over this work with
my hands in manacles,” as Krauss later recalled, “I understood the para-
dox of my endeavor.”9 At first what interests the prisoner is only Gra-
cián’s understanding of the virtue of restraint (retentiva) and the art
of hopefulness (espera) —as well as cunning during interrogations, for
which the manual has advice to offer. “A player never plays the card his
opponent expects,” states Gracián, adding: “and even less, naturally, the
card his opponent would like him to play.”
Krauss’s return to Gracián is not, I suggested earlier, an isolated
event. It corresponds to a broader tendency on the part of the European
avant-garde in the interwar years’ “trench communities” (Marc Bloch),
namely, its Nietzsche-inspired skepticism about any sort of “organic
phantasm of the personality culture,”10 which Gracián also calls radi-
cally into question. An early diary entry by Krauss, on 12 November
1932, shows how closely the scholar’s protean ambition predisposed
him toward his reading of Gracián:
Become what you are not. Thence man, rather than condition existence on
change, draws change into his own ego, making of himself a monad deter-
mined by laws of change specific only to itself, which transforms the outer
world in the process into a space for personal development. The innocence of
becoming, as Nietzsche nicely blasphemed.11

What interests us here is Krauss’s interpretation of the subject in the

courtly codes of conduct. I want to build a bridge from his construct to
the philosophical anthropology of the 1920s and then to track the
codes’ fate in new objectivity narratives. At issue for Krauss and his con-
temporaries is nothing less than an experimental attempt to depsychol-
ogize the modern concept of the subject.
Conduct Code of the Cool Persona 37

The subject with whom Krauss becomes acquainted in Gracián’s code

has no internal compass to call on when it moves into life-threatening
territory. The inner regulator, the conscience, is precisely what the Jesuit
has removed from the subject, because the conscience restricts freedom
of movement. Gracián has in view a subject that requires an external
voice for the sake of orientation. The persona the code presents knows
neither the bourgeois’s “worldless interiority” nor its Protestant variant,
the conscience. Introspection is available to the persona as little as is
the direction of conscience, raising the question of how it can establish
identity.
Here Krauss discovers in Gracián’s code of conduct a procedure that
George Herbert Mead and Helmuth Plessner defined in the first two de-
cades of the century as the “reciprocity of perspective.” The persona
finds its identity by combining the perspectives of ego and alter ego. Gra-
cián’s persona acquires an instrumental image of itself by reading the
perceptions of others, with which it is constantly vying. Since the shared
world in which reflection takes place is “always merciless,” and the
stakes are survival, the image of itself the persona finds reflected there
corresponds to perfectly realistic self-knowledge. The only guarantee of
mobility is a high-strung alertness and readiness to cut ties at any time.
The complete persona, therefore, must never allow others to affix any
firm characteristics on it. A total absence of characteristics increases the
radius of action.

Gracián’s persona is a master in the art of distinction. All “idylls,” which

leave this (male) subject open to the wiles of passion, are to be avoided
like “traps,” as he puts it; arcadian voices stir the nerves; too many pos-
sessions “overburden the run,” says Gracián, according to Krauss; for
“man has but one meaning; that is, to move.”
We might well expect Gracián to advise against “excessive individu-
ation” (113). A strain of authenticity could in easier times serve both
uprightness and distinction, or even garner prestige. But on a minefield
it is clearly a defect, and Gracián warns against it: “Individuating does
nothing but attract unhealthy attention!” Little wonder that his Art
of Worldly Wisdom would be deemed appropriate to a period of total
mobilization.
And the maxims of the courtly mobility doctrine reconstructed by
Krauss do in fact reappear in the literature of the 1920s. The most ex-
treme version of the code at that time is found in Brecht:
38 Conduct Code of the Cool Persona

Whatever you say, don’t say it twice

If you find your ideas in anyone else, disown them.
The man who hasn’t signed anything, who has left no picture
Who was not there, who said nothing:
How can they catch him?
Cover your tracks.12

Why such audacity is useful emerges from a review of Krauss’s book

in 1950, in the journal Romanische Forschung. “If life is a battle,”
concludes the reviewer, who was in equal parts impressed and perplexed
by Krauss’s book, “then morality is choosing the most successful path
to triumph.”13 The secret of Jesuit spirituality would be, according to
Krauss, the conception of life as master strategy: the objective is to win
the whole world, with no damage to the soul. But when the Christian
goal starts losing its power to illuminate, the result can easily be double-
entry bookkeeping for the conscience. For if every political path to the
goal is justifiable, means and ends have no necessary ties between them.
The radical methodology of politics prevails, while the Christian goal,
“set on a distant altar,” no longer interferes with the method’s inner
laws. So goals become interchangeable, an outcome with unfathomable
consequences:
Reading Gracián is no doubt a pleasure for a Marxist, if only because certain
of Gracián’s formulations all but invite him to strip away the life doctrine’s
mythical wrapping and reveal its valuable core, as the founding genius did
with Hegel’s dialectic.14

The possibility of retooling Gracián in this way naturally depends

on Jesuit theology, for which Christ represents not an ethical inter-
vention into the wicked world but the doctrine of virtue’s “crowning
achievement.”

THE MODERNITY OF THE PERSONA CONCEPT

Krauss’s modern analyses of Gracián’s concept represent a greater chal-

lenge today. “Gracián’s persona is faced with the ceaseless task of ‘being
somebody’ in a hostile and competitive world,” writes an American re-
viewer in 1949, wishing to emphasize the book’s contemporary rele-
vance.15 Krauss’s reflections on the idea of a persona reflect the experi-
ence of the ego as an illusion.16
In 1938, when Marcel Mauss traced the development of the funda-
mental category of “person” from the masquerade presented in the sa-
Conduct Code of the Cool Persona 39

cred dramas to the individual figure of moral worth, he had not ruled
out the possibility that the same development could be accomplished in
reverse. “We are charged with the defense of great good,” Mauss warns
at the end of his lecture; “with us it is possible for the idea of the indi-
vidual to disappear.”17 By the time the idea of an “indivisible, individ-
ual substance”—an autonomous being with a moral consciousness—
comes in for treatment here, various academic disciplines had examined
and undermined it, without suggesting anything to replace it. One of
the appealing games of the European avant-garde of the first third of the
twentieth century had been to follow the developmental descent of the
individual’s moral understanding all the way down to “mask civiliza-
tion,”18 in which the participant manufactures his or her person in ritu-
als. Writers eagerly took up the (dubious) etymology that derived per-
sona from personare: the voice of the actor sounds through the veil; the
ego becomes autonomous only in the consciousness of that which ap-
pears to the outside.
As Krauss elucidates Gracián’s persona concept, he allows himself
to be swept along the current of the new objectivity: self-knowledge,
attending to conscience or the possibility of regret, is of little use as a
procedure for maintaining an identity. Others’ understanding of the self
is the royal road to a secure self; for—the language of new objectivity
pamphlets left no doubt about it—“the path of knowledge leads from
outside in.” Krauss borrows the “emphatic image” of the persona devel-
oped in 1925 by his teacher Karl Vossler, who was searching for a con-
cept of personal being adequate for both individual and collective use:
“From mask or specter, from body or face, departing, in short, from an
individual’s externalities, the [concept of the persona] aims at our most
internal, inalienable self. One is a person to the extent of one’s success
in arriving at the self by way of roles and their realizations.”
Another reference to Vossler’s persona follows in Karl Löwith’s 1928
book, Das Individuum in der Rolle des Mitmenschen. Here Löwith de-
fines the individual “in the existential category of the ‘persona’” as the
otherwise bounded being whose essential existence derives from social
roles, one who is “fundamentally and formally established for himself
by means of his correspondence with others.”19 The evidence delivered
by others’ perceptions is also the source for Krauss’s idea of a personal
environment, which is the only medium in which affective development
can take place. Existence in the form of a persona fixes the individual’s
reactive character and dependent status in relation to others:
40 Conduct Code of the Cool Persona

Gracián compares the person with a swimmer who has learned his skill
through the threat of drowning. An activating stimulus is necessary—for the
only way a person can achieve value is by going into the world. And there is
no existence outside this value. The existence of a person is grounded in the
unconditioned processes of social behavior. (107)

In a militarized situation, this version of anthropology—in which we

hear echoes from the 1920s of Scheler and Plessner and also find con-
cepts borrowed from Vossler, Heidegger, and Löwith—is highly explo-
sive. If the battle gets decided in the social world, which, we recall, is
“always irreconcilable,” then the individual is compelled to focus atten-
tion on matters of self-representation. Orientation—and this is fiendish
advice—must be geared to the value judgments upon which social
recognition and acceptance depend. There are serious consequences for
the persona: under these circumstances, being and appearing do not
form a pair of diverging opposites, and the difference between them can
be altogether inconsiderable—when it is a question of success. Krauss
takes the idea to its logical extreme:
Being needs appearance. What does not appear falls short of recognition. An
increase in appearance does not reduce being; on the contrary, it doubles its
substance. (111)

Behaving according to the laws of probability (Wahrscheinlichkeit)

now comes to mean using appearance (Schein) to gain recognition for
the truth (Wahrheit). In such circumstances, objectivity quite naturally
gains the upper hand; for prudence in life often demands that the per-
sona behave in a businesslike manner, calculating the value of things on
the market (113).
Alongside this motif, with which anyone born in 1900 and educated
in the decade of the new objectivity would be familiar, it is of note that
Krauss also undertakes a revaluation of the concept of politics by way
of Gracián, and that it also corresponds to ideas from the 1920s. Krauss
lays considerable emphasis on the claim that Gracián’s code of conduct
exceeds the bounds of a noble’s breviary, restricted to the rules of life
around the Spanish court. Court for Gracián is only a model, at once a
“gathering place for life’s dangerous creatures” and a “tempting labora-
tory” (119). Court affairs proceed according to life’s most comprehen-
sive law, to the forms of mutual obligation that typify aggressive or de-
fensive situations. Gracián, as Krauss concludes in the theological spirit
of Carl Schmitt, removes the concept of the political from the autono-
Conduct Code of the Cool Persona 41

mous sphere of specialists in the art of statecraft, turning politics into the
art of distinguishing, drawing boundaries, making adjustments—which
is what anyone engaged in combat needs to do (80).
The political persona cannot get by without a heroizing attitude,
another idea that, we shall see, suggests the contemporary relevance of
the seventeenth-century Jesuit. Having fenced to the point of exhaustion
on courtly terrain, the persona is by no means able to regenerate itself
in colorful popular activities, or take part in any history-making mass
movement. It must distinguish itself. Gracián fears the people; there is
no sign of latent sympathy in his intellectual bearing. “The people ap-
peared to him an obstacle in the path, a harmful power in its lack of un-
derstanding” (79 ff.). At this point Krauss’s reconstruction of the heroic
persona begins taking on uncanny qualities. Gracián’s hero must make
his way on his own within an aristocracy riven with competition; there
is no way to take refuge in a philosophy of history that values his deeds
from the perspective of a meaningful progression; there is no getting lost
in popular currents. Suddenly visible in the distant mirror of the seven-
teenth century are the essential features of a heroic attitude in the twen-
tieth: the constructions of the philosophy of history lie in ruins; in the
absence of group solidarity or autonomous historical processes, artifi-
cial apparatuses in the form of parties are forming; the people are not to
be trusted.
Extremely isolated from historical forces that had ever offered rea-
son for optimism, the Jesuit discovers the immediate relevance of the-
ology. Since the exemplary bearing of the heroic individual has lost its
anchoring in the “primal force of existence,” a theological turn be-
comes unavoidable. The heroic bearing “requires transcendence, a radi-
ation by supernatural powers, for it to maintain itself in its distance
from the people” (79 ff.). What remains of heroism when transcendence
no longer radiates?
As Krauss, condemned to death as a member of the Rote Kapelle re-
sistance group, formulates these ideas, he is already thinking in terms of
a “popular front” strategy, although his skepticism about popular atti-
tudes at the time of his arrest must have been considerable, judging from
his report on a pamphleteering campaign:
Sch.-B. [Schulze-Boysen] thought it necessary to the cohesion of his group to
undertake an action he himself regarded as of minor political significance. Of
course it was not a question of using slogans to achieve a propaganda effect,
but it quite likely did concern giving the population the feeling that we are
42 Conduct Code of the Cool Persona

still alive and that power stands ready for mobilization inside. A represen-
tative of the KPD [German Communist Party] had been invited to attend the
preliminary discussions as a nonvoting observer. Rittmeister hadn’t even
been informed of the meeting, since his rejection of the idea could be assumed
from the outset. Professional obligations kept me from attending the discus-
sions, so I sent Ursula Goetze to Thiel to represent a similar negative posi-
tion. I thought that the time was conceivably a bad one, given the major of-
fensive against the Russians slated for the summer, where early successes had
to be anticipated. My further objection, that the effort was too great and too
risky for a merely symbolic action, was dismissed with remarks that the post-
ers had already been printed. Calling the action off now would completely
demoralize the group. Once the question was resolved in this way, Ursula, as
we had agreed for such an eventuality, declared our readiness to submit to
group discipline and take part in the action.
Thiel took over distributing the posters. We pasted up a large number of
them around Sachsendamm the night of 17 May 1942. The affair made a big
stir in Berlin, but all attempts on the part of the police to track down the per-
petrators were in vain. We were mostly hidden at military positions.20

THE CODE OF OBJECTIVITY

When social ties fail and extreme agonistic tension fills the space in
which individuals interact, the time has come for rules to govern behav-
ior. Alfred Döblin called the Weimar Republic “a republic with no in-
struction manual.” In fact, however, there arose during this period a
wealth of codes to guide conduct, from architecture to philosophical
anthropology, from sexuality to theater. Each political camp had its
own catechism. The disoriented subject was clearly in need of an exter-
nal voice to tell it where to go and what to do.
In this situation Max Weber offered up his own Art of Worldly Wis-
dom, “Science as a Vocation,” his famous address from 1919 that
founds new objectivity codes of conduct and simultaneously reveals the
dilemma inherent in them.21 For what sparked further discussion in his
impressive document was less the idea of the dialectic of disenchantment
or the polytheism of values than the closed habitus of those who want
“purely to serve the fact (Sache) at hand”— even if it is transient, even
if the chain of progress of which it becomes a part is “meaningless,” and
its final evaluation falls entirely to fate. Weber proposes disenchantment
and defiant awareness of fate’s demonic power, which the results of the
various rational intellectual disciplines cannot sublate. The intellectual
style he recommends takes shape from within a particular habitus; be-
cause hope is no longer to be vested in the evolutionary process, atti-
Conduct Code of the Cool Persona 43

3. No summer’s bloom lies ahead of us

(Adolf Erik Nordenskjöld. Photo by Graf Georg von Rosen. With the permission of
Archiv Deutsches Schiffahrtsmuseum, Bremerhaven.)

tudes of defiance must counter meaninglessness; their icon is the North

Pole explorer (see Figure 3), as anticipated by Nietzsche. Weber also re-
sorts to this image when, in “Politics as a Vocation,” he goes on to warn
against the lures of putative saviors and calls on society to rise to the
challenges of the day:
No summer’s bloom lies ahead of us, but rather a polar night of icy darkness
and hardness, no matter which group may triumph externally now.22

Weber’s scientific type of the cool persona also manifests itself in his ac-
ceptance of the hard world of objective fact, in which all principles are
relative and all developments are finally a matter of accident.23 “Disillu-
sioned realism” is the keyword. Karl Mannheim points out that this way
of looking at things is also grounded in fear.24
44 Conduct Code of the Cool Persona

We find in Weber the signature of the new objectivity: “Complete dis-

illusion about the age and yet an unqualified commitment to it” (Benja-
min). Only one ethical law applies to the scientific guild, and that is the
relativism of variant valuations. Yet this ethical law, rather than allow-
ing scientists to adopt a more relaxed attitude, makes them tensely alert
to any intrusion of ethical conviction into their scientific practice and
willing to maintain a defiant stand on the platform of negativity.

The 1920s is a boom period for codes of conduct. But their effective ra-
dius tends either to be restricted to expressions of the new objectivity it-
self or overwhelmed by the mass of rules they promised to relieve, which
are rules generated by surrounding institutions, parties, and political
camps. We meet here a generation of intellectuals whose readings of
Sorel and Nietzsche, Marx, Le Bon, and Kierkegaard had been influ-
enced by experiences of war, the suppression of workers’ uprisings, and
inflation. They were only all too familiar with the idea that law’s origi-
nary violence lay hidden in every legal institution, that latently illegiti-
mate powers are at home in the houses of parliament. A small turn in
the wheel of fortune was all it took for “naked” violence—violence not
adorned with the insignia of legality—to emerge from within the ma-
chinery of the constitutional state.
In this intellectual context we can perceive the republic as “earth-
quake territory” and uncover references to codes of conduct conceived
in the violent world of the seventeenth century. As Krauss formulated it,
there was a demand for a methodology that promised to “delve system-
atically into the warlike character of existence” (120). In Gracián’s cool
persona observers recognized the figure of a mobile subject, without
psychological depth, with a radius of action unhampered by moral
intervention or the voice of conscience. Whether this figure merged with
Nietzsche’s ideal of the “intellectual nomad” or the nineteenth-century
dandy, or— one of the tricks of the Weimar intelligentsia—appeared in
the uniform of the soldier, the worker, or the Communist cadre, the cool
persona had caught everyone’s attention.
As Krauss reconstructs Gracián’s code of conduct, it has three motifs
that take decisive roles in the rejection of ethical commitment and the
radicalism of its expressionist offspring:

Radical expression, as well as all discursive rituals involving expo-

sure, confession, and sincerity seem silly to the new objectivity;
these forms disarm the self and, as Gracián remarked, have the
Conduct Code of the Cool Persona 45

single function of provoking the evil latent in the enemy. Impotence,

in the 1920s, loses the discreet charm it had enjoyed. “It would be
ludicrous to believe,” as Schmitt puts it, “that a defenseless people
has nothing but friends, and it would be a deranged calculation to
suppose that the enemy could perhaps be touched by the absence
of a resistance.”25
In codes of conduct such as Gracián’s, the elements of feigning (dis-
simulatio) and “masking [were forms] of resistance to seventeenth-
century Lutheran orthodoxy.” The Lutheran formula for authentic
personal salvation was bound to heartfelt contrition, the free ex-
pression of pain, and the activity of the conscience. The arts of
prudence and diplomacy, as well as the particular way Jesuits of
Gracián’s stamp assimilated foreign cultures, were “of the devil,”
and at the same time fitting instruments in the world of appearance.
Proponents of the new objectivity perceive in expressionism and its
cult of the scream the tradition of Lutheran authenticity. They opt
instead for Jesuit strategies, explore their fascination for the hybrid
type of the dandy-soldier. They accept Gracián’s slogan—“Appear-
ance civilizes”—in an effort to transcend the traditional division of
labor between the cultures of private salvation, on the one hand,
and public wickedness, on the other.
Gracián relinquishes the plaintive cry over the loss of a more “au-
thentic” community. In his Art of Worldly Wisdom there is no
lament about how people have become estranged from some origin.
His persona moves inside a space of “seamless estrangement” and
accepts it as an inevitable condition.

In Gracián’s words:

Time has moved far from its origin. There is nothing left to do but to live as
one can, rather than as one would like to live. It is necessary to regard what
fate bestows upon us as superior to what it denies. (86 f.)

In Plötzensee, Krauss discovers his agreement with Gracián in princi-

ple. His personal experience of the origins myth of the National Social-
ist movement has scarred him. In opposition to that kind of fundamen-
talism, he forms his persona in terms of the necessity for self-defense. Its
cardinal virtues are “absolute alertness” and cunning. Krauss uses Gra-
cián’s code of conduct to seal himself off from the temptations of irra-
tionalism and the seductions of community. The man he becomes is an
46 Conduct Code of the Cool Persona

actor, a practitioner par excellence of the arts of distinction. The palpa-

ble effect of the practice of distinction is coolness.

THE COOL PERSONA AS BOGEYMAN

This figure’s prospects could not appear less favorable today. In the last
few decades whenever science has focused its attention on the armored
subject, the examination has quickly turned into a tribunal. Perhaps in
political and rhetorical terms the concept of the persona serves as a neu-
tral technical category encompassing observation of the self and obser-
vation by others, but the addition of coolness as a qualifying attribute
all but guarantees a negative resonance. From the viewpoint of a culture
of sincerity, the cool persona makes a ridiculous impression, a judgment
that, in its expression, easily recalls Rousseau:
Cool temperaments and cool hearts are the active properties of the come-
dic character, which derives its artistic and reflective senses solely from the
brain.26

Cool personas are recognizable by their froids posés; they are deaf to
the heartfelt tones of lament, anaesthetized to all that is authentic. Their
strong suit is the exquisite finesse with which they decline to lend their
own voices to the cri de la nature:
At the proper time, operating coolly and according to plan, in unchanging
conformity to their own will, they bring into play whatever guarantees their
self-interest.27

In today’s climate, the only legitimate interest in the cool persona is

antiquarian. As early as 1943 Krauss drew attention to a pair of ob-
vious shortcomings in Gracián’s code, identifying precisely the points
that had been taken to extremes in the 1920s and that would disqualify
it absolutely today: Gracián’s precepts construct a purely male world
in which gender polarization effectively silences the female voice; the
people appear in it only “in the armaments of a major power,” which
is always hostile to the individual. The rule is “Always armored, never
carnivalesque.”
It is easy to levy judgment: the cool persona implies a “masquerade
of virulent narcissism.”28 All truly human qualities—which, arguably,
necessarily involve personal vulnerability—atrophy inside an armored
ego.29 So many easy reproaches beset Gracián and Krauss’s new objec-
tivity type nowadays that it would scarcely find life livable. Dissections
Conduct Code of the Cool Persona 47

of the cool persona, stretching over a couple of decades now, have pro-
duced ominous results. Studies range from Klaus Theweleit’s psycho-
gram of the soldeska and Michael Rohrwasser’s diagnosis of the func-
tionary to Nicolaus Sombart’s illumination of the Schmitt syndrome,
from Carl Pietzcker’s exposure of Brecht’s heart neurosis to Peter Sloter-
dijk’s discovery that the armored ego is depressive at its core.30
Feminist research has both multiplied these judgments and ren-
dered them more precise. It uncovers in protective coolness a variant
of male self-reflection, identifying in the cult of objectivity and cool-
ness a compensation for the loss of the adjudicating father, and in the
code of discretion a patriarchal division of labor (Ulrike Bauereithel),
whereby women are expected to do all the work close to the home,
while men are allowed to choose work at a distance (Claudia Szcesny-
Friedmann).31
Already in 1923, Otto Rank conjectured that the remarkable cult
of coolness he was witnessing among Weimar intellectuals was simply
a “heroic compensation” for the birth trauma arising from the sud-
den loss of symbiotic community. Others found compulsive behav-
ior of one sort or another embedded in the drive structure of all vari-
ants of the cool persona. Concealed behind an obsession with the state
or a fetishizing of the collective is, in the words of one author, “men’s
deeply rooted fear of the female,” which stimulates a compulsive at-
tempt to contain phenomena suggestive of chaos or fluidity.32 Praise of
coolness, an acceptance of alienation, the cult of distance, the courage
to make decisions: in light of the Freudian teaching on neurosis, the
characteristics of the cool persona appear as pathological symptoms.
And the symptoms involve more than the deformation of individual be-
ings. The armoring results from a civilizing process that links the idea of
autonomy to the disciplining and “cooling” of the affects. The contain-
ment of the ego, as Theweleit claims, following Norbert Elias, goes hand
in hand with the centralization of state power, so that the autonomous
ego becomes something like “a centralized state power in miniature.”
If we pursue the question of the self-image implied in the judgments
levied today— on the armored self, the metallic ego, the bunker per-
sonality—we find code words such as “relaxation,” “demilitarization,”
“meditation.” According to this model, ideal individuals live in har-
mony with their moderate drives, have cast off all “illusions of perpe-
tration,” and have no need to mark off bodily boundaries or zones of
discretion. They pursue a policy of “active inactivity.”
Thus does Diogenes of Sinope wander unwittingly into the civil war
48 Conduct Code of the Cool Persona

scenario of the Weimar Republic. He delights in the functioning of his

organs, murmuring:

Where we have done nothing, there’s no tiger on the loose and difficult to get
off of. Those who know how to let things alone do not get dragged along by
out-of-control projects; those who practice abstinence do not get caught up
in the automatic self-replication of unrestrained physicality.33

Is it possible to imagine that society’s power plays actually stop short of

some realm of “unrestrained physicality,” as this image suggests? In this
free space, can the human psychic constitution really be “tigerless”?

SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY ANTHROPOLOGY
IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

From the standpoint of the therapeutically inclined anthropology of the

1970s and 1980s, the leitmotiv of the code of coolness sounds a bit
shrill, the more so when set to the inimitably subtle lines from the “Bal-
lad of the Inadequacy of Human Planning,” a popular song by Brecht:

Man is no good at all

So kick him with your boot.
If you kick him with your boot
Then maybe he’ll be good.34

Through the halls of the republic, from early dada pamphlets (“Man is
not good; he’s a beast”— George Grosz) to Brecht’s Flüchtlingsgesprä-
che (“Man is good, veal is delicious”) resounds the scorn of new objec-
tivity intellectuals for the idea of inborn goodness; it echoes, for exam-
ple, in the title of Leonhard Frank’s very successful 1919 collection of
stories, Der Mensch ist gut. Robert Musil, examining goodness in the
light of functionalism, comes to the conclusion: “For a good person does
not make the world good in the slightest. He has no effect on it whatso-
ever; he merely distinguishes himself from it.”35
The view of man as harmless, according to Carl Schmitt, is either the
quaint touch of a naive anthropology or the symptom of an infantile dis-
order, such as expressionism or some other comparable radicalism.
Max Scheler sees salvation only in an energetic embrace of asceticism,
which he supposes might help repress and sublimate destructive drives.36
Helmuth Plessner warns against the “inherent baseness” in human be-
ings.37 Sigmund Freud speaks ironically of those good sorts who deny
the ubiquity of destructive drives: “For ‘little children do not like it’
Conduct Code of the Cool Persona 49

when there is talk of the inborn human inclination to ‘badness,’ to

aggressiveness and destructiveness, and so to cruelty as well.”38 We find
the dictum, again in Carl Schmitt, that every “genuine” political theory,
as well as every “genuine” political anthropology, must assume from the
outset that man is by nature a dangerous, a “risky being.”39 And Ernst
Jünger calls attention to “nature’s dreadful sneering laugh at the idea of
its subjugation to morality.”40
Seventeenth-century ideas stressing the destructive potential of hu-
man drives, as well as remedies cooked up to tame them, surface among
avant-garde writers of every description.41 In political theory, whether
delivered on the stage or propounded in scholarly treatises, they focus
attention on the “tiger’s leap into the seventeenth century.” There is an
undeniable appeal to the logic of extremes. The figure of the crude “wolf
man,” which appears amid the wars of religion, is as fascinating as the
horrors perpetrated in opposition by the burgeoning state machinery.
What attracts the radical intelligentsia here is the implicit “aura of arti-
ficiality” because, whatever violence it entails, it promises to keep man’s
natural impulses in check.42 A corresponding image also emerges: the
figure of the subject, awash in this aura, lacking in conscience, depen-
dent on external voices for guidance.
Walter Benjamin reconstructs the “catastrophic landscape” of the
seventeenth century in categories that describe the intellectual situation
after the war:
The beyond is emptied of everything in which there is even the faintest breath
of the world, and the baroque takes from it a multitude of relentlessly form-
less things, at the high point of the period exposing them in drastic form to
the light, so as to clear out this one last heaven and, as with a vacuum, make
ready one day catastrophic violence to destroy the earth.43

A view from the perspective of this nihilistic landscape makes available

the conceptual image of a negative theology that will prove critical to
twentieth-century dialectics. Since the path to redemption has been set
off on the detour of transcendence,
German tragedy has buried itself in the inconsolability of its earthy state. If
it knows any redemption at all, it is one rooted in the depths of this fateful
development itself, rather than in the completion of some divine scenario of
salvation.44

Philosophical discourse in the seventeenth century undermined the theo-

logical assumption of an internalized seat of judgment and control,
drawing attention to the obvious conclusion. Only the external force of
50 Conduct Code of the Cool Persona

social control mechanisms, along with a mutual neutralization of the

affects, could ever produce any measure of morality.45 John Locke be-
gan with the assumption that the human soul holds no natural incli-
nation toward the good or judgment capable of effectively checking dark
impulses. Whatever it has in the way of natural drives, he noted, tend
more to destroy than to enforce morality. Reward and punishment, the
external means of encouragement and deterrence, are the only things
capable of getting moral law a hearing. Nor did Thomas Hobbes, shift-
ing control to the state, trust inner impulses or the subject’s action in
anticipation of state rationality. Carl Schmitt, who refers to Hobbes,
claims emphatically that the retrieval of seventeenth-century black an-
thropology has nothing to do with exoticism or a taste for cruelty. It
corresponds much more, as Schmitt puts it, to the “real nature of being”
in the twentieth century. It may be denounced as a return to the “ata-
vistic remnant of barbaric times,” but postwar reality warrants no other
alternative.46
In his polemic against the fixed idea of “inborn goodness,” Schmitt
reveals a dangerous aspect and leads us along another track. From
Schmitt’s perspective all the talk of goodness is not only a sign of naïveté
and pious humanism—liberalism’s rallying call—but, far more alarm-
ing, an index of anarchism, which lays the blame for perversions of
goodness on the state. In both liberalism and anarchism he sees subver-
sive forces working against the state: the one by demoting it to a mere
instrument of the market and replacing struggle by never-ending liberal
“palaver”; the other by dissolving it altogether, abandoning institu-
tional restraint for the descent into chaos.
For Lorenz von Stein, the greatest threat is from political liberalism,
the way it strives for the “blurring of boundaries between hostile ele-
ments,” the “interpenetration of opposing forces” through the medium
of parliamentary exchange. In the face of this danger, the armored ego
opts for defiance (though Schmitt is eager, by way of a kind of “authori-
tarian liberalism,” to cozy up to industrial capital).
In the course of retrieving the negative anthropology of the seven-
teenth century, the thirty years’ war of modernism (1914 – 45) also in-
volves a remarkable resurgence of rules of prudent behavior, likewise a
growth industry in that catastrophic century. Having lost the mooring
of an external metaphysics, people begin scavenging the ruins of histori-
cal systems for an orienting codex of conduct, which is to say, the tools
of self-stabilization. The principles underlying Hobbes’s precepts of ra-
tionality return in modern variations:
Conduct Code of the Cool Persona 51

1. Always follow that system of rules which, if enacted, promises you the
greatest personal advantage.
2. Follow these rules even in situations in which violating a rule promises
greater personal advantage than conforming to it.
3. It is unreasonable to continue following this system of rules when gener-
alized nonobservance transforms the greatest advantage that would per-
tain given general compliance into the greatest disadvantage.47

The fundamental right in a violent world is the right to dissimulate.

“Open-heartedness,” as the decade of expressionism finally learns, is an
unerring index of self-surrender. This explains why the time is so favor-
able for the political-pragmatic genre of conduct codes and the asso-
ciated rhetoric of dissimulation. In the decade of the new objectivity
the idea dawns that seventeenth-century rhetoric was far advanced over
the critical concepts of the eighteenth, “because it reflects the mediation
of communication, the polyvalence of signs, and the opacity of rela-
tions.”48 This discovery, of course, goes hand in hand with a fatal under-
estimation of the modernity of the eighteenth century, in particular its
discovery of “history.”

Along with the use of external force to rein in dangerous drives and a set
of behavioral roles to enhance stability, the new objectivity reclaimed
a third element from the world of eighteenth-century thought. This is
the construction by Hobbes of physics as the scientific foundation of
ethics and his conception of man as a motion-machine.49 “Coolness,
as a tendency,” Osip Mandelstam reminds us in his 1930 commentary
on Dante, “stems from the incursion of physics into the moral idea.”50
Hobbes’s perception of reality is physicalist in tone: the world consists
of moving bodies; mental processes are an element in this system of mo-
bility. Subjectivity appears to him as a “thing among things” and results
in an increase in the reflexivity of behavior. Reason is a kind of compen-
sating apparatus within the mobility system of the individual person; it
harmonizes the dynamics of personal drives with state power.
The avant-garde greedily took up these aspects of an anthropology
that had been overwhelmed by the nineteenth-century cult of psychol-
ogy; they also filtered out the last traces of humanism in which Hobbes’s
anthropology was embedded. While few today would assert that Hobbes
had reduced social action to the “reflected reciprocity of instrumental-
ization” (K. O. Apel), we can barely imagine the aesthetic appeal in the
1920s of the behavioral liberation implicit in that standpoint.51 The idea
52 Conduct Code of the Cool Persona

of all actors’ awareness that their counterparts were equally interested

in harnessing others to their own private aims inspires Serner’s scenar-
ios of the gangster world and structures a few of Brecht’s plays. Hobbes
saw a world in which closed-off individuals compete with one another
to increase their power and in which nothing, neither consensual under-
standings nor talking cures, could draw them out of their “private opac-
ity.” To a generation of the avant-garde, for whom nineteenth-century
psychology did nothing but point toward impotence and paralysis, here
was a welcome environment.

HELMUTH PLESSNER’S ANTHROPOLOGY:

CLOAK-AND-DAGGER, NEW OBJECTIVITY – STYLE

“This radical thought of modernity, the Weimar symptom,” Peter Slo-

terdijk concludes his analysis of cynicism,

uncovers emptiness at the pole of the self and otherness at the pole of the
world; but how an emptiness is supposed to recognize “itself” in an other-
ness is something that our reason, with the best of wills, cannot imagine.52

At the beginning of the 1920s, Helmuth Plessner could well imagine a

form of self-knowledge that specifically did not opt for the path of intro-
spection Sloterdijk has in mind. Plessner’s assessment of the intellectual
situation corresponds to Sloterdijk’s dictum: the heavens of metaphys-
ics, following the world war, are “cold and empty.” “Vacuum” was a
popular scientific term at the time, used to designate that condition; the
1918 revolution had been termed a “vacuum cleaner.” Plessner captures
the disillusion in a statement that many of his contemporaries would
have underwritten: “Nothing may be expected of an arch, except that it
will collapse.”53
Where the heavens no longer arch protectively over the individual,
where the “endless cooling” of modern society provokes fright, “the
warm glow of community,” in Kracauer’s words, looms as an ideal ha-
ven.54 But he, like Plessner, warns against a panicked flight into security.
Plessner outlines a code of conduct suited to the “coolness of society”
(11–133). His Grenzen der Gemeinschaft: Eine Kritik des sozialen Ra-
dikalismus appeared in 1924.
Combining the concepts “community” and “radicalism” in a single
title, Plessner addresses himself to one of the central aspects of German
ideology. Community (Gemeinschaft) stood as a polemical term opposed
Conduct Code of the Cool Persona 53

to society (Gesellschaft) during the 1920s, suggesting a return to a lost

“original and natural condition” of unity, which Ferdinand Tönnies had
already formulated as early as 1886 as a contrast to the dispersion and
fragmentation of civilization.55 Sociologists of the 1920s also gave con-
siderable analytical credence to this distinction. Theodor Geiger recog-
nized in community the regulative idea of that legendary symbiotic “form
of being, in which I am aware of not being separate from others.”56
With the term “radicalism,” Plessner attacks worldviews based on a
conviction that there was any good to be had from “a return to the roots
of existence.” To the wish projections of “primary unity” and radical
therapies, Plessner opposes his behavioral doctrine of distance and bases
it on the anthropological principle that every human being, from the
moment of birth, leads an incomplete existence. “That is why man is ‘by
nature’ artificial and never in balance.”57
Plessner’s text draws its polarity schema from a long iconographic
tradition that associates images of community with the warm pole and
those of society with the cold one; in this dualistic model, society is a
sphere of permanent separation.58 Plessner resolves to make his “way
into the glacier” of society (Theodor Lessing). In this glacial space, the
point is to save face.
Plessner understands the reasons people would wish to immerse
themselves in a “warming sphere of trust,” but he sees what he believes
are fatal shortcomings in communitarian ideology.

The idea of community harbors the illusion that it can overcome its
inherent violence. It masks the life-saving function of differences
among individuals, obscures internal hostilities and the necessity for
spheres of mistrust, which it projects outward. Community forgets
too easily that it necessarily operates inside the technological forms
of social intercourse and comes into being only by setting itself off
from others.
The fundamentalism inherent in the notion of community works a
ruinous effect on the individual. The “purism” of its system of val-
ues tears down the individual’s bodily boundaries. Its cult of “gen-
uineness” is a close relation to terror; its demand for “authenticity”
appeals to a substance that simply does not exist.
The cult of “essentialism,” which community puts at the center of
its concerns, is a phantom; in the light of a code of conduct, it dis-
solves into nothing.
54 Conduct Code of the Cool Persona

Plessner often mentions contemporary artistic and literary disputes,

especially whenever he senses the presence of the cult of sincerity, which
is the immediate target of his code of conduct:
Industrialism is the exchange form, expressionism the art, and social radical-
ism the ethic of tactlessness. The cry for physical hygiene, which contents it-
self with overhead lighting and tiled walls, is the perfect accompaniment to
an art that will stop at nothing to get at the essence of things, to a morality
of reckless sincerity and the acceptability in principle of causing oneself and
others pain. (110)

Plessner does not tolerate the enactment of “naked honesty” or “erup-

tive authenticity” either in contemporary design, whether the new ob-
jectivity interiors of Bauhaus architecture—“with overhead lighting and
tiled walls”— or in expressionist stage sets. Hygiene resides for him at
the cold pole, “reckless sincerity” at the warm. He takes aim at all forms
of unmediated directness, pleading for moderate temperatures and in-
direct lighting, for art and literature of whatever type as long as they
eschew intimate self-revelation in favor of the regulating practice of
distance.
Here Plessner not only adopts motifs from Georg Simmel’s sociology
and takes up Max Weber’s opposition to an “ethics of personal convic-
tion.” His voice joins that of others, from avant-garde manifestos to ve-
hement communitarian ideology itself, all of them reacting to negative
wartime experiences and the old order’s decline. The Hungarian aes-
thetic theorist Ernö Kallai writes in a 1923 manifesto:
Constructivism is a-ethical. . . . Ultimately there is no wiser humanism than
one that takes specific and effective steps to protect us from constantly col-
liding with the interior lives of others. . . . It is better for us to devote our ef-
forts to securing for each individual the free space necessary to separate him
from his nearest and dearest. This means more fresh air for everyone, more
mobility, unprejudiced openness, and—fortunately—less monumentality,
heroism, and tragic ethos.59

Unlike the avant-garde, however, Plessner avoids the anti-heroic bearing

that works to such advantage in Kallai’s text. Instead, in a move that will
assume dangerous form in his 1931 text, Macht und menschliche Natur,
he finds in his doctrine of distance the underpinnings of an existential
pathos.
His earlier manifesto, Grenzen der Gemeinschaft, from which the
passage quoted above comes, is already a strange and valuable docu-
ment in the culture of distance. It attacks the “tyranny of intimacy,” as
Conduct Code of the Cool Persona 55

the American sociologist Richard Sennett terms it fifty years later in his
assault on excessive intimacy.60 Plessner also shares his aversion for the
cult of authenticity with Walter Benjamin, who, glimpsing in the form-
lessness of pure honesty a “factually and ethically untenable expecta-
tion,” opposes the “boundless self-revelation” of those who are also of-
ten “externally unkempt (the vegetarian type)” to the well-groomed
type of the diplomat.61 In its emphasis on the historical variability of
artificial formulas of authenticity, Plessen’s text contributes, finally, to a
tradition that Lionel Trilling takes up in his Sincerity and Authenticity
of 1971.62
Like Sennett, Plessner argues that the cult of authentic expression
generates more suffering than it relieves:

Sincerity offers no reliable guide to behavior among strangers. . . . A brief col-

lision is necessarily followed by the return of worldly coolness. (107)

Unlike Sennett, however, who mourns the loss of warmth in the public
sphere and wants to restore it, Plessner seeks to turn public coolness into
a medium that accepts vitalizing boundaries. Sennett looks for orienta-
tion to public dialogue in the eighteenth century, while Plessner’s theory
breathes the air of seventeenth-century French classicism.
Opposed to the overheated images of a closed community and un-
differentiated unity, Plessner installs an image of society, which he de-
fines formally as an “open system of traffic forms” populated by unac-
quainted individuals. What characterizes society in this view is its value
neutrality; founded in violence and hostility, it nevertheless has an ever
expanding range of possibilities for individual participation. Individuals
never appear in Plessner’s system in raw form but always in roles; in
their interactions with others they define themselves. In the process, peo-
ple must create a functioning balance for themselves between spheres of
trust and mistrust, relying on the instrumentalities of ritual ceremony,
prestige, diplomacy, and tact, all of which work to regulate proportions
of distance and closeness, objectivity and familiarity. Social interaction,
in Plessner’s view, requires a virtuoso’s ease “with forms that bring peo-
ple close to one another without meeting, that allow them to distance
themselves without causing offense” (80). Plessner aims here at the main-
tenance of a moderate distance, reminiscent of Schopenhauer’s famous
parable of the freezing porcupines.63
Strong people, according to Plessner, are those who master the rules
of the game (society’s only “moral law”) and surrender to the artifi-
56 Conduct Code of the Cool Persona

ciality of its forms. Any technique that leads from intimacy into distance
thus represents relief for the individual. Practicing tact in the private
sphere and diplomacy in public, the strong further increase their per-
sonal power.
True virtuosos ultimately achieve a kind of aristocratic elegance in
their game playing, which was also an aspect of Gracián’s cool persona:
The separation necessarily existing between people is raised to the nobility of
distance, in which the forms of courtesy, respect, and attentiveness render in-
effective the insulting indifference, coolness, and rawness of people living
past each other in a common space. (80)

We return to Plessner’s anthropological principles of 1924 only after this

reading of Grenzen as a code of conduct because, in the light of this
reading, the principles appear to reflect a specific habitus. Plessner’s di-
rectives are not necessarily the result of an anthropology modeled on
natural science, although he makes reference to zoology, medicine, and
paleontology, presumably in order to represent his code as grounded sci-
entifically in the constitution of the individual. If we are correct in this
assumption, then what we have in Plessner’s most ambitious work, Die
Stufen des Organischen und der Mensch, is the naturalization of an ec-
centric code of conduct.
The principles of his 1924 anthropology may be stated concisely:
man is by nature artificial. He is born into the world in an eccentric po-
sition and requires the artificiality of a second nature, which is available
in the surrounding cultural context, in order to be able to live at all. His-
tory becomes a process in which human beings are continually busy de-
veloping objective structures to which they submit as the medium and
measure of their existence.64 This recognition of the artificial conditions
and forms of human existence will have far-reaching consequences for
the development of anthropology; Arnold Gehlen will later erect his the-
ory of institutions on the principle that people are by nature cultural be-
ings.65 In Plessner’s early work, however, we can still separate out the
elements of the artificiality axiom, ranging from Nietzschean motifs
to the cult of technology, and examine them one by one. We can see
how indebted the artificiality axiom is to the polarizing tendencies of vi-
talism 66 —here the vitalist bogeyman of chilled estrangement abruptly
takes on a positive valence. We can understand the switch more readily
by taking a brief look at the great mediating figure of Georg Simmel.
Simmel assumes from the outset a fundamental and tragic contradic-
tion in life:
Conduct Code of the Cool Persona 57

Life in its creativity is constantly producing something which itself is not life,
something that is always bringing it to a standstill, something that poses its
own legal claims. This something cannot express itself except in forms that
are other than it, signifying independent meanings. This contradiction is the
real and pervasive tragedy of culture.67

Here in Simmel’s words we find the intellectual structure of an epoch that

constructs tense polar oppositions between internal drives and social
compulsion, between the creativity of life and expressive conventions, be-
tween unalienated being and reification. Plessner is among those think-
ers seeking to transcend a tragic contradiction by giving its polarized ex-
pression a surprising turn: only the medium of social compulsion allows
drives to develop humanely; conventions alone make humane expres-
sion possible. Freedom must thrive within the alienated space of society.
The point for Plessner is to accept the developed forms of commercial,
convivial, and urban intercourse in their human dignity.68
Four years later Plessner reiterates the principle of artificiality, bor-
rowing from the classic formulation in Scheler’s major work: “Man
therefore lives only when he lives a life.” Man realizes himself in social
figurations, which make up the natural medium of his existence. Cast
out of the nest too quickly, he relies for survival on an environment con-
trived expressly toward that end:

Existentially needy, internally rent, and naked, man finds in artificiality the
perfectly appropriate expression of his nature. Artificiality allows man to
travel an eccentric detour to a second fatherland, where he is absolutely
rooted in his true homeland. Placeless, timeless, released into nothingness,
the eccentric life form creates its own ground. It is his only in that he creates
it; only he can carry it. Artificiality in doing, thinking, and dreaming is the
internal means by which man comes into harmony with himself as a natural
living being.69

From such a statement it is possible to derive all the fundamental con-

ditions of the psyche. All psychological expression is subordinate to the
systematic lawfulness of artificiality (or, in today’s terms, the symbolic
order, the public sphere, and institutions); “mediated immediacy” is the
lot of man. In order to come to himself, man must first set loose the psy-
chological aspect of his being in a foreign medium.

Joined seamlessly to Plessner’s concept of action and embedded in his

code of distance, these principles are at the center of his anthropology:
the directness and authenticity that the ideology of community demands
58 Conduct Code of the Cool Persona

of the human self is contrary to its nature: “In indirectness is manifest

that which is inimitably human.” The psyche depends on violent instru-
mentalities to create a protected zone of distance in which it can unfold.
Boundaries expand reflexive latitude. “In nothing is man’s freedom dem-
onstrated more purely than in his distance from himself” (106).
Plessner’s code is among the more accessible of the documents attest-
ing to the new objectivity of the younger generation that was trying to
balance bodily forces that long for community while demanding inter-
personal distance. His Grenzen is a rare civil and civilizing document of
German cultural history, raising a controversial issue, namely, the
boundary as the necessary condition of a living body.
As clear as it may seem in retrospect, in 1924 the principle of the
boundary had not yet been fully defined. Along with several other intel-
lectuals of the decade—Siegfried Kracauer, Bertolt Brecht, Herbert
Jhering, Erich Engels, Walter Benjamin, Ernö Kallai, Paul Tillich, Karl
Mannheim—Plessner puts greater emphasis on the anonymity of the
public sphere as a necessary medium in which life, in all its shadings of
otherness and familiarity, can fluctuate. Remarkably enough—and per-
haps thanks to a shared legacy in Kierkegaard, vitalism, or the tradition
of cultural criticism—Plessner’s description of the public sphere lists
characteristics that Heidegger will identify with inauthenticity but as-
sign diametric value to: distantness, lightness of being, restlessness, dis-
traction, uprooting.

In all the phenomena listed, Plessner welcomes the open horizon of po-
tential that characterizes existence. Emphasis on the reflexive aspect of
conventional forms frees social exchange among individuals of funda-
mentalist expectations. The turn away from the complex of “fortified in-
teriority” (Thomas Mann) and the move beyond division into a private
sphere of contemplative well-being and public ordeal of deeds open a
new chapter in which the horizon of man’s ability to do defines his es-
sence. There is no doubt that Plessner is setting out a new formula of
authenticity, this one based on the objectivity of the human sciences. It
removes the criterion of expressive “genuineness” from the framing con-
ditions in which it had been set previously—impotence, remorse, un-
consciousness, and paralysis—binding it instead to the reflection of be-
havioral effectiveness in reality.
But the deep fissures in Plessner’s concept of the person, as well as in-
adequacies in his arguments and political allusions, remind us that the
Conduct Code of the Cool Persona 59

structure he proposes does not draw on any preexisting cultural tradi-

tion, causing it sometimes to appear more the product of high-energy as-
sertion than detailed philosophical elaboration. Notable now and again
is the sheer brute force with which Plessner “anchors the reflexive fig-
ures of German idealism in the body.”70 Doing so, he reveals fear as an
elementary human motivation and installs aesthetic considerations at
the basis of anthropological principles, betraying how deeply Plessner’s
science at its core is yet grounded in the thought of the fathers, continu-
ing the effort to fend off the youth movement’s vitalism, which the fa-
thers wanted to forget. It is typical of Plessner’s concept of the political
in the 1920s that he suddenly sharpens his polarization of the familiar
and the strange when he intervenes in ideological disputes (in both texts,
from 1924 and 1931). His central concept of the boundary now no longer
designates a zone of exchange. Appearing on the scene instead is a highly
reflexive individual organized internally around an ego that is strictly de-
marcated from the unconsciousness of physical being. It appears nec-
essary, in order to act out embodied being correctly, to forget the body.
Constantly supervising its borders, the ego exists in a state of permanent
alarm.

As others have noted, Plessner’s axiom of eccentric positionality rests on

the concept of the boundary.71 The sovereignty of Plessner’s persona is
beset by the continual challenge of conditions arising out of the natural
equipment of every human individual; people constantly find themselves
in “border situations,” which they can obviously not surmount without
the bravura of marking a boundary.72 Plessner’s stage is like a brightly
lit fencing hall in which combatants face each other. The hall is closed;
there is no opening through which the drives’ darker world (or the econ-
omy’s raw representatives) can gain access. But this image is also
skewed. Elementary danger does not threaten from outside or from op-
ponents; the fencers themselves bear it. The more brightly lit the space
of reflexive behavior, the sharper will be the shadows cast by a subject’s
contours. “Wherever a lot of noise is being made about narcissism,” re-
marks Léon Wurmser, “shame is always silently present.”73
The question is, why must individuals be properly armed to enter the
public arena, this patriarchal space? Plessner answers the question with
enviable clarity: “Whenever the psyche ventures forth nakedly,” he says,
“it runs the risk of appearing ridiculous” (70). Here is the one risk that
even a man committed to risk must not take. For at stake is dignity,
60 Conduct Code of the Cool Persona

and only armoring can guarantee it. The argument looks suspiciously
like a masquerade of virile narcissism. But Plessner welcomes the mas-
querade as the essence of life in the public sphere; narcissism is a neces-
sary and reciprocal element of the ego’s awareness of its reflection in the
mirror of others. By marking a boundary between himself and the ex-
pressionist youth movement, Plessner augments his virility. And by mak-
ing these elegant sidesteps, he distances himself from the debacle of the
lost war.
There is also a question as to whether any knowledge would be gained
by conceding the objections. The tendency at present is to regard expo-
sure as a point of critical superiority; the Freudian theory of neurosis al-
lows us to unmask the dualism of male subjectivity sentence by sentence.
It may be more productive, however, to follow the fear of exposure’s in-
ner logic. We can get at this logic by considering four different readings
of Plessner’s central claim that man is by nature artificial.
Plessner elucidates the body-mind dualism, around which his an-
thropology revolves, by examining the “crisis of ridiculousness.” At first
glance, it may seem as if the principle, “man is by nature artificial,”
solves with one ingenious stroke the problem of dualism: the body has
no natural aspect, because the instinctive level of human being is brack-
eted within the cognitive, and sense perception is a thoroughly artificial
reflex product; “the senses are themselves structured by mind.”74 But
that is not the case in the context of Plessner’s code of conduct. Here his
principle takes the form of a commandment: man should be artificial by
nature! A first careful reading uncovers an imperative in the fundamen-
tal statement of his anthropology.
Plessner constructs a subject that is required to balance counter-
vailing psychological impulses, as if walking a tightrope: the tendency
to reveal and to expose must constantly counteract the tendency to be
ashamed and to conceal. Whenever the maneuver fails, resulting in “un-
checked affective expression,” the psyche appears “naked” in public (in
violation of consensual protective conventions inscribed in the symbolic
order). The penalty is others’ merciless laughter, which, by offending the
dignity of the persona, produces shame. From the failures of an ethics
of personal conviction and expressionist politics, Plessner learns that
the bourgeois public is not the secularized seat of merciful judgment to
which the subject may, in creatural impotence, submit without injury.
“Uninhibited self-surrender to spontaneous expression” can in certain
conditions be fatal; it is in all situations ridiculous. Plessner seeks the
Conduct Code of the Cool Persona 61

reasons for this along several planes. The lack of inhibition in this sense
is necessarily disadvantageous:

For the subject in the grip of an impulse, spontaneous expression

occasions an extreme state of emergency, whereas conventional
forms keep a state of appropriate animal perception. Moreover,
well-worn verbal conventions are available in the symbolic order
for such irresistible expressive impulses (one such impulse leads to
“kitsch”). Plessner resolves the disproportion between a subject’s
claim of uniqueness and cliché according to the embarrassing
“tickle” of ridiculousness.
The fantasies of potency accompanying every passion stand in comic
contrast to the absolute defenselessness of the passionate subject.
Passion of whatever sort requires the discipline of form if its bearer
is to cut a good figure in public.

Plessner’s prescription of artificiality is intended to ward off embarrass-

ment. In defending against ridiculousness, however, Plessner’s anthro-
pology gets drawn back into the shaming theater of the Weimar Repub-
lic, which it was trying to get away from in the first place.
Léon Wurmser proposes a phenomenological definition of the fear
of shame Plessner’s anthropology parades before us as an elementary
danger. It is “a fear evoked by sudden exposure, signaling the threat of
scornful rejection.” “All eyes seem to be fixed on the person who is suf-
fering shame, penetrating him like stab wounds.” Reactions range from
dim anticipation of the consequences to panic. Shame, in its prophy-
lactic function, is supposed to guard the boundaries of intimacy, and
so avoid exposure. And exposure, via the processes of shaming, leads to
punishment. In this marginal situation, it has failed. In the final analy-
sis, the fear and dread of being ridiculous represent “the fear of being
abandoned.”75
In this fear of ridicule, two opposed moments in Plessner’s anthro-
pology collide. First, a living being needs to defend its core identity
against the danger of exposure; at the same time, however, this isolated
being must go into the world, become acquainted with the human col-
lective, and preserve itself there under tyrannical conditions. Fear of rid-
icule is one of the most important stabilizing factors among “primitive
peoples”; 76 it is what guarantees the durability of institutions.
In the fear of ridicule, therefore, two factors that Plessner had largely
62 Conduct Code of the Cool Persona

removed from Grenzen make a powerful reappearance in his argument.

Intersubjectivity and institutions did not figure in the concept of “natu-
ral artificiality,” but now they return: a situation of shamed isolation
makes it apparent that the core concept had not anticipated them. All
the more dreadful, then, is their effect.
A second reading of the artificiality axiom lays stress on both its
backward-looking aspect and its aspect of bold innovation. Plessner’s
Grenzen marks a break with the generation of expressionist youth by
going back to retrieve elements of Nietzsche’s turn-of-the-century aes-
theticism.77 From Nietzsche, Plessner takes the art of drawing distinc-
tions regarded as valid among those who are “noble”:
Care for the most external things, insofar as this care forms a boundary,
keeps distance, guards against confusion.
An apparent frivolity in word, dress, bearing, through which a stoic severity
and self-constraint protects itself against all immodest inquisitiveness. . . .
[Disguise]: the higher the type, the more a man requires an incognito. If
God existed, he would, merely on grounds of decency, be obliged to show
himself to the world only as a man. . . .
Pleasure in forms; taking under protection everything formal, the con-
viction that politeness is one of the greatest virtues; mistrust for letting one-
self go in any way, including all freedom of press and thought, because un-
der them the spirit grows comfortable and doltish and relaxes its limbs.78

Plessner’s sociological discovery of roles as a protective medium is in-

formed by Nietzsche’s claim that every profound spirit needs a mask; his
anthropology centers on this paradox: “Only masked is a man entirely
real.”79 Oscar Wilde’s motto—“Man is least of all himself when he
speaks in his own name. Give him a mask, and he will tell the truth”—
echoes through Plessner’s code of distance. The obligation assumed by
the dandy, “to be as artificial as possible in life,” becomes in Plessner’s
hands a basic element of anthropology. Thus we may conclude either
that aestheticism fundamentally penetrates the existential conditions of
modernity or that a major work of philosophical anthropology in the
1920s still unconsciously observes fin-de-siècle convention.
The mask theory expressed in Grenzen—like the fear of ridicule—
reflects the dilemma at the heart of Plessner’s anthropology. On the one
hand it assumes at the outset that the essence of man consists by nature
in a “mediated immediacy”; on the other, it stresses the constant risk of
a relapse into immediacy. As a result, there are two aspects to Plessner’s
mask theory: it counts masks among the artificial tools responsible for
Conduct Code of the Cool Persona 63

making social life possible in the first place; and the mask protects the
individual from exposure, ennobling a select few. The first version of
masks will later find a place, under the name of roles, in sociology. The
foundation is already present in Grenzen in 1924: all social intercourse
presupposes an “artificial means” (40) to regulate the distance between
people. Masks are part of the gestural language of the public sphere;
they are inextricable from ceremony and prestige.

The individual generalizes and objectifies himself by means of a mask, behind

which he, to a certain extent, becomes invisible without that causing him to
disappear completely as a person. (82)

Those who would find self-realization in the public sphere “have to play
the game,” in order to produce the effects that characterize their particu-
lar function. The game requires a mask. “The maskedness of the public
individual” (94), however, not only exists as a formal technique of so-
cial intercourse but shelters a precarious inner substance that must not
be delivered up defenseless in the public sphere.
“The armored individual,” says Plessner, “wants to fence. A form
that renders one unassailable always has two sides: inwardly it protects,
while outwardly it generates effects” (82). Inwardly, the form of the
mask inhibits the “tendency for self-exposure”; outwardly, it produces
the effects of the “official physiognomy” (85). It conceals the expressive
elements of “eruptive authenticity,” which court the danger of public
shaming. And Plessner welcomes the mask’s dual role because it offers a
chance to breathe the cool air of diplomacy. The mask alone displays
man’s freedom in the realm of artificiality.
Here we see how the findings of anthropology, the moral precepts of
a code of conduct, and elements of turn-of-the-century aestheticism
blend in Plessner’s argument: “It is part of the fundamental character
of the social ethos . . . to desire masks, behind which immediacy dis-
appears” (209). At the same time, Plessner’s artificiality axiom frees
anthropology from the grip of cultural pessimism, bringing it into the
range of new objectivity’s obsessive interest in precipitous moderniza-
tion. The realm of artificiality now shifts to technology and the new me-
dia: the dueling subject becomes an engineer, with the cult of technology
occupying the site of artificiality, forcing individuals from an exclusive
fencing hall into a space pervaded by the hum of the electronic media,
the noise of rotation presses, the signals of the modern traffic system,
and the machinations of power.
64 Conduct Code of the Cool Persona

The artificiality axiom leads to bizarre collocations in the image

world of the new objectivity. In Brecht’s Fatzer fragments we read: “we
are born a second time in the tank”; in the Hauptmann manuscript of
Mann ist Mann there appears a character who plans to swim out to a
coal freighter one day to get to the big city “because he had no parents”;
in Bronnen’s Ostpolzug, we find a subject “born on the seventh floor,
nursed on condensed milk.” Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World makes
a precocious appearance.

All the scenes of exposure Plessner plays out are characterized by a fail-
ure to adequately protect a boundary. People, reduced to defenseless ob-
jectivity, are suddenly subjected to the gaze of others; “impotent,” they
have nothing to present in public beyond their existence as creatures.
But that, according to Plessner, makes no “sense.” For “sense” Plessner
attributes exclusively to the fortification of the closed self in an agonis-
tic situation. His entire attention is occupied with avoiding situations in
which “nonsense”—uninhibited affective expression—takes place. Ad-
vertising defenselessness, such expression can only weaken the individ-
ual. Plessner concentrates on avoiding exposure; he correctly sees in the
discursive rituals of confession, which he identifies among the expres-
sionists, the foil to his code of conduct.
Situations in which appearing armed has an involuntary comic effect
—and the military getup becomes an index of nonsensical heroizing—
escape Plessner’s attention because they do keep making sense. But the
fixation on situations in which nothing seems to happen beyond armored
egos fleeing ridicule is symptomatic of Weimar’s new objectivity intelli-
gentsia (and the point of Plessner’s conceptual contact with Schmitt).
The image of the displaced man armed for combat became the mate-
rial for dadaist experiments with disgrace and the psychoanalytic ency-
clopedia of shame, Sittengeschichte des Weltkrieges, by Magnus Hirsch-
feld. Occasionally such a comic war hero also appears in the theater. In
this latter guise we find a man wholly accustomed to absolute unassail-
ability in a situation in which he wants nothing more fervently than to
be gently intruded upon and touched. If a woman does not take the ini-
tiative to disarm (as she does in Hofmannsthal’s Der Schwierige), he is
left to brood on the iron code of distance.80 Whenever the armored ego
resolves to be genuine, it inevitably turns sentimental. Precisely that sen-
timentality becomes the trademark melody of the new objectivity.
The question of what prevents Plessner from adopting a comic per-
Conduct Code of the Cool Persona 65

spective on the cool persona leads us to a third reading of his principle.

It is surprising that Plessner makes no reference in his work of the 1920s
to the philosophical anthropology of Johann Gottfried Herder, even
though the essential elements of the artificiality axiom are already pres-
ent in Herder’s treatise on the origin of language. “Regarded as a naked
animal lacking in instincts, man is the most miserable of beings,” Herder
writes in his Abhandlung über den Ursprung der Sprache of 1772:
Even in his very first moments this miserable creature, with no instincts, is-
suing forsaken from nature’s lap, was a freely expressive and rational crea-
ture, bound to improve himself, as no other course lay open. All his failings
and requirements as an animal set him, with all the powers at his disposal,
the more urgently to prove himself as man.81

Herder’s work anticipates both the theory of the environment, which

Jakob von Uexküll elaborates, and the doctrine of the artificial sphere,
in which man, by nature, must realize himself as man. “From the midst
of his failings” (which appear against the measure of the animal econ-
omy), poor “forsaken” man finds his composure in relation to the
world, which he creates as a “sphere of reflection.”82
Arnold Gehlen honors Herder as a predecessor in his most ambitious
work, Der Mensch: Seine Natur und seine Stellung in der Welt (1940).
He comes to the conclusion that philosophical anthropology “since
Herder had not advanced a single step.” Nor need it do so, Gehlen adds,
“for this is the truth.”83 In contrast, Plessner does not mention Herder
in the works under discussion here.84 Whatever the reasons for his omis-
sion, substantive reference to Herder might have saved Plessner from
some of the more obvious failings, crudities, and dualisms that mar his
theory. From the outset the theory’s sphere of artificiality both stresses
the agonistic character of society—which calls for armoring as a basic
requirement in the human sphere—and expresses alarm over the danger
of unleashed human drives—which require discipline. These elements
move Plessner’s theory in the direction of the negative anthropology of
the seventeenth century and reflect the broader tendency in the 1920s to
underestimate eighteenth-century modernity.
The dramatic literature of the seventeenth century shows us Plessner’s
type, a man “without any human weakness or inconsistency, constantly
vigilant, constantly rational, [who] steadily pursues the coolly premedi-
tated plan which goes with his part.”85 Erich Auerbach points out that
this type, in Molière’s comedies, is absurd. If Molière is looking for in-
stinctive, uninhibited, and sadistic traits in this character, he does so
66 Conduct Code of the Cool Persona

only for the sake of making them appear ridiculous and unnatural. For
the court and polite society in seventeenth-century France, naturalness
means being fully and effortlessly at ease within reigning conventions;
the ease is a product of “culture and breeding,” which regulate social
intercourse among individuals, maintain distance, and ensure the per-
sona’s invulnerability.86
We see this construction of the noble persona in Plessner’s duelist. It
develops at an extreme remove from popular instincts, which Plessner
consigns to ridicule, and an alliance with moral wrong only enhances its
nobility. Like the tragic hero, the modern subject remains at all costs
bodily intact. Stripped of all trace of physical and creatural frailty,
it finds in death an occasion for pathos and a lofty style. Yet where a
seventeenth-century audience saw in the noble persona a healthy human
understanding and an authentic correspondence between what was nat-
ural and probable, the modern critic sees a necessarily eccentric charac-
ter. This claim, of course, does not rule out its appearance on the scene,
like the character of the storm trooper commander in Ernst Jünger’s In
Stahlgewittern, as a member of one of Freud’s “artificial groups.”
The comedic option is not available to Plessner. His phantasm of the
dueling subject remains under the spell of historical models that do not
allow for the “feminine” solution. This point leads us to a fourth read-
ing of Plessner’s axiom. His idol is Bismarck, whose willingness to take
risks he extols, whose amorality at the moment of decision has a Luci-
ferian appeal about it, and whose disdain for the bourgeois vernacular
he shares. In Plessner’s eyes Bismarck is a decisionist of the first order
who—in stark contrast to the type of the democratic politician—never
indulges in “the luxury of a rentier’s harmonious conscience.” Spengler
had already celebrated Prince Bismarck as the “last Spanish politician.”
The prince serves Plessner as a protector against all forms of political in-
dignation: “‘Disarmament is not a political concept,’ wrote Bismarck to
a plaintive civil servant in the margin of the file”—as Plessner remarks
in full agreement (78 f.).
It is no surprise, then, that Plessner, as early as this 1924 work, does
make reference to Carl Schmitt. From the latter’s political theology
Plessner borrows the notion of sovereignty, transferring it to the indi-
vidual (at the cost of “romanticizing” it, from Schmitt’s perspective).
And Schmitt outfits him with arguments against a conviction-based eth-
ics and fundamentalisms of all kinds. Plessner sends Grenzen into the
world as a kind of operating manual and code of conduct. But its intended
Conduct Code of the Cool Persona 67

audience is not the urban intellectual nomad and certainly not—as my

reading of the book as a new objectivity manifesto might suggest—the
masses. Its advice is meant to fortify the “ethos of rulers and leaders.”
Plessner consigns the rest of the public to the dark schema of oppression:
“The majority remain unconscious; that is why they serve” (78 f.).
Plessner’s concept does leave open one place beyond reach of the
fencing hall and its public treachery. It is a private place, and the calm
available here owes nothing to the cool persona or the combatant. Its
source is a figure who has made no earlier appearance in Plessner’s an-
thropological arena. The figure is woman. By the “merciful gift” of her
love, a man can, exceptionally, let himself go. Except for this glimpse,
Plessner allows woman only one more appearance, as a single line in the
code. He settles her down outside the sphere of life ruled by power and
contents himself with the remark that woman, “as we know from the
romantics, [is] nature at home with herself” (76). Banned from the
world of artificiality, as in the eighteenth century, woman is still the pre-
server of first nature (see Figure 4), because she is incapable of realizing
an identity in the “second fatherland” of the symbolic order.87
This exclusionary clause reminds us of the axiom’s fourth reading:
man is by nature artificial. In his scholarly memoirs, Plessner simply
places the infant boy on the fathers’ stage in the form of a little organic
bundle, but it also fits the logic of Plessner’s principle. His mother does
not appear. From the very outset she is absent—barring the possible
presence of a woman waiting offstage, to see to the regeneration of the
weary warrior.88 At this point the marked similarity between Plessner’s
work and Gracián’s Art of Worldly Wisdom becomes easy to explain.
If we compare both documents with French epigrams or English con-
duct books of the seventeenth century, or even with the elegies of John
Donne, what immediately strikes the eye is the German deficit.
The intellectual avant-garde from 1910 to 1930 loved referring to
pre- and nonbourgeois cultures. Thus we encounter in Plessner’s Gren-
zen the cloak-and-dagger tale of a shame-based culture. There the ego
experiences “the collective of others as eagle-eyed inspectors”; a vigilant
public has dug itself deeply into the individual’s interior. Plessner’s per-
sona is constantly beset by rivalry in a theater of its own imagining. It is
not conscience but the public, that, as the source of ultimate judgment,
metes out punishment.89 That is why Plessner is fixed on the desire for
masks as a “safety factor” for human dignity. Masks are the only way a
man can gather his strength on the stage of a culture based on shame.
68 Conduct Code of the Cool Persona

4. Woman is still the preserver of first nature

(Karl Hubbuch, Martha mit Bauhaustischchen [Martha with small Bauhaus table], ca. 1927.
With the permission of Myriam Hubbuch.)

Reading Grenzen as a manifesto of the new objectivity seems to con-

firm a thesis Peter Gay elaborates in his analysis of Weimar culture. He
identifies in the new objectivity the return of the fathers, a finding that
has since been reinforced by some feminist research, which sees in the
cult of objectivity a compensation for fatherlessness.90 We shall see,
however, that this judgment, though applicable to a number of program-
matic statements, misunderstands what several important works have in
mind for the recalled patriarch. The reactivation of the dark side of the
Conduct Code of the Cool Persona 69

fathers’ generation, as well as comparisons between it and the youth

movement’s call for immediacy, takes place in literary texts, to which we
now turn our attention.

ALTERNATIVE IMAGES OF MAN

IN THE NEW OBJECTIVITY DECADE

Do you know what they call the Leidenfrost phenomenon in physics?

Alfred Döblin asks Hocke, an idealistically inclined student, in 1931. It
has to do with the way a drop of water will dance over the surface of a
hot plate. Were the drop of water to think about it, says the materialist,
it would consider itself free—as you do. It would sing proudly of its
magnificent ability to defeat the law of gravity and dance.91
By referring to this minor miracle of physics, Döblin is at once satiriz-
ing contemporary materialism and offering a corrective to the wide-eyed
naïveté of the student, who had insisted on the autonomy of the will:

I acknowledge the force of the economy, the existence of class struggles.

What I do not concede is that these economic and political phenomena pro-
ceed according to physical laws that are beyond the reach of humanity. Peo-
ple are involved in these phenomena, people like us, as actors and, if it can
be put this way, when we drive or when we’re driven. People don’t just take
part in them. No, class and class struggle are the living phenomena brought
into existence by the social being called man. Perhaps not everyone is able to
examine economic theories in their abstraction . . . , but more than a little is
known about man, about individual being and about social being. For ex-
ample: that we operate with values, with judgments, and preconceived no-
tions, that more elemental instincts are right there in the background. Those
considerations suddenly put a different face on the economy, and even more
on intellectuality, which otherwise always looked something like nice boring
literature. It has teeth. It does indeed bite. It is there, and there in a way that
is quite like ourselves. The economist juxtaposes “empirical conditions” and
“mere will” with great discipline and precision; but he obscures the fact that
the will is part of empirical conditions. What happens in the economy may
well have a lawlike aspect to it—today it is the crisis cycle, the way the pro-
cess is driven by crisis—but the way people react, the way they make judg-
ments, their specific social way of having values and applying and practicing
them, is involved in the lawlike systematicity of economic processes—it is in-
ternal to the economic laws. Such tricks! The vulgar Marxist turns the econ-
omy into a fetish, a thing like “fate,” and everyone is terrified and starts faint-
ing. What makes people faint—is themselves. We are ourselves the beings
whose fates play out here. Images, personifications, and word fetishes serve
in this way to cripple people.92
70 Conduct Code of the Cool Persona

Döblin is seeking to balance factors that his contemporaries largely

regard as terminally irreconcilable. He combines a theory of class strug-
gle with biology, blends value-free scientific investigation with political
decision-making, applies the results of individual positivist disciplines—
anatomy, medicine, and animal behavior research, for example—to
social projects. In short, he seeks to couple political strategies with the
anthropological question, “What sort of thing is man?” What kind of
politics can be expected of human beings? On what biological founda-
tion can the modernization project go forward? How does the inertial
force of existing mentalities deform desirable undertakings? How are
economic mechanisms tied to human drives? In harmony with the find-
ings of the philosophical anthropology of his decade, Döblin recognizes
that clarification in these areas can only be achieved by overcoming the
reigning mind-body dualism.

Against this foil of contemporary philosophical dualism, it becomes

possible to define more precisely the specific weight of the human self-
image in the new objectivity, and to cast new light on the artistic figure
of the subcomplex subject.
We have so far neglected anthropological currents that identify drives
as the essence of human being, obscuring the rise of psychoanalysis to a
position of considerable influence in the 1920s. It had no institutional
power but was so present in the scandal it stirred up that key terms, such
as “complex,” “repression,” and “Freudian slip,” made their way into
new objectivity jargon.93 In the theater, plays such as those by Ferdinand
Bruckner, which served up a popularized version of psychoanalysis,
found a wide public.
Nevertheless, the majority of new objectivity authors actively resisted
psychoanalysis, refusing even the technical descriptions of the psyche of-
fered by the new science. Freudian images of the psyche as a regulatory
apparatus that absorbs charges, releases them in dreams and aggression,
stores up energy quanta in the manner of steam-engine dynamics, do not
appear in the literature. Instead, writers reach back to the older mechan-
ical model of the clockwork—but they combine that image with one
borrowed from another of the latest scientific models, the electric field.
“Psychology from outside” dominates new objectivity literature. The
distinction between inwardly and outwardly directed explanatory mod-
els comes from Max Weber: if we talk about the acquisitiveness of an
entrepreneur, we can do so “from inside,” identifying a passion or inter-
Conduct Code of the Cool Persona 71

est or some other psychic force with a particular history. From the out-
side, however, acquisitiveness is “the orientation requisite upon anyone
striving in conditions of competition to act responsibly in the interests
of an economic enterprise.”94
In the literature of the new objectivity, both of these perspectives are
internally rent. Shifting attention to the motor and functional aspects of
human action causes authors—if they do not simply resort to a black
box explanation—to fall back on notions of instinct, which they legiti-
mate in the spirit of Nietzsche’s revaluation of the barbaric. The Marx-
ist term “character mask,” in contrast, emphasizes the economic drive
forces that act on the implicated subject.
Döblin shows no pronounced resistance to psychoanalysis. His argu-
ment resembles in certain respects the views Max Scheler put forward in
1927 in Die Stellung des Menschen im Kosmos.95 Scheler aims his po-
lemic not so much against the materialists (he finds the Marxists among
them positively idealistic in their conception of man), as against modern
variants of decadence. Scheler’s own view is informed by the most recent
findings in biology, paleontology, and animal behavior research, and by
an acceptance of their “dismal” conclusions: in comparison to the ani-
mal world, man is characterized by weak instincts, surplus drives, and
primitive organ development. It is on these findings that Scheler and
Plessner base their views of man’s special status, which consists in his
openness to the world.
If research by Jakob von Uexküll had proved experimentally that ani-
mals inhabit a necessarily species-specific environment and that they be-
have according to innate instinctive schemata activated by environmen-
tal signals, Scheler concludes that the human being—having mind at its
disposal— can separate itself off from the body schema. Behavior can be
independent of environment. At the same time, mind impinges on naked
drives by way of ideas, which it dangles as a kind of “bait” for the pur-
pose of getting them infused with life and seeing them realized in the
world. In opposition to another powerful intellectual current, which re-
gards mind as an “adversary of the soul” (Ludwig Klages), Scheler em-
phasizes the concept of sublimation. Through a “basic renunciation of
drives,” the mind can offset all the human failings identified by modern
physiology and biology. Man’s mind makes him into the social being
that he is.
This theoretical sketch points out the extent to which physiological
factors condition individual human existence. And, more important, it
72 Conduct Code of the Cool Persona

shows how man, as a natural thing, is outfitted at the last second with
the power of negation, with the volitional asceticism that Max Weber’s
construction had identified as the motor of modernization. Thomas
Mann, taking up this anthropology, lays stress on man’s limited powers
of resistance in his depiction of the gentleman from Rome in his novella
Mario und der Zauberer. In an age of mass psychosis, volitional asceti-
cism is worse than impotence; the logic of history is such that whoever
would rely on voluntary negation draws ruin to himself like a magnet.
Is this true? Is Scheler’s anthropology also a code of conduct?
Max Scheler died in 1928. And in that year a second major anthro-
pological outline, Helmuth Plessner’s Stufen des Organischen und der
Mensch (examined above), was published. While Plessner remains to this
day in Scheler’s shadow, his work shows greater affinity with the new ob-
jectivity’s characteristic relationism. Among new objectivity common-
places of the period are statements straight out of Plessner—“man is
an ensemble of functions” or “man is by nature artificial”—and, once
in circulation, they prove themselves as provocatively brazen as they
are untenable. Plessner sets out the anthropological foundation for the
floating construction of the cool persona. He frees the human self-image
both from the prevailing notion of an inner-directed subject operating
within the horizon of humanistic values and from characterizations of a
being fully under the sway of drives. In Plessner’s structural analysis, the
eccentric structure of individual life becomes the key to knowledge:
A basic lack of equilibrium . . . , and not the onward flow of an originally nor-
mal and once harmonious life system (which could become harmonious
again) is the “cause” of culture.96

Drawing on the results of the same hard scientific research into “man
as a thing of nature” that Scheler cites, Plessner concludes that man
makes himself what he is by taking action: man lives only in that he con-
ducts a life. Plessner’s reflections here could not be more consonant with
new objectivity motifs: individual self-realization takes place within
the social configurations that make up the medium of his existence. For-
get originary myths of community. Man “civilizes” himself in an obliga-
tory balancing act forced on him from the outset by his “basic lack of
equilibrium.”
This new objectivity anthropology not only challenges the origi-
nary myths current at the time in the decadence narrative; it also dis-
putes the thesis of desublimation as a means of recapturing vital ener-
gies beyond the artificiality of society. In the cool persona’s virtuoso bal-
Conduct Code of the Cool Persona 73

ancing act, and in the radar type’s effortless use of media artifice, we see
the reflex of new objectivity anthropology. It silently cries out for an ac-
celerated move into the traffic of civilization, rather than an excavation,
using old-style cultural criticism, for the phantom of an authentic ori-
gin. After all, the mass media themselves artificially disseminate that
phantom.
The literature of the new objectivity, in its attentiveness to human ac-
tion, conduct codes, and positive revaluation of civilization (as opposed
to community), presents remarkable correspondences with Plessner’s an-
thropology, which privileges the reflexive type and represses all aware-
ness of man’s creatural aspect. Correspondingly, the cool persona and
the radar type populate new objectivity writing, as it carries out a posi-
tive revaluation of civilization. There are allegories of eccentric existence
and bizarre legends that might well derive from the artificiality axiom.
Brecht and Benjamin, in harmony with the behaviorist tendencies of
Communist pedagogy, cultivate for a time the myth of the “cool child”:
without the secure wrap of bourgeois family ideology, the proletarian
child experiences the cold space of class struggle even before birth. The
understanding that even life in the womb lacks security predisposes it to
class consciousness. Warmth is available to such a being, if at all, only
in the collective. In this legend, too, we glimpse the new objectivity in-
sight that individual human being—not indeed by nature, but by dint of
social forces—is eccentric.
The feminist critique of new objectivity anthropology brings into
relief the element of the male cult that informs it. To the extent that vir-
ile objectivity stresses the moment of necessary separation and self-
conscious conduct in post-symbiotic states, the image of the mother
risks either sinking into historylessness or being swallowed up by natu-
ral creatureliness.
Forgetfulness is good!
How else is
The son to leave the mother who nursed him?

as Bertolt Brecht put it, in his Lob der Vergesslichkeit.

People who experience themselves as sovereign beings only within the
artificiality of the second fatherland, as Plessner’s code of conduct de-
mands, are obliged to forget their real origins. Only when institutional
crisis threatens to destroy the second fatherland will they long for reas-
surance in the phantom of maternal origins. Hence new objectivity nov-
els toward the end of the republic show us once secure men, their lives
74 Conduct Code of the Cool Persona

now ruled by the systemic logic of the object world, returning to women
who, for their part, lapse into the ahistoricity of nature.97 It remains for
the women writers of the new objectivity to show us female characters
who themselves, for the sake of their own survival, tend toward eccentric-
ity. Problematizing the compensatory projections of the new objectivity
male—reflections of the second fatherland’s image of woman—wom-
en’s literature stimulated considerable animosity. Marieluise Fleißer
shows us this scenario.

EXPRESSION, LOSING FACE, AND

A RETURN TO THE BODY’S RHETORIC

Rodin, as we know, one day made a man with no head:

a man in his stride. . . . The simplest thing we can say
about this is that Rodin was unable to imagine a head
that went with the body, that would stride along with
it. Simplicity, in any case, can be carried no further than
this. Nor will any expression come from the strider. . . .
We need only think of men who took part in the war:
their motives were as various and changeable as the
clouds in the sky; but no matter; their bodies were
already under way.
Alain, Spielregeln der Kunst, 1921

The shift of attention to the observation of behavior has far-reaching

consequences for psychology in the 1920s.98 The category of expression,
as a form of inner experience, undergoes a dramatic devaluation. In a
positive revaluation of scientific procedures, the eyes of the other acquire
the power to secure and validate the self’s identity: only that which is
subject to simultaneous registration by at least two observers—ulti-
mately suggesting phenomena that can be captured on film— can be ac-
cepted as “fact.” The decline of expression as the signifying counterpart
to an interior psychological event ends the ideal of authenticity that had
dominated German culture since the eighteenth century. The decade of
the new objectivity turns to a rhetoric of visible behavior, of physiog-
nomy and pathognomy.99
Among the behavioral sciences, ethology and social psychology
arrive reluctantly on the scene in Germany, often under the banner of
American behaviorism or Russian-Soviet reflexology (Pavlov and Bekh-
terev). Here, and in sociological theories of action stemming from Max
Conduct Code of the Cool Persona 75

Weber, a field of facts subject to empirical confirmation excludes the hid-

den motives of social actors or whatever else is available only to intro-
spection. Even Scheler picks up on the concept of behavioral research,
although, to be sure, not without distancing himself from physiological
reductionism of behaviorism. He takes over behavior as a “psychophys-
iologically neutral concept” that defines the intermediate field of obser-
vation on which the social sciences are now to base their work.100 By
making this move, according to Scheler, social scientists escape the re-
strictions of subjective introspection and avoid the reduction of the field
of action to stimulus-response schema.
If subjective motivation is to be inferred only from observable behav-
ior, phenomena identified as “expression” must be either bracketed off
from scientific analysis or redefined as a form of behavior. And in a va-
riety of scientific disciplines, we accordingly see expression being inte-
grated into the field of action and gesture, for example, in the theory of
expression formulated by psychologists and the linguistic theorist Karl
Bühler.101 In anthropologies exclusively geared to action, such as Arnold
Gehlen’s, there is no longer any place for “pure” expressive gestures.102
The banishment of expression also does away with attempts to over-
come ambivalence. With the rise of the traffic topos, every expression
becomes a signal.

BÜHLER’S ACTION THEORY OF EXPRESSION

Who knows what would be left to express were it pos-

sible to wean man of the need for fiction, masks, and
role playing in every form.
Karl Bühler, Ausdruckstheorie

Plessner’s Grenzen involved a shock for those accustomed to the bour-

geois concept of culture based on interiority. A comparison of his 1924
leap into the science of behavior with Bühler’s Ausdruckstheorie: Das
System an der Geschichte aufgezeigt, published in 1933, works to
sharpen the contours of Plessner’s polemic against the cult of expression.
Karl Bühler’s book is part of a rhetoric of the body; it begins with
observations on the gestural language of the cinema and ends by repro-
ducing Quintilian’s discussion of the rhetorical functions of miming and
gesture. In his look back into history, Bühler lays out a panorama of lex-
icographic and physiological explanations of expressive movements
from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, from the physiognomy
76 Conduct Code of the Cool Persona

and pathognomy of Lavater, Goethe, and Lichtenberg to the psycho-

physics of Wilhelm Wundt. At the forefront in Bühler’s survey are those
theoretical elements that aid him in the task of uncovering the grammar
in the theory of expression.
His point of departure is a principle that has meanwhile emerged as
a commonplace of the new objectivity decade:
It is necessary for us to have a living organism present before us in the space
in which it acts, if we are to discern from its movements in what way and to-
ward what end it acts. . . . A behaviorist can do this by observing the re-
actions of an animal or a child in a given experimental situation, and we can
also do it in natural life situations, in which we follow animals and our fel-
lows with an understanding gaze. There is only one type of observation for
which it is impossible, or at least very difficult, to fix what is seen neatly and
simply in its own scientific language, and that is introspection, when the at-
tempt is made to discern from experience as such what can at bottom be seen
only with outwardly directed (physical) eyes. (163)

From the perspective of action, the theatrical doctrine of Johann Jakob

Engel, published in 1785 – 86 under the title Ideen zur einer Mimik,
moves to the center of Bühler’s historical investigation, because this text
understands every expression as the “action impulse” and elaborates it
in the form of self-enactment.
Amazingly enough, Bühler devotes the most extensive chapter of his
book to the image of the introspective observer; when it comes to ana-
lyzing experience, he has high regard for Ludwig Klages, the representa-
tive of this scientifically suspect procedure, and praises him as a graphol-
ogist. Bühler’s focus on Klages also gives an opportunity to articulate
both his own critique of behaviorist reductionism and his elementary
objections to the psychophysiology of Wundt. In contrast to tendencies
in experimental psychology (“Expression becomes consumptive in the
laboratory, when one attempts to produce it in experimental subjects
outfitted with pulse and respiration meters”), Bühler emphasizes, Klages
never loses sight of the whole. Bühler calls on others, who disdain
Klages’s work as “obscurantist” from the standpoint of the “exact” sci-
ences, to take his challenge seriously; he names Klages the “first consis-
tent relativity theorist of expression” (137), because the latter explains
even the most inconspicuous expressive gesture in relation to the whole.
Bühler’s objections to Klages’s theory of expression are nevertheless
so fundamental that his praise pales in comparison. The problem is that
Klages assumes the existence of unfalsified expression as “pure emo-
tional outpouring,” which can take place independently of such physio-
Conduct Code of the Cool Persona 77

logical processes as exogenous stimuli: anger is the expression of an urge

to annihilate; fear is the expression of flight; wonder expresses the need
for orientation. While action occurs always in the context of a singular
goal, bodily movements associated with affective expression are pos-
sessed of a general goal. “I can, for example, wish to destroy an enemy,
a fly on the wall, or an institution; but inherent in rage is also the gen-
eral inclination for destruction as such” (153).
In order to lay bare pure expression, Klages has to free it of three ex-
traneous elements:

Whatever has passed through consciousness, becoming through reflection

the means to an intended end, Klages excludes from the sphere of pure
expression.
Expressive movements bound up in historical or culturally determined
conventions, which are therefore variable, cannot be regarded as genuine
outpourings.
“Spontaneous” movements that are in fact the product of a learning pro-
cess or take place merely as a reflex response to an external stimulus have
no more claim to the status of expression than gestures that serve to accom-
plish intentional communication.

Will represents for Klages a “universal inhibitor” that must be ex-

cised from expressive motion if expression’s origin is to be recognized;
the will can never dictate genuine expression. Klages illustrates the point
with the following example:

When the destructive urge is discharged in the pounding of a fist, it is directed

neither against the table nor against any other things but aims instead at the
impression of resistance, because only in palpable resistance can breaking,
destroying, or overcoming be experienced. The condition of anger, the de-
structive drive, is fulfilled in the breaking of resistance, and the self that falls
prey to it executes the movement as if driven to do so, thus entirely without
consideration of what occasioned it. Expressive movement is always goalless,
in most cases even inappropriate, as indeed the example of pounding on the
table, which results also in the inkwell falling to the floor, reveals. If we
regard this as a reason for calling the urge to emotional expression blind,
still we may not overlook the fact that it is no less sensible for being so. Given
this qualification, we may formulate as follows: arbitrary movement com-
pletes a prior intention; expressive movement follows the stimulus of an
impression.103

Ludwig Klages separates will from expression with a “pure cut.” In his
terms, all arbitrary movements are movements that have been con-
strained by the will: “What is the aiming of a marksman but the con-
78 Conduct Code of the Cool Persona

straining of arm and body movements, as the most precise stopping of a

motion already under way?” All expressive movements, as conceived by
objectivity, take on the character of arbitrary movements; what char-
acterizes them is the inhibition of a general “outpouring,” because what
predominates in them is the intentionality of action. We might compare
this with the pure expressive movement of a toddler indulging count-
less detours on the way to the bakery—its path to the goal has not yet
been “channeled”— or the actions of a dog off the leash—it runs all
over the landscape, while its master sticks to an accustomed path. Is the
animal not “drowned in its expressive movement”? asks Klages. And
therefore, Bühler concludes, pure expressive movement for Klages con-
sists in “goalless fluctuation,” and adds mockingly: “when the fluctuat-
ing is done, nothing has been achieved; everything remains as it was”
(166, 179).
The contrast to Plessner’s attitude toward expression, as we shall see,
is considerable. But, while a comparison with Ludwig Klages’s theory of
expression makes us aware of the dimensions of noninstrumental play-
fulness Plessner leaves out, Klages’s ousting of the theatrical, masks,
and all elements of self-enactment reminds us that unfalsified feeling and
pure expression remain part of his relentlessly exclusivist fundamental-
ism, that he subjects it all the same to an extreme formal discipline.
Bühler’s critique of Klages’s theory of expression is coolly composed
and informed equally by the latest results of animal behavior research
and the insights of the Russian and Soviet reflexologists. Regarding an-
ger, he remarks dryly:
A man who is burning with anger sometimes pounds on the table purely for
purposes of discharge; that is true. It may be that something analogous some-
times occurs in the animal world; but it is a mistake to regard the substance
of animal behavior as parallel to the sort of human outburst that results in
the inkwell tipping over. For, first of all, it seems dubious to me that inkwells
in animal habitats would be located as regularly as they are among humans
in precisely the spot most inconvenient to the angered being. And, second, an
accumulation of serious impairments wrought of such affairs would neces-
sarily critically impair survivability for any living being. Our first and second
reason here are inherently related, and research into animal life has shown
how they are related, how animals learn to avoid subjecting themselves to se-
rious impairments. Klages indeed adopted the old formula, already put for-
ward by the stoics, whereby animal behavior subsequent to such outbursts is
blind, but “no less sensible”; but he has left it entirely up to us to guess how
he really imagines the harmony between what is subjectively sensible and the
objective requirements of life. (175)
Conduct Code of the Cool Persona 79

Bühler’s criterion of objective requirements recalls the perspective

that guided science and the arts more generally in the new objectivity
decade. In contrast to Klages, he emphasizes expression’s inextricability
from verbal conventions, its contingence on physiology, and its depen-
dence on factors of socialization, but Bühler does not do away with the
latitude left over for creativity in human expression. As a former physi-
cian, he is eager to refer back to findings in physiology, anatomy, and re-
flexology to undercut the theory that pure expression is not learned be-
havior. Klages may assert that genuine expression takes place in a
manner just as unmediated as changes in physical digestive processes,
given a change in food; but Bühler notes that Pavlovian experiments
with trained animals had demonstrated the extent to which physiologi-
cal secretions and digestion are conditioned:

Saliva and glandular excretions are both subject to conditioning. According

to the comparison Klages himself puts forward, so presumably, to a degree
that must be established, is imitative expression. (158)

In the future, Bühler hopes, the empirical sciences will achieve greater
clarity concerning neurohormonal regulation of the affects. A climate
of disillusioned realism forms the modern context for his treatment of
Klages’s theory of expression as a relic of the human sciences: Klages ig-
nores the discoveries of the natural sciences in order to avoid obfuscat-
ing physiologically the notion of a pure outpouring. The theory may in-
deed represent an awareness of the whole; still it is archaic.
Bühler, however, goes on to note that in film and theater, as well
as in the lifestyle of his contemporary sophisticates, pathetic expressive
movements were giving way to restrained gestures, indirect signs, and
broken voices. He claims that the contemporary lifestyle—which a trip
to America had doubtless helped him study— eschews all types of ges-
tural displays “carried out for purely expressive purposes and therefore
removed from objective action and objectively representative speech.”
In this way, he foregrounds the social function of mimic movements
as a means of communication. Gestures—rather than being (recall Karl
Jaspers’s claim about the masses’ existential form)—have come to affect
all sectors of culture. Bühler directs his attention to the function of ex-
pressive movements in social traffic; his “semiotics of the affects” inves-
tigates the intersubjective “game” of mimic movements, of reciprocal
processes of address and response (50, 22, 136). Even the most fleeting
of expressive phenomena in the most everyday situation contain a “dra-
80 Conduct Code of the Cool Persona

matic moment,” in which they remain bound to the mimic “organs of

the contact partner.”
In contrast to the theorists of expression from the fields of medicine
or psychophysiology, to which the theater remained suspect, the gram-
mar of “illusory gestures” is of great scientific interest to Bühler. He val-
ues the moment of self-enactment in communication and studies actors
at work to analyze it. The ubiquity of masks in early human history not
only indicates a magical mind-set; it also prompts him to inquire into
“the meaning of the motionless mask, as a staple in the inventory of an
actor’s properties, what it has to offer and what it leaves out.”
What it offered must have been valuable at the time and what it left out must
not have been worth pursuing; for it is a priori unlikely that the mask is noth-
ing but a historical relic and that that which it excluded was entirely un-
known. (16)

Bühler’s positive assessment of mask coincides entirely with Plessner’s

code of conduct, even if it remains true that, in contrast to Plessner, Büh-
ler emphasizes the intersubjective function.
Bühler also addresses a problematic that we discuss later in the con-
text of Ernst Jünger’s theory of perception. It has to do with the rise of
the new technological media, and the way they are put to work in an ex-
perimental psychology of expression. Bühler believes that Philipp Lersch
makes exemplary use of film in experiments he reports in his 1932 book,
Gesicht der Seele. Lersch filmed unwitting subjects taking personality
tests and analyzed their eye behavior, including eyelid coordinates, an-
gle of vision, and eye movement. Photograms—shadowlike images on
light-sensitive paper—allowed Lersch to make precise measurements of
the “position of the eyeball in the coordinate system of the eye socket”
and compare the “expressive valences of the eyelid movement” with the
subject’s overall habitus. The procedure suffers, however, from the prob-
lem usually associated with the use of the new media: it isolates the phe-
nomena. Isolation, as Bühler himself points out, is among the accepted
procedures in the “house of science.” At the same time, however, science
threatens to mistake its object in favor of methods designed to ensure
scientific precision. Lersch makes great use of scissors: from strips of
film he cuts out particularly suggestive frames and uses the scissors again
to separate the eyes and surrounding area from the nose and mouth. In
this case, Bühler considers the isolating procedure a success, because the
selection includes the “fruitful moments” of facial play, which, in ad-
dition, represent the “successive forms” of expressive movement (81).
Conduct Code of the Cool Persona 81

Thus did it seem possible in certain situations to classify physiologically

based narrowing of the eyelids with basic expressive valences (of active
coping, for example).
The physical rhetoric gets lost in a technologized space, which no
longer corresponds to what Quintilian had in mind in his treatment
of the uses of gestures and facial expressions. In the writings of Walter
Serner and Ernst Jünger, the use of technological apparatuses designed
to record expressive movements begins in fact to condition them.

PLESSNER’S EXCLUSION OF EXPRESSION

We have already seen that in 1924 Plessner feels obliged to combat ex-
pressionism. What he means by the term is, variously, the fundamental-
ism of the radical movements, with their cult of authenticity and ethics of
conviction, which Max Weber had criticized, or the unconventional man-
ners of the youth movement. He takes these diffuse variations of the con-
cept for signs of an inner experience of impotence, perplexity, and frenzy
stemming from the memory of defeat. Expressionism is its symptom.
Plessner is not alone in this estimation. “At bottom the reaction of
expressionism was more pathological than critical,” we read in Walter
Benjamin. “It sought to overcome the times that gave rise to it by mak-
ing itself the expression of those times.”104 In all the expressionisms
identified by Plessner he discovers phenomena that, by virtue of a self-
disarming gesture, range dangerously near a zone of “ridiculousness,”
in which the body is delivered up defenseless to its attacker and the price
levied for expression is abandonment. Consequently, the urge for unbro-
ken expression cannot in Plessner’s anthropology indicate an attempt at
meaningfulness; rather, Plessner uses this category to mark off the ani-
mal kingdom from the world of human being:
Animals are ultimately direct and genuine in expression as well. If it all came
down to expression, nature would have remained at the level of the most ele-
mentary beings, sparing itself the indirection of man. (106)

Those, therefore—so runs the logic—who would elevate “genuine ex-

pression” to cult status blur the boundaries between the animal and the
human, rob themselves of the defensive protection of distance, and soon
fall victim to ridiculousness.
In Plessner’s new objectivity anthropology of 1924, he cries out for a
militant front against “everything expressive, all forms of eruptive gen-
uineness” (107). His code of conduct proclaims that untruth that pro-
82 Conduct Code of the Cool Persona

tects is better than truth that injures. If man is inseparable from his de-
pendence on artificiality, if every externalization of a psychological state
is necessarily formed by the medium of the symbolic order, then every-
thing psychological requires cultural mediation “in order to realize it-
self.” The ideology of community calls for psychological immediacy on
the part of its members, but for Plessner, community is precisely not
the place where authenticity could possibly be realized: “The soul can-
not endure the directness of expression demanded by community” (26).
Even the heart longs for distance, Plessner decrees in the manner of a
courtly code, carrying Nietzsche’s thoughts about the actor a step fur-
ther: the inner being cannot breathe “without the cold air of diplomacy,
with the logic of the public sphere” (112).
Plessner’s call for a civilized “hygiene of the soul” (87) presupposes
the use of violent means to channel the raw energy of drives. But if man
is “by nature artificial,” why use force to prevent the “raw” psyche from
following the path of least resistance to expression? Via the risk of spon-
taneity, the dualism between mind and physical drives sneaks back into
Plessner’s anthropology. Scheler, on the other hand, registering the same
set of facts, derives the need for sublimation.
The violent means with which Plessner diverts the urge for direct ex-
pression are as follows: tactical maneuvering; conventional masks; dip-
lomatic balance—a series of stratagems that he summarizes all together
as Verhaltenheit.* The term itself suggests that behavioral self-reflection
can be a guide to psychological externalization. Among its extended
meanings are a range of techniques for slowing things down, for defer-
ring gratification, or even for a self-destructive holding (Verhalten) of the
breath (Diogenes supposedly used this technique to exit life voluntarily).
From putting a damper on “eruptive” emotion all the way to suffoca-
tion, Verhaltenheit suggests an act of mental awareness, which is what
Plessner demands of his “practical occasionalists.” The mime of Verhal-
tenheit is the smile; it avoids “the extreme of the affectively charged gri-
mace.”105 The effect is pleasant: inside Plessner’s fencing hall sounds are
subdued (and the hordes roar from farther away).
The concept of Verhaltenheit introduces a remarkable fissure in Pless-
ner’s thought, which once again bears on the special status he accords to
woman. “It is not good,” he repeats once more, “to disappear totally in
expression,” illustrating the dictum with a comparison that would re-

*“Restraint,” though the best rendering here may be “mannered behavior,” to pre-
serve the root meaning of Verhalten as behavior.
Conduct Code of the Cool Persona 83

cant his entire theory of artificiality—yet now in the spirit of the eigh-
teenth century, he offers it in reference to the youth movement:
The cry for a corsetless form of dress deserves an echo only in the case of very
good figures. Why should it be otherwise in the psychological sphere? 106

That there could be such a thing as a naturally “good figure” in psychol-

ogy, supposedly bound exclusively to artificiality, Plessner had categori-
cally denied in his code of male conduct.
Just a year after the publication of Grenzen we find a more moderate
attitude in Plessner’s short essay, “Deutung des mimischen Ausdrucks,”
which nevertheless will have far-reaching consequences for the further
development of the theory of expression.107 The dualism is obscured,
the pathos absent from his delineation of the dangers of expressionism.
Perhaps he owes this pragmatic turn to the Dutch zoologist Buytendijk
(identified as a coauthor). Buytendijk’s experiments with toads supply a
broad range of new considerations, reaching ultimately to Klages’s the-
ory of expression. At issue for Plessner now is an image of movement in
its entirety: in expression he recognizes the relationship between chang-
ing internal states and the external environment understood as a struc-
tured field. He discovers the “intermediate sphere” of the “social world”
as an expressive space in which the “play of functions” in interpersonal
relations becomes visible. This behavioral stratum, the sphere of the “re-
ciprocal mutuality of bodies,” is where the formal language of the psy-
che develops. It neither originates in a “mimetic ur-alphabet,” as Klages
maintains, nor slots into categories of instrumental activity. Rather, it is
an element of intersubjective coexistence. Plessner’s emphasis in this text
falls more radically on the turn outward than it had in Grenzen but
eschews dramatization in any form. The “internal localization of the
psychological in the body,” he remarks laconically, “is understood as
nonsense.” Expressive movements are part of the formal language of be-
havior; knowledge of the situation in which they occur makes them un-
derstandable. While the civil war atmosphere remains evident in Gren-
zen, the new essay concentrates on a third sphere, the sphere of relaxed
interpersonal behavior.
Scheler’s 1928 Stellung des Menschen im Kosmos, in contrast, dis-
plays a generalized upgrading of natural expression. Against Darwin,
who saw in expression an “epitome of atavistic instrumental actions,”
the rudiment of a practical gesture that had lost its communicative
meaning, Scheler accords expression the status of an urphenomenon of
life.108 It is present even in plant life but acquires the function of under-
84 Conduct Code of the Cool Persona

standing only among animals and humans. Human expression has noth-
ing instinctive about it; physical schemata do not dictate it. Though
drives may energize expression, from the outset expression links an intel-
lectual element to the body, while simultaneously documenting the hu-
man capability to achieve distance from the world. As a result, there is no
simple connection between expression originating in drives and physio-
logical conditions. Just as action resulting from drives is for Scheler the
absolute opposite of instinctive behavior—since drives can often be
senselessly excessive—the pleasure principle is in no sense original, but
the result of “associative intelligence,” an indication of the way drives
can be isolated from instinctive survival behavior. Scheler thus arrives at
the conclusion that the state termed “Dionysian” (following Nietzsche)
has nothing to do with elemental wildness but draws on a complex vo-
litional technique of desublimation. Wrapped up in human expression
are moments of an ability to overrule drives. In expression the “corridor
of consciousness” intersects with the “corridor of external stimulus”;
energy from the drives powers this switch point.109
In Scheler’s understanding, the question of the “genuineness” of ex-
pression—in the sense of its immediacy—therefore does not arise. Nor
does he consent to Plessner’s rigid behavioral admonition, that letting
oneself go in expression courts the “catastrophe of ridiculousness.”
Scheler’s advice is to tolerate the risk of being ridiculous. He wagers on
the doctrine of nonresistance to evil, recommended by Spinoza in his
ethics, because drives are malleable only as they come to expression. He
knows that the militant negation of drives leads only to the opposite of
what one intended; in his view, it would thus not merely be unreason-
able but directly counterproductive to attempt, as Plessner does, to pro-
hibit “eruptive” expression. Reason is not capable of regulating passion,
unless—thanks to sublimation—it becomes a passion itself.110

CONVENTIONS OF PAIN

It is impossible for a man, with his arms all akimbo in

strenuous defence, simultaneously to open his mouth
to scream out loud, for the simple reason that the arm
movements presuppose a chest taut with the pressure
of expiration.
Charles Bell on the puzzle of Laocoön, 1806
Conduct Code of the Cool Persona 85

The critique of expression reflects not only the influence of behaviorism,

the concentration on observable behavior, and the general struggle
against psychologism but an idea found in Nietzsche as well. The cri-
tique’s target is almost exclusively the expression of pain. The experi-
ence of war had unleashed extreme and contradictory expressive move-
ments focused on pain: the cultivation of cool armoring to achieve honor
and hardness; the metaphysical interpretation of the meaning of suffer-
ing; and unmediated “naive expressions of pain and suffering,” in which
pain simply remained pain.111
Suddenly abandoning his own cool armoring in 1916, Scheler found
a human way out of the situation. Now, directly alongside the armored
ego, the figure of the defenseless creature achieves currency: “The
scream of the creature, restrained so long, once again echoes freely, bit-
terly through the universe.”112 Plessner would rescind the distinction be-
tween the icon of the warrior and the icon of the creature by elevating
once again to ideal status the discipline of Verhaltenheit that Scheler had
dropped; Plessner draws a veil over the icon of the creature, thereby
withdrawing from the public gaze.
Under the banner of the new objectivity, writers in the 1920s explore
the convention of pained expression and its social function. Nietzsche’s
idea comes in for an update. “Every sufferer searches instinctively for
the cause of his suffering; more precisely, he seeks a perpetrator,” writes
Nietzsche in his Genealogy of Morals. The search begins, in any event,
not within the body but in the world outside it. From an evolutionary
perspective, this search is “rational” behavior: ultimately the species
that understands its pains primarily as indicators of external sources of
suffering, only turning later to possible internal causes, will gain a sur-
vival advantage.113
New objectivity writers focus their attention on the social constel-
lation in which pain makes its appearance. That suffering in the form of
“pure outburst” might be able to find an adequate literary form for it-
self is an idea that inspires Brecht to mockery:

People also say that this or that writer has had some bad experience, but he
has lent fine expression to his suffering and so can be grateful for it: some-
thing came of the sorrows; they expressed the man. Besides, in being formu-
lated, they have been ameliorated in part. The suffering passes, the poem re-
mains, they say, smartly rubbing their hands. But how is it when the suffering
has not passed? When it remains there just the same—if not for the singer of
verses, then for those who cannot sing? 114
86 Conduct Code of the Cool Persona

Pain always comes to expression within the frame of convention, so that

it is difficult to say in what form pain finds its genuine expression. Karl
Bühler compares two attitudes toward pain, without deciding which of
the two deserves the seal of genuineness:
The so-called primitive man suffering pain and sadness breaks out in loud
plaintive tones, rips his clothes, and injures himself by his own hand; all of
this in essentially the same situations in which man today remains silent,
wraps black crepe around his arm, and goes neatly about his business. (166)

Programmatic literary statements that bluntly repudiate the cult of

expression offer three general arguments. The first is that the creature’s
scream always counts on being heard in some seat of judgment, whether
in the universe or the republic. In 1920, the expressionist Rudolf Leon-
hard offered the following to his readers:
For the word is not a means of conveying information, but rather a means of
expression, is expression itself. . . . It is a sound issuing from the depths of
isolation, and the miracle of communication lies not in the mouth but in the
ear. The most sacred mystery is that we are heard and understood.115

The expression of pain has the quality of an appeal and therefore does
convey information; it is not the act of solipsism that it pretends to be.
Embedded in the convention of the “penitential pilgrimage,” it antici-
pates grace in heaven or a merciful audience on earth.
At issue in the expressionist topos of the creature’s scream was the
medium of writing itself. Since the conventions of writing could not rep-
licate the scream unchanged, the expressionists pursued the detour of
the form, in order, on the one hand, to forge a way for the primal utter-
ance and, on the other, to reflect the inappropriateness of artificial signs.
The decade of the new objectivity held out the possibility of calling
on the techniques of the physiognomic gaze to get beyond the dilemma
inherent in writing, as the older expressive medium. The medium of
photography, the camera’s eye, meant that immediacy had finally found
its neutral medium in technology. The physiognomy of the screamer
could be photographed; the unwritten scream came out of the radio,
without mediation—like music.
A second argument for the critique of the cult of expression insists on
the performative aspect in every expression:
When bankers express themselves to each other, or politicians, then we know
that they are acting at the same time; even when a sick person expresses his
pain, he also signals with his finger to the doctor or others gathered around,
Conduct Code of the Cool Persona 87

and he also acts. But about poets people believe that they produce only pure
expression, so that their action consists solely in expression and their inten-
tion can only be to express themselves.116

In the epic theater, Brecht replaces the category of expression with that of
the gesture and—as Plessner does— defines it as “expression in the light
of an action.” The gesture reconnects the abstract signs of communica-
tion to the body. If the sign exists within the exclusion of the body, the
gesture returns the body to center stage; the gesture brings the sign back
to the site and moment of its production (Carrie Asman). The danger of
this reconnection, however, is that the supremacy of the sign will over-
whelm the body, leaving nothing but a ruin with an allegorical meaning
attached to it.
A third argument for the repudiation of the cult of expression has to
do with the way the repercussions of prescribed, ritualized expressive
conventions on the emotions become the focus of attention. The earlier
psychological finding, that physiological movements produce emotion,
that crying not only is rooted in sadness but can also occasion it, ac-
quires a new currency under the influence of behaviorism.117 The tech-
nique of producing affects mechanically travels from the theater to the
marketplace, and from advertising back to theater. A new field of philo-
sophical and sociological reflection opens up; research begins to de-
scribe the conventions of symbolic interaction as a medium of expres-
sion in order to uncover the historically variable core of expression. The
criticism of expression combines the critique of ideology with a search
for the hidden center of power behind the expression. Benjamin discov-
ers in the poetic signs of allegory not only the convention of expression
but also the expression of convention, which is, “therefore, the expres-
sion of authority, secret as befits the dignity of its origins and public in
accord with its sphere of validity,” as he formulated it for the baroque
period.118 For the modern period, of course, no authority can claim the
dignity of an “origin.”
The new objectivity subjects expression to the functionalist gaze and
makes a corresponding reduction in its existential weight. If man is con-
ceived as “a being poised for action” (Plessner), it is the pragmatic as-
pect of expressive gestures that captures all the attention. To those who
fear that the result will be a “flattening” of expression, the functional-
ism of the new objectivity points to a gain in the spatial breadth of ac-
tion. The idea of psychological depth comes in for a hearing as to whether
it necessarily makes the field of action smaller. The mobile subject upon
88 Conduct Code of the Cool Persona

which the new objectivity focuses may appear flat from a traditional
perspective but opens up the depths of the space of action in such a way
as to eliminate what causes the expressive world of pain’s depth. Lurk-
ing inconspicuously in even the “barbaric” campaign against expression
is a humane subversive element, though it is not easy to trace.
The critique of expression opens up a new space of sociological reflec-
tion focused on symbolic forms. Expression is no longer an unfiltered
manifestation of a stimulus center, as Klages had claimed. Scheler em-
phasizes the intellectual element in the spontaneous; Plessner notes that
every expression, as soon as it appears, becomes subject to the regulari-
ties of the symbolic order. Karl Bühler describes expression in terms of
its conditionality, between physiological states and external stimuli in
the field of communicative action. Kracauer stresses the camera’s ability
to undermine the conventions of the expressive arts, in order to make
visible the natural foundation that exists unconsciously in the frozen
gesture. Brecht recognizes the intersubjective significatory character
of self-expression, drawing far-reaching consequences from it. Commu-
nicative signs depend on conventions, and these conventions underlay
the regularities of class, the public sphere, the media, and the market.
The conventions represent the anonymous dark side of the expressive in-
tentional mirror—its reified nature and commodity character—but do
not mean disaster. The arts and sciences of the new objectivity decade
have confidence in their ability to bring some light into the darkness of
reification. This sense of self-confidence makes them part of a historical
process that will soon be demanding new formulas for the authenticity
of pain. In the 1930s, attention will turn to the natural history of the ex-
pressive mirror’s other side.

PLESSNER — SCHMITT:
ASSOCIATION AND DISSOCIATION

In the end phase of the republic, Helmuth Plessner radicalizes the politi-
cal elements of his theory.119 The inclination toward Verhaltenheit,
which tempered the advice he was giving in 1924, is gone. Now an em-
phasis on decisions gives his anthropology a practical edge. If he once
considered it “a crime to employ brute force, instead of the logic of
play,” now his code of conduct leads into the realm of political anthro-
pology, which (for the sake of conceptual clarity as regards the “politi-
cal”) includes, provisionally, the physical killing of the other.
Conduct Code of the Cool Persona 89

In his 1931 book Macht und menschliche Natur, in any case, Pless-
ner has no reservations about relying on Der Begriff des Politischen
(1927), by Carl Schmitt, who in turn refers to Plessner’s work in Be-
griff’s second edition (1932), as an adequate anthropological founda-
tion for his theory.120 The affinities of Plessner’s 1931 text—which sets
aside or drops the central concepts of 1924, such as balance, compen-
sation, play, tact, Verhaltenheit, and diplomacy—and Schmitt’s study of
politics are little short of astounding. Plessner has meanwhile gone over
to the idea that, “in an epoch in which dictatorship is a living power,”
it has become impossible to continue reflecting naively about politics
within the categories of classical liberalism. Politics, says Plessner now,
means a struggle for power, and the task of the anthropologist is to dis-
cover the extent to which this will to power is part of man’s essence.
Plessner now realizes that the agonistic political sphere is not some
contingent physical existential state external to man, but that the “origi-
nary relation of friend to enemy” is to be counted among his fundamen-
tal anthropological conditions.121 In opposition to Max Scheler and
Martin Heidegger, whom he reproaches for contriving images of a “gen-
uine” human being, Plessner strives in his anthropology to understand
the individual as an “accountable subject” (Zurechnungssubjekt) in the
violent world. Those, like these two rivals, who stretch philosophical
anthropology between the poles of the leap into genuineness, on the one
hand, and the forgetfulness of Man, on the other, manage only to up-
date Luther’s split between a private sphere of salvation and a public
sphere of violence.122 In contrast, Plessner insists that the individual, as
a being consigned to artificiality from the moment of birth, can realize
himself only in the sphere of “man.” He voices the suspicion that these
existential doctrines, obsessed with genuineness, actually underwrite
political indifference and are the real sponsors of violence. Therefore he
demands the politicization of anthropology, which he supposes will
keep politics from setting an ambush for anthropology.
The theoretical alliance between Plessner and Schmitt, their exchange
of arguments and approving references, went on for a decade—after
1933 Plessner allowed the episode to sink out of sight; and in the de-
cades following 1945, the issue of the liaison, which might have occa-
sioned deeper insights into the fate of the Weimar intelligentsia, was
simply not taken up. While the correspondences between Walter Ben-
jamin and Carl Schmitt have meanwhile become the focus of extensive
research, the investigation of affinities between Plessner’s early works
90 Conduct Code of the Cool Persona

and Schmitt’s theory of the state have remained the preserve of younger
scholars working on the margins.
It is remarkable and telling that all three, Plessner, Benjamin, and
Schmitt, felt themselves drawn to the baroque period. The “stage and
theatrical feel of those engaged in political action in the seventeenth cen-
tury” obviously confronted them with an extreme example of represen-
tation, and it fascinated them.123 Equally conspicuous is their combina-
tion of the new objectivity concept of action with the aestheticizing of
evil. “You must give the Devil his due,”* writes Plessner, as a motto
above the introduction to his Grenzen of 1924. In an incidental note, he
registers the “Luciferian” appeal emanating from decisive men. The mo-
tif of gambling with the devil leads directly to a principle the new ob-
jectivity shares with the seventeenth century’s political codes of conduct.
As soon as the hope for religious redemption disappears, the political
subject tries to intervene in the machinery of violence. The cult of evil is
an inversion of the salvation narrative.124 We read already as early as
1649: “For he / who would live among the foxes and wolves / must also
howl with them.”125
Max Weber, distancing himself from the youth movement’s passion-
ate impatience, put the principle in terms of the saying: “Mind you, the
devil is old; grow old to understand him.”126 He points out the need to
immerse oneself in an enemy’s assumptions and empirical characteris-
tics, study and assess them, rather than increasing the enemy’s power by
disarming or taking flight. Plessner seconds the idea in Grenzen, coining
the new objectivity slogan: “Dealing with reality means dealing with the
devil” (126). Benjamin lays stress on the way a patient study of fascinat-
ing evil can also bring its weaknesses to light: “Lucifer is beautiful. . . .
The beautiful brings to expression the fact that what he lacks is an ulti-
mate totality.”127 Schmitt, Plessner, and Benjamin—along with the con-
temporary avant-garde— dream of amoral mobility, which searches for
spaces of lawlessness in which to indulge itself, turns against security-
mindedness of neutrality, and cultivates the consciousness of danger.
Readings of Kierkegaard and Sorel, Nietzsche and Lenin, Schopenhauer
and Hobbes blend strangely in their minds. Remarkable correspondences
run straight through the various political camps.
Lucifer may have been their identifying sign—the angel who fell
from heaven like a lightning bolt and claims, as prince of darkness, to be
the bringer of light.128 While coming to some arrangement with the idea

*The phrase is in English in the original.

Conduct Code of the Cool Persona 91

of power, thinkers like Plessner and Schmitt want to remain part of the
enlightenment. The concept has few precedents in the German cultural
tradition.
In 1932 Schmitt acknowledges that Plessner’s anthropology, through
its “venturesome” realism in the construction of man as a risky being
and its “positive reference to danger,” may well come “closer to ‘evil’
than to goodness.”129 Everything depends for both thinkers on the mo-
ment of decision “out of nothing.” Lacking a solid basis in nature or a
sheltering metaphysics, an individual makes an unending series of deci-
sions in order to lead an active life and, in doing so, secure his identity.
Schmitt, admittedly, has very stable moorings. His metaphysical shelter
is Catholicism, and his decisions rest on the pillars of a “healthy economy
inside the strong state.” Like Max Weber, he continues to adhere to the
liberal age’s uncontested dogma of separate spheres for production and
consumption, price-setting and the market, with no guidance from eth-
ics or a specific worldview, and most certainly not from politics.130
Plessner’s Grenzen already has conceptual figures that blend easily
with Schmitt’s friend-enemy formula of 1927. In Macht und mensch-
liche Natur, Plessner elaborates his thesis of the individual’s eccentric
position, taking it in the direction of a political anthropology. Yet Pless-
ner’s individual, in contrast to Schmitt’s, has to see to his own needs, so
that institutions can take nothing away from him; he must continually
reconstitute his native spheres, which were not his at birth, as he end-
lessly makes and remakes his “open foreignness.” Thus he takes over an
area between the native zone and the “uncanny reality” of hostile for-
eignness.131 In the psychophysiological dynamic of drawing boundaries
between the familiar circle and unfamiliar otherness—the line traced
with a duelist’s foil—Plessner glimpses the original constitution of man’s
essence.
Since the sphere of familiarity has no natural boundaries, uncanny
forces threaten every moment to colonize it. According to Plessner, no
humanitarian concept offers to protect it. But what then? Plessner’s ref-
erence to Schmitt means in this context that the two agree on the neces-
sity of violence, which in turn necessitates the drawing of boundaries. In
certain concretely existing circumstances, otherness can imply the nega-
tion of “one’s own form of existence,” and in that case, Schmitt writes,
“the real possibility of physical killing” becomes part of the meaning of
the friend-enemy concept.132
This extreme, which marks the borderline case in Schmitt’s 1927 text,
may seem to be the point where the two theories coincide but can also
92 Conduct Code of the Cool Persona

be taken as the point where the two once again drift apart. The relativ-
ism of the spheres of familiarity emphasized by Plessner, his desire to
break through cultural ethnocentrism, and his aversion to the stylization
of community into a natural sphere of familiarity, make it easy to recog-
nize in retrospect the possibility of collision. (We would like to know
more than his lecture series on the “belated nation” [verspätete Nation]
tells us about Plessner’s reaction during the dictatorship’s first stage,
when he was forced to recognize how smoothly— crudely but effec-
tively—Schmitt’s decisionism, to which he had himself adhered so long,
could blend with the ideology of community.) Leaving out of consider-
ation, however, the extreme case, it is possible to recognize the dynamic
mix of affinities on the more abstract level of Schmitt’s definition: “The
distinction between friend and enemy,” writes Schmitt in 1927, “implies
the most extreme degree of intensity achieved by a union or separation,
an association or dissociation.” The political enemy is not to be con-
ceived negatively, in moral, aesthetic, or economic terms. “He is simply
other, the stranger, and it suffices in regard to his being that he is, in an
especially intensified sense, something other and foreign.”133 This level
of abstraction echoes in Plessner’s anthropology.
Degrees of intensity in separation had an aesthetic appeal for the Wei-
mar intelligentsia equal to that of coolness. Plessner’s persona constantly
draws from the mirror of the other as potential enemy an image of a self
that would be adequate in that reality (a figure in the mirror stage of
identity formation is always in flux). Schmitt’s theory opens up the pos-
sibility of escape from the spell of isolation, of leaving the area of that
which has been distinguished, in order to enter the terrain of political
relevance on the level of the state. Now, before a broader public, Pless-
ner wants to frame the necessary decisions anthropologically.
That Plessner, in contrast to Schmitt, failed in the endeavor is not
merely the consequence of external conditions. To this day, the single ex-
tensive work devoted to the case comes to the conclusion that Schmitt’s
theory of the state is the “congenial complement” of Plessner’s anthro-
pology. It calls Schmitt’s theory of the political the “operationalization
of Plessner’s anthropological analysis of the present.”134 This judgment
obscures other possibilities and I cannot agree with it. Yet if we read the
two works in their political context as a single text, we can use the pu-
tative identity to rescue both thinkers from the intellectual taboo hover-
ing about their temporary connection. And we can more easily recon-
struct the contours of the individual theories and chart their divergence.
Conduct Code of the Cool Persona 93

For while Plessner’s theory hinges on the myth of the individual, Schmitt’s
concepts put the state at the center of attention.
Perhaps in 1932 both thinkers would have energetically denied the
possibility that their theories would clash on the stage of the historical
process. They probably read each other’s work extremely selectively.
The seed of conflict was already there in 1931, in Plessner’s orientation
toward Dilthey’s historicism and his penetrating understanding of as-
pects of psychoanalysis. Referring to Freud, Plessner defines the “other
as that which is familiar and surreptitiously one’s own externalized, and
therefore uncanny.”135 Schmitt approaches this definition only after the
Second World War, recalling Theodor Däubler’s formula, “The enemy
is the form assumed by our own question.” Schmitt’s empty matrix of
the friend-enemy relation arbitrarily brings in substances at any time,
whereas Plessner’s definition of the other categorically excludes biologi-
cal determinacy. He takes over the relativity of all boundary markings
from historicism:

Cultural history manifests the unremitting displacement of the horizon of the

uncanny and, correlatively, of the sphere of friendly familiarity, so that the
figural transformation of the friend-enemy relation can only be investigated
historically.136

Was it Dilthey’s relativism that prevented Plessner from constituting

as absolute the familiar sphere of a people (Volk)? Was it his aversion to
community, which the legal theorists of the state sought to instrumen-
talize? Since Plessner’s initial point of departure was not an ontologically
determined marking of boundaries but rather one variably informed by
the play of power, he was unable for theoretical reasons to follow
Schmitt when, in 1933, the latter definitively introduced racial identity
into his matrix, as the criterion for friend. An anti-Semitic turn—in “ha-
tred of the concept of law” (Raphael Gross) as the defining characteris-
tic of Judaism—marks all of Schmitt’s commentaries on constitutional
doctrine in the 1920s.137 Racial identity now irrevocably becomes the
substance, enriched by power, of Schmitt’s sphere of familiarity; as a re-
sult of racial politics, the sphere necessarily became for Plessner one of
mistrust.
A further indication of both like-mindedness and differentiation is
apparent as early as 1924 in the agreement of Plessner and Schmitt in
their admiration of the figure of the Grand Inquisitor in The Brothers
Karamazov.138 Even in the nineteenth century, Dostoyevsky’s character
94 Conduct Code of the Cool Persona

was regarded as the quintessence of Machiavellianism and thus of a “je-

suitical politics.” Gradually, however, the connotation of Jesuit in politi-
cal semantics shifts to the Jew.139 Here the cool persona’s path splits in
a way that the play of definitions had not foreseen. For a while Schmitt
—the “crown jurist of the Third Reich”—remains jesuitical. But be-
cause the dictatorship’s racial politics now uses biology to mark its
boundaries, Plessner falls into the sphere of the enemy. He is forced to
emigrate, via Turkey, to the Netherlands. Since the course of their lives
diverges so sharply, it obscures their early affinities.
When Plessner published a new edition of his book Die verspätete
Nation in 1959, he lumped together Schmitt’s decisionism and Heideg-
ger’s anthropology, ascribing to both the “aestheticizing of politics,”
which, in Benjamin’s formulation, gave impetus to fascism.140 Plessner’s
student Christian Graf von Krockow had a year earlier published the
first conclusive work on decisionism in Schmitt, Heidegger, and Jünger.
Von Krockow, who quotes the critique of communitarian radicalism
from Grenzen (1924) and the “principle of the indecipherability” of the
historical from Macht und menschliche Natur (1931), does not mention
the interconnections between Plessner’s and Schmitt’s conceptualiza-
tions. We infer indirectly from the introduction what he regards as the
differences between the two. In the aftermath of Nietzsche, according to
von Krockow, it was not only conceivable but consistent to imagine an
individual who throws off all transcendental norms in order to run the
risk of his own decisions. Throwing them off, he elevates the burden of
existence to the extreme. “For, having renounced all authoritative ties,
the individual would find himself surrounded, in normative terms, by
‘nothingness.’” Von Krockow recapitulates the intellectual situation
Plessner experienced in 1924 in order to supplement it with an idea that
leaves open the possibility of rescuing decisionism in humanistic terms:

Insofar as the humanity of the individual is indicated by his being in the midst
of decision, the outermost step would perhaps produce something like hu-
manity as a life form—but it remains a difficult question, whether such a life
form is tolerable or even at all possible.141

If at this point a free exchange of arguments among Plessner, Heidegger,

and Schmitt even remains possible within a humanistic frame, the next
step is to separate out their respective positions. Von Krockow’s invoca-
tion of the burden of existence has already suggested that the individual,
constitutionally overburdened by the permanent pressure of making de-
Conduct Code of the Cool Persona 95

cisions, seeks relief. Schmitt and Heidegger explore this possibility by re-
quiring of themselves a decision that was imposed on them, thus escap-
ing the burden of having to decide “out of nothing.”
Helmuth Plessner decides on the hazards of exile, although of course
it was really not a decision.

A HISTORICAL CONTEXT
FOR THE CODES OF CONDUCT

Plessner’s code of conduct aims at achieving the participation of the

single individual in existing structures of power. He depicts an individ-
ual who, with a high degree of reflexive alertness, is supposed to find his
identity in a balance between the demarcation of his physicality, the
bracketing of his longing for community, and dissociation from the en-
emy sphere. Where in the Weimar Republic do we find a social carrier for
such a concept? Within recognized political camps, certainly, it would
be hard to locate.
Literary examples come spontaneously to mind—the character of the
confidence man in Walter Serner’s Handbrevier für Hochstapler, for ex-
ample, or the image of the storm troop commander, conceived by Ernst
Jünger. In Jünger’s construction, we find the tense alertness demanded
by Plessner. Here is the image of a metallic subject whose intellectual
awareness never lapses, as if he “had an electric bell going off nonstop
inside” him. In this figure of the maschino are elements of aestheticism,
self-demarcation from the horde, the pathos of decision-making out of
nothing, the defense against or colonization of the other under “cool”
skies—all of these blended together in their military variants.
Jünger’s figure also dispenses with the orienting mechanisms of social
institutions and minimizes integration into social collectives. Economic
motives, on Jünger’s stage, as on Plessner’s, flash brightly in their ab-
sence. The spotlight shines on a rare example: the sovereign subject act-
ing alone, putting its awareness to the test in an unending series of
duels—yet betraying no consciousness of imperative drives or other de-
terminants that mediate its identity. This fabulous figure of the individual
was obviously a key figure of the imaginary that held the Weimar pub-
lic in its spell. Where, however, were its institutional moorings? In what
uniform did it enter the arena of politics? The communitarian ideologies
of the left as well as the right formed the warm spheres that hatched the
cool idol with its armor intact.
96 Conduct Code of the Cool Persona

By publishing his anthropological treatise on the subject of power in

the Fachshriften zur Politik und staatsbürgerlichen Erziehung, Plessner
was seeking to gain a hearing for his ideas inside state institutions, but
Carl Schmitt, who incorporated them into his theory of power, was prob-
ably the only one who understood the ramifications of the complicated
text. Once it becomes clear that there is no social carrier for the bound-
ary subject’s code of conduct, however, there remains nothing much to
it— outside characterology! In the final analysis, the code thus amounts
to a lifestyle conceived as a style of power.
The courtly codes of distance as the Weimar period updated them do
not end with this deadly trajectory into decisionism. We follow their re-
markable transformation in a different social stratum in a later chapter
about the radar type. The modernization of the codes in heroic form,
however, seems to have run its course at the close of the 1920s.
In the 1930s, politically cut off from the actual developmental space
in which the modernization took place, exiled intellectuals begin to re-
construct a historical context for the courtly code of conduct. Norbert
Elias, escaping to Switzerland, France, and England, undertakes his cul-
tural historical studies in a search for another type of subject. He identi-
fies a “rational type,” set aside in favor of its successors, the professional
bourgeois ratio and the inner-directed subject of the Protestant ethic.
Elias finds this example of “existence at a distance” in court society, be-
neath the rubble of the nineteenth-century cult of psychologizing.142
In a world lacking in security, the prebourgeois rational type finds
orientation in a set of behavioral rules that teach him to gauge degrees
of intimacy and distance. He is required to move about on terrain in
which “free-wheeling emotion” of any sort is penalized with social de-
cline or degradation. Conspicuous in Elias’s reconstruction of courtly
behavior is an anti-expressionist impulse, reminiscent of Plessner:
The dosage of an affective discharge is hard to calculate. Unmeasured, it ex-
poses the true feelings of the person in question to such a degree that it can
be damaging; it can mean giving up trump cards to a rival in the struggle for
favor or prestige. It is ultimately and above all a sign of inferiority; and that
is precisely the condition that a member of court fears most of all. The com-
petitive struggle of court life thus forces the restraint of affects in favor of a
precisely calculated and thoroughly nuanced bearing in social intercourse.143

The constraints on historical reconstruction of the 1930s inflect its

critique. A self-critical concession that reality had pulled the rational
type off balance, leaving it only the option of resistance, sets off a search
Conduct Code of the Cool Persona 97

for traces of the type’s humane possibilites, wiped out by its develop-
ment. Elias signals his approval of civilization—the Weimar intelligent-
sia’s defining characteristic—but details the civilizing process’s psycho-
social costs: “In the course of this process,” he warns, “consciousness
becomes less subject to the drives and the drives less subject to con-
sciousness.”144 As the other side of the civilizing process, he observes
(and David Riesman later describes) chronic psychosocial anxiety.145 A
contrasting argument in Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno’s Dia-
lectic of Enlightenment stresses the necessary structural interconnection
of civilization and barbarism.
Removed from the dramatic decisions of the republic’s end phase,
and outside the compelling forces of mobilization, Werner Krauss, Nor-
bert Elias, Erich Auerbach, Ernst Kantorowicz, and other scholars of
court society lay bare the repressed dimension of the behavioral codes.
They discover the horizons of humanism that, in Gracián’s Art of Worldly
Wisdom, allowed an admixture of goodness and virtue in moderation
that was absent from the preceding decades of the avant-garde. Unable
to find a political landscape in Germany for the rational type’s develop-
ment, they uncover a textual space in history bearing witness to just that
possibility.146
One of the macabre aspects of German intellectual history is that the
avant-garde thinkers began to excavate humanism’s buried potential at
a time when exile largely deprived them of any possibility for action. Dur-
ing the 1920s and 1930s they failed, to their own disadvantage, to rec-
ognize the modernity of the eighteenth century. Historicism, the phan-
tom enemy, the great adversary of that passionately impatient period,
was once again in demand as a medium for the recall of humanistic prin-
ciples. Now readers could enjoy Gracián in all his dimensions, celebrat-
ing his attentiveness to the friendly gentility and magnanimity of the
soul, the virtue of timely introspection, and the value of faithfulness. In
Plötzensee and Torgau, Krauss retrieved these aspects of the Jesuit’s
thought.
Erich Auerbach, reacting in October 1947 to Graciáns Lebenslehre,
which Krauss had sent him just after its publication in Frankfurt, refers
to a merit we have not yet discussed:
I have just come across a page of notes that I made, at the very beginning of
my ocean voyage [to America], reading your works. And if I’m not mistaken,
I’ve not yet written to you anything about it. In my memory . . . everything
pales in comparison to the Gracián book, the density and richness of which
98 Conduct Code of the Cool Persona

is never far from my thoughts. Not only the figure of Gracián himself, but all
the relations and connections that you uncover and pull together, concern-
ing, for example, the court sphere or the concept of moderation; they are ex-
tremely interesting to me and will prove fruitful also for my own work.147

The atmosphere of the 1930s humanist turn is particularly evident in the

chapter on Gracián’s concept of moderation. Here Krauss stresses the
worth of the middling virtue. This median value is not an average or a
compromise. It is an “extraordinary accomplishment of combined intel-
lectual capacities” that mediates extremes rather than eliminating them.
Krauss demands achievements that may appear paradoxical: “discreet
audacity” and “prudent daring” (149). Risky acts of balance transpire
in the middle space. Only exceptional natures can achieve the art of bal-
ance, he concedes; they realize they must neither annihilate extreme af-
fects with “stoic asceticism” (108) nor act them out without reserve but
instead neutralize them by means of another passion. They do not tame
the affects’ wildness but turn their force in another direction. This bal-
ancing of affects creates a passion for balance in the service of a special
interest, which is subject to political, economic, and moral definition.148
Ernst Jünger’s diaries during the Second World War have a compa-
rable treatment of the logic of extremes, turning it to the service of
the virtue of moderation. Enforced contemplation weakens the spell
of the philosophy of history in which his mobilization fantasy originated
and increases his interest in what is humanly possible. An approach to
the tradition of the French moralists recalls to Jünger’s mind some
durable humane insights, at a time in which they are being consciously
called into question.149 In his Kaukasische Aufzeichnungen, on 1 Janu-
ary 1943—shortly after he witnessed the involvement of regular army
units in carrying out the genocide on the eastern front—he notes three
resolutions:
First, “Live moderately,” for nearly all the difficulties in my life have stemmed
from violations of moderation [see Figure 5].
Second, “Always have an eye out for the unfortunate.” Man has an inborn
tendency not to perceive genuine misfortune; indeed more than that: he turns
his eye away from it. Compassion lags behind.
I want finally to do away with thinking about individual salvation in the
maelstrom of possible catastrophes. It is more important that one behave
with dignity. We cling to the surface points of a whole that remains hidden
from us, and it is precisely the escape we devise that can kill us.150

Krauss also compares Gracián’s worldly arts with the French moral-
ists, elucidating Gracián’s circumscriptions. They distance him from the
Conduct Code of the Cool Persona 99

5. Live moderately
(Ernst Jünger with Lieutenant von Krienitz, at Regniéville, 1917. With the permis-
sion of Schiller-Nationalmuseum, Deutsches Literaturarchiv, Marbach a.N.)

Volk, which Gracián would regard as an enemy and approach only fully
armed, in the “male-bonded” encapsulation of the persona. But gender
psychology is not one of his themes; he eliminates “incidents of passion”
from his considerations—and in this issue Krauss finds the sharpest con-
trast to a male model derived from the French moralists, which “takes
shape in constant consideration of the female partner role” (157).
Nevertheless, Krauss stresses the benefits of the virtue of moderation
in Gracián’s code, in contrast to the fanatic attitudes of his own time. He
100 Conduct Code of the Cool Persona

knew the risky brilliance of the cool persona, which he could juxtapose
to Gracián’s counsel no. 266:
Not to be bad from an excess of goodness: that is the lot of someone who
never gets angry. These insensitive sorts scarcely deserve to be called people
(personas). Their condition does not always stem from indolence, but often
from incompetence. Sensitivity, given an appropriate occasion, is an act of
personality: birds often make fun of a scarecrow.
chapter four

The Cool Persona in

New Objectivity Literature;
or, Figures Devoured by
the Shadows They Cast

UNDERMINING THE SOVEREIGN

The era of the first republic set the pain of separation and the desire for
fusion—two sources of aesthetic fascination—at opposing extremes.1 A
bourgeois culture of shadings and mixed temperatures gives way to aes-
thetic segregation, the polarization of life spheres, and a fascination with
distinct boundaries and clear contours. The phenomenon of fluid bound-
aries becomes as suspect in politics as in aesthetics. The art of terrible
simplification grows attractive, not only because it offers relief, but pri-
marily because it is terrible. In the hothouse climate resulting from ram-
pant status inconsistencies, variations on cool make it possible to regis-
ter distinctions; 2 the cult of separation operates to demarcate cool spaces
of mobility in the overheated agglomeration centers of the metropolis.
The record turns up high praise for nomadism, positive assessments of
the social “ice age” that has descended, resigned acceptance of estrange-
ment, a taste for statistical demystification, a rhetoric of forgetting, and
the behaviorism of perception. Cool conduct’s ritual, actions, and life-
style inscribe themselves as traces of separation within the world of fu-
sion’s imaginary spaces: birth memories, faith in the completeness of the
life cycle, longing for spheres of trust, praise for warm zones, a weak-
ness for myths of origin.
The split into extremes of pain and fusion from what would other-
wise be collective experience sounds an ominous note. Political camps

101
102 The Cool Persona in Literature

take form around the two poles, consolidating their opposition. The sep-
aration experts move to the left, proving that myths of separation can be
just as potent as myths of origins. The proponents of fusion gather in the
right wing. Only a few prominent intellectual figures, such as modernist
writers of the older generation— Thomas Mann and Robert Musil (who
are attacked by the avant-garde)—admit their mixed motivations. It is
as rare in the republic to come across the relaxed feel of relativism, ac-
cepting a degree of separation that operates as a corrective, as it is to find
a recovered awareness of origins or a wish for wholeness, qualifying the
sense of estrangement. Instead, the logic of extremes dominates the lit-
erature of the avant-garde.
A look at the political implications of polarization reveals the one-
dimensional images of the individual it sets up. At the same time, the
split into opposed spheres obscures their reciprocal conditionality; both
separation scenario and fusion drama draw energy from mutual nega-
tion and find in the other a horizon of uncanniness that keeps the uni-
verse intact.
One-dimensional figures of naïve pathos are singularly attractive as
crystallization points of the Weimar imaginary. Institutions, in contrast,
seem to some to offer a chance to repeal the separation, combining the
desire for separation with the longing for fusion. Carl Schmitt, in his
friend-enemy construction, formulates an ingenious key to the combina-
tion of familiarity and otherness. The pathos of distinguo, ergo sum he
discovers here maintains the myth of the isolated individual intact, even
while the formulaic consistency of the slogan preserves his shelter among
the state-sponsored collective of friends. Paul Tillich, writing in 1932,
captures the uncanny dynamic whereby separation wishes and fusion
desires interpenetrate, flowing together in the stream of the National
Socialist movement. “Contained in the call for community,” Tillich re-
marks in Die sozialistische Entscheidung, “is simultaneously a demand
for the mother to be created from the son and the father to be recalled
out of nothing.”3
Our examination of the theoretical constructions of the cool persona
acquaints us with numerous variations on the attempt to recall the fa-
ther out of nothing. If the writers held strictly to the slogan, we might
expect to find literature populated by one-dimensional characters, but
the scarcely concealed wish for the mother to be created as well lends a
certain plasticity to the form. The program, announced with pathos, is
threatened with destruction by the shadows its figures cast.
The Cool Persona in Literature 103

While Plessner transposes the idea of sovereignty from Schmitt’s Poli-

tische Theologie onto the individual, constructing his dueling subject,
Walter Benjamin uses the landscape of baroque tragedy to expose pre-
sumptions of omnipotence, turning the stage’s harsh spotlight on the
prince to show “his status as a poor human being.”4 Alongside his crea-
tureliness, Benjamin notes the “decision-making incompetence” of the
tyrant, who may indeed tirelessly emphasize his sovereignty “in stoic
turns of phrase” but, subject to “the sudden caprice of emotional winds
that can shift at any time,” unwittingly rediscovers himself in the role of
the martyr.5 The effect is the “dismantling of the sovereign, who is split
into an ultimately ineffective, if bloody, tyrant, and a no more produc-
tive martyr.”
The introduction of the idea of sovereignty into the world of the trag-
edy does not lead solely to this disappointment, which seems to follow
the logic of the imprisoned Mercier in Büchner’s Dantons Tod: “For
once, follow your phrases until you find the point where they are em-
bodied.” Benjamin’s point is a more terrible one. He dissects a character
in baroque tragedy who, outfitted with all the attributes of the cool per-
sona—“full understanding and an intact will”—holds the key to fate in
his hands. Decision is his métier: he is the intriguer making strategic cal-
culations to seize the mechanisms of the passions controlling others,
which are in principle uncontrollable.
Following the trajectory of Schmitt’s concept of sovereignty into Ben-
jamin’s book on baroque tragedy, we watch it dismantle the decisionists’
glory, so that what remains in the end is a schemer. Benjamin registers
the extremism of his contemporaries’ political anthropology, but he lo-
cates their self-confidence on his tragedy’s crooked plane.6 Deprived of
the illusion of a solid footing, they suffer vertigo, rushing—along with
other insignias of domination—headlong into ruin.
The role of the body in Plessner’s construction allows us to follow his
isolated duelist into the aesthetic imagination.7 Plessner’s reflexive indi-
vidual delights, as we have seen, in his possession of a self that exists in
sharp distinction to the unconsciousness of physical being. In order to
make an elegant presentation in society in physical form, the self must
forget the body. Careful watch over the internal boundary by which the
self secures its identity delivers it up to a state of chronic anxiety. If sur-
veillance fails, blame threatens. Benjamin’s aesthetic is not vulnerable to
this threat. The culture of shame, and its self-evident concern for mat-
ters of distance and honor, appeals to him as well, but his writings re-
104 The Cool Persona in Literature

veal a countervailing effort “to relax the strictness of the self in intoxi-
cation.”8 Benjamin searches the literature for glimpses of zones in which
the sovereign self wants, in vain, to surrender to forgetfulness.
Because, however, the most forgotten other is the body— our own body—
we understand how Kafka called the cough erupting from his insides “the an-
imal.” It was the most advanced outpost of the great herd.9

Schmitt’s and Plessner’s doctrines of sovereignty are ultimately inex-

tricable from the world of the fathers. Both look for examples of deci-
sions in the sanctioned space of the ancestors. Plessner admires Bis-
marck, brandishing him in opposition to the youth movement. Schmitt
sighs over the “absence of the father.” “Legal positivism,” Schmitt still
enjoys complaining after the Second World War, “kills its father and
devours its children.”10 Reading Freud’s study of Moses prompts the
thought that the “Yahweh religion” includes “a mythology of eating up
the father” (311). Wherever he sees the figure of the father under attack,
wherever he finds the father’s place vacant, he senses the proximity of
anarchism.
There is no place of honor for decisionist fathers in Benjamin’s writ-
ings. From the early essay “Metaphysik der Jugend” to his Kafka stud-
ies there rings a craving for the destruction of the fathers’ world. If it ap-
pears in the first as follows,
Daily we expend unmeasured powers, like a sleeper. What we do and think
is filled with the being of our fathers and ancestors. An ungrasped symbolism
enslaves us without ceremony.

we find it again in reference to Kafka’s figuration of the powerful:

They are nowhere more dreadful than where they rise up out of the deepest
ruin: out of the fathers.11

The armored figures that attract Benjamin’s interest are not Plessner’s
or Schmitt’s idols, men basking in the glory of sovereignty, but those
who, subject to “the sudden caprice of emotional winds that can shift at
any time, . . . rise like tattered, fluttering flags,” because their guide is
not intellectual self-confidence but “physical impulses.”12 On Benja-
min’s stage, the cool persona walks the crooked plane.

A variety of images of the cool persona surfaces in new objectivity litera-

ture, operating under the spell of total mobilization. The artists’ favored
self-enactment is in that pose. They stand in self-portraits in the posture
of Nietzsche’s North Pole voyager, casting a mercilessly distinguishing
The Cool Persona in Literature 105

gaze back from the canvas. Otto Dix, a reader of Nietzsche, appears in
that pose; George Grosz celebrates his own “pack-ice character.” Oth-
ers proclaim the necessity of putting moral criteria “on ice,” if percep-
tion is to be precise; knowledge must be “cool” so as not, as Gottfried
Benn put it, to become “familiar.” Such maxims give an impression of
the appeal emanating from the habitus of the cool persona.
The realism of disillusion characteristic of the time, however, means
that even the heroic habitus of coolness is infiltrated by the body, its am-
bivalence exposed. Karl Bühler’s Ausdruckstheorie analyzes the under-
lying physiology of coolness, isolating it for experimental examination.
Philipp Lersch describes the physiology of the cool gaze—the verti-
cal crease in the forehead, the fixed angle of vision, the narrowed eyes.
After capturing the gaze in countless photographs, he subjects it to phe-
nomenological interpretation.13
Vertical lines in the forehead had occupied theorists of expression
since the time of Greek antiquity, Bühler writes, because they can be un-
derstood variously as symptoms of anger, antagonism, or concentra-
tion.14 Lersch, in pursuit of greater descriptive precision, offers a pri-
mary explanation of forehead creases in a Darwinist mode, referring to
the function of protecting the eyes from bright light, tracing them to al-
terations of blood pressure in the brain. Only then does he proceed to
psychology, deeming them the result of an “actively antagonistic tension
in which the musculature around the eye” is activated:
This concentration of psychological energy on the processing of some sort of
sensory or mental object, in the sense of an adaptation to the vital intentions
of the individual, is what we must always assume as given from a phenome-
nological perspective, wherever we observe either the mimic act itself by which
a vertical crease is made in the forehead or the lasting mimic traces of such
an act.15

It seems plausible to Bühler to conclude that wherever we come across

a vertical forehead crease, a concentration of psychological energy must
be present.
Angle of vision and eyelid behavior are also part of the totality of ex-
pression. For the eyeball, depending on its direction one way or the
other beneath the forehead crease, requires a specific adjustment of the
eyelids and presupposes certain behavior on the part of the eyebrows. In
the case of the cool gaze, what guides the focusing motion of the eye
musculature is an interest. The impulse to squint is transmitted simulta-
neously to the muscles that lower the upper lids and raise the lower ones,
and again to the muscles that open the eyes. A more or less narrow slit
106 The Cool Persona in Literature

remains open, resulting in the familiar image of eyes peering between

nearly closed lids. Bühler, following Lersch, attributes a “basic expres-
sive valence” to this physiological impulse:

Now, as concerns the psychological interpretation of the nearly covered eye,

it is reasonable to conclude without further argumentation that, in the ten-
dency to activate the lid-lifting musculature, a will to maintain apperceptive
contact with the environment is at work.16

In situations where two people stand face to face, in which eye-to-eye

contact occurs, a slight narrowing of the eyelids serves to prevent the
penetration of the other’s gaze. If concentrated vision through narrowed
lids occurs in the absence of a human other, the assumption is that the
gazer desires to master the object of the gaze. Situations calling for op-
tical concentration place the person, like an animal in behaviorist ex-
periments, in the mode of attack. Bühler finds the appropriate meta-
phor: “The gaze patrol either rushes ahead or turns back; the head first,
only then the troops, the ‘torso,’ follows after.”17
The sharp gaze signals preparedness for action. It probes the envi-
ronment intentionally, measuring and calculating what it strives to mas-
ter, at the same time warding off intersubjective interference. In contrast
to the habitus of contemplation, whereby eyes “rest on things,” letting
them appreciate the vagueness of their contours, the sharp gaze of the
attack habitus scans the environment, preparing the perceived object,
as it were, for consumption. The cool gaze thus belongs to the habitus
of a conqueror, the man who tackles something and, at the same time,
shields himself from contact.
If it is easy to discover the traces of the cool persona in the artists’ self-
portraits, in their theories of perceptual acuity and characterology, it ap-
pears more rarely in the third person in their works. The causes of this
disproportion reflect the Weimar Republic’s absence of social structures
in which such a figure could develop. Within the marginal spaces of ar-
tistic and literary production, the cool persona does thrive as an expres-
sive figure. But here on the margins—at a remove from the machinations
of power—it remains an aesthetic phenomenon, mocking the artist’s
ambition to penetrate to the centers of power. Somewhat frantically,
therefore, artists search for points of connection with society’s “cool
apparatus,” finding them in the Communist Party, in the military, in the
Freikorps. The situation is similar in the Catholic Church: the Fathers
take their stand in the name of the mother church. They do not have to
be called up out of nothing; for they have already besieged the republic.
The Cool Persona in Literature 107

The Marxists assume from the outset anyway that the individual
traits of bourgeois heroes (the cool persona included) merely represent
masks over the economic drive forces of society, which remain hidden
even to the heroes. Insofar as such character masks appear on the stage
or in literature, what interests Marxists is their class coding, the under-
lying guide to dynamic processes on the surface. Yet when the cool per-
sona appears in the type of the party functionary, it is taken to be a fig-
ure with a direct line to the party command center.
If we search literature for the type in which Plessner’s dual person-
ality, his negative anthropology, and the conduct code of distance coa-
lesce, we find figures of quite various provenance. We shall note that this
wish projection blends an aristocratic resentment against the citizen-
patriot with a plebeian hatred for the bourgeoisie. Thus does the cool
persona appear in a variety of mixtures.
Whether the habitus of the cool persona resonates today depends
on our view of aesthetics. From the perspective of the 1970s and 1980s,
which attributed therapeutic claims to literature, all the variations on
the armored subject fell to annihilating critique. There can be no doubt
—the habitus of the cool persona still has a repellent and even unhealthy
aspect, even if its adherents, such as Ernst Jünger, live to be over a hun-
dred years old.
Since the plea of this book is for a culture that encourages interrela-
tion— of ego strength and productive regression, of arts of distinction
and stopgap forms of fusion, of temporary armoring and its surrender,
of clear and blurred boundaries alike—a culture that marks difference
and has tolerance for diffusion, we bring a measure of its friendly skep-
ticism to the following eight portraits.
The passage from self-confident cool persona to abandoned creature
calls for a degree of personal participation but need not plunge us into
a “catastrophe of ridiculousness” (in Plessner’s terms). If history has not
cast our figures in a comic light, they can nevertheless, as grotesques, be
instructive.

FRAMING STORIES

Concepts such as type, icon, and character mask direct attention to a

portrait’s static contours. Literature nonetheless conceives its human im-
ages in the context of experiments that, in the style of the time, were des-
ignated as montage or démontage, and, in contrast to the following ex-
ample, are only rarely comic:
108 The Cool Persona in Literature

Don’t talk about danger!

You can’t drive a tank through a manhole:
You’ll have to get out.
Better abandon your primus
You’ve got to see that you yourself come through.
Of course you need money
I’m not asking where you get it from
But unless you’ve got money you needn’t bother to go.
And you can’t stay here, man.
Here they know you.
If I’ve got you right
You want to eat a steak or two
Before you give up the race.
Leave the woman where she is.
She has two arms of her own
And two legs for that matter
(Which, sir, are no longer any affair of yours).
See that you yourself come through.
If you’ve got anything more to say
Say it to me, I’ll forget it.
You needn’t keep up appearances any longer:
There’s no one here any longer to observe you.
If you come through
You’ll have done more
Than anyone’s obliged to.
Don’t mention it.18

The armor donned by the subject in order to survive can, in the

next moment, become a dangerous burden. The advice that we find in
Brecht’s Reader for Those Who Live in Cities seems paradoxical; but
everything depends—this is the text’s logic— on not allowing the para-
dox to paralyze us. The slogan calls, not for single-mindedness, but for
agility, and the radar type Brecht presupposes is prepared to relinquish
any “appearances,” including the militant one.
The Reader’s world destroys the social conditions that were supposed
to make inner-directed orientation possible: contractual systems are no
longer valid; violence is not waiting on the periphery of the communal
order but sets the tone of daily life; there can be no talk of fair competi-
tion; there is not enough money to go around; there are no peer groups
in sight. Reduced to the lowest common denominator, not even the wish
for existence as a creature survives. At the end of the successive reduc-
tions there is nothing but the body that slips through all the typologies.
It appears momentarily, as in the poem “Cover Your Tracks,” as an ab-
stract principle of movement, an energy quantum of negation, that does
The Cool Persona in Literature 109

not feed into any dialectic; at most what remains is an object of animal
behavior research. But once all its substance is gone, Brecht gives this
leftover something a historical charge. Before it takes the stage as prole-
tarian, it amuses us as slapstick.
The literature of this period plays through stages of existential atro-
phy as a way of dealing with the alarm an older character type feels at
being overrun by civilization’s sudden advance. The process does not go
forward in secret. New objectivity slogans shine over the spectacle like
neon lights:
The process leads straight through the mass ornament, not back from it
(Kracauer).
The individual does not retrieve his humanity by getting out of the masses,
but by going into them (Brecht).

As things unfold in the world of the body—in stories of ruin and of

being flattened, of imposed conformity or isolation—they generate fear.
Joseph Roth comments,
The future world will be such a triangular track of powerful dimensions. The
earth has gone through several transformations—in accord with natural
laws. It is going through a new one, according to constructive, conscious, but
no less elemental laws. Mourning for the old forms that are passing—that is
comparable to the pain of an antediluvian being over the disappearance of
prehistoric conditions.19

Against this backdrop it would seem wise to present the process of mon-
tage without anxiety, as Brecht tried to do in Mann ist Mann. The his-
tory of the play’s revisions, however, betrays a frantic attempt on the part
of the author to supply his new hero with ties to the correct collective.
Storytellers in the new objectivity decade encounter a series of fram-
ing stories about modernization, which make themselves available as
crude but nonetheless helpful procedural forms. One such is Max We-
ber’s narrative of disenchantment, in which the idea of increasing ratio-
nal feasibility in the world is linked to the feeling of increasing impo-
tence. Novel stories are ones that declare their acceptance of the
irreversible process of alienation, that argue in favor of accelerating
modernization, exploring the question of whether the individual is able
to endure the process at all. Such stories, spectacular as they are, be-
long to the category of marginal phenomena in the republic. We may ex-
pect to hear them from dadaists, the Brecht circle, Bauhaus architects,
Asphaltliteraten (or, in right-wing terminology, Kulturbolschewisten),
Bronnen and Jünger.
110 The Cool Persona in Literature

Much more influential in this decade is the decadence narrative,

which finds in the gradual disenchantment of community the “succes-
sive stages of a fatal inexorability,”20 from the “warm” landscapes of
originary scenes to the “glacier” of civilization. Civilizing innovations
appear from this perspective as signs of the loss of vitality.
In the mid-1920s, Max Scheler notes, in contrast, the epochal process
of “desublimation,”21 signaled by the elevation of sports to cult sta-
tus, by drive psychology, the revalorization of childhood, and the “desire
for a primitive mythological mentality.” Scheler registers a “retrograde
ethical movement” on the part of peoples who had at one time been the
beneficiaries of European culture, a “countercolonization” resulting
in the valorization of “barbarisms.” The youth movement, in “revolt
against the earlier sublimation,” had struck back at the fathers’ ascetic
ethic of work and acquisition; World War I had also represented such an
uprising.
Scheler is a skeptical observer. As long as the decadence movement
goes on rejecting reason, he expects that desublimation will remain a
critical aspect of it. Wherever it appears and no matter what ideas and
valuations may contain it, desublimation—like the longing for the prim-
itive, the childlike, a lost naïveté—remains in itself a sign of the age and
of “wearying of vitality.” The revocation of sublimation is for Scheler a
process that spans the period from Jugendstil to the fascist movement.
The culture industry of the new objectivity he understands as an integral
element of the revolt against techniques of sublimation that had been de-
veloped in an age of inner-direction.
Disenchantment and decadence and desublimation: three names for
narratives of social development, to which progress must be added as a
fourth. Progress narratives found their secure foothold in the political
organizations of the working class.
These four names stand for models available to narrators for their
stories. New objectivity narratives elide disenchantment and desublima-
tion. Ethical retrogression heralds the possibility of progress. “Street
people,” written off in the decadence narrative as “deserters from life,”
acquire value as nomads. The revaluation does not come off painlessly
— even the comedy of these years (Mann ist Mann) cannot do without
war. The legend of demystification as a “fatal inexorability” accompa-
nies even the comedic restructuring of the new objectivity type. War, the
lime pit, assassination, suicide, social degradation, commodification—
all of these are inseparable from the scenario in which the moderniza-
tion of the German subject plays itself out. Horváth begins one of his
The Cool Persona in Literature 111

popular plays with a woman sacrificing her body to anatomy. She is ad-
mitted into the circulation of goods and bodies only as a corpse. Sally
Bowles, Christopher Isherwood’s new objectivity character, disappears
as a foreign Anglo-Saxon body into the German shadows of death.
Disenchantment, decadence, desublimation, progress—not even the
sum of these narratives yields the historical process that appears to us in
retrospect. For none of these narratives construct a future that coincides
with what came in the 1930s and 1940s. Their narrative future was
blind to the reality that developed, and it is no wonder that new objec-
tivity intellectuals ultimately felt deceived. The resulting bitterness ex-
plains the appeal of the “dialectic of enlightenment,” which, at the end
of the 1930s, combines the narratives of disenchantment and decadence,
desublimation and progress, into the conceptual figure of the paradox.

PORTRAITS

TALLEYRAND ODER DER ZYNISMUS

That Franz Blei dedicates his 1932 novel, Talleyrand oder der Zynismus,
to his Catholic friend from the bohemian days of his youth might appear
simply a historical curiosity if the friend had not gone on to become
the renowned constitutional lawyer who (also in 1932) formulated the
legal justification for the chancellor to banish the Social Democratic
government. Blei’s dedication reads, “For Carl Schmitt, in friendship
and respect.”22
Yet the dedication has more than a hint of irony, for Blei’s novel about
cynicism works to expose the shortcomings of the future Prussian state
official. Taking Talleyrand as the “exemplary model of the consummate
politician” (345), the novel illuminates the failings of the new Machia-
velli: the French statesman did not “rise through the ranks but was born
to his position” (15), his aristocratic resentment against the citizen-
patriot intact. The passions and drives Schmitt had repressed in his po-
litical subject as a decision-making apparatus return in Blei’s Talleyrand.
“He is not exactly of a criminal disposition,” Blei repeatedly quotes the
American envoy, “though certainly indifferent between virtue and vice”
(12 [English wording in the original]).
A first glance at the novel displays the correspondences between the
novel and certain of the slogans popularized by 1920s political anthro-
pology. Axioms from Hobbes’s Leviathan hang like signboards over the
scene (using the new objectivity language of Bertrand Russell): “People
do good to the extent that they are forced to do good, and bad to the ex-
112 The Cool Persona in Literature

tent that no power prevents them doing it” (344). Talleyrand knows that
the success of political action depends on the “clever channeling of
drives and vices” (10). The idea of “inborn goodness” he dismisses with
a laugh as no more than an element of political romanticism that Blei,
following Schmitt, ascribes to the “discussing class,” the bourgeoisie.
Parliament may indeed be a fitting institution for endless bourgeois pa-
laver, but liberal indecision cannot but fray the nerves of a true politi-
cian, who is instinctively drawn to dictatorial measures. “As soon as
discussion exceeds the time allotted to it,” the genuine man of power
“withdraws” (12)—thus Blei in the spirit of Schmitt’s critique of par-
liamentarism. While most of the programmatic Schmittisms reproduced
in the novel are confined to the introduction, we shall see that Blei’s hero
scarcely deviates from Schmitt’s overall political design.
Blei’s hero also betrays personal characteristics drawn wholly in
Schmitt’s spirit: Talleyrand’s impassive exclusion of moral judgment
from political considerations; his aversion for all forms of fundamental-
ism, in which Schmitt suspects a marriage of humanism and terror. The
“political,” for Blei as well, has “no substance” to it; it takes place in
the realm of the “conditional,” permanently split off from the realm
of the “actual” (7). “The ethical concept of truth and lies is relativized
wherever it enters into the fictional construction of the political.” The
author cites, approvingly, the characteristics Balzac had given the prince
in Père Goriot: “There are no principles, only results; there are no laws,
only circumstances” (330).
When politics cannot be derived from substantive values, when all
that orients action is effect and principles become nothing more than
functional values—when there is no “ground” beneath a man’s feet—
stability comes to depend on explicit codes of conduct. So, too, in the
case of Talleyrand. His life trajectory arches over a landscape rocked by
social historical earthquakes, wherein only the practice of an astound-
ing degree of flexibility ensures stability within the relatively rigid be-
havioral codex to which Bishop Talleyrand—not contradicting his flexi-
bility in the slightest—adheres even in risky situations.
Maxims from Talleyrand’s manual are sprinkled throughout the
book. Blei speaks of Talleyrand’s “general apparatus of behavior” (34),
which eliminates the need for spontaneity, even while it secures certain
pleasures. The regulatory system is not original; Talleyrand holds with
such as Machiavelli and models of il cortigiano; he is familiar with the
French moralists and has absorbed his precepts from Gracián:
The Cool Persona in Literature 113

Avoid demanding anything that you know will subject you to unnecessary
demands.
Show no sign of haste, although it were needed, but do occasion it in
others.
In critical moments, assume an air of indifference. (34)

Talleyrand uses these rules to negotiate relations with Louis XVI, the Di-
rectorate, Napoleon, the Vienna Congress, and Louis XVIII. The appa-
ratus supplied by his code of conduct effectively replaces the conscience,
proving itself every bit as reliable a compass amid the temblors of revo-
lution and restoration as it would, for example, following the lead of the
finance bourgeoisie. To this point, the resonance between Schmitt’s po-
lemic against political romanticism and Plessner’s code of distance and
Blei’s image of Bishop Talleyrand is still audible but stops as soon as Blei
is required to explain what drives his hero. The motivations that a deci-
sionist construction obscures are “lust after women” and an exceptional
measure of monetary greed. What Schmitt tries to filter out of his theory
of the decision-making machine—the economy and all greed—suddenly
reappear center stage. Woman, in Blei’s representation, is not only Tal-
leyrand’s vital elixir but also the secret of his diplomatic successes. That
Talleyrand’s friend Madame de Staël portrays him in a novel as a woman
causes no offense to the bishop. The boundaries between diplomacy and
amorous adventures are fluid; the “feminism of his being” (287) favor-
ably influences his career, and his particular brand of wit makes even his
crippled foot irrelevant.
Such a turn is little short of miraculous from the 1920s perspective of
the armored self. We see here a political subject that is not afraid to seem
undignified the moment it lays down its arms, a subject that shrugs off
charges of cowardice, in the knowledge, shared with Gracián, that “a
finely executed retreat is also worth something” (123). In Blei’s novel, in
other words, we encounter a character that is impossible in the political
understanding of the decisionists. German culture had no place for the
man of politics as gallant; the protean figure of the politician also fell
victim to the fear of ridiculousness, leaving him interesting only in one
of several “iron” variants. On paper, Plessner’s duelist and Schmitt’s de-
cision maker are beings devoid of economic interest, while Blei’s Talley-
rand, for whom money is a “spiritual power,” surrenders to “unre-
strained monetary greed” (175). He takes pleasure in the stock exchange
and the market, a pleasure just as fundamental as that he finds in his am-
114 The Cool Persona in Literature

orous play. Considering that Blei’s Talleyrand is outrageously deficient

in secondary virtues—he was famous for his laziness, accustomed to
his levée around noon, and regarded slowness as a cardinal political vir-
tue—we see emerging beneath his characterological surface the stereo-
typical image of another political subject, one cast in the image of the
Jewish politician on the model of Disraeli, toward whom Schmitt har-
bored a love-hate relationship.23
If we compare this figure with the political subject imagined by
Jünger, or Plessner—which never escapes the pathos of the solitary com-
batant even while serving the collective—what we notice is Talleyrand’s
lack of an essential element of the militant subject. “Attitude,” in the
sense of a decision kept in effect over time, not only is essential to the
militant construction but becomes a magic word more generally toward
the end of the republic. Talleyrand’s cynicism teaches that it takes more
than attitude to survive.
In the historical period traversed by Talleyrand, what was the fate of
“faster” politicians, those who were able to make split-second deci-
sions, who suddenly emerge out of the nothing of the moment? Franz
Blei’s sideswipe at the future “crown jurist of the Third Reich” is unmis-
takable: Napoleon is described as a man who sought “to overcome the
debacle of revolutionary achievements through the form of a total state”
(235). Blei links Schmitt’s terminology to the fast-moving Napoleon: the
concept might perhaps serve its purpose for a time, but its days are al-
ways numbered.
On the eve of the Third Reich, Blei couples the idea of the total state
with the fiasco of a fast-paced temperament. On his stage an extra wears
the character mask from behind which he will enact the future ter-
ror. The “tactless Fouché” turns ups only on the margins of the action,
where he demonstrates that ethical rigidity and cruelty are the inevitable
elements of a petit-bourgeois blend. Still, this type is characterized by
a greater affinity with the “ghostly abstraction of political officialdom,
which is called reason of state” (137); the services it offers therefore fit
the modern bureaucracy.
Fouché may indeed be lacking in the glamour of a cool persona on
the model of a Talleyrand—he represents much more the banality of
evil, which can be more easily institutionalized—but it is to him that the
future belongs. In 1929 Stefan Zweig sketched Fouché’s physiognomy in
a gaslight, bleaching all the color from his skin, confirming the reputa-
tion of the police chief as “reptilian” in nature. In Zweig’s likeness of the
The Cool Persona in Literature 115

political man drilled in the school of Loyola, the dreadful features of the
cool persona are harshly revealed:
He is neither ruled by his nerves nor seduced by his senses; his entire passion
charges and discharges behind the impenetrable wall of his forehead. He puts
his forces in play, always on the lookout for others’ mistakes; he lets others
be consumed by their passions, waiting patiently until they are exhausted or
their lack of self-control exposes them: and then he strikes. Terrible is the su-
periority of this nerveless patience; a man who can wait like that in hiding
can fool even the ablest. . . . Thus the coldness of his blood is Fouché’s real
genius. His body neither restrains him nor carries him away.24

Not long after Franz Blei’s novel appeared there arose a political con-
stellation in which Schmitt, the object of Blei’s dedication, would become
a legal philosophical prompter for a rival Fouché.

SERNER’S HANDBREVIER FÜR HOCHSTAPLER

The counterbalance to the cool persona’s aristocratic type is the con-

fidence man. The social claims he makes do not coincide with his ori-
gins; should his actual heritage be discovered, his social existence is lost.
Hence he moves on a terrain littered with traps set by the reality of his
past. He moves in a world where the only mortal sin is to allow his at-
tentiveness to lapse. The con man’s life is the “as-if” existence par excel-
lence, in which success depends on the virtuoso application of the behav-
ioral codex of an alien class. “Appear civilized,” Gracián had counseled.
The swindler makes this his creed: appearance is profitable. In line with
courtly codes of conduct, Walter Serner declares: “Whoever you may be,
say this to yourself: all that transpires around me can also be
feigned. Then you will remain healthy and things will go well for you
on earth” (maxim no. 422). And maxim no. 325 makes it clear that in
truth Serner’s Handbrevier is a manifesto against the cult of sincerity:
The distinction between virtuoso dissimulation and genuineness is too small
to be measured. The former can be acquired only through intensive practice,
whereby you also develop the ability to recognize genuineness. If occasion-
ally, however, it continues to exceed your capabilities, then forgo dissimula-
tion (the great ruiner!) and say what you may not act out.

The “devilish” transgression of the line separating authenticity from

artificiality is the characteristic movement of Serner’s writing. What he
prescribes in his Handbrevier he puts into practice in his crime stories:
not even elemental feeling eliminates the possibility of being a “useful
116 The Cool Persona in Literature

fiction.”25 Theodor Lessing, in his 1925 review of Serner’s crime stories,

stresses the point that the author’s accomplishment is to represent pas-
sions in such a way that the reader cannot finally distinguish whether the
characters are deceiving themselves or “actually experiencing each
other.” Lessing locates the acuity of Serner’s diagnostic gaze in his con-
cealment, in impenetrable darkness, of the “crossing of genuine emo-
tional flows and leaps with manufactured and feigned sensations.” The
presumption of a clear distinction between unconscious “primitive” out-
pourings and “willed” actions fails in the face of Serner’s gangsters and
their molls.
[It is impossible to keep track of] where the truth of affective life lapses and
where the performance of it begins. If something natural does manage to
break through, ice-cold games of life immediately interpret and exploit it. Of-
ten the characters’ excesses are cold hypocrisy; but they nevertheless remain
under the pressure of real unconscious excess; at other times something ulti-
mate does break out through a cocaine-paralysis of the soul.26

It is as if Serner sought to illustrate Plessner’s anthropology with the ex-

ample of the confidence man: there is no core self; the various masks
have not only the function of adapting a substantial self opportunisti-
cally to a situation but also offer the possibility “of being the other to
the respective roles.”27
Indeed, maintaining an insistence on being who one is, while certainly desir-
able, would be all but fatal if it were to congeal into a single role, and not
only on account of the limitation entailed, but primarily because it eliminates
the possibility of changing roles.28

It is easy to understand how the confidence man, as a type, can be fas-

cinating in a situation broadly experienced as bottomless; con men ap-
pear everywhere, in the theater and film, in detective novels and the mass
press. This eccentric character reveals how fragile are the strategies of dis-
tinction in a society in which money operates as the great leveler and what
the market honors above all else is the pliability of one’s attitude. In the
con man, the ideal of personal autonomy appears only in the form of vir-
tuosity in the changing of masks. He wants to be what he appears to be
to others, but if he allows himself to become that, he loses the remain-
der of his autonomy, which exists solely in that latitude of difference.
In certain of his traits, the confidence man resembles the autodidact
as described in sociology: he possesses little cultural capital of his own,
learns from models, and is filled with anxiety over being discovered.29
The broad public delights in the techniques with which he succeeds in
The Cool Persona in Literature 117

confounding the distinction practiced by the distinguished class. What

he also calls to mind, however, is the danger of falling from one day to
the next to the bottom of the social heap.
The practical part of the Handbrevier für Hochstapler appeared in
1927.30 In it are blended the dada cult of indifference and Nietzsche’s
theory of masks with an ironic reference to the new objectivity impera-
tive of action. The form is borrowed from Gracián’s Art of Worldly Wis-
dom, as contemporary critics were already aware.31 Serner’s handbook
contains 591 rules, divided into thirteen chapters. Rule no. 338 con-
cerns intonation:

It is better to speak conventionally, rather than in principle, if you want to

gain time, and better in a chatty, rather than informational, manner, if you
want to gain power.

The maxims are delivered deadpan, in a manner reminiscent of Buster

Keaton; the book offers guidance to those who are already ruined. “Peo-
ple tolerate you, because you cannot be ruined” is the consoling advice
of no. 116. In the tradition of dada, the Handbrevier is a handbook for
“the balancing act over the abyss of murder, violence, and theft” (Raoul
Hausmann).32
The habitus recommended in the Handbrevier draws our attention to
the figure of the dandy, an important link in the tradition of the cool per-
sona. This nineteenth-century type extolled alienation as an art of living.
Unscrupulousness and discretion were present alongside the fetishism of
affective control, the treatment of nature and drives as mechanical sys-
tems, and the meticulous avoidance of the traps of relationship.33 The
exclusive figure of the dandy looked anachronistic to twentieth-century
observers, but certain features of its habitus showed up, remarkably,
in an artists’ group as early as World War I. Dadaism, a laboratory of
shaming and disgrace, practiced attitudes of indifference—“American
Buddhism”—and its proponents tried, through a cult of meticulous ex-
posure, to make themselves immune to power exercised to shame the
subject. Even in advance of the Berlin dadaists, Serner extended the rite
of self-shaming into language as such (“Every word is a Blamage”); he
saw only one chance for self-consciousness: it must already have blamed
itself. “Severely blamed. Outrageously blamed. Blamed entirely without
measure. Blamed so horrifically, that everything else is drawn into the
blame.”34
Conditions, however, are precarious for the modern dandy. Assimi-
lation into the aristocracy’s higher social standing does not facilitate his
118 The Cool Persona in Literature

behavior. The disciplining of the affects requires uninterrupted “train-

ing,” to which Serner devotes a chapter of its own. The persona prac-
tices strategies of distancing. Its habitus consists in remaining, as we
would say today, “cool.” The law followed by the persona reads—in
English, the favorite language of the new objectivity: “First one must
master all those elements of self and situation whose unmastered pres-
ence constitutes the condition of embarrassment. These include spaces,
props, equipment, clothing, and body.”35
Thus declare the rules of balance:
From time to time, excesses are necessary [see Figure 6]. After two months
of uninterrupted regularity, the body is sick of it. Allow it a brief, but furi-
ous storm. (no. 320)
Never show your hatred. (Hidden hate is a source of strength.) If the num-
ber of your enemies grows too large, show contempt; that will cause those
whose hate actually consists in envy to assume that it would be dangerous
to arouse your hatred. But where you must show it, follow it with the cor-
responding deed. (no. 337)
However complete your anesthesia against praise and criticism may have
become, the danger of a relapse is always present. (no. 349)
If suddenly you find yourself lacking the strength to lie, then at least be
cruel. (no. 344)

In the Handbrevier’s world no formula of authenticity is valid. The

point in this hall of mirrors is “impression management” (Erving Goff-
man); that is, the goal is to leave behind in others’ eyes the impression
of authenticity. As disconcerting and unscrupulous as this idea might be
to a member of a guilt culture, for the inhabitants of a shame culture it
has become a necessity. “In the case of shame,” we read from Agnes Hel-
ler, “the authority is social custom—ritual, habits, codes or rosters of
behavior—represented by the eye of the other.”36
Serner’s confidence man exploits precisely this circumstance, that
he is the object of the other’s gaze, playing out the various possibilities
open to him. The point at which the ego-ideal of autonomy fears fiasco
is where he begins the drama of his self-enactment. As a precaution he
keeps with him at all times a small hand mirror so he can test his facial
expressions before he puts them to use. Now and then it is advisable to
make quickly for the rest room “to practice an expression” (no. 328).
Since the distinction between dissimulation and genuineness is too small
to measure on this ground of sheer mobility, the foreseeable effect of an
expression is what decides whether it counts as authentic.
6. From time to time, excesses are necessary
(Christian Schad, Der Pfiff um die Ecke [A whistle around the corner],
1927. With the permission of Christian Schad, G. A. Richter, Rottach-
Egern.)
120 The Cool Persona in Literature

Above all, practice the effect of your eyes every day by standing in front
of a mirror. Your gaze must learn to rest still and heavy on another, to veil
itself quickly, to sting, to indict. Or to emanate enough experience and
knowledge to shock your counterpart into offering his hand (no. 323).

The mirror serves the actor in the study of the self. The type of self-
perception required is that which we have already found in the baroque
duelist’s conduct code: “The gaze directed at its own physiognomy in
the mirror has assumed within itself the gaze of the others.”37 The mir-
ror of conscience, on the other hand, which a guilt culture demands that
its members use offstage, is of no use to the actor. Serner’s subject de-
spises psychoanalysis, as befits the cool persona. Instead there are die-
tary rules: “Eat little meat (never fatty), but a lot of fruit salads and
green vegetables. Take frequent deep breaths; bathe only twice a week
(ten minutes, lukewarm)” (no. 316).
For melancholy moods, Serner recommends such tongue twisters
as teremtete —the word games of the dadaists seem to be migrating to
the ground of the soul. Unarmed, lacking a soldierly physiognomy, the
dandy persona transplanted to the world of the new objectivity must not
show its true face in public: “If you could appear visually as the mon-
ster of indifference you really are, a ten-minute stroll would leave you
dead. No one could endure you for even a second, without falling upon
you with both fists flying” (no. 108).

Werner Krauss discovers, as he reconstructs Gracián’s code of conduct

in the “enormous realm on which the Habsburgs’ sun set,” that the
“con-man morality” often occurs as a kind of “maintenance morality,”
a survival technique.38 Guided by Serner’s Handbrevier, the persona
moves about in a tertiary sector. It is ready to take on situations in ho-
tels, train stations, post and telegraph offices, in vehicles of public trans-
portation, and in private interchanges. In all these settings there is one
fundamental rule: “If you stumble into a false appearance, combat it
by maneuvering yourself into another false appearance” (no. 245). Gra-
cián had already offered a roundabout version of the same advice: “One
would not wish to be taken for a man of dissimulation, although it is
not possible to live these days without it.” Serner’s 591 tips take up the
Spanish Jesuit’s agonistic image— outfitted with modern requisites for
moving successfully in the world of the new media:
Do not imagine that telephone conversations conducted in a hotel room
or in the hall are not being overheard (no. 132).
The Cool Persona in Literature 121

Learn to telegraph in such a way that it appears to be encoded, without

being so. And vice versa (no. 558).
Refuse banknotes bearing private signs and change them immediately
(no. 576).
Do not go to masseuses, unless you want to be massaged. Otherwise it can
happen that you will be seen and photographed (no. 433).
Regard every ear within earshot as an enemy ear (no. 444).—In hotel
rooms, undertake important activities very quietly and only with the cur-
tains drawn (no. 452).
Make a habit of standing in front of shop mirrors. In this way you can con-
veniently observe what is going on behind you (no. 478).

Serner’s Handbrevier and Brecht’s Reader for Those Who Live in

Cities open a new chapter in the literature of the city. Urban decor, lo-
cal color, facades, squares, building complexes or sounds appear before
us only in an orienting function. The city is much more a specific terrain
of behavior.39 The eye assesses possible obstacles; it is a tactical organ
and a trained physiognomist. The ear functions as an alarm, with the
special task of supervising the voice’s volume (and, when necessary, re-
ducing it to a whisper). The focus of perception is entirely outward:
it listens, probes, scents. The new media, such as the telephone, tele-
graph, and tickertape, convey the necessary information to Serner’s
character. Language acquires the function of an advance scout in enemy
territory, identifying possibilities for movement by the person who re-
mains undercover.
Obviously, Serner’s gentleman is a virtuoso in the art of separation.
Symbiotic relationships of whatever sort, even provisional ones, repre-
sent a trap. The ultimate in obligation is a “free marriage,” which Serner,
borrowing from colloquial slang, terms a “mixed bag.” Here as well he
advises distance: “Never live together with your lover. At most in the
same building” (no. 213). The family is not only disqualified as a form
of sociability and reproduction but also eliminated, in tip no. 359, as the
locus of origins: “Blood ties are an invention. Not simply because only
the mother can ever be sure. Once the cord is cut, it is over.”
Although Serner’s con man is incomparably more flexible than Pless-
ner’s man of decision, the Handbrevier advises him to calculate carefully
the danger of appearing ridiculous. He may surrender to mockery only
in a single place, with a single person:

Everything can be ridiculed. Indulge this pleasure, however, only with your
lover; it will increase her passion for you. (Every woman is a closet anar-
122 The Cool Persona in Literature

chist.) Forbid it among men: it will paralyze your creatures; and your associ-
ates will quickly find you ridiculous. (no. 102)

While Plessner sought out a site of “mercy,” where the self worn out
from fencing could recuperate, Serner is comfortable in the company of
the female anarchist (a frightful image in the duelist’s universe)—and
she, of course, represents much more than an anarchist.
Serner’s exercises give us no help examining our conscience, but
he does offer tips on tactical skills aimed at the optimal exploitation of
opportunities. The discursive ritual of confession, a favorite in late ex-
pressionism, is recommended only when it is sure to win territory; guilt
feelings are dispensed with altogether. Self-knowledge can inadvertently
come about, but it never results from plumbing the depths of the indi-
vidual soul or cracking the family vault for secrets; it arises only in the
mirror of the other’s assessing perception. The individual sees himself
surrounded by many gazes and uses all the vantages of surveillance to
learn about his own identity in the focal point of hostile perception.
Naturally, the practice demands a degree of mental awareness that can
quickly lead to exhaustion, which threatens even a confidence man with
melancholy. In such cases, however, the reader is referred to command-
ment no. 357: “If you take ill, take cover. That will make you well more
quickly.”
Although many of the directives in the Handbrevier correspond to
Plessner’s behavioral doctrine of distance—not least because both
derive from motifs of aestheticism—worlds separate the two. More
precisely, what distinguishes the two texts is Serner’s exploration of the
underworld.
Serner bathes his unscrupulous persona in a comedic light; he teaches
the armored ego dances that it can only perform awkwardly in combat
boots, and, above all, a matter of life and death permits his character to
be cowardly (no. 33). The attitude demanded by Plessner and Schmitt is
for Serner so much ballast. Still, the comedic light is intermittent: in the
end, the individual flitting through Serner’s Handbrevier is as anxious as
the others, as if pursued by invisible agents of surveillance. He, too, is in
a chronic state of alarm: “It is easier give a pursuer the slip than it is to
escape being pursued” (no. 470).
The only available shelter is the code itself, and even here conditions
are precarious, for it is in the nature of language to undermine appear-
ances. Rather than give the reader a false sense of security, Serner puts
his practical manual of behavior at the beginning of the revised version
The Cool Persona in Literature 123

of Letzte Lockerung, the first part of his 1920 dadaist manifesto. As in-
troductory material, the Handbrevier warns that even the view of the
world from the standpoint of the conduct code is no more than a “com-
bination of words.”40
Every word is a Blamage, be it well noted. There is nothing to do beyond
spewing out verbiage, performing circus tricks on suspension bridges (or over
plants, canyons, beds).41

Serner’s Handbrevier does not forget for a moment that the comedy of
dissimulation it recommends is itself only a manner of speech, serving
“to manufacture a redemptive heaven over this chaos of rubbish and
puzzles.”42 But, since the persona always acts only from within the
awareness that unfeigned authenticity is not to be had—where language
itself is already elementary dissimulation—the point becomes to deploy
signifying conventions in the consciousness of their artificiality and ex-
pression in the knowledge of its schematic nature. The commandments
of the conduct code thus propose the possibility of living “inside appear-
ances” (Nietzsche).43
Yet the question arises of whether Serner manages to do entirely with-
out authenticity. The crime stories that he collected in the books Der
elfte Finger, Zum blauen Affen, Der Pfiff um die Ecke, and Die Tigerin
lead us to locations where, he hopes, authenticity does in fact exist, in
the cool version of the criminal underworld. There he comes upon an as-
tonishingly rational codex, a high degree of self-reflection on the model
of Gracián and Plessner, not nourished by interiority but dictated by the
presence of mind of a chess master playing several games at once. Here
he finds long-lost genuineness in a deceitfulness that has become first na-
ture. Here too he finds the artful concentration on dissimulation that
every one of his actors seeks to achieve, without forgetting about “the
dissimulating, deceitful surveillance of the other,” which was one of the
cardinal points of the code of courtly behavior.44 Hope for a language of
the heart runs through the criminal underworld.
In one of the stories from the volume Der Pfiff um die Ecke an in-
ternational check forger wants to make a deal with the Scotland Yard
specialist that has been put on the case. They share a brief moment of
consensus: “Among high-level experts like ourselves, the only place to
explore matters of trust with any security is at the dizzying edge of a
cliff.”45 Trust nevertheless remains a tactical move, subject, like all com-
munication, to cynical calculation. The story of the “Ermordung der
Marchese de Brignole-Sale” reports on the contact established by a male
124 The Cool Persona in Literature

gangster with a female bandit. Here as well the antagonists are momen-
tarily of one heart and mind:
“It’s especially hard, practically impossible, to reach an understanding if
at least a tiny little bit of trust isn’t—given up. The way a better player gives
up something to a weaker one.”
“But I’m always surprised when I pull it off. That’s one of the clearest
sources of mistrust.”
She fell silent. Sorhul thought he caught the hint of a smile.
“It’s probably altogether impossible to talk, except as a wild gamble.”
“I’m not sure. Sometimes all you have to do is talk to recognize the op-
ponent’s aim. What actually gets said is entirely beside the point.”46

And then both walk right into the traps they have set for each other.
No other access to interiority seems to be available to Serner, and it
is not surprising that later on he would also condemn this type: in the
intellectual space of prefascism he identifies it as “cool romanticism,”
alternating between iron hardness and suicidal tendencies. To this day,
Serner’s Handbrevier stands as a “cynical spectacle on the eve of the
dictatorship.”47 The judgment stems from the disarming quality of an
amoral character about whose creatural substance nothing can be deter-
mined with confidence.
Annoyance with the type also stems from the difficulty involved in es-
tablishing anything definite about the person of its creator, beyond the
evidence of his texts. By calling his crime stories memoirs, Serner culti-
vated a legendary identity even during his lifetime. Thomas Milch com-
pares the author to one story’s mysterious analyst of a “memorable con-
versation” in Florence. Responding to the question, “Who are you?” the
character pisses his name in the sand, illegibly, and then disappears
into the darkness. His identity has the substance of a dadaist artwork,
written in chalk on a blackboard and then wiped out after the perfor-
mance.48 Serner cultivated the mask of the gentleman criminal, or the
“baron among the soldiers of dada” (Hans Richter), the brilliant cos-
mopolitan regardless of circumstances, or the pimp.49 For information
about the “genuine” existence of the writer Walter Serner, we have to
rely on the few documents that have been gathered over the course of
many years’ research: official records, birth certificate, university files,
police reports, and hotel registrations—and deportation lists for the
Theresienstadt concentration camp.50
The cult of sincerity does not come to an end until the inevitable
anger of disillusion fastens on those who discover that even the uncon-
scious, seemingly the last residue of spontaneity, is “entangled in inau-
The Cool Persona in Literature 125

thenticity.”51 The discovery itself is a form of cynicism that appears sim-

ply to accept—not without a certain eagerness—the loss of emotional
genuineness. The prognosis for the cynical personality is as ominous as
we can imagine:
If an actor rejects from the outset the attitude of sincere communication, then
manipulation of the outer world, rather than the expression of his inner
world, takes over his dramaturgic orientation.52

Those who squander the opportunity for “genuine expression” (and the
assumption that the symbolic order in which it could take place offers a
transparent, undisguisable glimpse into the inner world) need not won-
der if what they suffer in exchange is defeat.
In his critique of American researchers such as Erving Goffman, who
stresses the necessity of a dramaturgy of self-enactment, Sighard Neckel
maintains that such “artificial” behavior inevitably goes wrong:
Wherever Goffman’s “impression management” has become a social norm,
the situative dilemma immediately comes up. It represents a particular seri-
ous latent danger where public exchange among individuals has a ceremonial
coloration.53

Attempts to manipulate the codes of ceremonial communication always

produce bad results:
The more powerfully . . . the protagonists of ceremonial behavior are
driven . . . to maintain at all costs the “illusion of their own noninvolvement,”
the greater may be the corresponding fear of losing their aesthetic distance
from events, of bungling the performance, of suffering a minor interpersonal
catastrophe. Fear as a rule only heightens one’s vulnerability to embarrass-
ment, which is precisely what coolness is supposed to reduce.54

Avoiding catastrophe was already the point for Plessner. The danger,
for both him and his descendants, would be half as great if only they
would give up the either-or attitude, combining the art of ceremonial be-
havior, when the situation calls for it, with the reflection that formless-
ness does not make a situation that has nothing to do with public for-
mality any more authentic.
It is a macabre fact of German cultural history that the “end-to-
sincerity” problematic had to be addressed through the medium of the
Handbrevier —a handbook for confidence men, that relegates the pos-
sibility of humane nonliteral exchange to the criminal demimonde. Ser-
ner’s Handbrevier focuses on this sad circumstance through the genre of
comedy, which is how a shame culture puts its humanity on display. As
126 The Cool Persona in Literature

he formulates it in maxim no. 47, “The world is ruled by comedy, and

victories are to be had only under this sign. Therefore, never
fight for anything. play for it.”
Serner’s fate after 1927 demonstrates that the German cultural tra-
dition—unlike the French or Anglo-American—had no experimental
space for his intellectual figures to operate in. Having had his small oeu-
vre published by Paul Steegemann, he withdrew from sight, prompting
legends at the time that he had vanished into the milieu of his stories. To-
day his disappearance suggests “the cliché . . . that the great cynic, after
1927, stepped down from the pedestal and lived out the lapidary bour-
geois life of a married man.”55 Thomas Milch, pointing out that Serner
continued his restless life unchanged but simply avoided Germany after
1933, attempts to refute this tale of exhaustion. In 1938 Serner rented
an apartment in Prague and married his longtime companion, Dorothea
Herz. Their attempt, following the Nazi invasion, to get a visa for Shang-
hai failed:
Official documents of the time list Walter Eduard Israel Serner as a language
teacher, and Dorothea Sara Serner as a housewife; they are registered in the
Prague Jewish community under numbers 36213 and 36212. On 10 August
1942 they were relocated in Transport Ba (as numbers 253 and 1338, among
a total of 1,460 people) to the Theresienstadt ghetto, and deported from
there on 20 August in Transport Bb to the so-called east. The destination of
their final journey is not known.56

What is it that prevents us from using the telescope of our research to

peer “all the way through the bloody fog at a mirage” of the 1920s, in
order to recognize the humanity of that time in the refractions that, as
Benjamin put it, would show it “in a future state of the world emanci-
pated from magic?”57 Reconstructions these days tend to raise the dic-
tatorship and its horrors to a telos, which lends all the processes and in-
tellectual motifs an objective function leading toward a wrong end. But
in Serner’s obscure case we can glimpse the mirages, which ultimately
took on more concrete form far from Germany and innocent of the fear.
This perception itself is practically taboo, for the faraway land was
America and the place was Hollywood.
In Ernst Lubitsch’s films, which he made as an emigrant in the 1930s,
con men, seducers, betrayers, and liars abound. Required of them as
well is the mental awareness of the chess master, but the demand does
not put them in the chronic state of alarm suffered by their German for-
bears in the 1920s. In Lubitsch’s films we see the slogan “Appearance
civilizes” (see Figure 7) cast in the light of uninterrupted comedy. There
The Cool Persona in Literature 127

7. Appearance civilizes
(Ernst Lubitsch. With the permission of Süddeutscher
Verlag, Munich.)

is no trace of the cult of authenticity; unmasking is not the issue.58 Lu-

bitsch shows us how well masks can go with a face, if they are part of
the economy of a relaxed life, hazy intentions, and an avoidance of self-
torment. The masks allow possibilities to come to light, possibilities that
are not hidden within the individual but brought to him or her from
without.59
These possibilities are lost to German development because they arise
in a place that suffers excommunication by German cultural criticism.

INFANTRY DOGS IN A BAUHAUS APARTMENT

In 1926 Bertolt Brecht tells a story of two male types who, having shared
the narrow confines of the trenches during the war, meet again in the re-
public, in a Bauhaus apartment. There would be no story to tell were the
apartment not the site of a catastrophe of ridiculousness, which, as we
know, it is the aim of every code of conduct to avoid.
128 The Cool Persona in Literature

It has long since become an established fact that in November and December
1918 a very large number of men, whose manners had suffered somewhat,
returned home with their habits and got on the nerves of the people they had
fought for.60

Brecht begins the story with this sentence, deriving the appeal of the
Bauhaus aesthetic from the experience of infantry dogs in the trenches.
At the same time, however, it quickly becomes apparent that any such
rational enclosure as a Bauhaus apartment also produces an “unfathom-
able desire” for chaos. An engineer by the name of Müller is of the sort
whose manners got a bit wild. His counterpart is Kampert, another
engineer, whose sole desire, having survived the mud and slime of Arras
and Ypres, is to live exclusively in a tiled bathroom (see Figure 8). Ernst
Bloch also remarks that functionalist dwellings had something of the
“charm of a sanitary facility,” and the opening paragraph of the story
explains— quasi psychoanalytically (which we would least expect from
Brecht) —the longing of returning soldiers for hygienic rituals:
There’s nothing you can say to these sorts that will entice them out of their
tiled bathrooms, after they’ve had to spend a few years of their lives lying
around in muddy trenches.

The drama begins when comrade Müller, along with the laconic nar-
rator, yet another engineer from the trenches, is invited to Kampert’s
apartment. Its appointments follow all the rules of new objectivity de-
sign: black lacquered hooks in the wardrobe; American recliners in the
simple white-walled living room; a Japanese straw mat hung like an
awning in front of the oblique atelier window; a red mahogany cabinet
for counterpoint; an iron spiral staircase leading up to the simple bed-
room, with iron bedsteads and simple enamel sink; and, separated from
it only by a chintz curtain, the spartan study with shelves and a pine
table and a hard, low chaise longue.
Müller, having been conducted through the new objectivity quarters,
mumbles guiltily: “Well, it’s actually living just like a pig.” Where noth-
ing is left to chance, an accident always occasions a minor catastrophe.
The drama that now gets under way displays the return of the trench
warriors to the scene of objectivity; or, vice versa, it reveals that the sty-
listic rigor of the apartment and its inhabitants represents a return of the
heroic, which all three protagonists, in the mulch of Arras, had dis-
dained. Kampert’s retreat into the cool interior of Bauhaus design is a
kind of civilian reassimilation of heroic armoring.
The Cool Persona in Literature 129

8. His sole desire is to live exclusively in a tiled bathroom

(Soldiers killed in the trenches at the Western Front, 1917. Photo by Ernest Brook. With the
permission of Imperial War Museum, London.)

The satirical element of the story can be more easily understood

against the backdrop of Bruno Taut’s defense of the new dwelling. Taut’s
book, Die neue Wohnung, went through five printings between 1924
and 1928, reaching a circulation of 26,000 copies by that time. Readers
learned from Taut to expect from the new interior the effect of a “re-
freshing bath.” Paintings hanging on the wall are outfitted, as they are
in Kampert’s apartment, with curtains: art works should not be wit-
nesses to such banal necessities as eating and digestion. “Bodily hygiene
must now be joined by mental hygiene,” Taut demanded. Contrarily,
“there is no need to shut off conversation in a tidy environment,” justi-
fying glass walls surrounding the dining room.61
Taut’s leitmotif is the “elimination of atavisms,” which he suspects
not only in the remnants of the “sumptuous Orient” of Gründerzeit
apartments, but in all concavities and dysfunctional elements that upset
the aim of being “indisputable master in one’s own home.” Taut is build-
ing Plessner’s fencing hall! Quite logically he also covers the chaise
longue in his cool interior with polar bear fur, adding with satisfaction:
“The fur is used as pure material, without any of the barbarism of gap-
130 The Cool Persona in Literature

ing mouths and claws.”62 Ornamentation, in the Wilhelmian era, still

admitted barbarism; now it is gone.
“But I don’t think,” Brecht’s narrator continues the story, “Müller
could have endured this deliberate harmony and reformist utility any
longer.” In this ominous way the reader is prepared for the coming dis-
aster. Müller develops a “battle plan,” and it is he who at the end reigns
over the demolished furnishings.
The variants of warm-cool polarity play out in this story. At the warm
pole camp the egalitarian “hordes,” with their anti-heroic tendencies,
their spontaneity, and need for asymmetries. At the cool pole we find the
disciplining of affects, the desire for transparency, the law of discretion
and symmetry.
Reading the story as a satire of Bauhaus ideology admittedly simpli-
fies it. Yet irritatingly, even an “inappropriate” piece of furniture has a
delicately contrived place in the overall decorative scheme of the apart-
ment; the visitors also dislike the way cool industrial functionalism is
presented in the form of pieces wrought by individual artisans. The story
takes place at a time in which industrial Bauhaus production was mak-
ing its first inroads against the reform movement’s commitment to the
crafts. But, in all of Brecht’s dramas, we can identify the Dionysian in-
fantry dog who runs amok inside rational constructions. In the world he
represents battles are being fought over the remnants of chaos, and these
remnants contain the last of humanity. But chaotic natures in this same
world are fond of setting traps. When Brecht announces that “man is the
mistake,” he is breathing the same distressed sigh as the new construc-
tion architects when they see what has become of their new dwellings a
few months after the people have moved in.
Brecht’s 1926 story is also a disdainful postwar echo of the blending
of aestheticism and the reform movement among the architects of the
prewar period, who still entertained the illusion that architecture could
be the means to educate the individual. The creed of modern architec-
ture expected reform dwellings to enforce its salutary moral effects on
character—representing a code of conduct in three dimensions. Brecht’s
story confronts architecture’s claim with the rather unwieldy nature of
foot soldiers and mongers of chaos.
His narrative recalls a painful episode experienced by one of the pio-
neers of the reform movement and modern architecture. Influenced by
Ruskin and Morris, in 1894 Henri van de Velde had built a model com-
plex, Bloemenwerf, in Belgium.63 The reformer narrates in his memoirs
—not without a hint of satisfaction—a delicate situation that arose in
The Cool Persona in Literature 131

this building. It nearly led to catastrophe and, in his mind, would have
done so without the tasteful structure’s “ethical” influence. Harmony in
the van de Velde home went so far as the delicate integration of clothing
worn by Maria Sèthe, the mistress of the house, into the color scheme.
For special occasions, interior colors were even allowed to dictate what
color food would be served.
So they did on one day in February 1896, when Toulouse-Lautrec
was a guest at Bloemenwerf. Wearing a strawberry-colored gown, the
blonde-haired Maria served the food: yellow eggs with red beans on
plates that matched the violet and green dahlia design of the wallpaper
in the vestibule. The excess of harmony activated a sarcastic streak in the
guest from Paris. Mildly intoxicated, he leapt up onto the table and
launched into a speech that, to the disgust of the host, threatened to de-
generate into “obscenities.” “But,” writes van de Velde in his memoirs,
“it did not go that far. The atmosphere of our house did not fail to have
its effect, and Toulouse-Lautrec’s remarks ended in words of gratitude.
The singular nature of our house, normal and extraordinary at once, did
not leave him untouched.”
Brecht’s story lacks such a good ending. The moralism of the mod-
ernist credo remains powerful enough to trigger a small sense of guilt in
engineer Müller but not to alter his behavior. Put in the form of a crude
aphorism: modernism here lets down its postmodern hair, whereby the
“post-” serves only to indicate the return of the repressed. The foot sol-
dier’s shame has become an object of comedy. Four years later Brecht
will compose learning plays in which—under the enormous pressure of
the last phase of the republic to declare one’s commitments—no one gets
to laugh at the same collisions between spontaneity and cool construc-
tion. Now he follows the rules of discipline to their fatal consequences.
As a means of behavioral correction in the Communist Party school-
house, engineer Müller, former infantry dog, is killed, his body tossed
into the lime pit.

The avant-garde discovered in prebourgeois cultures a type character-

ized by affective discipline, constant alertness, and an ability to bracket
considerations of morality. But in fact there was no need to go elsewhere
in search of such a type, since a storehouse of images of the armored sub-
ject, acting without the benefit of an inner compass, lay ready to hand.64
The military comprised a cool culture subsystem within contemporary
Weimar society and, like out-of-the-way cultures in distant times, func-
tioned mechanically like clockwork and froze historical change.65 The
132 The Cool Persona in Literature

new objectivity decade elevates the image of the soldier to the status of
an icon: the army helmet crowning the soldier’s strong profile, penetrat-
ing gaze, and forceful chin. It fosters images of the mobile type who re-
fuses to succumb, from the new objectivity dandy to the Bolshevik func-
tionary, from the engineer to the veristic painter.
The army was for millions a site in which behavior was shaped under
the pressure of mortal danger; in Brecht’s Mann ist Mann, it is called
“Mama”; in the Fatzer fragment we are born “in the tank.”66 In the
army, the need for an internal regulation of the conscience falls away;
the external voice of orders takes over. The cardinal virtues are the abil-
ity to discharge a duty and react quickly. The rapid change of persona,
from affective control to blackout, from etiquette to aggressive frenzy, is
the order of the day at the front.
The soldierly icon is hard to separate from the typology of the new
objectivity. Neither the cool persona nor the radar type exists without a
military shadow: in the “gray army” of white-collar employees (Theo-
dor Geiger), sociology finds it in the midst of the consumer sphere. Even
the creature (type 3) is often only the other side of the coin. Jünger’s con-
struction of the worker blends the persona type with the iron figure of
the soldier. This amalgam was part of a tradition that regarded the in-
dustrial worker as a metallized body.
Even a writer as opposite to Jünger’s sensibility as Joseph Roth, ob-
serving the worker against the iron landscape of the railway system, out-
fits him with soldierly qualities:

There a man in uniform saunters amid the bewildering systems of tracks,

tiny; the individual in this context is important only as a mechanism. His
significance is no greater than that of a lever; his effectiveness no more
portentous than that of a switch. In this world all the potential of human
expressiveness is reduced to the mechanical communication of an instru-
ment. More important here than an arm is a lever, more than a wink, a
signal. Here the eye is of no use, rather the lantern; not the cry, but the
whistle of an open vent. Here it is not passion that rules, but regulations,
the law.67

In the workers’ literature of this decade, we rediscover the type of the

cool persona in the person of the Communist cadre: Leninism is his Art
of Worldly Wisdom. Existence from a distance defines his pathos, and
morality comes to expression in the tactical rules of survival in the midst
of a generalized threat. Coolness is the quality that marks him off from
the warm zones of the tradition-minded Social Democratic communi-
The Cool Persona in Literature 133

ties. There is a role already there for him in the code of conduct that
Brecht sets forth in 1925 and 1926 in the poems of his Reader for Those
Who Live in Cities.

BRECHT’S HAND ORACLE FOR CITY DWELLERS

Toward the end of the republic, attitude—a decision made for the long
run— comes to occupy a central place in political ethics. “Attitude”—
sighs Benjamin, in a review of Krieg und Krieger, an anthology edited by
Ernst Jünger—“‘attitude’ is the third word in all their speeches.”68
Those who have in fact surrendered to the direction of powerful institu-
tions seek to demonstrate through an attitude of decisiveness that they
have determined their course themselves.
Whenever attitude becomes a fundamental value, it spawns invulner-
able-looking monsters. As a rule, however, keeping up the requisite
steely appearance taps all available resources, so that the monsters are
exhausted before they have ever undertaken a truly risky step. Fear of
disgrace undoes them. Making the most of an aesthetic of disgrace,
dadaism refined the acceptance of indignity. In Serner’s new objectivity
Handbrevier, “cowardice,” Gracián’s notion of a “finely executed re-
treat,” and the art of minimalist survival still center on character. In con-
trast, Brecht’s tips for city dwellers abandon the anchor in character.
The character that specializes in a steely attitude, as we have already
seen, encounters a dilemma:
Don’t talk about danger!
You can’t drive a tank through a manhole:
You’ll have to get out.
Better abandon your primus
You’ve got to see that you yourself come through.69

The topos of an earthquake landscape appears in an advanced stage

in Brecht’s Reader for Those Who Live in Cities. No landmarks of col-
lective memory are left— even their ruins are gone. We saw this social
space in Gracián, Plessner, Blei, and Serner: a space shot through with
agonistic tension, peopled by compassless navigators who must there-
fore rely on external voices. And these voices urge: seek distance; regard
shelter as provisional; separate yourself from your cohort; cut family
ties; avoid exaggerated individuation; pull your hat low on your brow;
retreat from all sources of warmth. But Brecht’s Reader does not stop
with these tips for the existential nomad. Total mobilization defines the
134 The Cool Persona in Literature

space Brecht propels his subjects through and ultimately demands that
names too vanish:

Part from your friends at the station

Enter the city in the morning with your coat buttoned up
Look for a room, and when your friend knocks:
Do not, o do not, open the door
But
Cover your tracks!
If you meet your parents in Hamburg or elsewhere
Pass them like strangers, turn the corner, don’t recognize them
Pull the hat they gave you over your face, and
Do not, o do not, show your face
But
Cover your tracks.
Eat the meat that’s there. Don’t stint yourself.
Go into any house when it rains and sit on any chair that’s in it
But don’t sit long. And don’t forget your hat.
I tell you:
Cover your tracks.
Whatever you say, don’t say it twice
If you find your ideas in anyone else, disown them.
The man who hasn’t signed anything, who has left no picture
Who was not there, who said nothing:
How can they catch him?
Cover your tracks.
See when you come to think of dying
That no gravestone stands and betrays where you lie
With a clear inscription to denounce you
And the year of your death to give you away.
Once again:
Cover your tracks.
(That is what they taught me.) 70

This code of conduct, like the others we have examined, requires its
adherents to specialize in separation. What they must separate from is
clear, but not why or to what end. The question we find posed in Brecht,
therefore, is what his hand oracle could possibly promise, when the be-
havioral commandments of an anonymous voice offer no provisional
guarantee of a place to rest beyond the chronic state of alarm.
The person who follows Brecht’s injunctions gets nothing back, be-
yond the certainty that his gravestone will bear no inscription that could
refer to an identity. Thus new objectivity conduct codes finally arrive
at zero, which indeed guarantees a maximum of mobility but leaves
The Cool Persona in Literature 135

no more in the way of an epitaph than a trace of the velocity of one’s

disappearance.71
To be sure, the imperative “Cover your tracks!” remains very puz-
zling. It has become standard to see in it an order delivered by “real-
ity itself.” Gratefully following the tip Brecht offers in the tenth poem of
the cycle,
When I speak to you
Coldly and impersonally
. . . . . . . . .
I speak to you merely
Like reality itself . . .72

we find in this self-denunciation the solution to the puzzle. The subject

speaking here, as Heidegger put it, was the “they” as the “subject of dai-
liness.” The anonymous voice recommends the rhetorical simulation of
alienation in order to demonstrate that its logic leads to self-dissolution.
What remains awkward, however—as Rudolf Arnheim remarked—is
that “reality” never “speaks” coldly and in general but always individ-
ually and with promises of warmth.73 And the process by which the per-
sonal becomes anonymous proceeds apace, without anyone having to
force it. In the logic of escalation that Brecht demands from his persona,
what we see at work here is not so much a mimicry of negation but an
assumption of the individual’s ability to cover his tracks. What therefore
appears as the null point of the disappearance of the subject can be read
as the fulcrum of subjective empowerment; neither social institutions
nor obscure historical processes cause the city dweller to disappear—
the ego itself flees into the future, where death is waiting.
Gracián’s persona comes back into view; Plessner’s dueling subject
and Serner’s confidence man resume their roles, avoiding the hordes and
gambling with the enemy . . . But for what purpose? under which magi-
cal eye? for what reward? Here the Hungarian Marxist Béla Balázs
offers an instructive intervention, revealing that poems like this one doc-
ument an especially perverse form of the “Dionysian frenzy of self-
denial.”74 From behind the Marxist mask of the artist comes the voice
of Nietzsche. What does this interpretation add to our understanding of
the subject?
Brecht’s poem of self-dissolution itself bears an ineffaceable signature,
which has prompted an entire series of analyses. The poem about cov-
ering one’s tracks has come to appear to us as nothing but tracks. Reac-
tions to Brecht’s poem over the long run reinscribe sharp subjective con-
136 The Cool Persona in Literature

tours in a text that is itself supposed to blur them. Critics find charac-
ters in the poem ranging from the “cheerful barbarian” to the “robot.”75
As soon as the poem appeared, Benjamin saw in it the traces of a “de-
structive character,” not without mentioning, for the sake of clarity, the
director of the national credit bank as a man devoted to building upon
nothing. A little later, though from a great distance (after 1933), Arnold
Zweig finds in the poem instructions for immigrants seeking to lose
themselves in foreign cities, while Benjamin returns to the text to per-
ceive in it, with stubborn acuity, the Communist cadres operating ille-
gally in the underground of the bygone republic.76
The poem remained Benjamin’s obsession: he inscribes every possible
political turn in the text, to which he denies all personal memory. “The
destructive character,” Benjamin concludes in 1930, “is a signal. As a
trigonometric sign is subject to the wind from all sides, so is the destruc-
tive character vulnerable from all sides to talk.”77 In a journal entry of
1940, he registers the appearance in the poem of the spirit and figure
of the GPU.78 Later yet, Franco Buono discovers the “urban guerrilla”
in the poem (“rules of behavior for underground fighters in occupied
cities”).79 The psychoanalytic climate of the 1970s brings its sado-
masochistic elements to the fore; in favor in the 1980s are its implica-
tions for communications theory.80 And in the 1990s readers discover in
it a little forgetfulness machine, apt for reuse in deconstruction theories.
The list is not a random assortment. Analysis alternates between
the extremes of the armored ego and the unbounded self. The value
neutrality of the poem facilitates extension to various notions of the
self-empowered subject; its conceptual development toward destruction
makes it possible at the same time to retract the empowerment. Of what
use, we may ask, is the updating of the venerable tradition of Gracián’s
code, when this external voice sends the persona in all possible direc-
tions? When the moral vacuity of the code in its terminal stages spurs
desires to melt into communities promising to combine strict behavioral
directives with meaning? “And when death brings at last the desired
forgetfulness,” says Nietzsche, it “sets the seal on the knowledge that
‘being’ is merely a continual ‘has been,’ a thing that lives by denying and
destroying and contradicting itself.”81
While Nietzsche, however, registers the human inability to “learn to
forget,”82 Brecht puts forgetting before the subject as a daily lesson.
Does it make any sense to see the poem as an aquarium in which Nietz-
schean motifs and fragments of court maxims swim like colorful fish?
We could easily add other swimmers, like the slapstick figures of Ameri-
The Cool Persona in Literature 137

can silent films or ones from Walter Serner’s Handbrevier. We might de-
termine that the poem alludes to the tradition of behavioral primers,
which narrow into paradoxes, combining strict rules of behavior with
the horror of identity dissolution. Or we might discover that it sets the
Nietzschean motif of the subject awash in joyful denial into the sturdy
housing of a conduct code. Reactions to the poem have cut through
these knots. The pedagogical solution above all refuses to allow para-
dox to hamper it. It discovers in the tenth poem of the cycle its Archi-
medean point; for in this last poem, we read in one interpretation, “the
poet comes out of his hiding place” to “expose” sham behavior.83
Here the poem slips into a tradition of rhetorical irony that we en-
countered first in Gracián’s code of conduct. There and elsewhere dis-
simulatio attracts suspicions. It lies in the negative act of concealing
what the speaker actually means; the defining characteristic of rhetori-
cal irony’s other mode of speech, simulatio, is to present positively what
is not actual.
“Simulational irony accordingly consists in the transparent feign-
ing of a contrary standpoint, and dissimulational in the discernible con-
cealment of one’s own conviction,” we read in a discussion of the funda-
mentals of rhetoric. Presupposed here is a sovereign self in control of its
boundaries that raises itself out of the sameness of communication
through its special capacity for double negation. In a complex process
of simulation, an unmistakable “authentic personal style” comes into
being through the conspicuous use of the double negation and the bland-
ness of laconic language. Thus we can deduce the presence of an individ-
ual exploiting the scenarios of separation that allow the poem to form a
versatile self playing out—in its black-colored mundus rhetoricus—im-
ages of “alternative possible being” to the point of self-dissolution.84
Repetition is the medium for the practice of rhetoric, and memory is
its reservoir. What, therefore, is to be done if storage in memory, along
with rhetoric itself as the vehicle of oral transmission, is to be extin-
guished? The poem provokes an image of the clever pedagogical sal-
vation of the self-empowered subject, only to drive it into paradox. For
where is the site of speech concealed and what is the fate of the self in
the entire cycle of the Reader? In Brecht’s intention, the site of speech
was a phonograph; he conceived the cycle’s ten poems as recorded texts.
Between the poems, readers see an injunction “(This record needs to be
played more than once.)”85
The search for the speaker’s location draws attention to a complica-
tion that, fully in line with the reception history, we cannot avoid. The
138 The Cool Persona in Literature

parentheses in the final line of this first poem—in the manner of a philo-
logical source reference to the origin of the voice that prescribes the pos-
sibilities for action—might lead readers to the site from which the
speech came. They perceive the written text’s parentheses in an instant,
along with the behavioral rules, yet the recorded voice puts off revelation
of the “simulation” all the way to the final line. And what do the paren-
theses enclosing “That is what they said” (1926)/taught me (1938)” re-
veal? Is it a voice from offstage, which has so assimilated itself to its ad-
dressee that it announces its origin only in the poem’s last line for the
sake of decency? Since the hints contain a series of authorial motives—
the praise of separation and forgetfulness, the disqualification of expres-
sion, and the image of the “iron jaws eating the world out of house and
home” (Benjamin)—it is tempting to identify the parenthetically speak-
ing self as the medium of the author’s voice. Nevertheless, it is not clear
that the self of the parentheses, which had already absented itself from
the behavioral rules’ self, can mount any resistance at all to the voice
from outside.
Speaking in the second poem of the cycle is an imperial “we,” a col-
lective instance that threatens exclusion and at the same time juxtaposes
to the commandment “Part from your friends” a “staying”—the cohort
strikes back; the relation between the external voice and the subject is
agonistic. In the third, the prodigal son simulates the voice of the fathers
who would have the former “vanish like smoke.” The voice of the fa-
thers is suspiciously resonant with the voice in the first poem. In the
fourth, we encounter to a particular degree the presumption of a sub-
ject: “I” occurs thirteen times. A young woman strives to find her iden-
tity through reflection in a hostile environment, and at the same time to
relax—just as Gracián’s Art of Worldly Wisdom recommends; she over-
exerts herself—in vain. The fifth poem marks the strangeness of the other
person (“That’s something I’ve heard a woman say.”). Here woman, tra-
ditionally the object of virile codes of conduct, is reduced to sheer mat-
ter. On this level of reduction, she acquires a historical philosophical
charge: “the wind / Fills my sail.” The principle of “rising from the ru-
ins” is played through the first time on a woman’s body. The sixth offers
a report (“That’s something I’ve heard people say before now”) of the
embarrassing spectacle of expressionist sons who, ignoring the new
objectivity conduct code, proclaim deeds in the old manner of youthful
indignation, tactlessness, and penitential pilgrimages, without realizing
that they are thereby condemned to decline. With no exterior voice, the
seventh poem presents us with a distinguished, armored subject as a
The Cool Persona in Literature 139

slapstick figure. Following the two parodies of disarming and armoring,

the eighth paints a landscape removed from all bourgeois codes of con-
duct: the lawless space of a “trench community” (Marc Bloch) for which
the new objectivity behavioral rules are designed: “(Not that anyone
should be discouraged by that.)” The “Four Invitations to a Man from
Different Quarters” (the ninth poem) repeat the reduction schema from
the first one, teaching us to accept friendliness as a stopgap (with no
parentheses). And then, in the cycle’s tenth poem, the author finally
emerges from hiding. But what sort of voice is it?
Throughout the cycle the authorial voice wanders restlessly, splitting
itself among different instances that threaten to absorb it. Boundaries
between an authentic “I” and the impersonal “one” are lost; the sixth
poem delivers the tone of the complaint and its disarming in the bygone
manner of parody. Authenticity has nowhere to hide for the winter. The
foundation of the ironic rhetoric is undermined.
“Cover your tracks” deprives an ironic rhetoric of its basis in a se-
cure subject. Gracián’s Art of Worldly Wisdom displaces it into para-
dox. Nietzsche’s concept, whereby the subject is put into vigorous play,
which informed Brecht’s early poetry, falls under the influence of insti-
tutions dangling the prospect of relief or threatening extinction. What
continues to appear here as an uninscribed gravestone will quickly turn
into the drafting table for engineers plotting measures. Their voices are
already intervening in the world of the city dwellers. The “I” begins to
dissolve into the “they,” so that action becomes possible by way of par-
ticipation in this subject of the world of daily existence—toward what
goal, remains unknown. As in Heidegger’s Being and Time the “it” of
the unconscious has shifted into the external world of the “they”; 86 in
systems of action, the “I” fancies itself a subject, although the “they”
has long since destroyed the humane horizon that the subject once
constructed.
This general “they,” into which the persona threatens to dissolve, is
no neutral medium. It exists under the law of the fathers. One unpre-
possessing thing in Brecht’s text draws attention to this fatal circum-
stance. It is the only object that the scenarios of forgetting do not forget:
the hat.87
Twice it comes into play. The first time, pulled down over the eyes,
it serves to hide the face, so that the parents are unable to recognize
the son. It returns then in the third verse, which instructs the nomadic
reader not to forget his hat. Whatever is tied to the figure by a posses-
sive pronoun—“your parents/face/ideas/death”—is delivered up pro-
140 The Cool Persona in Literature

grammatically to the procedures of forgetting, except “your hat.” This

object accompanies the figure through all the stages of its reduction.
In the mid-1920s, the hat concealing the face is a conspicuous trade-
mark of new objectivity portraits: it is a characteristic feature of new ob-
jectivity paintings by Anton Räderscheidt, George Grosz, and Christian
Schad; Hans Richter sets hats to dancing in his film Vormittagsspuk.
Faces in expressionist painting remained expressive surfaces open to in-
ternal stimulation; now the head’s contours close it off. The interior of
characters becomes opaque; the hat pulled down over the face prevents
expression from coming into view at all. The sixth poem in Brecht’s
cycle presents us with one final anachronistic expression of outrage.
The habitus of proper rage here requires that the hat be “tipped back”
so that attention can be drawn to the individual signs of private rebel-
lion (Brecht associates them with hesitation over making a practical de-
cision). This is rebellion in the manner of the expressionist “sons,” who
never learned the ABCs of violence, which is the property of the fathers.
Up to this point, the origin of the hat has not been mentioned; the
poem says, “the hat (Hut) they gave you.” The injunction is never to
forget the parents’ gift (perhaps the souvenir of a behütetes [sheltered]
upbringing?). Anyone who follows all the instructions remains tied,
through the gift of the hat, to those from whom he wanted to separate.
A radical separation from the parents (cf. Serner’s precept no. 358) is
one of the initiation rites of the city dweller. In an early draft of Mann
ist Mann we read:
he will advance one day (he) will float on one of these steamships up to
the big city he is the man for it he has no parents.88

The man on the steamship, to return to the image of the Reader, floats
off with the hat from his parents on his head.
Is this inseparability from the hat an indication of the desire for the
“continuation of parental care” that Jürgen Manthey finds at work ev-
erywhere in Brecht’s writings? 89 Or does the hat instead signal why the
persona finds itself in a chronic state of alarm? Does it lead the reader,
as Susanne Winnacker ventures, to the idea of the potlatch, a gift de-
signed to destroy rivals in the next generation? Or, as Hans-Thies Leh-
mann supposes, does it suggest the ineradicable burden of a debt—for
example, the debt incurred by the son’s mere existence—so that only
death could occasion the desired forgetfulness?
Those who follow instructions so strictly that they wind up accepting
absurdities never pull free of the spell of the paternal law, which they
The Cool Persona in Literature 141

wanted to escape. When we pull our hats over our faces, “we speak to
our fathers,” as the third poem declares. Speaking with our fathers is
among the fundamental acts by which the generation of the new objec-
tivity marked itself off from the generation of the shamed, expressionist
sons.90 But whoever echoes the fathers’ words only repeats the fathers’
dictum: You cannot have been. In this logic of the third poem, Walter
Benjamin, in a late diary entry, will register sadism: the dynamic of
youth enforces the law of the fathers.
Is this reference to the law of the fathers the secret revealed in the
avant-garde act of forgetting? Is it indeed the case that “the more radi-
cal the rejection of anything that came before, the greater the depen-
dence on the past”? 91 Brecht’s poem puts these ominous readings of the
avant-garde act into play by means of a curious thing—a hat. It brings
the paternal law onto the crooked plane of the text and relativizes the
fathers’ revenge in the light of comedy.92
Thus a memory of the paternal law appears in texts in which we would
least expect it. Just how explosive the appearance can be is expressed
perhaps in Paul Tillich’s formula cited above: that the call for commu-
nity contains the demand “to create the mother from the son and to sum-
mon the father out of nothing.”93 The father is supposed to appear with
the authority of the state, in order to sublate the world of civilized sep-
aration in favor of symbiosis, to reconstruct the mother and in doing so
conceal the “origin.” This “superfather” is clearly in a position to recre-
ate, by means of his ice-cold measures, the maternal warmth of “com-
munity” and keep her constantly under watch—a paradoxical proce-
dure, which is hard to bring off. “Political romanticism thus suffers its
most severe disillusion at this point,” remarks Tillich; “nowhere is the
contradiction between desire and reality felt more painfully than here.”
Brecht’s poem reminds us of the desire to call the father out of noth-
ing, in order to enact disappointment by means of a curious object. With
a touch of humor, it haunts the Reader for Those Who Live in Cities.
Soon, however, the law of the fathers will appear in the learning plays,
no longer playfully, but with relentless insistence, in the name of a
collective.

DIE MEHLREISENDE FRIEDA GEIER

If the new objectivity served the “function of social and compensa-

tion for a generation of men who had lost their identity,” the appearance
of a woman armed with Gracián’s Art of Worldly Wisdom seems incon-
142 The Cool Persona in Literature

ceivable.94 Marieluise Fleißer, in her novel Die Mehlreisende Frieda

Geier, puts the example to the test.95 For Frieda Geier—relatively mo-
bile in an automobile and equipped with a leather jacket or man’s over-
coat (and then again in mixed garb, in order to appeal simultaneously
to urban and rural customers)—new objectivity norms are not rules for
a game you make up but dictates inscribed on the body.
The supreme commandment of someone doing business with someone else is
that the former must never step into the latter’s shoes. Compassion cripples.96

Acknowledging the other’s right to existence unavoidably diminishes

your own substance. Whatever you’ve not gotten your own hands on
will be stashed away by someone else.
People are only too eager, for anyone they take to be an outsider, to hang the
breadbasket a little higher. That means you end up with nothing but the table
in your teeth.97

Business trips and sex are like a gauntlet for Frieda Geier; she endures
them with mixed feelings because others are always intent on curtailing
her mobility. Her lover, a sports idol (selected from the “breeding mate-
rial” of the provinces) cannot cope with this “double being”: he cannot
merge symbiotically with a figure who is at once “sensuous female” and
“ascetic with short hair.”
This restless creature, you have to hold it down with every fiber, hold on to
it with all your might.98

To the small town she ultimately seems to be a vampire, undermining the

businessman’s livelihood, draining the athlete’s vitality. Surrounded by a
pack of men, the heroine is forced to disappear so that her lover can
overcome his crisis, in both his athletics and his business. She reappears
one final time, but the idol’s comrades lie in wait for an ambush—at the
Jewish cemetery.
Individuals must stand up, experience ostracism firsthand, and with their
slender selves stomp through the thicket of reigning opinion.99

If the cool persona in the figure of a woman cannot be instrumentalized

as a prostitute, she is hunted as a “witch.”
Marieluise Fleißer’s novel is a medium that exposes the self-destruc-
tive aspects of new objectivity leitmotivs. The transfer of themes of win-
ning mobility through anonymity, incognito, or minimalist survival—
woven through a soldier’s mentality or a dandy’s attitude—to a woman
evokes a (thrilling) note of Angst. In the handbooks—whether com-
The Cool Persona in Literature 143

posed from the perspective of court society or the new objectivity—

woman was an object, to be (mis)treated according to all the rules of
the art. As the epitome of symbiotic warmth or as an instance of mercy,
she occupied a central place in the imagination of the coolness freaks;
because she threatened to restrict man’s mobility, she had to be con-
signed to the imaginary. The advocates of cool distance also experienced
an immense need for sources of warmth, which, however—as Plessner’s
Grenzen demonstrated—they excluded from the arena of struggle itself.
Die Mehlreisende Frieda Geier represents an attempt to materialize au-
tonomy and sexual desire on a terrain littered with economic aspects
neither Plessner nor the community fanatics had foreseen.
Fleißer had already put into words a woman’s experience with men
of the sort of Plessner’s duelist in her collection of stories, Ein Pfund
Orangen, which appeared in 1929. “She got to know men,” says one of
her characters, “and one was like the other, having a system for women,
but no mercy.”100 We encountered this system in the conduct codes of
distance; Fleißer directs her outsider’s gaze at it, registering its unshak-
able rule: “The man determines the distance.”101 And the system assigns
a place to the other sex: “she was warmth, and not a person.”102 As a
lesson for women, it prescribes the code of virile distance:
These were the frosts of freedom [see Figure 9]; she had to learn to freeze. No
one depends on anyone.103

But the female characters in Fleißer’s texts get a lesson in a decisionism of

their own. The author sends them into the system of the conduct codes,
where they learn to their horror that “the natural enemy is them.”104
Perhaps what we see here is the shadow that Schmitt’s Begriff des
Politischen throws over the battle between the sexes. Or perhaps it is
the deeper ground from which the theory developed. We recall Schmitt’s
definition:
The distinction of friend and enemy denotes the utmost degree of intensity in
union or separation, in association or dissociation.105

The “enemy” in this conceptual system is always “the other,” and it suf-
fices for “his nature that he is, in a specially intense way, existentially
something different and alien.” This kind of knowledge, which the female
characters learn firsthand, offers them neither a standpoint from which
they can deal with the other sex nor a feeling of self-determination that
would enable them to draw boundaries. The lesson is imposed on them.
For a time they seem to assimilate the principles of boundary drawing in
144 The Cool Persona in Literature

9. These were the frosts of freedom

(Karl Hubbuch, Improvisiertes Frühstück [Improvised breakfast]. With the permission of
Myriam Hubbuch.)

an initiation rite granting them access to the combatants’ fencing hall:

“Maturation meant that a light had gone on about the enmity prevail-
ing among people.”106 But since women have to represent the estrange-
ment of first nature inside the sphere of trust, their claim to their own
subjective artificiality suddenly ends up in the sphere of dissociation,
where the intensity of the separation they embody is too much even for
separation specialists. Those who sermonize on the “frosts of freedom,”
says Brecht, eventually shy away from the effects.
Operating in the sphere of mistrust, Frieda Geier learns the enemy
rules of behavior:
“Men must be destroyed, or else they destroy you,” a woman friend had said.
Suddenly a thought came to mind—knowledge cuts to the quick.107

The point is that it cuts her. Describing these techniques, the female au-
thor clearly has need of a certain masochism to set her heroine down in
enemy terrain—allowing her to “swim free,” I might have said, were
swimming not the domain of the sports hero she is trying to thwart.
The Cool Persona in Literature 145

Béla Balázs, in a polemical remark aimed at the coolness doctrine in

Reader for Those Who Live in Cities, notes Brecht’s effort “to howl with
the wolves” as a way of deceiving the pack; Balázs clearly fails to recog-
nize the usefulness of the pack. Fleißer’s heroine experiments with her
enemy’s code of conduct. In the social structure inhabited by her hero-
ine, the maneuver comes at the cost of real-life substance. “She cannot
howl with the wolves.”
Plessner, Schmitt, Serner, Brecht, and Jünger present variants on the
cool persona. “Watchdog,” Fleißer will later term this avant-garde type;
it watches over the boundary drawn by the dueling subject.108 A paradox
develops from its simultaneous resistance to and desire for decentering,
whereby what Musil termed the “dis-armoring of the ego” (a genuinely
modernist impulse) undermines the will to be a “subject in armor” (a
motif of the decisionist avant-garde). Marieluise Fleißer’s novels show us
that the woman who allows herself to be pulled into this melee of virile
narcissism gets cut to the quick. That pleasure can be gotten from the
act is testimony to the uncanny dimension of Fleißer’s texts.

GINSTER— A SWAN SONG

In 1928, Siegfried Kracauer’s novel Ginster: Von ihm selbst geschrieben

appears, throwing a comedic light on the dilemma of the self-assured
subject.109 In Kracauer’s hands the fetishes of objectivity become the
stumbling blocks of conformity. Ginster, the hero, a new objectivity ego-
less phenomenon, stumbles in the general mobilization of 1914 –18. Like
the other characters under discussion here, he loves the anonymous life,
seems even to have halfway internalized the precepts of Serner’s Hand-
brevier when, having escaped the unpleasantries of the war and revo-
lution, he sighs, “So nice, a proper hotel. He was sorry that, as of to-
morrow, he would have to go back to sleeping in private quarters.” This
attitude, along with all the others drawn from the spirit of objectivity,
fails him, though he takes great pains to adapt them to circumstances.
Thus Ginster knows the utilitarian value of Brecht’s new objectivity
minimalism. Faced with a threatened call-up to the front, he tries to in-
crease his chances of survival by eating as little as possible: “The skin-
nier he got, the smaller he was as a target.”110 Nor did Ginster have any-
thing against failing to be on hand for important historical moments. He
cultivated a talent for missing them:
146 The Cool Persona in Literature

Ginster always had bad luck at public events. He either came too late or, to
his surprise, got an excellent seat, which, however, as he soon found out, was
free only because it faced the wrong direction.111

For a time Ginster is a gunner with the Cologne infantry, and he strives
to adapt mimetically to the heroic discourse. But, as Inka Mülder-Bach
puts it, “he always misses the right tone by a decisive nuance”:
The daily reports are also so nicely stylized, Ginster noted, aware of his de-
sire to slip in an appreciative statement of some kind.112

In the hero’s inability to make the discourse of militant objectivity his

own, Joseph Roth saw one of the brighter aspects of the republic, dis-
tinguishing Ginster—“the civilian pure and simple”—from the more
general run of the army. In 1928, at the beginning of the boom in war
literature, Ginster’s appearance, though easily overlooked, was a minor
sensation. Among the martial figures of gray marauders, the impossible
civilian seemed born of American slapstick; Kracauer’s hero was greeted
by contemporary critics as a “sociological Chaplin.”
Ginster, always eager, like Serner’s characters, to hit the road, is in-
nocent of their compulsively melancholy rituals. Rather than take flight,
he merely stumbles along. Since nothing connects him to the popular
mass, he differs from the good soldier Schwejk; where everyone else re-
acts quickly, his sluggish reflection works a subversive effect. He con-
templates the “grammar” of the barracks talk, which reveals to him the
thinglike character of the man in uniform but does not exempt him from
the category of thing.113 The military hierarchy brings him face to face
with other problems that semiotics tempers:
In the barracks, in the hallways, on the street, superiors loomed before him,
with the impenetrability of a hedge in a fairy tale. To get the hedge to yield,
he had to make a special sign to it. He suddenly stiffened up like a wall, the
vegetation dying out, his eyes two holes. . . .
Ginster . . . , for his part, had to direct his eyes at the subordinate officer
without, strictly speaking, looking at him or letting the sight of him prompt
any thoughts; so that his eyes became openings into which the officer could
pour orders. Like cemetery urns, suitable for anyone’s ashes.114

What makes the awkward hero stand out against contemporary atti-
tudes of heroism is his essential other-directedness. As Mülder-Bach
notes, Ginster does not act—“he behaves.” His resistance consists not
in protest but in “his kind of receptivity.” Ginster suggests a type that ap-
pears only in vague outlines in the scanty civilian literature of the repub-
lic, which we shall describe in more detail in the chapter on the radar type.
The Cool Persona in Literature 147

JÜNGER’S FALL INTO THE CRYSTAL

Silhouettes The habitus of the cool persona is determined by the

claim it stakes on perceptual acuity. Ernst Jünger, in the foreword to
Der Arbeiter, maintains that an understanding of the new reality de-
pends entirely upon “the precision of the description, which presup-
poses eyes with complete and unbiased powers of vision.”115 Desires
for perceptual acuity become powerful whenever a traditional interpre-
tive frame is in collapse. Such situations generate calls for a retrieval of
“pure” perception of “sheer facts.” Perception, exhausted by the drone
of prescribed discourse, regenerates itself by focusing on meaningless
things.
Programs aimed at the restoration of perception, however, do more
than prompt a passive registration of objects and events. Aggression sets
the effort’s fundamental tenor; its tone is not without a hint of sadism.
The sharp-eyed persona is fond of comparing itself with the surgeon,
while the habitus of perceptual acuity requires that the subject trans-
gress moral boundaries. The precision of a moral norm’s negation not
only lends expression to a new objectivity habitus but also reinforces
its claims to the empirical sciences’ exactness. Stripping perception of
moral judgment necessarily depsychologizes the observed object, reduc-
ing it to its basis in physiological or economic data and assimilating it to
the rules of natural scientific discourse. The intrusive gaze thus becomes
an instrument of pure perception.
It is a commonplace among avant-garde artists that the precondition
for seeing an object “sharply” is removing it from all moral entanglement
in its environment.116 By excising the object from its moral, pragmatic,
and atmospheric integuments, the artistic gaze isolates it in its razor-
sharp contours. If people are its object of observation, the sharp gaze
works by changing them into physical objects in the sway of mechanical
laws. The emotional effect of coolness stems from this act of transfor-
mation. “Coolness as a tendency,” remarked Osip Mandelstam in 1930,
“stems from the incursion of physics into the moral idea.”117 We read in
Benjamin, writing at the same time, that precise observation becomes
possible only when “the moral personality has been put on ice.”118
In the early 1930s essay “Über den Schmerz,” Jünger suggests a view
of human beings as alien objects, without regard for their pain, their
passion, or complaints.119 The discourses of the sciences facilitate this
cooling off of perception, according to Jünger, and, carried over into lit-
erature, are capable of producing “subzero temperatures.”
148 The Cool Persona in Literature

“At such temperatures,” Jünger repeats later in Strahlungen (1949),

“flesh and erotic contact also lose their luster; their physical condi-
tion comes to the fore.”120 Perceptual acuity calls for an anthropology
that understands people as physical objects, making a retrieval of
seventeenth-century modes of anthropological understanding the next
obvious step. Likewise attractive is the incorporation into literary writ-
ing of the new scientific discourses of animal behavior research, psycho-
technics, and sociometry.
Having identified these areas of overlap with scientific styles of
thought, however, we need to stress the value placed by advocates of the
cool gaze on the “cult of evil” taken over from the nineteenth-century
dandy. The dandy juxtaposes his perceptual acuity, as an “apparatus of
disinfection and isolation,” to bourgeois moral conventions.121 The
dandy’s descendant finds himself in a world transformed by the techni-
cal media’s progress. As technological devices, still and moving picture
cameras appear to possess the prized characteristic of perceptual sharp-
ness. Jünger attributes to the camera the same quality of impassiveness
he expects of the cool persona:

The photograph exists outside the sphere of the emotional [see Figure 10],
which lends it a telescopic character; one notes that what happened has been
seen by an unemotional and invulnerable eye. It can just as easily capture a
ball in midflight as a human being in the moment he is being ripped apart by
an explosion.122

The transposition of “horrific vision” to the world of the apparatus

lends it the value-neutrality of a technical norm; the transfer of this me-
chanical competence back to human perception frees it from the de-
mands of morality.
By the end of the 1920s the trenchant critique of the conceptual real-
ists counters the ideology of the camera’s eye, disdaining the “romanti-
cizing” attitude of “pure” perception. Brecht’s famous line from the Drei-
groschenprozeß documents the change: “A photograph of the Krupp
Works or A.E.G. yields next to no information about these institutions.
The real reality has moved into the functional.”123 Kracauer’s polemical
remark in the first chapter of his study of white-collar workers argues
similarly: “A hundred reports from a factory do not add up to the real-
ity of the factory but remain for all eternity a hundred views of the fac-
tory. The reality is a construction.”124 Both authors emphatically dis-
tance themselves at the beginning of the 1930s from the pathos of
perceptual acuity, to which both had earlier appealed.
The Cool Persona in Literature 149

10. The photograph exists outside the sphere of the

emotional
(Publicity still for At the Rim of the Sahara Desert. With the permission
of VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn.)

Musil calls on the results of cognitive psychology and phenomenol-

ogy in his formulation a few years earlier:
It is known that we see what we know: ciphers, signs, abbreviations, attri-
butes of the concept; permeated and carried merely by isolated dominant sen-
suous impressions in a vague plenitude of the rest.125

Musil is convinced that seeing in ciphers corresponds to the “necessity

of the practical orientation.” Formulaic stereotyping is not only a char-
acteristic of concepts but equally typical of “our gestures and sensual
impressions, which after a couple of repetitions become just as habitual
as imaginary processes tied to words.”
The conceptual realism of the 1920s that we just observed in Brecht,
and in Jünger and Schmitt as well, transfers the claim of perceptual acu-
ity onto the alleged precision of the concept. Acuity works its effect in
their thinking by way of a maneuver identical to that by which the brack-
eting of moral judgment aims to make human beings visible as physical
objects. The position of the conceptual realists on perception—which
we continue to find today in rationalistic theories of perception 126 —
runs as follows: the eye, because of its biological structure, cannot be
unbiased. “Pure” vision is a fiction. Every visual perception is a goal-
150 The Cool Persona in Literature

oriented act, which involves scanning the environment for regularities;

observation is a problem-solving activity, guided by a complex of expec-
tations. Visual perception is like a spotlight trained on the organism.127
It lights up phenomena within a certain compass, allowing a purposeful
examination. If perception is to be sharp, criteria implicit in the goal of
perception must determine its field.
The phenomenologist Alfred Schütz assumes that an “intentional
ray of reflection” interrupts the stream of formulaic repetitions that suf-
fuse daily life: a concentrated packet of light illuminates a circle in the
environment, which is filled with the darkness of unconsciously experi-
enced schemata. But for phenomenologists, the overall perceptual space
outside what is intended remains filled by a fog of reflexes, anonymous
noises, tactile impressions, and smells. The horizon surrounding the core
area under visual inspection is permeable and “soft.”128
The boundary line for conceptual realists, however, is “hard” and im-
permeable. The conceptual realists among the artists of the 1920s in-
tervene into the perceptual space, in order to cut away the soft edges of
phenomena, arrest fluid movement in freeze frames, and do away with
ambivalences. They scan the visual field, concentrating on the isolated
parcels in which their “specimen” is captured for examination.129 Fig-
ures are separated out from one another until there finally appear
“pure” phenomena. While it is indeed no longer possible to have any
palpable experience of these phenomena, conceptual realism maintains
the claim, as in Jünger’s construction of the worker, that they are the re-
sult of perceptual acuity carried to an extreme.
The contemporary aesthetic appeal of the focus on sharp contours is
not to be underestimated. In opposition to the impressionist blurring of
boundaries and loosening up of subjective unity, the “calendrical objec-
tivity” of conceptual silhouettes resulting from these surgical interven-
tions into perception appeals to advocates of the cool gaze because it aims
at the effect of the uncanny but uses a quasi-scientific manner: “So also
in the bright transparency of loneliness does everything become clearer
and larger, but above all it becomes more primal and demonic.”130
Carl Schmitt’s friend-enemy theory imposes a perceptual grid on the
amorphous bodies of liberal society. It lights up areas of semi-darkness
and assigns all vacillation and wavering to the category of betrayal. The
métier of the cool persona is to isolate elements in the mix, distinguo
ergo sum its slogan (see Figure 11).131
Since this attitude implies a claim to perceptual acuity, it is not sur-
prising that conceptual realists go around with cameras around their
The Cool Persona in Literature 151

11. Distinguo ergo sum

(August Sander, Künstlerehepaar [Artistic couple], Cologne, 1925. With the permission of Pho-
tographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur, August Sander Archiv, Cologne; VG Bild-Kunst,
Bonn.)

necks: ideograms, so it seemed, could simply be photographed. Critics

suggest that Jünger’s Arbeiter offered snapshots of the universalia in
re. Jünger himself identifies the real opponent of his sharp-eyed gaze
as an “impressionistic” vision, which he accords to the epoch of liberal-
ism. Nineteenth-century art, he continues, reproduced and encouraged
the decay of the social physiognomy mimetically in the dissolution of
contours:

We encounter here the individual, whether alone or in a group, in a strangely

slack and nonreferential bearing, needing twilight all the more as a way to
make excuses. Thus the love for such motifs as gardens in the glow of Chi-
nese lanterns, boulevards in the artificial light of the first gas candelabra,
landscapes in the fog at dusk or in the shimmer of sunlight. (122)

Impressionism had gone beyond the clear distinction of significant

objects from the environment and atmosphere. Its observation put the
152 The Cool Persona in Literature

“meaningless” on a par with the “meaningful”; dispersing attention over

the surface, it no longer established the core area of meaning. Jünger
takes this achievement of the impressionist school of vision to be a mo-
ment in “the process of decomposition,” as a “clinical station” of de-
cline that necessarily ends in nihilism. The spaces of twilight, of fog and
shimmering sunlight he confronts with the “cool and dispassionate gaze
of the artistic eye.” The camera, according to Jünger, is capable of ban-
ishing the meaningless from the excerpts it produces, yielding an appre-
hension of pure types. Since the physiognomy of the type is not unique
but endlessly reproducible, it can be captured in photographs and films.
Jünger’s attitude toward photography draws on motifs that Vilém
Flusser describes a half century later.132 Jünger’s use of hunting meta-
phors draws our attention to the importance he accords to the distinc-
tion between mere visual perception and “scouting.” Arthur Schopen-
hauer referred to the difference between the two, explaining that
scouting, as opposed to looking, is an act of seeing that is subordinated
to the will.133 Flusser associates photography with “being on the look-
out”:
It is the prehistorical stalking pose of the Paleolithic hunter in the tundra.
Only the photographer pursues his game not in the open grassland, but in the
thicket of cultural objects, and his secret paths are determined by this artifi-
cial taiga.134

The photographer’s thicket is made up of cultural objects, “which have

been ‘purposefully placed’”:
Each of these objects obstructs the photographer’s view of his game. He
sneaks through them in order to stymie the intention hidden within them. He
strives to emancipate himself from his cultural condition, strives at all costs
to capture his game.135

Since for Jünger the “purposefully placed” cultural objects that

threaten to obstruct the photographic gaze consist primarily of the
nebulous things of “modern humanity,” the initial task, if the aim is to
get a snapshot of reality, is to get them out of the way. Flusser, however,
refers in this connection to the way the photographer by and large sur-
renders himself to the categories of the apparatus. He also comes to the
conclusion that photography delivers “an image of what has been con-
ceived,” but the concepts in Flusser’s case are those for which the pho-
tographer has been programmed by his apparatus. While Jünger ties the
photographer’s habitus to the bearing of the cool persona, which uses
The Cool Persona in Literature 153

the camera to rip objects out of their cultural conditions “without par-
don” in order to alter their symbolic meaning, he also handles the same
apparatus like a “machine” that drags the photographer along like an
appendage.136
In his reasoning about photography, Jünger races through several
fields of thought, here pointing out the “predatory nature” of the appa-
ratus,137 there emphasizing the photographer’s philosophical capacity to
observe the world through a categorical apparatus, to demarcate visual
fields, and record a series of distinct pictures; 138 then again he makes the
photographer into a “functionary of the apparatus.”139 In any case, the
technological instrument delivers pictures with sharply defined contours
(122).With this conception Jünger puts himself provocatively at odds
with Kracauer’s theory of photography.
In 1927, Siegfried Kracauer complained that the story of an individ-
ual lies “buried under a photograph as if under a blanket of snow.”140
Now Jünger praises the capacity of the camera to freeze the visible in the
unequivocality of the sign. Jünger seems to have read Kracauer’s essay;
it is not without a provocative gesture that he praises the aspects of a
camera that Kracauer criticized, while devaluing the specific accom-
plishment of photography that Kracauer praised as characteristic of the
nineteenth century. Thus Kracauer discovered the camera’s ability to
record meaningful debris—refuse material that no theory or pictorial
tradition had yet captured. The new technological medium encom-
passed society’s “previously unseen natural fundament” unregistered in
existing sign systems, the detritus of visibility not yet permeated by con-
cepts, the space of the visually unconscious, optical noise: “The photo-
graphic archive gathers together in illustrative form the last elements of
nature estranged from meaning.”141 For Jünger, the conceptual realist
for whom the notion of types has put its stamp on every item in his vi-
sual inventory, this salvage operation does not occur.

The 1920s offer a favorable climate for conceptual realism. Its practi-
tioners offer countless theories as devices for “sharpening” perception:
theories of physiognomy and mimicry; typographies of functionalist
psychology distinguishing the “introvert” from the “extrovert”; socio-
logical theories categorizing people according to social roles (secretary,
tax accountant, pastry cook, and so on). Probably the most popular
and the catchiest of them all is Ernst Kretschmer’s constitutional psy-
chology, which correlates character variations with measurable physical
154 The Cool Persona in Literature

traits. Kretschmer makes it possible to see in a stocky passerby of medium

height with small, deep-set eyes the “cyclothymic pyknic type,” who,
while harboring a certain good-heartedness, is decidedly ill-disposed to-
ward theoretical systematicity; the slender sort with thinly muscled arms
and bony hands, in contrast, presents the “lepto-schizothymic type,”
who is easily agitated and introspectively inclined.
Typologies turn the body into something that can be read. Their
attractions are endless: typologies bypass the stress of prepredicative
experience, stripping the other’s orientation of ambivalence; they make
judgments easier to form, clarify lines of opposition, and accelerate the
decision-making process. Typologies thus provide the ideal framing con-
ditions for decisionism. They take over the fatal tendency of the “phys-
iognomic gaze,” for which Ursula Geitner offers the formula: “Exclusive
intimacy, with anxious pigeon-holing as the outward orientation.”142
Typological thinking dominates the human sciences of this period,
which would be little cause for concern if, as in Max Weber, types re-
mained the products of a critical epistemology distinct from an unfath-
omable substratum of life. Martin Lindner draws attention to the way
these years give rise to a “conversion of heuristic typology into ontol-
ogy.”143 Now each individual type becomes a variation on the gen-
eral structure of life. Only such an ontological perspective explains
the “mythical” image of human being—such as Jünger’s worker—that
does away with individualistic psychological explanations of individual
beings. Kretschmer’s Körperbau und Charakter (1921) is an indicator of
this ontological conversion of typological thinking. It becomes deadly
when combined with a new historical metaphysic, which is what occurs
at the beginning of the 1930s.
“Type,” according to the Philosophisches Wörterbuch of 1934, also
means “primal form.”

If the type itself represents an objective structure of life, it takes on a particu-

lar meaning in a historical situation in which one human type (in the descrip-
tive sense) seems to be crystallizing and superseding another type. It is pre-
cisely this of which many observers in the 1920s felt themselves capable: The
collective type was superseding the bourgeois type. This process alone was
enough, according to the conception of history by vitalist ideology, to show
that “life” was behind the new “type.”144

Aside from Jünger’s Arbeiter, one of the most extreme literary exam-
ples of this ontological conversion that blends typological thinking, his-
torical metaphysics, and aesthetics is Gottfried Benn’s essay “Dorische
The Cool Persona in Literature 155

Welt” of 1934. Benn claims here to be charting the contours of a new

anthropology:
The state, power, purifies the individual, filters out his irritability, makes him
cubist, outfits him with surfaces, makes him capable of art. Yes, that is per-
haps the way to put it: the state makes the individual capable of art.145

What the ontological typologies have in common is an emphasis on

visible phenomena, on processes and behavioral patterns, and a resis-
tance to introspective psychology. Jünger adopts Malinowski’s ethnolog-
ical slogan “Study ritual, not belief” when he remarks in Der Arbeiter:
The gesture with which someone opens up a newspaper is more informative
than all the lead articles in the world, and nothing is more instructional than
standing for a quarter hour on a street corner. (132)

The automaticism of traffic, which he is observing here, is for him a sign

that people are in motion about some secret center in accord with “silent
and invisible commands.” Jünger’s ethnological gaze seems to bind signs
to the body but counteracts the effect by a simultaneous dissolution
of the physical; it stamps meaning so blankly on the brow that the body
disappears behind the sign. Jünger, when he wants to, sees nothing all
about him but allegories of his theory of mobilization.
It is the deadly tendency of typologies to have anchored the ordering
model of the system of writing in the obscurity of the bodily world, and
this in a historical situation in which the monopoly of writing is being
called into question by the magic of technologically produced images.
For a time, typologies can also seduce a writer like Robert Musil: “More
is said to me today by the three words, ‘asthenic, schizothymic type,’
than by a long individual description.”146
The omnipresence of typologies in the 1920s forms the background
and medium for the elaboration of conceptual realism. Political camps
tend to their respective typologies, giving form to frightening schools
of perception in which people learn how to order racial and class phys-
iognomies. The capacity for drawing distinctions takes on a dreadful
“sharpness”: people learn how to distinguish, on the basis of physiog-
nomy and behavior, labor aristocrats from proletarians, lumpen prole-
tarians from Social Democrats, Trotskyites from social fascists, white-
collar employees from bourgeois, Jews from Aryans, friend from enemy.
A body’s role is so distinct that a photographer like August Sander
can snap its photograph. This “bourgeois” artisan, to be sure, does not
come quite up to the standards of the conceptual realists; critics reprove
156 The Cool Persona in Literature

him for leaving too much in the shadows, for keeping spheres not wholly
penetrated by the concept, for not having stepped beyond the immatu-
rities of impressionism. Thus the critique of Sander’s Antlitz der Zeit by
the Rhineland constructivist Franz W. Seifert:

If our position on Sander’s work in itself is thus completely positive, still we

might wish for a sharper and clearer sociological formulation in regard to
classification. Here the goal must be a herbarium, so to speak, of human
existence: standpoint, year, activity, class affiliation, as we understand it in
Marx’s definition: “but we have here to do with persons only insofar as they
are the personification of economic categories, the bearers of specific class re-
lations and interests.”147

What we see here is the reconnection of a new medium, which deliv-

ers “meaningless” visual impressions, to language, as described by
Jünger in Der Arbeiter, in its ability to draw distinctions. Jünger later ac-
knowledges that his tendency at the time was to use the “scissors of the
concept,” to cut life to a predetermined pattern.148 The silhouettes of-
fered by the type are practical: they unburden; they orient; they facili-
tate decisions. In the hand of the dandy-soldier, they are part of the “cult
of evil.”
In Jünger’s essays toward the end of the republic, the striving for per-
ceptual sharpness combines with conceptual realism in spectacular fash-
ion. His writings also demonstrate, however, that his belief in the actual
existence of concepts unwittingly conditions the fixed boundaries of
things. Benjamin shows in reference to the French surrealists how easy
it is to slip “from the logical realm of the concept into a magical realm
of words.”149 He refers to the dadaists’ “impassioned phonetic and
graphic games of transformation.” And in Das abenteuerliche Herz,
Jünger steps into the magical. But is this kind of magic not simply the
dark other side of his classification frenzy?
What we find in Jünger’s magic is much more what Arnold Gehlen
designates as a sign of magical thinking: the overestimation of order in
nature, so that a secret center guides and interprets any nocturnal flap-
ping of wings, flash of steel, dream, or gesture. This magical order also
explains the formal intactness of Jünger’s verbal construct. His work is
not subject to the distorting aim of mediating the experience of complete
alien determinacy with the assumption of the autonomous subject,
which was responsible for the deterioration of the grammatical struc-
tures of other writers in Jünger’s generation.150
The Cool Persona in Literature 157

The Cool Persona and the Sensation of Pain

Jünger’s problem is the century’s problem: Before
women could become an experience for him, there
came the experience of war.
Heiner Müller, Krieg ohne Schlacht

The juxtaposition of Jünger’s essay “Über den Schmerz” with Der Ar-
beiter demonstrates the way that the call for perceptual sharpness, on
the one hand, and the construction of the object of observation from
within the cool persona’s code of conduct, on the other, condition each
other reciprocally. In both texts we encounter the same parallel process:
the demoralization of perception goes hand in hand with the depsychol-
ogization of the observed object, which then behaves in the manner of
a physical body. The latter not only slips out of sight from an ethical per-
spective but in doing so loses its organic quality. All the while, thus dis-
embodied, the object under observation is supposed to gain in substance.
In “Über den Schmerz” the mutual conditioning of perception and
the construction of the object is especially palpable. “At all times,”
Jünger maintains here,
the uniform encompasses an act of armoring, a claim to be protected in a par-
ticular fashion from the onslaught of pain. This is already obvious in the way
it is possible to observe a corpse in uniform with greater coolness than, for
example, a civilian who has fallen in a street battle.151

The armoring of the gaze also allows the object of the gaze to claim the
uniform as a shield.
It is no surprise that Jünger’s diagnosis of the era agrees with the cool
persona’s code of conduct, which requires any person who would exer-
cise power to transform his counterpart from an organic and moral en-
tity into a physical object. The cool persona must learn “to treat the
body as an object”:
This procedure admittedly presupposes an elevated site of command from the
perspective of which the body is regarded as an advance outpost, which the
individual, from a great distance, is capable of sending into battle and
sacrificing.152

In contrast to Brecht and Serner, Jünger “covers the tracks” of the clas-
sic Art of Worldly Wisdom. Nevertheless, it is not difficult to distill from
his essay the following precepts:
158 The Cool Persona in Literature

Adopt an appropriately cool gaze, which can penetrate the fog

banks of morality, gain distance from the hazy influence of compas-
sion, so that things can once again be seen as horrific and demonic,
and therefore made subject to command.
Prepare yourself for a life of pain, but don’t let it come to expression.
Avoid resorting to the narcotic of humanism, which represses the
knowledge of pain from your consciousness.
Learn to accept discipline as a form capable of eliminating the pres-
ence of pain from your consciousness. Then you will be able to de-
velop the “cooler consciousness” that allows you to perceive your-
self as an object.

The burden of the essay “Über den Schmerz” is not to set the condi-
tions of perception. Jünger is primarily interested in articulating a typol-
ogy of pain-resistant persons, as he observes them in the republic’s civil
wars: the lumpen proletarian, the partisan, and the worker-soldier. If
these identifications are surprising, it is because Jünger overlooks the
social space where more obviously cool candidates gather. Renaissance
princes, field commanders or generals, martyrs or hermits lack the req-
uisite ideal traits. Jünger is not searching for exceptions. For the pheno-
type of transgression in the bourgeois world, he looks in the sphere of
labor. The criterion according to which Jünger measures the otherness
of this type is its relation to pain.
The critique of the expressive cult of pain, which we already encoun-
tered in Plessner’s early anthropological text, takes its most radical form
in Jünger’s essay. It not only confirms the prohibition to which Plessner’s
conduct code subjects “eruptive expression,” as a relapse into the ani-
mal realm, but uses the prohibition to draw a sharp boundary separat-
ing the world of the worker from bourgeois society. The bourgeoisie’s
“world of sentimentality” takes the body as a value in itself and derives
principles of “humane” treatment from the core idea of the inviolability
of the body. But Jünger points out that the bourgeoisie has an ambiva-
lent attitude toward pain.
The bourgeoisie’s strategies for avoiding pain set up a disguised form
of the division of labor. Confined on the margins of sentimental soci-
eties, in barracks, clinics, and cloisters, is a type that specializes in pain,
that constantly awaits its application. In the nonviolent intermediate
zones, the individual can repress the surrounding world of pain or— oc-
casionally exposed to it— complain loudly and expressively. He devotes
The Cool Persona in Literature 159

himself to the economy of pain avoidance, occasionally compensating

the emptiness, which is filled only by the diffused light of the media, with
a relapse into “psychological pain.” Such an individual enjoys the arti-
ficial comfort of a life from which pain has been removed, even while be-
ing supplied by the media with images of pain that are part and parcel
of the “dreamy, painless, and strangely unfocused contentment” and
“fill the air like a narcotic.” Jünger’s sharp gaze exposes the dualistic
structure of this condition: narcoticized islands of humanity with pain
specialists permanently on call, surrounding, surveilling, or threatening
them with destruction.
Jünger searches instead for a type that has set up a “life with pain” at
the center of society, without allowing it the ritual vent of plaintive ex-
pression. In the civil war landscape, he finds two uncanny embodiments
of the desired type—the lumpen proletarian and the partisan. Both vio-
lent types stand out against the diffuse, easily outraged masses, since
they appear to be immune to pain; they remain uncanny, because their
actual strength consists in their ability to disappear at critical moments
back into the “amorphous body of the masses.” They lack the clearly
defined contours of the external enemy, in Schmitt’s silhouettelike por-
trayal. They infiltrate the body of the state, make their armored appear-
ances when their moment comes but then vanish from sight whenever
they run the risk of being overpowered. Whereas an armored vehicle can
easily disperse protest demonstrations, it must search out the rioting
lumpen proletarians in their hideouts. In all cases of modernizing trans-
formation, the lumpen proletariat takes an important role, forming, as
Jünger observes, a “subterranean reserve” at the end of the Weimar Re-
public. With a side glance at the National Socialist movement, Jünger
notes that the measure of a modern political movement’s elemental force
is the extent to which it includes such people as these, who are “famil-
iar with the pleasures of torture.”
The defining activity of the partisan as a type also takes place outside
the ordered zone of legality. Nor does it adhere to the rules laid down by
the friend-enemy definition, so that its contours are lost in the sea of the
urban population. The figure of the Communist cadre operating illegally
appears in Jünger’s work in the mask of the partisan, displaying a be-
deviling similarity to Brecht’s character from the Reader for Those Who
Live in Cities. “Cover your tracks!” is a slogan that can drive the dis-
tinction artist to distraction. In Jünger, the partisan must extinguish his
bourgeois identity, simultaneously falling outside the honor code of the
uniformed soldier:
160 The Cool Persona in Literature

The partisan has no cover; short shrift is made of him whenever he is caught.
As he is deployed in war without a uniform, in civil war he turns in his party
card before taking action. The affiliation of the partisan, accordingly, always
remains uncertain. It can never be determined whether he is spy or counter-
spy, belongs to this party or the opposing one, to the police or the vigilantes,
or to all at once—indeed, whether he acts on behalf of anyone at all or is sim-
ply engaged in his own personal criminal deeds. This twilight is part of the
nature of his task.153

This blurring of contours strikes the cool persona as a provocation—

and truly so when it turns up inside the state apparatus and in the “amor-
phous body of the masses,” becoming conspicuous in the commotion of
Sundays and holidays, in the tumult of the streets, or in the “gray hordes
of demobilization” as the “ferment of decomposition” (110).
The outlines of the worker-soldier type, which Jünger juxtaposes to
partisans and lumpen proletarians, never blur. They have been tempered
in war’s “death zone.” Wherever this type appears, all the usual distinc-
tions of race, class, estate disappear. A modern human being, the type
realizes the dream of synchronization between organism and technical
apparatus. Its being is integrated into technology. Enclosed within an
“armored cell,” it is the intelligence of a bullet; an electric machine re-
places the functions of a central nervous system. Jünger presents the type
in centaurlike images, in the concentric encasement of body and ma-
chine, as an “organic” construction. The images Jünger paints of this
electric human crustacean correspond to his ideal of heroic realism: we
encounter this figure in the troops encased in an armored police van on
Alexanderplatz, cutting through the protesting crowds—like a “human
sea”—we see how “inconspicuously” it operates the controls of its fight-
ing machines or, “masked and enclosed in defensive shells, it marches
through clouds of tear gas” (98); it pilots a Japanese torpedo; 154 or it
crouches “in the fiery vortex of a falling fighter plane, in the air pocket
of a sunken submarine on the bottom of the sea” (107). Radio signals
inform us that a being yet lurks inside the metal shell. Or is it just the ra-
dio simulating its presence?
Perception has created the fitting object for the cool persona. It gazes
indifferently back.

Armor from a Different Perspective To replace this military vision of

the persona trapped in the metal shell of organic construction for new ob-
jectivity images of civilian life offers a certain relief. But the habitus we
The Cool Persona in Literature 161

encounter here is not unrelated to war. “Not to be injured anymore”—

the soldier’s trauma prompts civilians as well to don their armor:
New objectivity painters prefer representing the individual fully clothed,
packed in as many casings as possible. They paint people defended by suits,
vests, ties, leather jackets, coats, by gloves, hats, and caps. Räderscheidt
shows us a young man standing in a black suit, with yellow gloves and a
bowler, alone on a vast square before a geometrically standardized architec-
ture taken directly from the pittura metafisica of Giorgio de Chirico, appar-
ently transposed into the modern world. He wears his closely fitting clothes
like armor, protected from fear and cold, but for that the more isolated from
his surroundings, and the lonelier.155

In Plessner, the social role forms a protective shield, maintaining dis-

tance, filtering expression, reducing friction. In Jünger, masks protect
people in daily life, evoking “for men, a metallic, and for women, a cos-
metic impression” (171). Everywhere we find the desire for an impene-
trable shielding—against external danger or against internal decompo-
sition and daily shaming.
Panzer, which in English means armor, shield, and tank, is one of the
magical words in the republic’s masculinity cult. On the one hand, it re-
calls legends of the fallen warrior, overcome only by dint of material
superiority; on the other, it accepts the necessity of a form of resistance
that assimilates the tools of the aggressor. Mythologized in this way, ar-
mor also takes center stage for the enlightenment discourse of the re-
public, which sought to demystify it.
For psychoanalysts, the formation of a “cool armoring” begins early,
as a reaction to birth trauma (Otto Rank) or occurs as an element of
the “collective neurosis” of a society become fatherless following the
collapse of Wilhelmian authority.156 Toward the end of the republic,
Wilhelm Reich, discussing his theory of character analysis, speaks of
“ego armoring” as a defensive apparatus intended to mount an offense
against the stimuli of the external world and intercept the libidinal
transgressions of the id.157 He sees a neurotic element in the armor, be-
cause fear is continually involved in maintaining it. Its sole function of
averting “disgrace” draws ego armor into the “catastrophe of ridicu-
lousness” that the cool persona tries at any cost to avoid and can lead to
severe neurotic idiosyncrasies.
More popular than Reich’s explanations of neurosis, however, was
a finding of individual psychology according to which the superiority
habitus of the armored ego implies the compensation of an organic
162 The Cool Persona in Literature

inferiority. In Alfred Adler, the experience of inferiority becomes an

elemental force in human evolution, which is responsible for cultural
achievements. The individual, from the moment of birth, lacks what is
responsible for making other sorts of creatures more powerful than
he. “The influence of the climate forces him to protect himself from cold
with materials taken from better protected animals. His organism re-
quires an artificial encasement.”158 Sigmund Freud, in contrast, rejects
the derivation of the inferiority complex from organic defects and refers
(to put it in abbreviated form) this feeling’s power to experiences of be-
ing deprived of love and fear of castration.
Others have put psychoanalytic insights to persuasive use, explaining
certain of the types in our portrait gallery of the cool persona.159 I sum-
marize this approach here primarily to introduce a story that develops
an explanation of the superiority complex into a satirical text about or-
ganic construction. Jünger, in “Über den Schmerz,” remarks:
Just the fact that the individual is closed up inside rolling vehicles lends him
the appearance of greater inviolability and does not fail to work its effect on
those being attacked.160

In his story of “Der Riese Agoag” (1936), Musil transfers Jünger’s he-
roic notion of a “living torpedo” to the banal psychology of everyday
life.161 The hero of the story, attributing his scant attractiveness to
women to his skinny body, compensates first by reading the boxing
news and later by devoting himself from morning to night to body build-
ing. Always, after using his day to the fullest in just this way, he goes to
sleep, first
spreading out all the muscles he can muster all at the same time, then lying
there in his own muscles like an alien piece of meat in the claws of an eagle,
until, overcome by fatigue, the grip loosens and he falls straight down into
sleep.

The image of Ganymede in the grip of the eagle (Adler) suggests that our
hero leaves something to be desired on the aggression scale and that he
might more securely fantasize being wrapped in the wings of homophilia
than confronting the woman (if the mention of bird of prey does not re-
fer only to Adler’s compensation theory). In any case, it is no surprise
that our bodybuilder gets beaten up shortly after by a “fat blob of a per-
son,” an incident which causes him to lose favor with the woman once
again. Only now is he in a position to appreciate the advantages of an
“organic construction.” When he chances one day to witness an acci-
dent in which a city bus runs over an athlete, our hero seizes the oppor-
The Cool Persona in Literature 163

tunity and “climbs right up into the victor” (incidentally, the Berlin
transit system used the acronym ABOAG). Now he is rendered “invin-
cible by the apparatus of power.” If other heroes put on their armor
(Panzer), why should he not put on a bus? From a superior command
position in the upper deck he feels himself able to scatter the masses on
the street “like sparrows.” Yet before he realizes his dream, which he op-
timizes by acquiring a bus pass, he cannot help seeing that he does not
in fact gain the irresistible appeal he attributes to becoming an element
of an organic construction. Out of his armor, he seems castrated. After
he recognizes that woman, on account of “her lesser cognitive daring,”
is unable to make the conceptual leap from the armor to its inhabitant,
he resigns himself to his lot—not, however, without adding a trium-
phant summary: “The strong are mightiest on their own.”

Electric Fins for Leviathan What separates Helmuth Plessner’s con-

struction of the duelist from Ernst Jünger’s construction of the worker?
And is the distance between the landscape of Jünger’s “electromagnetic
force fields” and Walter Benjamin’s sketch “Zum Planetarium,” the con-
cluding piece of his 1928 book Einbahnstraße, one between disaster and
welfare? 162
In Jünger’s book Der Arbeiter: Herrschaft und Gestalt, the icon of the
warrior fascinates the gestalt of the cool persona. The warrior’s phys-
iognomy—beneath a steel helmet or a crash helmet—is metallic, “gal-
vanized, as it were.” “The gaze is steady and focused, schooled in the
observation of things that can be captured in high velocity conditions”
(107). This icon appealed to readers on the right, while the modernism of
the diagnosis put them off. Readers on the left, who registered Jünger’s
sympathy for planning and his quasi-Marxist theory of simultaneity,
did not know what to do with it. Theorists, finally, who admire the way
Jünger’s book reveals the relationship between war as an instrument of
modernization and the domination of the technical media, tend to dis-
tance themselves from his horrific images of “heroic realism” by relegat-
ing them to the status of contemporary coloration.163 Ideology critique,
for which the book has become easy prey, deprives it of any diagnostic
value, although its findings are as proximate to Günther Anders’s An-
tiquiertheit des Menschen as to the chapter on the “culture industry” in
Horkheimer and Adorno’s Dialectik der Aufklärung.
The book’s foreword of July 1932 names all the elements we have
come to expect from a new objectivity code of conduct. Jünger connects
the demand for perceptual sharpness, which is supposed to render vis-
164 The Cool Persona in Literature

ible the critical aspects of power (“Leviathan’s fins” [7]), to the form of
the soldier’s spiritual exercises, which seem designed to train him in an
instinctive security of action.
Jünger’s book aims, like the other conduct codes, at a lifestyle. Once
again we encounter the fundamental motif of the codes, which is to
cultivate a distance from the body. Jünger’s spiritual exercise aims at a
“metallic coolness” of consciousness that enables the individual, in the
extreme situations of the death zone, “to treat the body as a pure in-
strument, forcing from it a range of complicated accomplishments be-
yond the bounds of self-preservation” (107). The book offers instruction
in the habitus of the sharp gaze, counting “high treason against the
mind” as one of the “horrible pleasures of our time” (39). Like all codes
of conduct, Jünger’s works with a theory of masks, so that a series of
precepts can be distilled from the book:

The hardness of society can be mastered only by hardness, and not

by any form of trickery (28).
The more cynical or spartan, Prussian or Bolshevik . . . a life can be,
the better it will be (201).
Reality is determined, not by moral precepts, but by laws. There-
fore the decisive question to be posed is this: is there a point from
which it can be authoritatively decided whether a particular means
should be employed or not? (191).
There is no escape, no move sideways, no move backward; the point
is much more to increase the fury and the speed of the processes in
which we are caught (194).
Nothing is as constant as change. . . . When unrest comes to a stop,
every moment becomes a starting point of an Asiatic constancy
(172 f.).

By listing Der Arbeiter among the conduct codes examined here, we

risk obscuring its novelty. Jünger’s compendium, like the others, serves
the education of an “aristocracy” and an “order.” But his nervous gaze
discovers it in incipient form in tank and submarine crews, in the ranks
of the security troops of a political movement or cadre—in a type that
can be reproduced in masses, not in the individually prominent duel-
ing subject. The habitus of this type corresponds to its metaphysical
“stamp” (Gestalt). If the cool persona of the art scene comes into view,
Jünger delivers it up to the derision of his type, which finds amusement
The Cool Persona in Literature 165

in how clumsy the old sort of duelist looks in a landscape of the techni-
cal media:
A special ceremony has been developed in which the modern individual, in
the disguise of a quasi-aristocrat or quasi-abbé, to the sound of what has be-
come very general applause, executes the practiced mortal thrust according
to all the rules of the art. This is a game for which existential quantities have
become two-edged concepts. More important for us is the hand movement
with which the streetcar conductor rings his bell. (229)

In the world opened up by this book there are no reserves left over,
no “last bits” of “something dangerous” preserved “as a curiosity” (52).
The activities of the artist shift from the periphery of the romantic space
into the sphere of power. Only here, according to Jünger, is it possible
to experience the “elemental.”
The individual as the “intersection” in a “network” of “cross-cutting
currents”—this viewpoint is registered, without the reservation of cul-
tural pessimism, for the first time by Jünger. The individual is hooked
into the system by a cipher code:
The power, traffic, and news services appear as a field in the coordinate system
of which the individual is to be understood as a specific point. One “gets a
bearing on him,” for example, by turning the dial on an automatic telephone.
The functional value of such a tool rises with the number of people con-
nected—but this number never appears as a mass in the old sense but is always
a quantity that can be expressed in precise numbers at any moment. (139)

A person in the modern media landscape who remains “immersed”

in printed material, Jünger could only say ironically, will be made aware
of the connections that nevertheless persist to general power circuits.
The newspaper reader Jünger observes pursues a “different kind of read-
ing,” that is not to be understood in the sense of immersion:
This becomes clear where one has the opportunity to observe the reader in
situations, especially situations of public transit, in which merely making use
of it already means going to work. An observer here will register a simulta-
neously alert and instinctive atmosphere, in which a news service of the great-
est precision and speed is appropriate. One seeks the impression here that the
world has changed during the reading, but this change is at once constant, in
the sense of a monotonous change of colored signals flying by outside the
windows. This is news inside a space where everything that happens involves
the presence of atoms bombarded at the speed of an electric current. (264)

Jünger’s praise of precision is for the technical medium. The news itself
(for instance, a launching, a mining accident, or a motorcycle race) and
166 The Cool Persona in Literature

the place to which the media turn their attention have no particular im-
port. What suddenly occupies the center of attention is remote from the
influence of the individual. Occasionally—having scarcely gotten used
to the news service as a purely functional accompaniment to a habitual
pattern of movement—the individual suffers a shock; without him, cir-
culation would come to a standstill. Nothing the reading material con-
tains can bring the reader to remove himself from the transport sys-
tem in which he reads the paper. The all-encompassing dream created
by the media has no fixed focal point. The attention of the newspaper
reader, like that of the chess master playing simultaneous games, is al-
ways on call:
There is something anxiety inducing, recalling the mute glow of a traffic sig-
nal, when suddenly one or another excerpt of this space—whether a threat-
ened province, a big trial, a sporting event, a natural disaster, or the cabin of
a transoceanic airplane, becomes the center of attention and thus the effec-
tive moment as well, and when a dense ring of artificial eyes and ears closes
around it. (256)

If we look for the stylistic move that allows Jünger to produce the im-
ages of networking circuitry, we come on a maneuver that is as simple
as it is astonishing: he changes the central technical metaphor. Jünger is
one of the first writers to place the model of the electric circuit at the cen-
ter of social analysis. Electricity, with its force field, network, connec-
tion, replaces the steam engine, the model of a psychologically oriented
literature. Whenever he singles out a phenomenon’s systematic quality,
electricity is the dominant image; the combustion engine serves better to
emphasize the dynamic quality. The electric topos recommends itself
when one element in the total space requires an explanation: “The
arrangement of atoms thus takes on the sort of nonambiguity that pre-
vails in the electromagnetic force field” (266). Jünger attributes a special
status to the electric media; they possess the quality of machines that re-
place, not only muscle power, as in the case of the older generation of
technical apparatuses, but the functions of the central nervous system.
Alongside these characteristics derived from electricity, Jünger finds an
additional reason to elevate them to the central metaphor of his system-
atic thinking: the electric network comes under the administrative au-
thority of the state, which controls all the connections and integrates
every user of current into an “energy association” (215). The individual
automatically has the status of an “organic construction” (275).
The metaphor of the electromagnetic force field, incidentally, enters
the work of Walter Benjamin, Bertolt Brecht, and Joseph Roth. Research
The Cool Persona in Literature 167

has made us aware of the great influence of the concept of the abstract,
nonexperiential descriptive and explanatory model of the force field in
physics on the epistemological discussion carried on in Vienna at the
turn of the century:
In terms of content, the invisible electromagnetic force field, which, for ex-
ample, arranges a previously chaotic pile of iron filings all in the same direc-
tion, opened up the possibility of an analogous assumption of energies oper-
ating supraindividually, as in the formation of structured communities out of
masses.164

The penetration of electric metaphors into philosophy and literature

stems from the way in which they lend expression to the otherwise inef-
fable quality of the élan vital. At the core of the force field metaphor is
an image:
the existence of energetic tension between two opposed poles. This datum
could be used to connect the polarized thought of classical Rome with the
specifically vitalist idea that a life of intensity can only take place between
two extremes.165

Jünger relocates this vitalist idea, using the electric metaphor only to
characterize the monodimensional, systemic quality of the society of the
worker.
Electricity, for Jünger, is an index of simultaneity: Those who sit
under an electric light discussing the return to nature (223) or put the
body of Christ next to a microphone or broadcast an encyclical over
the radio (73) are hooked into the network of modernization. The syn-
chronization of divergent mentalities with the highest technological level
is already a fait accompli, even while it is still being vigorously called
into question. Like his Marxist contemporaries, Jünger has in mind the
lightbulb—hanging on a public utility wire—when he recalls a famous
sentence from Marx’s work Zur Kritik der politischen Ökonomie as he
interprets society: “It is a general light into which all other colors are
dipped, which alters them in their specificity” (98).
The new media are the leviathan state’s electric fins. Even in extreme
situations—in the air bubble of a submarine on the ocean floor, in the
cockpit of a crashing fighter plane—the electric media remain connected
to the all-encompassing network, with which the individual can break
contact only at the threat of being extinguished.

What drives the cool persona in the “electromagnetic force field” of such
a space? Networked and run through with circuits, it might well fizzle
168 The Cool Persona in Literature

out to nothingness. But this is a wild guess. Nothing animates the cool
persona like the images of nothingness it itself produces. And so the sys-
tem’s present moment also belongs to the cool persona.
In the landscape of the electric media, we see the cool persona in a
man “bent over his cards to the hum of the telephone and the clatter
of the news agency teletype.”166 He resists distractions but cultivates
the awareness of the chess master; in fact, the cool persona ignores
any sound that cannot be clearly deciphered, any amorphous acoustical
signal. But the technical channels’ white noise triggers a state of perma-
nent unrest. On the battlefield, the persona is forced to probe even the
most insignificant sounds for their meaning. There are reports from the
First World War of the use of aural locator devices, equipped with giant
reception horns and superhuman frequency ranges, which allowed sol-
diers to identify enemy artillery installations from twenty miles away.167
The new media open up new possibilities. They do not, as writing
does, filter whatever the screen of the symbolic order allows to enter but
are automatically part of “the roar of the real.”168 Their deployment
in war only reinforces the ordering function of writing. No detritus
of meaning remains, as meaningless undergrowth, optical garbage, or
acoustical nonsense: the media register everything. A final corner of the
perceptual field not yet occupied by meaning—a deserted bit of woods,
the rustling of a newspaper page, an unknown tonal frequency, the ir-
regularities of a crater landscape— comes clear. “Meaningless” distur-
bances of regularity are especially in need of decoding, because they
might well be points of enemy incursion.
With the help of the electric media, the mesh of the symbolic becomes
finer, the environment of understanding perception more hermetic. In
Jünger’s system, every sound is under the high voltage of meaning. An
American study claims that Jünger’s “fascist modernism” promised “to
liberate the imagery from the Jacobin tyranny of the symbolic order”; 169
nevertheless, in 1932 Jünger did more to reinforce the omnipresence of
the symbolic order, by binding the electric media to writing.
When Jünger’s cool persona steps into the field of reality where
Schmitt’s distinguo ergo sum resounds, fuzzy contours suddenly clear.
Everything becomes a clue pointing to a secret center. The new media
amplify the power of distinction. Probably a statement like Musil’s at
the end of a puzzling story—“But it is like whispering you’ve heard or
merely a rustling, without being able to distinguish it”170 —is irritating
to the cool persona. The latter demands clear, if possible, sharp articu-
lation. If sounds are to reveal enemy conditions, they must be audible
The Cool Persona in Literature 169

and undisturbed by background noise or technical distortions, which

could garble the message. “Electricity,” Marshall McLuhan will remark
three decades after Der Arbeiter, “points the way to an extension of the
process of consciousness itself, on a world scale, and without any ver-
balization whatsoever.”171
Jünger cannot do without verbalization in the imperium of the worker.
Nevertheless, it is possible to identify in his work a double movement in
regard to language: he ascribes to the new media all the restrictive char-
acteristics that present-day media theory attributes to writing, in order,
at the same time, to present as the music of the future a form of archaic
communication in which the auditory is primary: the anxious attending
to the voice coming from the secret center. Jünger’s desire for a “compe-
tent reserve of illiterates” (203), necessary for the empire of the worker
to function, is understandable. Only illiterates, he hopes, will submit ab-
solutely to the commands of the literate stratum of rulers.
The language that Jünger admits into his system does away with the
openness of verbal references, the instability of meaning and meanings,
the ambivalences of expression, the labyrinth of correspondences, in
short, the entire potential range of speech and thus all that is emblem-
atic of linguistic life. Language keeps only its function to signal and
warn, to instruct and command; it is always referential language, an
element of a “secure and closed world of forms.” Fearing “endless dia-
lectical talk” (227), Jünger seeks to disempower speech. He mistrusts all
texts that admit ambiguity: “There is absolutely no doubt that a text-
book today has more meaning than the latest spinning out of unique ex-
perience by the bourgeois novel”(141), he comments.
Since Jünger regards books that make up an individual’s memory sys-
tem as so much ballast, he gives his own book an appropriate form. Al-
though prompted by countless findings in books in libraries, he eschews
references of any sort, names no names that might remind the reader of
alien, strange, or canonical influences.172 Thus the book suggests that it
is itself “marked” as “metaphysics,” which is also supposed to be regis-
tered in the form. That accounts for the book’s curious individual quali-
ties that amount to the author’s handwriting.
We saw one theoretical component of Jünger’s “total artwork” in
the avant-garde movement. The world disintegrates into meaninglessly
disparate component parts, glaring nonsimultaneities, dingy twilight
spaces, craters, trash, and magic only—in an audacious move on the
part of avant-garde thinkers, joining this perception to the circuit of
modernization—to sparkle like a crystal in the “icy geometry of light”
170 The Cool Persona in Literature

(166). First all immanent meaning vanishes from the world and the char-
acters populating it, then from a heavenly stage set modern gadgetry and
the media crank down the center of meaning like an artificial sun.
Jünger’s topos of modernity as an earthquake landscape—in which
“ruins appear to be more significant than the fleeting quarters that
get abandoned every morning” (83) 173 — displays certain similarities
with the landscape of baroque tragedy, as conceived by another avant-
garde thinker, Walter Benjamin, at the same time: decaying landscapes,
squares both abandoned and overpopulated, the whole overcast by the
cold heavens; rebellion offering no escape from this disconsolate earthly
state. “The earth,” as Jünger puts it, “is covered by the rubbish of crum-
bled images. We are taking part in a spectacle of decline comparable
only to geological catastrophes” (74). A desolate space through which
generations have passed, leaving behind “neither savings nor monu-
ments, but solely a certain stage, the flood marks of mobilization” (165).
As soon, however, as Jünger illuminates these images in his laterna ma-
gica from the “constant light source” (99) of a center, everything makes
sense. Everything takes on the coloration of the “crystal,” the total work
space. Every bit of grenade shrapnel becomes an allegory of strategic
meaning; every bodily movement occurs in the service of mobilization;
to the keen observer, the broadcast signal, however distorted it may be,
holds an encoded reference.
“There is nothing more regular than the axial orientation of the crys-
tal” (220), we read in Der Arbeiter. Carl Schmitt terms the hermetic sys-
tem constructed in his 1927 philosophy of the state a “Hobbes crystal.”
Jakob von Uexküll presupposes in 1930 that life develops like a “crys-
talline formation.”174 For Arnold Gehlen, a “crystalline structure” is
the defining aspect of the standstill of history.175 From modern biology
we learn that total symmetry of this sort—however fascinating aesthet-
ically—means death in the world of living organisms. Ernst Jünger was
never one to promote the “myth of the avant-garde’s innocence.”176

COOL PERSONA — IN THE BELLY OF THE FISH

Nothing so threatens the cool persona’s sense of Luciferian grandeur as

the “banality of evil.” How can its habitus survive dictatorship, holo-
caust, and war? Does a point come when attitude must be put at risk for
the sake of experience, or does focus on such a point simply reflect a de-
sire for expression? Further, does the cool persona’s refusal to mourn af-
ter the Second World War compulsively repeat an attitude after the First
The Cool Persona in Literature 171

World War that found increasing resonance in the public sphere? In Carl
Schmitt’s Glossarium, amid the rubble, we see the cool persona’s final
stand.
No other intellectual of the 1920s acted out objectivity’s trademark
role—gambling with the devil—more consistently than Carl Schmitt.
No one managed to contrive such an alliance with moral evil on the lofty
plane of the state. Our question now concerns what remains of this
Luciferian figure after the Second World War. Does it ask, like the ex-
hausted Lindbergh after his transatlantic flight, to be carried off “to a
dark hangar, so no one sees my weakness”?

The Diary Schmitt’s diary, published in 1991, begins after his release
from an American internment camp. The entries run from late sum-
mer 1947 to August 1951. He writes as the Cold War was beginning
to spread its atmosphere of bitter enmity over all debates, and it comes
as no surprise that in his diary Schmitt refers sarcastically to the taboo
against taking international animosity as the starting point of theoreti-
cal reflection. Schmitt draws a straight line from the taboo to artless talk
of the “just war,” in which, according to Schmitt, fundamentalism
blends with unregulated killing. His thoughts return insistently to the
question of whether putting an end to the political definition of enmity
might not enhance the possibility of civil war and the ritual atrocities
that accompany it. And he ponders, as could hardly be expected other-
wise, the problem of depriving the vanquished of enemy status in order
to subject them to hearings and judicial judgment as criminals.
The diary’s appearance undermined the assumption humanistic
Schmitt scholars had cultivated of a turn marked by the publication of
Der Leviathan in der Staatslehre von Thomas Hobbes in 1938. With
this book Schmitt supposedly broke off his dalliance with state fetish-
ism, which dated from 1919, in order then, in the 1942 text Land und
Meer, to carry out a kind of “mourning.”177 The diary disappointed
expectations, maintaining with undiminished vigor all of Schmitt’s
theoretical motifs, from his 1916 hymn of praise to Theodor Däubler’s
Nordlicht to the enemy formula of the 1920s, from reflections on lin-
guistic magic, taken over from his friend Hugo Ball, to the anti-Semitic
outbursts of the 1930s. Any break in the continuity of his thought,
writes Schmitt, indicates nothing more than a “mental disturbance”
(105). A diary necessarily produces “photocopies of the palimpsest
character” (130) of thinking, he maintains, offering a definition we
could work with, were it not part of a defensive strategy that allows
172 The Cool Persona in Literature

him to determine which of the successive layers of thought is the funda-

mental one.
The manifest outrage many reviewers expressed over the diary’s pub-
lication reflects their disappointment. They expected a document of the
guilt culture and got unrepentant effrontery. While the reviewers’ moral
indignation was no doubt justified, a thoughtful look at the ideas ex-
pressed in the diary would not have hurt them. These ideas revolve
monomaniacally around the principle nullum crimen, nulla poena, sine
lege, which is the title of a verdict that Schmitt had circulated in hecto-
graph in 1945. The diary’s contents include a collection of timely max-
ims. Infamous maxims, too, can instruct:
A good conscience that is expedited by the judiciary is the worst. (90)
Most people think taking off a fake beard is a metamorphosis. (107)
Whoever is right a few years prematurely is wrong. (144)
Scholastic asceticism is an ethical plus, but it falls short of theoretical
accomplishment. (113)

Reading the book historically, we can ask what became of the cult of evil
after the Second World War, which had held in its spell such disparate
minds as Helmuth Plessner and Ernst Jünger, Gottfried Benn and Wal-
ter Benjamin, E. R. Curtius and Bertolt Brecht. Of greatest interest in
this connection is the combination of self-enactment, compulsive brood-
ing, and complaining that always turns the Glossarium’s lofty figure of
the cool persona into a infantile ventriloquist. Schmitt’s diary shows as
well how the cool persona and the creature are uncanny doubles: “What
is man! The circulation of blood, cast in the light of a poor will-o’-the-
wisp” (314).
A few basic motifs of the old avant-garde made it through the dead
of winter to sprout in the diary: the “joy in the acceleration” (31) of
fatal processes, which Schmitt shared with the intellectuals of the left;
the return to seventeenth-century anthropology, which welcomes in the
state a great machine for keeping the “terror of drives” (207) in check;
scorn for the faith in law as the “instinctlessness of a living being con-
demned to decline” (23, 50, 301), in which he marks his agreement with
Brecht, Lukács, and Lenin; 178 and the pleasure involved in having a “sa-
tanic” (5) reputation. In these notes we find slogans (e.g., “The primitive
thinks in substances, the civilized man in functions” [161]) in which the
new objectivity jargon lives on. Also the pathos of invulnerability and
mobility that surrounded the new objectivity’s mechanical man comes
The Cool Persona in Literature 173

back into force: “Best is when the enemy who shoots at me hits the spot
where I stood a second before” (190).
The classic characteristics of the cool persona remain present in the
years from 1947 to 1951; boastful and fascinating in public presenta-
tion, subdued in private notes. For the diary bears the remarkable char-
acteristic of that “compulsive brooding” Benjamin saw in Jesuit spiritual
exercises:
This torment of intellectual consciousness is predestined for authoritarian
rule through its complete lack of substance. It has lost all relation to the
essence of individual being and it offers absolution, depending on how one
wants to look at it, either mystically or mechanically, like a sacrament. The
tension of penitent torment, displaced to that purely intentional zone, at the
same time leaves moral life resting in a certain apathy, in which it now reacts
not to its own impulses but rather to carefully weighed and considered stim-
uli of spiritual authority.179

The habitus that undertakes spiritual exercises with no grounding in

morality coincides, predictably, with the attitude of the mendicant crea-
ture. Tossing aside Gracián’s precept no. 129, “Never complain,” the
Glossarium engages in a plaintive discursive ritual: “Injustice is always
ever again my lot” (252).
From the angle of Benjamin’s book on German tragedy, Schmitt’s self-
portrait in the diary is that of an ousted intriguer who mopes, while re-
fusing resolutely to adopt the role of the melancholic. Schmitt slips on
all the masks of the poor supplicant creature he finds in his extensive
reading, from Kaspar Hauser to Kafka’s defendant in Der Prozess, from
victims of ritual murder to the prophet Jonah inside the whale:
Three times I was in the belly of the fish. I have tasted the defeat of the civil war,
inflation and deflation, revolution and restoration, changes of regimes and
burst pipes, currency reform, air bombardments, and interrogations; camps
and barbed wire, hunger and cold, ragged clothes and hideous bunkers. (81)

Schmitt’s Shame Culture After 1945 Schmitt repeats an attitude that

corresponds to the post–World War I zeitgeist: he does away with ele-
ments of the guilt culture—troubled conscience, remorse—and erects
once again the artificial realm of a heroic shame culture. The difference
that springs painfully to the eye, of course, is that the idea of a post–
World War II shame culture is a phantasm, with no corresponding pub-
lic discursive space in which to unfold. In the context of the Nuremberg
trials, the statement of the Protestant church, and denazification, a guilt
174 The Cool Persona in Literature

culture is a matter of official prescription, so that Schmitt’s shame cul-

ture has to articulate itself outside the public sphere.
The key concepts of the shame culture are honor and disgrace. After
World War I the issue was the “disgrace” of imperial collapse, which,
according to the rules of male association and bonding, had to be re-
versed. At issue now for Schmitt is the “honor” of which he was de-
prived as a vanquished foe. Everything that the Allies undertook with
Schmitt, during his incarceration and afterward, he experiences as a
shaming ritual, in which he, suddenly abandoned to the resentful gaze
of the enemy, isolated from his fellows and discriminated against, must
armor himself. He experiences his stay in the cell of an American camp
as exposure. “Man is most naked when he is stripped and made to stand
in front of another who is clothed,” he writes in April 1947 in his “Weis-
heit der Zelle.” “The clothes that were left to me,” Schmitt continues,
“only confirmed my objective nakedness.”180 The effective factor in a
shame culture is not the admonition of the individual conscience but
the scorn of others, enacted in the form of public disgrace. Following his
release from the Nuremberg prison into the American zone, Schmitt,
rather than return to Berlin and the forum of a despising public, goes to
Plettenberg, where he believes that he is immune to disgrace. From here
he fires off condemnations of the Protestant guilt culture, striving to
keep his distance from its “spectacle of a brawl between preachers of
repentance” (30). He is “disgusted” by the pathos of moral indignation,
and he notes bouts of “depression,” because people expect “from me
tips for memorial inscriptions in the confessional style.” On “Der Fall
Jaspers” (the case of Jaspers), he later records the derisive verse:

How his penitential speech offends me

How disgusting are his rotten fish
Now he’s gotten where he ought to be:
In the news and on the German telewish. (104) 181

“A jurist,” Schmitt reflects during the summer of 1946, still in the Amer-
ican internment camp, “steers clear of psychological self-depiction. The
impulse to offer a literary confession has been spoiled for me by such
ugly examples as Jean-Jacques Rousseau and poor August Strind-
berg.”182 Schmitt is not among the public “self-torturers.” “If you want
to make a confession, go find a priest and do it there” (77).
He unrolls once again the old banner “Tout ce qui arrive est ado-
rable!” (8), carried by the avant-garde and the militant Catholic Léon
Bloy too; but the slogan he writes in his diary presumably has little to
The Cool Persona in Literature 175

do with the fate he himself experienced. For he had been “dishonored.”

Carl Schmitt seeks comfort in the “all-surpassing objectivity” (119) of
Thomas Hobbes and finds himself vindicated: “Hobbes would say: as
long as one finds honor among men . . . , he will regard this life as splen-
did” (44).
But the treatment Schmitt experiences in no way accords to his sta-
tus; what he has to say has been banished from that space of consensual
resonance, so that he screams “with no voice.” Since he is not prepared
to repent, he receives no license for publications. His power of definition
lacks a place to be exercised in public; worse yet, he has lost that power
to the “enemy.” And the latter, by virtue of its monopoly on making
distinctions, incriminated his practice since 1933—which is for Schmitt
a serious logical error.
The power of definition had been Schmitt’s elixir, the axis of his sov-
ereign consciousness. At the center of his Glossarium we find the motto
that also belonged to the creed of Weimar’s leftist intellectuals:
Understand the power that is trying to get you in its grasp; do not confront
it with countermeasures on the same level; rather, test your power to under-
stand against that power. It will also try to grasp your understanding. But let
it. It will cut its paws. (145)

Nor can he, in the seclusion of his refuge in Plettenberg, resist circulat-
ing “dangerous definitions” in letters. Still in the role of “hunted game”
(174), he wants to classify his hunters. Sometimes he manages to get his
views—as a kind of smuggled contraband—published in an organ ap-
proved by the occupation powers. Then he rejoices that his contraband,
in good new objectivity manner, is allowed to ride on a commodity:
In the weekly journal Christ und Welt, a nice little gloss of mine has been
printed, via an advertisement for Nivea cream. It is good so. In czarist times
the Russian nihilists hid their bombs in flower pots. Why should I not frame
my analogous concerns with Nivea cream. Or, conversely, make my own ap-
pearance as the frame for Nivea cream, so as not to agitate the persecutors.
(111)

Schmitt directs his attention to the unsecured terrain of postwar society

and, as in the 1920s, it remains now: when orienting parameters col-
lapse, it’s time for codes of conduct.
On 1 May 1948 Carl Schmitt, following the familiar model of
Gracián’s Art of Worldly Wisdom, notes seven maxims, to which he
will later add a few others. The Spanish Jesuit, we recall, replaced the
internal regulator, the conscience, with an external voice—a code of
176 The Cool Persona in Literature

conduct. Three of these tactical rules, in Schmitt’s version, are as

follows:
If you end up in a loudly screaming chorus, you must scream the text your-
self as loudly as you can. Anything else would mean your certain ugly
death. Your hearing and brain would be shattered from without if you
didn’t defend yourself from within by screaming along; I can only recom-
mend to you then a purely physical means of defense against annihilation
by sound waves. (144)
Go into the shelter when the signal calls for it; raise your hands when
you are ordered to; don’t forget that the relation between protection and
obedience is no longer certain and self-evident; the shelter can be the gas
chamber. (144)
Beware of every loudspeaker; beware of every microphone that conducts
your voice into the false public sphere [see Figure 12]. Every amplifier is a
meaning counterfeiter. . . . But beware of the false echo that arises in the
byways of the catacombs. (172)

Borrowing from Thomas Hobbes’s theory of the state, Schmitt as-

sumes from the outset a reciprocal relation between protection and obe-
dience. Just as the protector can demand obedience, those who obey
have a right to protection. Where this arrangement is violated, behavior
can no longer be steered in a way that ensures protection. The result is
that everyone is delivered up defenseless to circumstance. Schmitt thus
formulates rules for situations that, from his perspective, are no longer
subject to regulation. Bitterly, he elaborates his precepts ad absurdum;
for their validity is restricted to honor-based social groups. He lays re-
sponsibility for his rules’ absurdity at the feet of the dishonorable victo-
rious powers.

Phonomania and Creature Schmitt’s behavioral rules recreate the

world of mobilization as an acoustic space. He advises in favor of purely
physical defensive mechanisms, which are supposed to guarantee sur-
vival, while the command’s substance or the song’s text is of no matter.
Schmitt’s diary thus documents a remarkable form of phonocentrism. It
reflects his resistance to the concept of law and clarifies his childish fixa-
tion on the “voice of the father.”
Through three hundred and twenty pages of diary entries, there is
scarcely a reproduction of a visual impression to be found. The diary
leads us into a world of acoustic phenomena, into a laboratory of echo-
ing voices. Ultimately, the friend-enemy theory receives a phonetic basis.
Even close friends appear without facial features; in the case of Jünger,
Schmitt registers the “pathetic larynx” (104); for historically more dis-
The Cool Persona in Literature 177

12. Beware of every microphone!

(Carl Schmitt. With the permission of Ullstein Bilder-
dienst, Berlin.)

tant associates such as Max Stirner, he occasionally remarks on a “pu-

erile crowing” (36). In the auditory space of the Schmittian world, Hitler
is an “empty amplifier” (111); the ego, a figure (Gestalt) of the “echo”
(17); the worst characteristic of the contemporary world, its “deafness.”
Schmitt feels himself beset by “eavesdropping nonjurists” and jurists
who do not listen (85); his strongest affect consists in the “shudder and
outrage” that overtake him when he hears the word “law” (23). “Timely
silence” counts for him as a classical virtue. His favorite role to play in
the vicissitudes of life is that of the “blind harbinger” (152; cf. 16). The
figure of the “noble blind man” (Jürgen Manthey), who succumbs to nei-
ther the seductions of narcissism nor the illusions of visual appearances
but “listens,” suffers, and speaks, hoping to get a hearing, is his idol.
Schmitt reacts idiosyncratically, as if irritated and impatient, to any
argument based in any way on appearance. It pains him, leaves him
178 The Cool Persona in Literature

dumbfounded to register that the persuasiveness of his voice could be

undermined after the war by the horrifying evidence of film (204). When
he reads that the new Bavarian constitution begins with the words “In
view of the rubble around us,” his condemnation is complete (235).
Those who would accept visual appearances as evidence make optical il-
lusion the basis of constitutional principles.
If the goal is to arrive at principles of law, the eye must be eliminated
as an organ of moral judgment. While visible facts have no argumenta-
tive status (with the exception, incidentally, of the “visibility” of the ju-
diciary itself, which he sees as establishing its “substance” [235]), every
conceivable acoustic signal prompts thought. No excuse is too paltry.
On 19 February 1948 he writes:
I hear (mornings at 6:00, in the dark, still half asleep) a factory siren, accom-
panied by a vision of the wide-open jaws of a huge fish. I would like to pur-
sue the immediate simultaneity of an acoustic impression with a visual im-
age. That would likely be more productive than researching the problem of
radar. It would offer a glimpse of our inner sensorium. People who hear, in-
stead of church bells, only factory sirens are supposed to believe in the God
who is worshiped in church. They are more likely to believe in an iron-hard
Moloch. (110) 183

The foreground point raised in Schmitt’s depiction of his acoustic

space is the sovereign’s voice, which is supposed to reach the ears of the
subjects undistorted by the medium. At issue is the problematic written
medium of the laws, which distort, absorb, or extinguish the voice, al-
lowing it to reach the ears it is intended for only in diffuse, ambiguous
form—the ears of “nonlistening jurists,” who occupy themselves pro-
ducing technically neutral analyses of reigning opinion. In his construc-
tion of the state’s acoustic space, his thoughts return to ways of regaining
the sovereign voice and eliminating legal positivism. Actually, however,
as Sombart suspects, the real point is for the voice of the tone-setting
constitutional law expert to reach without impediment the ear of the
ruler.184
Setting down his thoughts on the omnipotence and wretched impo-
tence of the sovereign, on 23 May 1948 Schmitt paints the melancholy
picture of a ruler who seems to have migrated directly from baroque
tragedy into the Cold War: “Ultimately, the sovereign, blocked off by the
anteroom and his chief of staff, sits in the icy solitude of his omnipo-
tence” (152). What Schmitt is tracing here is the mirror image of the
lonely prompter, who has been unjustly dismissed from service. For the
The Cool Persona in Literature 179

sovereign’s loneliness derives from the way the incompetents who popu-
late the anterooms distance him from his best advisors.
Schmitt’s image of the sovereign recalls an anecdote from Pushkin,
told by both Ernst Bloch (in Spuren) and Walter Benjamin (in his Kafka
commentary), which explains the conditions of sovereign rule. In Benja-
min’s version, Potemkin (according to Meyers Enzyklopädie of 1906, a
skillful courtier who “combined deceitfulness with old-fashioned Rus-
sian brutality but was altogether unfamiliar with noble moral ideas”),
governor-general and ranking military officer for Her Grace, Cather-
ine II, suffered from severe depressions, during which access to his
chamber was strictly forbidden. One day, with stacks of unprocessed
files reaching alarming heights outside, an insignificant chancellery bu-
reaucrat chanced into the palace anteroom, where the councilors of state
stood wringing their hands. Scarcely waiting for an answer to his ques-
tion, “What’s up, Excellencies?” he took the files in hand, heading off
with the bundle under his arm through galleries and corridors to Potem-
kin’s bedroom, where he turned the doorknob.
Having found Potemkin, dressed in a tattered nightgown, chewing
his nails, hunched over in bed, he—“wasting not a word”— dipped Po-
temkin’s quill in ink and slipped the files one after the other onto his
knee, whereupon, as if still in sleep, the latter applied the required sig-
natures. Triumphantly, swinging the files in his hand, the bureaucrat
made his way back to the councilors, who, having ripped the eagerly
awaited papers from his hand, stared back in horror. Only now did the
little man have a look at the signatures, discovering there that, instead
of Potemkin’s, his own name had been written.185
That could not have happened to Schmitt, because he knew that it
was necessary to gain the ruler’s ear. The bureaucrat would have been
for him a typical example of the “nonlistening jurist,” who is fixated on
handwriting. And with this, we come to the central motif in Schmitt’s
assessment of the ear and the voice: his visceral reaction to “the law.”
In the draft for a letter on 19 January 1948, Schmitt writes as follows:
I would like to say, right away, in surrealistic openness, that the word, and
now for the first time properly, the concept of the “law,” unleashes in me all
manner— conceptual, theoretical, associative-psychological, and, last not
least,* phonetic— of shudder and outrage. Outrage namely at the orgies of
the typesetter and the terror of the “settings of the settings.” (185)

*The italicized words are in English in the original.

180 The Cool Persona in Literature

As Raphael Gross has demonstrated, a “hatred of the concept of law”

runs from the earliest writings all the way through Schmitt’s works.186
Already in his second legal publication, in 1912, we find, “The law is al-
ways full of holes. That opens the opportunity for the judiciary and the
levying of judgment.”187 Our misfortune, according to Schmitt, lies in
our being ruled, as the legal positivists would have it, by the “sover-
eignty of the law,” which could never be anything more than an “over-
compensation for the absence” of the actual sovereign.
The question of who is responsible for this cursed confinement of the
judicial function to the letter of the law leads directly to the problem of
Schmitt’s anti-Semitism, for this concept of the law, according to Schmitt,
is a product of the mental type of the Jewish people.188 Law in this con-
ception, as Schmitt would have it, becomes a technical means to restrain
the all-powerful leviathan, cut it into pieces, and consume it. The fact
that Schmitt, both in the Weimar period and in occupied Germany after
the Second World War, feels besieged by positivist legal technicians ap-
pears to him proof that the Jews’ assimilation was successful; for when
one Jew was assimilated in one village, then the village had become Jew-
ish. Yet the Jewish victory instanced in legal positivism could, as Schmitt
continues, be no more than provisional, for faith in law is part of the
“instinctlessness of a life-form condemned to decline” (23).
The ear of the ruler and the role of law—here are surely two im-
portant aspects of Schmitt’s phonocentrism that, remarkably enough,
evade his own reflections on his phonetic obsessions. The latter revolve
instead around three other critical elements in Schmitt’s construction
of his acoustic space, namely, the command, conceptual realism, and
speech magic.
Potemkin, in the grip of his melancholy, was in no condition to issue
commands; the handwriting that the petty bureaucrat managed to get
from him strikes back at those who, by virtue of the office they held,
were fixated on writing. At the center of Schmitt’s acoustical space, we
find the command. An oral command is a form of language, establish-
ing a direct connection between sender and receiver. The possibility of
splitting speech between the speaking subject and the subject of speech,
which characterizes written forms of language, is excluded by the com-
mand. With a command, the translation of the verbal appeal into action
is regarded as unproblematic, or at least potentially possible. Schmitt’s
appreciation of the command relies on the state theory of Thomas
Hobbes, who had held it to be “the greatest charity of language, for
without it there would be no community among people, no peace, and
The Cool Persona in Literature 181

as a result no discipline, but, first, wildness, second, loneliness, and, in-

stead of places to live in, hiding places.”189 Schmitt can only agree: “The
best thing in the world is a command, rather than a law; a command is
direct speech” (274). He criticizes Hegel’s master-knave dialectic for its
crudeness, calling the dialectic of commanding and obeying, which is
geared to speaking and hearing, endlessly more subtle (159). In Der Ar-
beiter, Schmitt’s friend Jünger had already offered a definitive analysis
of the subtlety of obeying: “Obedience, that is the art of hearing, and
order is readiness for the word, readiness for the command, which, like
a streak of lightning, runs from treetop to roots” (13).

Schmitt’s conceptual realism is another of the constituent elements of

his acoustic space. In retrieving the term realism in its medieval sense,
Schmitt assumes that the truth contained in the spoken word does not
reside in the thing it refers to (116). Unlike writing, which is charac-
terized by the capacity merely to produce the illusion of the presence
of the absent subject of speech, the spoken word is inseparable from the
instance of speaking. Only in sound does the word take on its corporeal
reality; only in sound does it create space. When Schmitt then terms
himself a “concept-ballistics man” (Begriffs-Ballistiker) he is attributing
to his definition the material quality of a projectile.
Schmitt’s view of conceptual realism acquires its uncanny dimen-
sion in combination with his reflections on speech magic. Every word,
as he puts it in the diary, is a “phonetic hieroglyph,” an “echo of pri-
mal worlds” (159), which “impresses itself on memory with hypnotic
power.” The point, therefore, is to find key words that articulate a fun-
damental experience—like Dezision (decision), Raum (space), or Feind
(enemy)—and have phonetic qualities that stamp them on the memory.
The purely phonetic qualities are ineffaceable. Schmitt believes that his
key concepts achieve such a result, so that the cut of the umbilical cord
is present in Dezision; that the primeval land is available for perception
in Raum, bounded by the sea, defended by the father, and cared for by
the mother; and in Feind, on the purely phonetic level, he hears the full
intensity of one’s separation from the other (16).190
His enhanced sensitivity for the tonal aspect of words (76), his atten-
tiveness to the phonetic qualities of speech, stem from a time in which
he was on friendly terms with Theodor Däubler and the dadaist Hugo
Ball. Ball also remarked, referring to his famous performance of sound
poems in the Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich during the First World War,
that his voice, as soon as he surrendered to the mere sound of the words,
182 The Cool Persona in Literature

took on the “ancient cadence of the priestly lamentation . . . the style of

a song sung at mass, as it rings plaintively through the Catholic churches
of occident and orient.”191 The origin of Schmitt’s remarkable sensi-
tivity to the aural qualities of language no doubt predates dadaism and
could well be rooted in his childhood experience of Catholicism.

The provisional results of our reconstruction of Schmitt’s acoustic space

suggest that the structure of command stills the furor of his logocen-
trism, that rites take up (when possible) the magic of the word. The
acoustic space seems to be a very stable construction—which it is not.
Schmitt sees threats stemming from two sides: from technology and
from the body.
In the diary Schmitt repeatedly proclaims his favorite motto—distin-
guo ergo sum (69)—but also knows that the certainty it suggests is il-
lusive. Space— even in the mouth, at the threshold of expression—is
always crisscrossed with other sound waves (60, 63). Permanently at
play in acoustic performance is “something wildly alien,” a “mass” that
bends the word and distorts meaning (52). Between “microphysical
sound stimuli” and “macrophysical sound amplification” lies the disas-
ter of the technological world. Thus the advice, in one of his behavior
precepts, is to “avoid the microphone.”
A suspicion naturally dawns that this point of cultural criticism serves
in the first instance to relieve Schmitt of a certain responsibility. He
counts Hitler a “sound amplifier,” the National Socialist dictatorship a
technocracy that necessarily distorts every word. And since Schmitt per-
force used a microphone to deliver his commencement speech to a group
of teachers in the national legal association, the speech necessarily took
on the quality of a call for a purge of Jewish lawyers from the associa-
tion. To this extent, his dialogue with the diary (the problematic of writ-
ing as a technical medium occurs to him only in reference to law) pro-
vides an ideal terrain for the word.
Nevertheless, it becomes apparent that Schmitt, precisely in this ref-
uge, feels the interference of a force that undermines his notion of auton-
omy; he recognizes somatic influences on the articulation of language,
even on his own power of definition (16 ff.).
In Helmuth Plessner’s anthropology, we encountered the cool persona
as that highly reflexive dueling subject, its ego sharply distinguished
from the unconsciousness of bodily being. It needs, as we noted, to for-
get its body in order to present itself properly as a physical form. The
task of overseeing the boundary to the unconscious, with which the ego
The Cool Persona in Literature 183

assures itself of its identity, puts the subject in a state of chronic alarm.
And if we transfer the image of Plessner’s brightly lit fencing hall to
Schmitt’s Glossarium, the fundamental distinguo ergo sum equals the
duelist’s gesture with the foil. Using the principle of distinguo, the deci-
sionist draws a line to mark off the spheres of what he can, and cannot,
master.
Our experience with the decisionist as a conceptual type during this
century suggests that the more precisely it circumscribes the space, the
greater is its longing for the amorphous condition of the bodily. Schmitt
notes on 22 June 1948:
The fundamental precondition of the ability to make good definitions is
a rare ability: to bound and exclude what cannot be circumscribed. . . . That
is the first of all distinctions, just as all virtue for the stoic begins by mark-
ing off the sphere of our own power from the sphere in which we are power-
less. (169)

As if echoing previous certainty, the inevitable comment comes a month

later:
I am not in control of what penetrates into my consciousness, and not of that
which remains unconscious to me. . . . Nor, therefore, am I able, as the stoic
would have it, to distinguish what is in my power and what is not, and, on
the basis of this distinction, master the one and accept the other. (180)

Somatic currents, bodily impulses, and physiological conditions of ar-

ticulation determine what penetrates into consciousness, and they come
into force with the articulation of a word—for example, Dezision or
Feind. The secure ego, from this viewpoint, is only a “swamp light,” and
when Schmitt repeatedly indulges the satirical verse Cogito ergo sum,
summ, summ, summ, Bienchen summ herum,* he also betrays his sus-
picion of the emancipated signifier, as could only please a deconstruc-
tionist: we seem to have found the vulnerable point in the steely struc-
ture of the command as well as the ritual structure of his acoustic space,
in which language turns into indecipherable sound and command col-
lapses. Here, we could maintain, Schmitt succeeds in punching holes in
his definition discourse by way of Nietzsche’s “guiding thread of the
body”; here we have a lapse back to the literary avant-garde, or at least
a case of geriatric anarchism.
And yet the evidence of the tie back to Hugo Ball’s word experiments

*Summen  buzz; thus, “little bee buzzing all around.” The rhyme occurs in German
nursery rhymes.
184 The Cool Persona in Literature

cuts both ways. With Ball, the mythic-bodily function of sound remains
embedded in a liturgical celebration that offers the babbling creature its
great echoing architectonic space of the church. Exchanging the social
contract bound to words for the comfort of an encompassing organ-
ism—the clan, the family, or the church (which needs no contract be-
cause of its apparent status as a superior ordering power)—the voice
settles into the primacy of the auditory network, into McLuhan’s “magi-
cally resonating world of simultaneous connections between acoustic
and oral space.”192
Vilém Flusser has coined the term “pyramidal discourse” for the kind
of auditory communication Schmitt has in mind. It functions in societies
that, while hearing, are not supposed to answer:

That is the reason for having relays between sender and receiver. The sender
becomes inaccessible to the receiver. This model presupposes pyramidal hi-
erarchies such as the priesthood, within which the messages of a distant God
are transmitted through authorities toward receivers. The mediator has a two-
fold function: to keep the messages free of noise and to block the receiver’s
access to the author.193

The point may be a surprising one: insofar as Schmitt’s phonomania

plays itself out in the context of a pyramidal discourse, it remains a crea-
ture of the technological communications paradigm of the interbellum,
the radio. Confirmation for this point comes from another direction:
making the human word absolute, we read in Horkheimer and Adorno’s
Dialectik der Aufklärung, is a “false commandment,” which is part of
the “immanent tendency of the radio.”194

Schmitt’s Kafka If people face the decision of becoming kings or cou-

riers, “in the way of children,” according to Kafka, “they all [want] to
be couriers.” So the world is full of couriers running around, shouting
out their reports to one another. But in the resounding absence of a king,
their reports have no meaning. This is Kafka’s space, founded on the
murmur of couriers’ voices.195
What could be more distant from Schmitt’s acoustic space revolving
around the command axis than this world of Kafka’s? And yet Schmitt
feels the magnetic attraction of a world in which the messengers can
only get started with their task once the commanders—should they ap-
pear at all—have died, in which the couriers get lost in the labyrinths of
palace hallways or dimly lit lofts, where those for whom the messages
are meant are forever deprived of the true word or have to dream up the
The Cool Persona in Literature 185

messages themselves. What is Schmitt to do with the telecommunica-

tions of a system of domination such as Kafka describes in Das Schloß?
In the Castle the telephone works beautifully of course; I’ve been told it’s be-
ing used there all the time; that naturally speeds up the work a great deal. We
can hear this continual telephoning in our telephones down here as a hum-
ming and singing, you must have heard it too. Now, this humming and sing-
ing transmitted by our telephones is the only real and reliable thing you’ll
hear, everything else is deceptive. There’s no fixed connection with the Cas-
tle, no central exchange that transmits our calls farther. When anybody calls
up the Castle from here, the instruments in all subordinate departments ring,
or rather they would all ring if practically all the departments—I know it for
a certainty— didn’t leave their receivers off. Now and then, however, a fa-
tigued official may feel the need of a distraction, especially in the evenings
and at night, and may hang the receiver up. Then we get an answer, but an
answer of course that’s merely a practical joke.196

Schmitt is fascinated by novels that measure the constitutional na-

tion’s lack of foundation, that create the sense of a permanent “state of
waiting,” which for him signifies the epitome of Judaization (37). The
representation of decisions being made out of nothing unsettles him—
while in Kafka the much ballyhooed “decision” amounts to a gesture,
to a little finger smoothing an eyebrow.
The contrast between these two anti-worlds might explain Schmitt’s
fascination. Its basis, however, is more ominous than the model of the
attraction of opposites can suggest. On 29 August 1950 Schmitt notes
in his diary:
But I (in contrast to Heidegger) name names out loud, like a child, and am
for that reason predestined to be the sacrificial victim of ritual murder, like
Kafka’s defendant in Der Prozess. (309)

Schmitt believes he has fallen into the cogs of the legal machine, which
lets him go on vegetating there, as he goes on to say, only because it is
too worn out to carry out the traditional ritual murder.
Seven entries on Kafka document the way Schmitt follows the mores
and customs of the constitutional nation in Kafka’s novels. Kafka’s writ-
ings illustrate for him the condition of a world in which the final judgment
of the father is willfully nullified, so that people are left with no alterna-
tive but to feign his presence. It is a world in which faith in the law pre-
vents the individual from perceiving the holes in the law, from which—
in the father’s voice—all that is good could be expected and in which
—were the father’s voice to be heard—it would demand nothing of the
son but self-liquidation. In Das Schloß, Schmitt discovers the drama of
186 The Cool Persona in Literature

assimilation, leading ultimately to the result that “the whole village

mumbles.” Schmitt justifies his fascination in rationalistic terms, with
the judgment that Kafka wrote himself free of this world “satirically.”
He plays with the—for him—horrific notion that Benito Cereno, his be-
loved hero from the Herman Melville story, would be delivered up to a
Kafkaesque trial, posing in this way a revealing thought experiment,
with which he hopes to rescue his existentialism from its dilemma in a
single shot:
Franz Kafka could write a novel: the enemy. Then it would become evident
that the indeterminacy of the enemy evokes the fear (there is no fear but this,
and it is the essence of this fear to sense an indeterminate enemy); in contrast,
it is a matter of reason (and in this sense of high politics), to define the enemy
(which always implies simultaneous self-definition), and with this definition
the fear ceases, with only dread, at most, remaining.

But how—sighs Schmitt in this connection—how are we to snatch

something from indeterminacy, “if we have no concepts in common?”
(148). Shared concepts are lacking, no doubt, because no one else makes
use of Schmitt’s definition of the enemy, which demarcates the existen-
tial other.
For Schmitt, it is the font of all evil that humanity will no longer
accept a paternal authority, and that instead in the father’s place is the
“objectivity” of law. There for him lies the disgrace of the November
revolution and the failure of the majority of the Weimar Republic’s legal
scholars: “legal positivism,” so he declares in the diary, “kills its father
and devours its children.” The worst form of “father devouring,” how-
ever, he finds in “Americanism” (148), first in the new objectivity de-
cade of the Weimar Republic and later in the postwar Federal Republic.
As children of this Americanism we have been trying for thirty years
to stand up to a form of political romanticism that, as Paul Tillich
formulated it, appeared “to create the mother from the son and call
the father out of nothing.” That is why it is no cause for sadness if
acoustic conditions for the call for the father remain pretty bad during
our lifetime.
Incidentally, Kafka did write a little piece about the enemy; it is called
“Der Bau” (The burrow) and shows us an animal that lives under-
ground and loves silence. The silence, in Siegfried Kracauer’s commen-
tary, “that prevails, or ought to prevail, in his lightless structure is also
truly the only radical antidote to the true word.”197
c h a p t e r f i ve

The Radar Type

In the middle of the twentieth century the sociologist David Riesman ob-
served a new character type in American cities. Speaking of the “other-
directed character” in 1950, he noted how difficult it was to define.1 And
within the German tradition, familiar historical assumptions and cul-
tural antipathy made the figure even more difficult to perceive: witness
research into the gray hordes of white-collar employees in the 1920s,
studies of the “authoritarian character” during the 1930s, institution
theory in the 1940s and 1950s, and construction of “one-dimensional
man” in the 1960s. The new objectivity generation identified an “other-
directed” figure and accorded it the potential for autonomy. We recog-
nize it today in the postmodern type.
We organize the discussion in terms of Riesman’s model as a way of
withdrawing the figure from a teleological perspective. In the latter view,
mass society with its new characters—including the “market charac-
ter”—is a preliminary to fascism and leads necessarily to dictatorship.
As if democracy represented no possible future for such life forms. Ries-
man glimpses the rise of the new type in a struggle against an older fig-
ure, which is “inner-directed.” If Max Weber saw in the older type an
embodiment of the Protestant ethic, Freud the normal case of an individ-
ual under the sway of his superego, then Riesman sees in it a dying type.
To distinguish the two, Riesman picks technical metaphors: the inner-
directed individual behaves as if he has a built-in gyroscope; the other-
directed type guides his behavior as if with a radar device. The guidance

187
188 The Radar Type

system of the inner-directed person allows for only limited maneuver-

ability, but a psychological radar device need not point in a single spe-
cific direction to register the other’s behavior, and in particular its sig-
naling behavior.2 An other-directed apparatus receives signals from near
and far, in a situation of many broadcasters and frequent program
changes. The interior compass is not quick enough to give guidance. The
new means of mass communication surround both figures; the inner-
directed type attempts to unify the welter of news through a single lens,
in order to judge it in moral terms, while the outer-directed type uses
information to orient behavioral patterns, in order to determine the
appropriate habitus, learn, and consume—and, when it is functional, to
maintain an attitude of indifference.
The new type is indeed in a “chronic state of alarm,” but not in the
sense of a mobilization against a hostile power or integration into a col-
lective; alertness has much more to do with securing interrelational mo-
bility, observing rivals in a “fair competition,” registering the winds of
fashion and others’ consumption behavior. For its actual stage is not
the sphere of production or the frontline of a collective, but the tertiary
sector of consumption and strategies for regenerating labor power. To
the educated bourgeois this is the domain of inauthenticity, beyond ab-
sorption in work that orients the inner-directed type’s search for self-
realization. Lacking inner direction, the radar type perhaps “lacks a
conscience” too; still it does not indulge in the spectacle of amorality
we know from the cool persona. It engages in tireless information-
gathering, in a cult of nonchalance and “fun morality.” The radar type
relates cynically to institutions but sentimentally to fellow beings.
Of course Riesman recognizes the weakness of the radar type for dan-
gerous collective enthusiasms. But in his construction the possibilities
for autonomous movement do not rely on the model of inner-direction;
rather Riesman dares to consider other-direction and personal auton-
omy as of a piece, without resorting to the figure of the armored subject.
The autonomy of the radar type is never an all-or-nothing affair, but the
result of a largely imperceptible struggle with varieties of conformity.
Autonomy of this sort never produces heroes.3
The new type practically never speaks for itself (Irmgard Keun’s nov-
els appear to be a special case). Within dramatic tales of degradation
dedicated to the inner-directed moralist—who, equipped with a com-
pass still loses the way—the new type appears in supporting roles as the
passerby. If the new character falls under the gaze of cultural criticism,
it appears in the central tenets of a politicized—a black—anthropology
The Radar Type 189

as nothing but plastic in the hands of manipulators. And city planners

have the figure in mind, in the surroundings of the new mass media, in
the scattered urban public, or in the unfavorable light of a process of
corruption:

In addition to his talents, applied with far greater direct benefit, of course,
than merely at the podium, there is also his evident expertise in society, and
that he lives less in reference to the concrete matters at issue and more in his
relations is unfortunately not to be doubted. A man among many to be seen
walking about these days. They prosper in the big cities, where the most op-
portunities are to be had, searching out the points of least resistance.4

As we begin to sort out reactions to the radar type’s appearance—a tar-

get for polemics or a welcome new phenomenon for which dwellings
were designed, cities planned, theater created— one obvious question is
how to account for its existence against the backdrop of the extremely
unstable tertiary sector, from the inflation in 1923 to the economic cri-
sis of 1929.
There are a number of reasons why, in the 1920s, the radar type takes
on pleasing contours: the war had demonstrated that inner-direction
could be done away with by fiat. Or, to put it another way, during the
war the compasses of the majority of inner-directed sorts turned out to
point in the same direction. Most of the postwar judgments pronounced
against the “soul” and the “bourgeois psyche” appear to be reactions to
the “failure” of inner-direction—well prepared by the intellectuals’
reading of Nietzsche. Attention turns from discredited internal regula-
tors to public rules of behavior. When talk turns to “de-coring” the in-
dividual and praising behaviorism; 5 when the word is that “man lives,
not in substances, but in relations”; when it is attitude that sets the tone,
character can be inferred from body type, and the “culture of the body”
rises to a new prominence—these indicators reflect the assessment of
inner-direction as more a pretty fiction of the nineteenth-century Ger-
man bildungsroman than an intact means of orientation. Interrelational
attentiveness becomes a new virtue.
Enjoyment and consumption, the sideshows of the passing epoch,
take over center stage. A consumerist attitude becomes the dominant re-
action form; the new type develops it also in opposition to politics. This
approach, while perhaps depriving its adepts of the enthusiasm of “gen-
uine” political engagement, has the virtue of making them relatively
skeptical of political illusions. Since the new objectivity radar type in-
clines to a certain hedonism, it can count on being roundly criticized by
190 The Radar Type

all the expert preservationists of culture. The sense of shortage remains

alien to this new type, even when it hasn’t much in the way of material
resources. People do not save money or accumulate things; they spend it
to consume, to take part in the fashion competition, to cultivate lifestyle
(the jargon of the new objectivity shows awareness of this new consumer
type and even comes up with a few pert slogans). The older culture type
registers with a certain shock the existence of characters who are able
to welcome the new media without concern; they are at home with the
phonograph, radio, and film. To designate this relaxed way of being in
the mid-1920s, Kracauer rehabilitates the previously negative concept of
distraction.6 Brecht and Benjamin agree:
In the decline of middle-class society, contemplation became a school for aso-
cial behavior; it was countered by distraction as a variant of social conduct.7

“Tactile reception” acquires positive value, as the “distracted masses”

begin making use even of avant-garde architecture, viewing it as a form
in which attentiveness and habit are not mutually exclusive:
The distracted person, too, can form habits. More, the ability to master cer-
tain tasks in a state of distraction proves that their solution has become a
matter of habit.8

As a negative image the radar type has sharply defined contours. From
the description in the second volume of Spengler’s Decline of the West
to the chapter on the “culture industry” in Horkheimer and Adorno’s
Dialectik der Aufklärung, this “nomadic” type is deplorably visible,
wandering in the signal world of the mass media and fashion. The crit-
ics fix on the circumstance of radar guidance in order to deny the type
any possibility of carving out a space for itself between the pressure to
conform and nonconformity. Horkheimer and Adorno’s examination of
American cities projects the old bogeyman of one-dimensionality, bor-
rowed from anti-modernization texts of the nineteenth century, onto
their inhabitants:
Here there is no distinction made between the economic fate of a person and
the person himself. No one is anything except his fortune, his income, his po-
sition, his chances. The economic character masks and that which lies be-
neath them correspond, for the persons in question as well, down to the
smallest wrinkle.9

In contrast, we have many documents from architects and writers, por-

traying the radar type as the ideal inhabitant of their buildings or as a
public tailor-made for their revues, films, and operas. They see in this
The Radar Type 191

“irresolute mass” a “cosmopolitan audience” that should get its mon-

ey’s worth; they see passersby who are fully capable of absorbing into
their movement the signal system of a big city square; they discover that
the radar type, dealing with the rotary press, telegram, telephone, radio,
and weekly newsreels, has developed the consciousness of a chess mas-
ter.10 It seems that the camera will increase people’s capacity for more
rational perception. Moholy-Nagy sees it developing a “consciousness
of simultaneity”:
The new rapid and real reflector of the world, photography, should operate
to illustrate the world from all points of view, should develop the capacity of
seeing from all angles. . . . The modern city, with its multistoried buildings,
workshops, factories, and so forth, the two- or three-story display windows
in shopping zones, streetcars, automobiles, three-dimensional electric bill-
boards, ocean liners, airplanes—all of this . . . has necessarily altered to some
extent the traditional psychology of perception.11

Architects design nomadic furniture:

This corresponds to the mobility of today’s individual, who regularly spends
many hours of his life on the train, in the streetcar, automobile, or on a bi-
cycle, who has moved a great distance from the sedentary life (in both the
narrow and the broadest sense) of a rural farming people.12

The epitome of new objectivity furniture is the tubular steel chair de-
signed by Marcel Breuer and then further developed by Mies van der
Rohe. In line with behaviorist doctrine, the chair has the capacity to be
both reflection of and stimulus for the distracted urbanite:
It could perhaps be said that the only sort of person who would feel com-
fortable in this chair is one for whom the constant tension of modern life and
the taut sense of high-speed energy have become necessities even in relax-
ation, have become indispensable parts of his feeling for life.13

New-style architects resort to weighty verse to document the range of

action, the rhythm and rationality of existence at a distance:
. . . research, define, and order the force fields
of individuals, family, and society.
its basis is an understanding of living space
and knowledge of the periodicity of living space
psychological distance is as important to it
as the sort of span that’s measured in meters.
its formative tools— consciously applied—
are the findings of biological research.
because this doctrine is true to life
its theses are constantly changing;
192 The Radar Type

because its realization lies in life,

like life itself.
“being rich is everything.”14

In view of the many novel projects, plans, and gadgets, we cannot eas-
ily dismiss the suspicion that the architects of the 1920s are still waiting
for the appropriate type of city dweller to come into existence en masse.
In new objectivity manifestos the radar type appears. We get a good
look at its lifestyle; we see its tools. But the type itself seems to escape
literature’s grasp: it is a character still in search of a genre and an appro-
priate technical medium. Its discourse gets established behind the backs
of those who seek their identity in the printed word. And instead of
textual traces, the radar type leaves behind only views of itself as type,
which, should we wish to, we can photograph. Thus does it form that
negative image of the erosion of the subject passed on by the bildungs-
roman. Its profile vanishes in the craters of the electric media. Since the
literature of the educated classes stays firmly in the hands of the inner-
directed type, the new, Anglo-Saxon type remains a marginal phenome-
non. It forges its way through more trivial genres, which are open to the
market: cabarets, crime novels, magazine stories, and revues. Its senti-
ment dominates Kurt Tucholsky’s romantic novel Schloß Gripsholm, in
which distance and passion are cast in a comic light, which will also illu-
minate the radar type in Hollywood films of the 1930s.15 Walter Mehr-
ing registers the capacity for simultaneous perception, cynicism toward
institutions, and a species of urbane hedonism.
Most conspicuous are the novels in which the life of the radar type is
described from the viewpoint of the moralist. Their hero—whose com-
pass no longer provides orientation and who considers it disgraceful to
have to adapt his navigational skills to the new behavioral type’s skills—
goes on trying to hold the lost fort of inner-direction. The hero may
experiment with a few attitudes of the radar type, but since he has no
handbook to guide his actions, since anxious alertness is not his talent
and he has no money with which he might otherwise take part in com-
modity circulation, he listens to the inner voice, checks out the traditions
of the enlightened bourgeoisie for guidance, goes back to his mother,
and drowns.
Erich Kästner’s Fabian and Martin Kessel’s Herrn Brechers Fiasko
formulate the confusions caused by the new consumerist attitude. Käst-
ner had introduced the radar type’s cult of nonchalance into poetry in
his early collections Herz auf Taille (1928) and Lärm im Spiegel (1929).
The Radar Type 193

In his novel he signals the dark side of nonchalance: indifference in rela-

tion to the mass media, surrender to the circulation of news, commodi-
ties, bodies, a sense of sexuality as a consumer good that is supposed to
save everyone from general disinterest. “Sex,” Riesman will later state
in reference to the market character, “provides a kind of defense against
the threat of total apathy.”16
The first appearance of the radar type, from Kästner’s perspective,
is necessarily amoral. The provocation is all the greater since women
are the ones who show what it means to navigate the tertiary sector
without a compass (“navigate” in this sense makes us aware of what the
male “compass” means). The heroines of Irmgard Keun’s novels Gilgi:
Eine von uns (1930) and Das kunstseidene Mädchen (1932) use other-
direction’s mimicry as a weapon. These are people who constantly
define themselves in the mirror of others’ perception, who assess close-
ness and distance in terms of their own latitude for movement and use
fashions as signposts and markers— chess players without fortune. The
jargon these heroines speak shows how language must be forced in or-
der not to decay into sentimentality. But they do not succumb to the ex-
istence of the creature or the proletariat; they know, when they wind up
in cold train station waiting rooms or other stopgap destinations, that
they cannot forsake their formation—though it offers them no secu-
rity—if they want to remain mobile.17 Nor is Riesman’s diagnosis rosy.
The psychology of the new type is based in a diffuse anxiety; it feeds the
sense of chronic alarm and keeps the restless object of our gaze in mo-
tion. Demagoguery can turn it into panic.

As writers, sociologists, politicians, and cultural theorists observed the

phenomenon of the radar type, they reacted. And they reacted like indi-
viduals who feel—as events take a sudden leap forward—that they are
being run over.18 The substance of their dilemma was that none of them
understood the new phenomenon as something possessed of its own
right and worthiness. All of them thought of it as transitional. It was a
loose-knit formation and therefore destined to collapse. Some foresaw
the formation finding its way home, after the collapse, to the proletariat;
others fixed their hopes on the promise of an improved form of inner-
direction (assuming, of course, a measure of self-discipline). Never were
these new sorts simply to be themselves; “substance” was always stored
elsewhere.
The Nazi regime did not threaten the radar type with collapse, did
not demand of its exemplars that they rise to some other occasion. In
194 The Radar Type

Benjamin’s words, it helped them achieve “their expression.” It orga-

nized them as mass ornaments, allowed them to take pleasure in them-
selves as a formation, having gradually squeezed off the republican lati-
tude for distracted reception and thus removed the conditions in which
the radar type might develop autonomy. The critical sociologists of the
1930s made haste to outfit the new type with an “authoritarian charac-
ter,” hurtling toward the fate it deserved, thus closing off the potential
ascribed to the type by the new objectivity.
Riesman’s concept picked up on the work of two exiled German
scholars. From Erich Fromm’s Man for Himself he took over the idea of
the “market character”; and from Karl Wittfogel he adapted the meta-
phor of the radar set. Also present as an impulse in his work, as it had
been in that of many Weimar intellectuals, were Georg Simmel’s obser-
vations on the sociology of conviviality.
chapter six

The Creature

The creature illuminates the other side of modern consciousness. The op-
position to the radar type, as manifest in their respective orientations to-
ward the mass media, could not be greater. While the radar type moves
among the mass communication media like a fish in water, the creature
feels put upon. Unable to decipher the signals to its own advantage, the
creature faces an impenetrable destiny.
The logic of a book that begins with conduct codes for the cool per-
sona and ends with the creature nourishes an expectation that this final
figure will emerge as the epitome of unmasked essence. It suggests that
the path from the armored ego, from the diplomat’s costume games and
distorted voices, leads to a point where finally a subject will act without
masks and speak in authentic tones.
Rather than throw out all notions of the authentic creature, we need
to interpose the concept of the discursive mask. As in the case of the cool
persona, the mask holds a spectrum of possibilities: the creature’s mask,
as an artificial device, also regulates closeness and distance; its physiog-
nomy reflects a social situation, shields nakedness, overcomes shame,
evidences a defensive reaction to mortal fear or an ambition to be de-
monic, striking a ferocious pose among the besiegers.
The creature, part of a powerful iconographic tradition in the mod-
ern era, gets embedded in the 1920s in the discourses of theology, psycho-
analysis, and animal behavior research. In a current Catholic lexicon we
find the following definition:

195
196 The Creature

Creature designates that which exists through creation, therefore everything

the meaning of which is superior to itself, which is mortal, threatened, open
to God and at His disposal (see Potentia oboedientialis), which in turn allows
the creatural to exceed itself through grace in the acceptance of divine self-
revelation (see nature and mercy).1

WAR CRIPPLE

Before getting caught in the cool gaze of the 1920s and turned into an
object of behaviorist observation, the creature was allowed for a while
to be the medium of pure expression, the vessel of life. As we saw in our
discussion of the loss of expressive functionality, the “scream of the crea-
ture” provoked vigorous polemic at the start of the 1920s. The critics’
objections vary. Plessner excludes the scream from the register of civil and
diplomatic behavioral modes because he fears overstepping the bound-
ary into the animal world, while Brecht disdains it because he senses in
this form of spontaneity the conventions of bourgeois law and theology.
The new objectivity assaults on the creature in expressionism may
not do justice to it, but they correctly indicate the prominent position
this figure occupies in the literature from 1910 to 1920. It apparently re-
alizes the expressionist notion of the existence of the “essential ego,”
without “the incidental adulterants” of the qualities of the persona.2 But
what the new objectivity critics make their target is not expressionist
writing’s focus on marginal types such as beggars, prostitutes, and or-
phans, who as outsiders are immune to society’s negative traces and pur-
sue an entirely different existence outside it. Their target is the image
that a few expressionist authors have of themselves as poeta dolorosus,
as creature. Neither literary conventions nor social conditions inform its
cries.
Since, as the crudeness of this sketch itself demonstrates, new objec-
tivity’s negative image cannot adequately represent expressionism—
“And the father is ashamed of the son, whom all disdain”3 —we turn our
attention to a specific variant of the expressionist creature, the war crip-
ple. His is a particularly precarious case: he has what remains of the cool
armoring of the soldierly persona and embodies the creature’s injured
organic substance, which the armor was supposed to protect. His ap-
pearance necessarily recalls a situation that overwhelms the survivors
with shame and disgrace. And thus society tries to conceal him, a strat-
egy strained by the presence of 2.7 million invalids at the end of World
War I and enforcing “restraint” (Verhaltenheit) on the cripples them-
selves to make their presence tolerable.4 Embarrassments, whenever at
The Creature 197

all possible, are to be avoided: “There are no waiters with artificial

hands employed in any Berlin hotel. The cultivated guests, who pay fif-
teen marks for a dinner, find that the sight of a prosthetic hand spoils
their appetite.” Nor is a person with a stump for an arm or leg, wheeled
around “like an infant in a wagon,” assumed to be a tolerable sight.5
Both images come from Leonhard Frank’s story collection Der
Mensch ist gut, published in Zurich in 1918, to which nearly all the
polemics by new objectivity writers refer. What prompts their critique is
the collection’s underlying mixture of naive anthropology and theory
of history with a Christian spirit: a waiter says to the author, “The good
in man plus boundless horrific suffering will be what causes the [revolu-
tion].” Just as hard to endure for the new objectivity writers is the ex-
pressionist sons’ willingness to generate energy from disgrace.
Frank uncovers and probes two aspects of the creature that are pain-
ful from the angle of the armored ego: its scream and its unmasked
countenance. Frank’s intense formulation of the victim’s cry in the am-
putation hall rummages through the conventions of writing in a desper-
ate appeal for relief:

He went through the alphabet. E didn’t help him. I didn’t help

him. Only U. He roared with all the force he had in his lungs, “Uu!”6

Pain forms a semantic field in which words’ only value relates to the phys-
iological effort they involve. Frank describes another war cripple’s face,
the accustomed site of expression: “Everything is gone. Two holes where
the nose was. A small, lipless, formless, scarred, crooked hole where the
mouth was.”7 From a man robbed of traditional means of expression
Frank fashions the container for a revolutionary “storm of emotion”
that—under the staff doctor’s direction—raises a rebellion against the
war. Emblematically, the creature links the de-naturing of man to his re-
demption. Images of the creature, as they arose in the decade of the new
objectivity, undermined this illusion.

DISCOURSE OF THE CREATURE: FROM

THEOLOGY TO ANIMAL BEHAVIOR RESEARCH

In nineteenth-century literature the creature had a prebourgeois con-

stitution, which was supposed to lend it a depth missing from the ratio-
nal type. It stood apart from social models or categories: alternatively
“noble savage” or lumpen proletarian, agricultural laborer or transport
198 The Creature

worker, maid or prostitute. If it tended toward asociality, it also had an

anarchistic streak.8
Twentieth-century social schemata barely define the creature. But now
it appears as a figure under extremely remote control, unlike the vaga-
bond, who is untethered, or the anarchist, the last refuge of the individ-
ual conscience. No inner regulator is in place. As a rule, the twentieth-
century creature is forced to sublimate drives through brute force or in
some kind of asylum. It achieves discipline only in stable environments
like the military. Its capacity for rationality is strongly qualified by a ten-
dency to think magically, in images.
The fascination exercised by this “outward-turning” figure on a pub-
lic undergoing disenchantment is easy to understand. As a being subject
to external controls and impositions, the creature exposes the autono-
mous ego’s reverse image in the discourses of self-determination. A sense
of inescapable destiny answers the ambition to be history’s agent. Promi-
nent creatures of the new objectivity decade are Brecht’s infanticide Ma-
rie Farrar and the parricide Jakob Apfelböck; Döblin’s Franz Biberkopf;
Arnold Zweig’s Sergeant Grischa; Joseph Roth’s Hiob; Robert Musil’s
Moosbrugger; and Ludwig Turek’s Brother Rudolf, already dying in his
crib, failing even to achieve the status of creature.9 The great achieve-
ment of proletarian literature of these years was to sever the worker’s
image from the creature’s, at the price of moving the worker closer to the
cool persona.
Marie Farrar, in the Devotions, exemplifies the stimulus-response
schema of a behaviorist animal researcher. Brecht shows that this bun-
dle of reflexes is the object of legal and theological discourses.10

on the infanticide marie farrar

1
Marie Farrar: month of birth, April
An orphaned minor; rickets; birthmarks, none; previously
Of good character, admits that she did kill
Her child as follows here in summary.
She visited a woman in a basement
During her second month, so she reported
And there was given two injections
Which, though they hurt, did not abort it.
But you I beg, make not your anger manifest
For all that lives needs help from all the rest.
2
But nonetheless, she says, she paid the bill
As was arranged, then bought herself a corset
The Creature 199

And drank neat spirit, peppered it as well

But that just made her vomit and disgorge it.
Her belly now was noticeably swollen
And ached when she washed up the plates.
She says that she had not finished growing.
She prayed to Mary, and her hopes were great.
You too I beg, make not your anger manifest
For all that lives needs help from all the rest.
3
Her prayers, however, seemed to be no good.
She’d asked too much. Her belly swelled. At Mass
She started to feel dizzy and she would
Kneel in a cold sweat before the Cross.
Still she contrived to keep her true state hidden
Until the hour of birth itself was on her
Being so plain that no one could imagine
That any man would ever want to tempt her.
But you I beg, make not your anger manifest
For all that lives needs help from all the rest.
4
She says that on the morning of that day
While she was scrubbing stairs, something came clawing
Into her guts. It shook her once and went away.
She managed to conceal her pain and keep from crying.
As she, throughout the day, hung up the washing
She racked her brain, then realized in fright
She was going to give birth. At once a crushing
Weight grabbed at her heart. She didn’t go upstairs till night.
And yet I beg, make not your anger manifest
For all that lives needs help from all the rest.
5
But just as she lay down they fetched her back again:
Fresh snow had fallen, and it must be swept.
That was a long day. She worked till after ten.
She could not give birth in peace till the household slept.
And then she bore, so she reports, a son.
The son was like the son of any mother.
But she was not like other mothers are—but then
There are no valid grounds why I should mock her.
You too I beg, make not your anger manifest
For all that lives needs help from all the rest.
6
So let her finish now and end her tale
About what happened to the son she bore
(She says there’s nothing she will not reveal)
So men may see what I am and you are.
She’d just climbed into bed, she says, when nausea
200 The Creature

Seized her. Never knowing what should happen till

It did, she struggled with herself to hush her
Cries, and forced them down. The room was still.
And you I beg, make not your anger manifest
For all that lives needs help from all the rest.
7
The bedroom was ice cold, so she called on
Her last remaining strength and dragged her-
Self out to the privy and there, near dawn
Unceremoniously, she was delivered
(Exactly when, she doesn’t know). Then she
Now totally confused, she says, half froze
And found that she could scarcely hold the child
For the servants’ privy lets in the heavy snows.
And you I beg, make not your anger manifest
For all that lives needs help from all the rest.
8
Between the servants’ privy and her bed (she says
That nothing happened until then), the child
Began to cry, which vexed her so, she says
She beat it with her fists, hammering blind and wild
Without a pause until the child was quiet, she says.
She took the baby’s body into bed
And held it for the rest of the night, she says
Then in the morning hid it in the laundry shed.
But you I beg, make not your anger manifest
For all that lives needs help from all the rest.
9
Marie Farrar: month of birth, April
Died in the Meissen penitentiary
An unwed mother, judged by the law, she will
Show you how all that lives, lives frailly.
You who bear your sons in laundered linen sheets
And call your pregnancies a “blessed” state
Should never damn the outcast and the weak:
Her sin was heavy, but her suffering great.
Therefore, I beg, make not your anger manifest
For all that lives needs help from all the rest.

Bourgeois law fits out the creature with the mask of the responsible sub-
ject; theology makes it the mirror of some distant seat of grace. The
bourgeois criminal procedure respects the separation of powers. The ex-
ecutioner, who has the task of liquidating the responsible legal subject,
is accompanied by a member of the clergy, who entrusts the depraved
creature to grace. Brecht attempts with his language both to portray and
dispel the nimbus both discourses throw around the creature.
The Creature 201

Brecht shows up the fiction of the responsible subject. Bourgeois

society rips away a creature’s chance to develop qualities of self-
determination, subjecting it to physical torments, in order then to honor
it with full responsibility at the precise moment that proper procedure
calls for killing it. And Brecht displays what is left once the ideological
implications of bourgeois law and theological language are gone. The
tormented being must be removed from the web of worldviews that style
it the creature before it can be outfitted with other sorts of potential—
rebellion, for example.
When Arnold Zweig presents the creatural type as the hero of his
Grischa novel, the prospect irritates Brecht.11 In this hero Brecht sees a
touchstone of compassion, which only prolongs the misery. He stresses
in contrast—in Nietzschean fashion—how senseless it is to put oneself
into the psyche of a man who is condemned to death.12 Zweig’s novel
has for him the logic of an appeal for mercy to authorities who—unless
they are of a theological sort—are nothing but legal illusion. Brecht is
at one in this judgment with Walter Benjamin, who remarks that in dra-
matic tragedy the “trial of the creature” as a protest against death is in
the end “only halfway processed and shelved.”13 Hopes for reopening
the trial in the twentieth century are gone entirely.

GRISCHA IN THE ARMY

Zweig’s Grischa character presents the greatest discrepancy imaginable

to Brecht’s creations. His development proceeds in a direction diametri-
cally opposite to that of the packer Galy Gay in Brecht’s Mann ist Mann.
Grischa transforms himself from a soldier eager for battle into the
very emblem of meekness, from a cog in the army machine into a paltry
organic bundle in the death cell. And for good measure, hoping to re-
capture his human dignity by voluntarily dispensing with resistance,
Zweig’s hero turns down an opportunity to flee. No longer a prisoner
with flight instinct intact, he becomes an adherent of amor fati. Yet the
more the character disarms, in his striving after individuation, the more
he falls into the control of others. Zweig explains this fatal circumstance
in a Hassidic equation, as related by the carpenter Täwje:
Two people cast lots. Then the outcome is important for the one or the other,
but not for the lots.

The Grischa creature, as others have observed, is a reflexive form of the

cult of the eastern Jew, which fascinated many intellectuals in the 1920s.
202 The Creature

The legend of the good Grischa belongs to “philosophical physiogno-

mies” generated by this kind of populism.14
At the same time Zweig’s novel offers images of a shocking moder-
nity, in which a mixture of institution theory and research into animal
behavior explains the creature’s functioning in the “artificial group”
(Freud) of the army. The execution squad moves, Grischa in the middle,
toward the gravel pit. In macabre fashion the writing evokes the rhyth-
mic motions of an organism:
The clattering of bridles, chains striking against leather; laced boots, sixteen
pairs, crunching evenly in the colder snow. Sidearms strike in a steady beat
against thighs, and rifles, sometimes butting off helmets, rise with a rustle and
crack to the shoulders.15

Describing these “marching bodies,” Zweig stresses the physiological el-

ements. The signs of the group psyche’s martial temperament emerge—
behavioristically—in the way the soldiers’ chin straps cut into their flesh.
He includes the advance cohort of two sergeants on horseback. The one
at the lead, on an elegant dark brown gelding, represents a cynical con-
sciousness; the other, atop a fat, easy-going mare, is more troubled in his
thoughts. Both characters on horseback belong to the working organ-
ism of the death squad, raising itself “in tender gold and white” against
the indifference of the snowy field. The victim, too, is integrated into the
“striding body,” in which touch is the commanding sense. Grischa main-
tains his bearing in this formation because of the tight belt he wears.
Here, where Zweig illustrates the reasons for the smooth functioning
of an organization in rhythms and physiology, lie the novel’s extraordi-
nary innovations, which he creates by going back to the genre of physi-
ology. Shortly before writing it, Zweig studied Georg Büchner’s drama
Woyzeck.
Arnold Gehlen’s theory of institutions forms an interesting contrast
to Zweig’s representation of the execution squad with its rituals. Zweig
explains the frictionless operation of an apparatus requiring no legiti-
mation by referring to meanings external to its own functioning. Geh-
len, in his essay “Über die Geburt der Freiheit aus dem Geist der Ent-
fremdung,” later writes in praise of human institutions:
People are able to maintain a lasting relation to themselves and their fellows
only indirectly; expressing themselves, they must come to themselves by way
of detours, and there lie institutions. As Marx saw correctly, it is these man-
made forms in which the material of the psyche, also an undulatory material
in its supreme richness and pathos, is objectified, woven into the course of
The Creature 203

things, and in that way, and only in that way, made to endure. Thus are
people at least burned and devoured by their own creations, rather than by
raw nature, like animals. Institutions are the great preserving and devouring
orders and destinies, which long outlast us as individuals, and of which
people, with open eyes, make themselves part. Those who dare to enter into
institutions achieve perhaps a higher freedom than obtains in the enclosure
of Fichte’s self-determining ego or that of his modern stepbrother, Erich
Fromm’s “man for himself.”16

Sascha, the teacher from Merwinsk in Zweig’s novel, takes issue with
this theory on the level of its argument. As the businessman Weressejew
waits downstairs for the priests and the execution train draws near the
pit, Sascha formulates his view of the natural history of institutions as
arrangements that people “themselves have not made but have carelessly
allowed to grow from generation to generation.”17 The teacher from
Merwinsk accords to nature what Gehlen celebrates as emancipation
from brute natural forces. Sascha is to a certain extent correct. But
in fixing on “carelessness,” his argument is weak. It could not be termed
Marxist.
Of greater analytical precision is Zweig’s image. It reveals the way the
marching body functions, because an institution like the army suppresses
the individual’s inner regulative devices sufficiently to allow physiologi-
cal rhythms to absorb consciousness. At the same time, of course, the in-
stitution takes on the character of a “second nature,” of something that
has grown. With a triumphal note Gehlen lifts human destiny out of the
animal realm. “Thus are people at least burned and devoured by their
own creations,” he declares, “rather than by raw nature, like animals.”
Zweig undermines pathos of that sort by delivering an adequate expla-
nation of the course of things and the psyche in institutions like the army
through an animal behaviorist’s eyes, registering the motions of the crea-
ture. The logic of Zweig’s images teaches that, in the army and other
such institutions, critical differences between human and animal fall
away. To emphasize the point, he builds one more aspect into the image
of the execution squad’s marching body. Within the group psyche bound
together by chin straps, uniforms, and rhythms, one being loses its com-
posure: the lazy mare, who bears troubled consciousness on its back. It
loses control, and this collapse of self-discipline in the poorly trained
horse—the only living thing that breaks ranks—is also the incident that
so obviously “outrages” the squad that it moves the creature into the
rearguard.
204 The Creature

13. An ex-porter in the Grand Hotel, who ends

up in charge of the toilets
(Publicity still for The Last Man.)

But you I beg, make not your anger manifest

For all that lives needs help from all the rest.

In the first republican decade an assortment of creatures is on parade.

The repressed returns as photographic sensation. From war cripples to
asylum seekers, they appear in public as objects in need of social solici-
tude. Their voices matter less than their somewhat exotic, somewhat
compassion-inspiring surface appearance, and their mechanical motion.
Their appearance forbids overly optimistic replies to the anthropologi-
cal question, What kind of thing is man?
In art, literature, and film, the creature shows up as the final station
in a life story: as the soldier who has lost his armoring; as a defenseless
worker put up against the wall by Freikorps rabble; as a pitiful soul at
the mercy of the bureaucracy; as an ex-porter in the Grand Hotel who
ends up in charge of the toilets (see Figure 13); and “naturally”—barred,
The Creature 205

14. The fear of being abandoned is always present in a shame culture

(Bernhard Bleeker’s memorial to the unknown soldier, 1925. With the permission of Stadtarchiv
München.)

as we saw in Plessner’s anthropology, from the sphere of artificiality—

as the woman who turns on the gas, who endures life as a prostitute,
who murders her child. The creature always figures as a being in need of
mercy in a time that knows no source for it, since the creator has retreated
to an impossible distance and bourgeois institutions cannot make up the
loss. In the images of total mobilization, this being does not appear. Mo-
bilization calls for metallic characters; 18 creatures cannot surpass their
organic substance.
From the viewpoint of our typology new objectivity literature alter-
nates between extremes, between the self-confident subject in armor, as
soldier or dandy, and the living being, as organic bundle of reflexes, in
mortal need (see Figure 14). Songs of the armored subject and legends
of creatures in need of mercy fill the space of modernity. The narrative
often records the change of armored subject to pitiable creature—and
what a “disgrace” it is. A cosmopolitan public indulges its fascination
for creatural legends and songs. It finds in these stories a ratification of
its state of chronic alarm, of the constant threat of falling victim to so-
cial degradation. Its diffuse anxiety seems objectified in the fate of oth-
206 The Creature

ers. And if, in the role of public in the 1920s, it is no ready source of
mercy, how much less so, in the 1930s, as Volk?

THE CASE OF ANGERSTEIN

The sense of security contained in the concept of the persona disinte-

grates in the image of the creature. In the persona there remains an ego
made autonomous by consciousness of what (through the mask) ap-
pears from the outside, while the creature makes its appearance only
once the artificial devices of the persona crumble into pieces. The judi-
cial trial seems to be the preferred setting for this spectacle of destruc-
tion, because the contest pits the individual’s moral responsibility, which
in bourgeois society enjoys such a secure status, against the creature’s ju-
ridical incompetence. In the 1920s such cases capture the attention of
psychoanalysis, which attempts to rescue the accused from the grip of
the guilt culture, as institutionalized in the form of the tribunal. The ef-
fort is successful in that it undoes the fiction of the competent subject.
But, by simultaneously consigning the subject to the figuration of child-
hood, it occasions the return of the core family that the new objectivity
generation had so vehemently rejected.
Under the title “Tat ohne Täter,” in July 1925 Siegfried Kracauer re-
ported on the trial of the multiple murderer Fritz Angerstein. The case
became for him the symbol of the risk entailed in a world of “objectiv-
ity,” in which relationships among people are guided by the functional
play of social roles.
For the more relationships among people become objectified, with emanci-
pated things gaining power over people rather than people seizing hold of the
things and humanizing them, the more easily it can and will happen that the
disfigured humanity that has been repressed into the deepest recesses of un-
consciousness will reappear in hideous form in the world of things.19

What psychoanalysis represents as the id finds its mask in the creature.

The persona, in the form of the “authorized agent,” conjures up one last
time the bourgeois illusion of the accountable subject; it remains the pur-
view of such social categories as petit bourgeois or manager. The Anger-
stein trial exposes the irreparable discrepancy between the person and
the treatment of the person:
A deed without a doer—that is the provocative, the incomprehensible aspect
of the Angerstein case. The deed is inconceivable: an orgy of ax blows and ar-
son. Intimidating in its mere magnitude, the crime bursts the bounds of cus-
tomary statutes as only an elemental event can. It is impossible to do more
The Creature 207

than stare at it; it is not to be subsumed within existing categories. Never-

theless, there it is, an undeniable fact that, for well or ill, must be registered.
But where is the doer that belongs to the deed? Angerstein? The little,
subordinate fellow with modest manners, a feeble voice, and a stunted imagi-
nation? In [Arthur] Schnitzler’s play Der grüne Kakadu, a real murderer
seeks to hire himself out as a criminal impersonator to a bar for the Parisian
demimonde. But he is dismissed by the proprietor with the remark that the
impression he makes is not bloodthirsty enough. The pseudo-perpetrator
from Haiger resembles that man. At bottom a mere petit bourgeois, Anger-
stein can be outfitted with a vicious appearance only in retrospect by over-
heated journalists. Had one encountered him prior to the crime on the street,
one would have asked him for a light and quickly forgotten his features.
Even today, or today once again, he remains stubbornly at home in the
narrow confines of inborn mediocrity. His behavior during the trial has been
minimal in every respect. There have been no sudden eruptions to help us
chart a connection between the man and what he did, no outbursts to sug-
gest a subterranean fiendishness, nor the kind of silence that would corre-
spond to what happened. Instead, he has withdrawn into trivialities, into a
dull state of shock wholly incommensurate with its cause, a confused accep-
tance of what he himself does not understand.
Angerstein, in Professor Herbertz’s depiction of the events, did not com-
mit the deed; the deed happened to him. Having transpired, it detached itself
from him and now exists as a purely isolated fact for which there is no proper
cause. It rose up out of nothing for the while of the murders, a dreadful “it”
out there in space, unconnected with him. If the soup had not been burned—
a triviality become a link in a chain of external causation—Angerstein’s vic-
tims would have gone on living and no one but his fellow citizens of Haiger
would ever have heard his name. The crime looms gigantically over him; he
disappears in its shadow.
Interrogations and depositions have produced what information there
was to produce. Unknown details have become superfluous; a crude whole
has been constructed of a thousand statements. The picture is not false, but
it is not right. It recalls to the light of day what has descended irrevocably into
the darkness, offering it, in a form as inadequate as it is liberating, to judicial
measurement.
A petit bourgeois like a thousand others plunged clumsily into atrocity.
He married young, worked his way up, even became a manager. Trivial and
respectable, not worth wasting a word. The signs of distress are serious, if not
extraordinary: leftover adolescent anxieties, localized tuberculosis, a family
in financial need, life with an ailing wife. He loved the frail, easily agitated
woman—neighbors and visitors praise the marriage. She suffered one mis-
carriage after the other; she subordinated their erotic life together to the prin-
ciples of Methodist piety. A life of churchly devotion, which was not easy for
him. But, aside from a single sexual dalliance, he was faithful, on the whole
anticipating the oversensitive creature’s needs. She complained and suffered,
her pietistic spirit tormented by morbid premonitions.
And now, in the winter of 1924, the event comes out of nowhere. Minor
208 The Creature

illegalities preceded it, a confusing swindle, no one knows how or why. Run-
ning amok, it seems that a physician’s attentions merely added to the bur-
dens. His previously neatly bounded world was slipping through his fingers.
The woman of his obsession draws him with her toward a longing for death,
for an end to it all. He may have been thinking of suicide as he stabbed her—
but why the frenzy with the hunting knife and the ax, why the senseless bash-
ing of the skulls of uninvolved others? What sucked him, the minor adminis-
trator, for a night and a day into the cyclone of devastating violence?
The psychiatric reports have neither sought nor found connections be-
tween the doer and the otherwise alien deed. They follow the clinical find-
ings; it is not their job to do more. Only Professor Herbertz, the depth psy-
chologist and a judicial outsider, identifies the paths leading upward and
outward from the deeper layers of the unconscious.
What happened according to him? Well, petit-bourgeois Angerstein with
the apparently easy-going nature must have had to repress mountains of dis-
satisfactions and worries. It is easy to imagine: the hysterical wife, who wants
to be protected and cared for, with her dark biblical fantasies and complexes
of her own; the need to keep them secret. Psychic dynamite piles up, while
the container holding it looks fine. One day the story explodes—with a bang,
impulses break through inhibitions. The bestial instincts, dark desires that
have been nourished since childhood, unconscious hatred: all the explosive
material in the nether reaches of the soul hurtles toward the surface to dis-
charge like a volcano. It must be right, what Professor Herbertz argues:
that during the catastrophe Angerstein was completely out of his mind. Cer-
tainly, he wanted to hide the outrage from the eyes of other people; but
can it be called normal and customary when he undertakes the most intri-
cate means to that end? Does it testify to sanity that he smashed five human
skulls solely so that they would not register incriminating information? This
logic is illogical; nor does it have anything to do with Angerstein the sober
businessman.
Many details confirm the assumption that the quiet manager was caught
unawares by some unknown something inside him. He admits that he him-
self cannot understand, cannot conceive, that the gigantic fact came out of
him. His early attempts to deny it are ridiculously petit bourgeois. Now that
he has acknowledged being the perpetrator, he gazes fixedly at what others
designate his crime. His evasions from now on have to do with incidentals,
his excuses with mere details. The actual misdeeds weigh on him like a block
of lead he cannot cast off.
If he is conscious he flees into sleep, sleeping double the usual amount, be-
cause his memory wants to disappear. The fact outside there, which is unde-
niably related to him, is completely overwhelming; he does not like to taste
or feel it. Suicide is also beyond the bounds of his horizon, now narrowed to
a point. His reading is the Bible, which perhaps brings him by way of detours
into contact with his wife.
A deed without a doer that has nothing, but nothing, in common with
those great crimes committed by people whose names live on in popular
memory. Those crimes were manifestations of a will, however misguided;
The Creature 209

they were eruptions of unbridled natures, twisted minds, the expression of

outsized drives and passions. They stemmed from a place in the guilty per-
son, were not just there alongside him, existing inadequately in space.
The deeds that now go by the name of Angerstein lack a personal point
of reference, without, however, that meaning that they were born of mental ill-
ness. That there is no sufficient reason for them in the consciousness of the doer
is what turns them into a tormenting puzzle, what lends them the uncanny
remove of mere facts. It may be that depth psychology is correct in claiming
that they emerge to the light of day out of the craters of unconscious psychic
life; it has not, however, solved the puzzle of how such a thing is possible.

Suddenness and isolation, the characteristics of disgrace, direct the

court proceedings from Kracauer’s perspective. The “perpetrator,” over-
whelmed in the public gaze, represents himself as creature. In doing so,
he opens himself to all manner of dishonor, but that approach is also the
only one with any prospect of protecting his life. Creature is the mask
that must be relied upon to avert the threat of death. At the same time,
Kracauer is required, in order to credibly convey the creatural image, to
strip Angerstein of any talent for strategic self-enactment; for the ac-
cused must not possess the ability to reflect upon his role if there is to be
any chance of avoiding execution. To accomplish this effect, Kracauer’s
report continuously rehearses the fall of Angerstein’s persona into a
realm so elemental that a masked performance is no longer a possibil-
ity. The defendant’s psychological topography, as Kracauer sketches it,
takes over elements of Freud’s early description of the apparatus of the
psyche but is in no way committed to the overall analysis. On the one
hand, Kracauer’s metaphors demand a thoroughgoing separation be-
tween the two spheres of the civilized and the elemental: “psychic dyna-
mite” has piled up in the soul’s “nether reaches”; the seeming compo-
sure of civilization itself becomes explosive, “volcanic,” its outer shell
burst asunder by “elemental events.” On the other hand, Kracauer ac-
knowledges that the natural force that turns Angerstein into a perpetra-
tor is not so elemental but instead falls hostage to the unconscious,
which, in turn, struggles in the inauthenticity of the social context—
whereby the “hysteria” of the murdered spouse is taken as a given.
In the final passage of the report, Kracauer withdraws from the
“demonic” aspect of the case, in which the contents of the “craters
of unconscious psychic life” reach the light of day. With no transition,
he reaches back to a motif from vitalist philosophy, which blames the
deformations of the creature on the reification of the world of civiliza-
tion. The claim with which he closes his article on the Angerstein case is
210 The Creature

just as enigmatically unmediated: “Only in a humane world does the

deed have its doer.”

BRONNEN’S O. S.

In his essay on Angerstein, Kracauer mentions in passing similarly ele-

mental transgressions of the law, with the difference that popular imagi-
nation celebrates the doers in these cases as great criminals. Such male-
factors earn admiration, as Walter Benjamin points out in Kritik der
Gewalt, because their unlawful acts remind us that the rule of law is
rooted in violence and that no new legal orders can be created in the ab-
sence of violence.20
Arnold Bronnen’s novel O. S. attempts to create that kind of admi-
ration for the postwar desperadoes of the Freikorps. But the heroes he
depicts occupy an intermediate position between those great authors of
misdeeds who want to destroy the system and the faceless members
of Freud’s “artificial groups,” which even such a loose association as
the Freikorps represents. While Kracauer insists that great criminals are
“heralds of an otherwise suppressed will,” volitional individuation is
precisely what military formations transcend. As Freud maintains, such
groups nullify the inhibitions that rule civilian life, stirring up “all the
cruel, brutal and destructive instincts, which lie dormant in individuals
as remnants of a primitive epoch.”21
Bronnen’s novel O. S. appears in 1929. On the dust jacket is a mili-
tary map of Upper Silesia; depicted inside is the struggle of isolated men,
who in 1921 are besieged by troops from the German republic, French
occupation troops, and Polish “insurgents.” Ernst Jünger welcomes the
novel, claiming that O. S. makes it clear “that barbarism is maintained
as a necessary consequence of civilization.”22 The novel depicts not only
creatures such as Johann Schramm, a Tirolean roadworker from Ster-
zing, who had devoted himself on the Italian front to wiping out “138
sons of this only distantly human tribe,” in order to get hold of their cans
of tuna and ground meat. Schramm travels to Upper Silesia with the
Freikorps troop Roßbach to act out his annihilating instinct against the
Poles:
Since, however, the Pole, to his disappointment, went on trembling, he
smashed his skull with his rifle. That felt good. It got him going again and he
went rattling up the hill with no comrade save his own shadow. . . . He sur-
prised them one after the other . . . killing them with his rifle butt, which
slowly splintered apart.23
The Creature 211

The image of the werewolf from the Tirolean borderland serves to

explain why the national conservatives were outraged by the novel’s
“shamelessness”; but it fails to convey the singular atmosphere pro-
duced by the book. For the central type of the novel emerges from the
dynamism of the city.
The area of movement opened up by the novel holds the most mod-
ern of communication systems: travel by road, rail, and air; newspapers,
pneumatic message delivery systems, telephones, and telegrams. The un-
familiar combination of modern media with archaic “instinct” shocked
the national conservative camp and delighted a reader like Ernst Jünger.
The writing of Goebbels’s compatriot Bronnen in no way corresponded
to the popular borderland literature of the time, which was fond of
presenting images of healthy community persisting within agrarian
structures.
For Bronnen’s O. S. is a traffic novel. It begins at exactly 11:00 a.m.
on 29 April 1921, when a taxi pulls up to the utility worker Krenek,
who is at work on a streetlight switch box on the corner of Linden and
Charlottenstraße in Berlin. The scene then shifts to the Friedrichstraße
train station, where the express train D-241 has already departed. The
train is missed again at the next station. New characters, whom we will
meet again in Upper Silesia, appear at various stations:
As the minute hands on all twenty clocks of the main station in Leipzig jerked
forward to 11:00 a.m., shop steward Scholz made his way suspiciously from
signal box no. 3 across the tracks to Platform 10, where, waiting behind
white clouds of fresh steam, were the damp, black cars of the D-train from
Munich to Breslau. (7 ff.)

Seventeen pages later, three more characters enter the action:

At twelve minutes past eleven the Cologne-Breslau D-train was to arrive in
Dresden; but it seemed not altogether inclined to punctuality, for at this mo-
ment it was still rolling past the gardens of Saxony. Looking worried, three
young men dressed in windbreakers stood toward the front of the train, look-
ing ahead at the baggage car. (24)

At 11:20 a.m. it seems certain that Krenek is not going to get to the
D-241 on time. Without giving it much thought he decides, for 200
marks, to drive his mysterious passenger the 500 kilometers to Upper
Silesia in the stolen taxi.
The reader is drawn into the narrative space of archaic struggles pre-
sented in a futurist light. The battle area is also crisscrossed by traffic
networks. The narrative threads of the novel come together at the knots:
212 The Creature

freight stations, signal boxes, loading ramps, shunting yards. The mer-
cenaries meet at these places, then separate. Telegrams, motorized couri-
ers, and telephone contacts make up the political nervous system. When
Krenek, fleeing in panic from a Communist “lynching party,” seeks ref-
uge in a telephone booth, the scene becomes a symbol of the betrayed
creature. His pursuers see him through the glass:

Inside, leaning on the dead telephone, was Krenek; but the light didn’t work,
it was dark. To him, overcome by vertigo, it was even darker. His panting
lungs slowly consumed the air. He trembled. (358)

The telephone is dead, the hero irretrievably cut off from the world of
mediating signals. The end phase of the betrayal of the “system parties”
can begin.

Bronnen’s novel casts the new objectivity motto, “Instead of expression

—signals, instead of substance—movement,” in a strange light. Lan-
guage functions in O. S. as in a comic strip; every statement moves the
action forward. The way the plebeian characters speak like telegrams
accelerates the action, which the labored verbal style of the authorities
(when they are not letting their machine guns do the talking for them)
only slows. The speeches of the heroes have the function of impelling ac-
tion and setting off chain reactions. When the hero Bergerhoff is admon-
ished not to make a decision too quickly—“Out of your mouth comes
the voice of courage, but also the voice of carelessness”—he replies:

There’s nothing speaking in me, Herr Ulitza, but my vocal cords, of course
with the help of my teeth. Otherwise, we can talk about anything you like,
just not slowing down. (280)

What is going on here is an interlinking of psychological processes and

weapons. It is tempting to think that, in Bergerhoff’s short course in lan-
guage, we see the linguistic theory of the avant-garde going to the dogs.
The mercenary leaves no doubt: there is no time, gentlemen, for the
hermeneutics of the expressive dimension, for the valuation of speech
sounds, for unraveling the mysteries of articulation! The faculties of
speech work in the same way that weapons talk. The voice, articulated
or not, is all the signal we need, as long as it conveys aggression.
At this point, the worlds divide. The sphere of exchange and poten-
tial consensus is in enemy hands. That is what Krenek has to learn. In
the opening scenes we see him meeting the nationalist slogans with the
skepticism of a Rote Fahne reader. But then he leaves the world of Com-
The Creature 213

munist newspapers and opposing arguments as fast as the transport sys-

tem allows, until he finds himself moving on the plane of physiological
reflex. He goes to ruin; that is his ascension to the rank of the “organic
construction” (Jünger) of the creature.
In Bronnen’s novel a light from the borderland falls on the systemic
world with which it remains entangled: the world of the railway bosses
and telegraph officials. That world now becomes, in Schmitt’s term, “the
intensum of dissociation,” enemy territory as such. But the mechanics
of entanglement are not external to the characters. Bronnen stresses the
mechanical essence of the affects in his hero Bergerhoff, the critically
reflected figure among the mercenaries. Bergerhoff betrays his identity
when his gaze, under the influence of “beastly feelings,” gets locked on
the figure of a peasant woman, in whom he senses the “breathtaking,
rampant machinery of procreation” (376), of which he wants to become
a part. (The “male fantasies” Theweleit identifies in the early Freikorps
novels reappear here, colored by the cult of technology in the middle-
phase of the republic.)
If we compare Bronnen’s heroes with Jünger’s cool personae, such
as the storm troop commander in Stahlgewitter, their contours become
sharper. Bronnen allows his characters no contemplative pauses (which
Jünger’s diarists consign to reading the classics); Bronnen’s werewolves
are lonely figures, but not distanced; their goal is to regress into the
bonds of blood brotherhood, but there are no conventions or behavioral
precepts to regulate the instincts. While Carl Schmitt defines the enemy
as a conscious intensification of the “stranger,” for Bronnen’s heroes the
enemy is never the result of a cognitive operation or anything like an
analytical category. The enemy is another race that must be destroyed
as soon as it shows up on native territory. Of course, this seems beneath
the theoretical level of friend-enemy definition. But since Schmitt inter-
mittently removes moral, economic, and aesthetic criteria from his defi-
nition of the enemy, their reintroduction to the empty matrix in the
crude form of biologism is easy to arrange; Schmitt demonstrates just
how easy it is in the forty articles he writes in the period between 1933
and 1936.
Are the rules we have identified in the conduct codes present in this
biologically based novel? Bronnen’s hero vaguely recalls them:
Bergerhoff crouched down alone, letting his mind wander in the glow of the
approaching fire. Scattered about in the woods, with that strange aura of
dead bodies, were German soldiers. In front of him, near the pond, making
with their last strength for the water like a single compacted body, lay the
214 The Creature

group of prisoners. They had been admirably shot, with precision, like oxen
in the slaughterhouse. He looked at them without feeling, without regret,
without a thought for a form of justice he did not recognize; it was more a
consideration of whether it was playing by the rules. But could this question
be decided, here and by him? (333)

Cool persona, radar type, creature. We have become acquainted with

three artificial figures, conceived by the “psychology from without”
(Gehlen). What remains problematic is how to refer the figures back
to sociology’s ideal types and—finally—to ask whether the conceptions
of the cool persona, the radar type, and the creature are not simply the
physiognomic shadows of self-criticism, to which the inner-directed
conscientious type rises in times of crisis. It is in any case precisely this
inner-directed type, which shines in such exemplary fashion in the texts
of cultural criticism, that is difficult to demonstrate empirically.24 That
is why the nineteenth-century public devoured it so eagerly in novels, in
order to assimilate it as a compensatory orienting value. The numerous
documents in the individual’s self-stylization as inner-directed subject
in the bourgeois novel do not automatically justify the conclusion that
inner-direction has ever existed as an operating mode. Many documents
in the cultural history of the conscience have been uncovered that call
into question this self-confident assumption on the part of the bour-
geoisie. It is probably most reasonable to assume that other-direction is
roughly constant, although modified in particular epochs such that it
appears as if the individual is being guided “from within.” In any case,
discovery of the machinelike essence of the inner world collapses the dis-
tinction between inner and outer worlds.
Afterword

In the 1930s and 1940s action theories of balance— conduct codes and
handbooks to help the new objectivity individual compensate for a “ba-
sic lack of equilibrium”—were put to the severest tests. The duelist’s
favored slogan, distinguo ergo sum, was taken over by state institutions.
The furor over distinguishing, one of the few manias the cool persona
permitted itself, took on the form of a “purification” of all political
camps. In the shadow of the dictatorship, the only possible basis for au-
thentic decisions could be the conscience. Intellectuals in exile reacted
by recasting codes of conduct that allowed them to reassert the value of
humanism.
From prison in 1943 Werner Krauss reconstructs the fundamental
rules of a life of balance, which he unearths in Balthasar Gracián’s Art
of Worldly Wisdom. The scholar, in the extreme situation of imprison-
ment, indulges a fascination for the cool persona, which gives him the
courage to reestablish humanistic principle as a form of resistance.
At the end of the 1930s, Bertolt Brecht writes a chronicle of the Thirty
Years’ War. Here Mother Courage acts according to her understanding
of the new objectivity’s implicit rules, which function as survival tech-
niques in the cool air of alienation. What Brecht teaches is that codes of
conduct can indeed guarantee sheer survival, if at the cost of a joyful
spirit. Courage’s children get caught up and killed over just that issue.
The distant prism of the seventeenth-century war refracts the new ob-

215
216 Afterword

jectivity idol of men, their nomadology and praise of the refugee’s exis-
tence, conceived on the ground of the republic, in a woman’s form.
Mother Courage’s abandonment is also the end of the new objectivity.
The fear of being abandoned is always present in a shame culture.1 As
a sculpture of abandonment, Courage bears witness to the impossibility
of a type’s existence at a moment when all is lost except attitude.
Not loneliness but abandonment, Hannah Arendt wrote, is the fun-
damental experience of life under totalitarianism.2 No better fate was of-
fered to the cool persona depicted in this book. Worse yet, the role of
the cool persona seconded the process.
What followed was the generation of air raid wardens and skeptics.
To the succeeding generation of the 1960s there seemed nothing bet-
ter than a fatherless society. This generation as well took the path of
polarization, disintegrating in the 1970s into counterculture, which re-
invigorated the cult of authenticity by negation of the fathers, and mar-
ginal groupings, which lost themselves for a time in paramilitary politi-
cal formations.
Here once again Gracián’s conduct codes, tried and tested, serve
our turn:
Between these two extremes of unreason is located the solid middle of pru-
dent virtue; and it consists of a discreet audacity, often helped by luck.3
Notes

CHAPTER ONE

1. Manès Sperber, Sieben Fragen zur Gewalt: Leben in dieser Zeit (Munich,
1978), 9 –10. I have commented on this case in “Blitzschnelle Metamorphosen:
7 Überlegungen zu einem Putzfleck,” in Geschichte als Literatur: Formen und
Grenzen der Repräsentation von Vergangenheit, ed. H. Eggert, U. Profitlich, and
K. Scherpe (Stuttgart, 1990), 242 – 49.
2. See Ernst Jünger, Der Arbeiter: Herrschaft und Gestalt (1932), 4th ed.
(Hamburg, 1941), 198.
3. Peter Hüttenberger, “Der historische Augenblick,” in Augenblick und
Zeitpunkt: Studien zur Zeitstruktur und Zeitmetaphorik in Kunst und Wissen-
schaften, ed. Thomsen and Holländer (Darmstadt, 1984), 222 –33.
4. Ibid.
5. Carl Schmitt, Politische Theologie: Vier Kapitel zur Lehre von der Sou-
veränität, 2d ed. (Munich, 1934), 49.
6. Michael Weinrich, “Macht unsere Augen hell,” in Augenblick und Zeit-
punkt, ed. Thomsen and Holländer (Darmstadt, 1984), 143– 44.
7. Reallexikon für Antike und Christentum (Stuttgart, 1978), 10:945 –1025.
8. Heinz-Dieter Kittsteiner, Die Enstehung des modernen Gewissens (Frank-
furt am Main, 1991).
9. Norbert Elias, Über den Prozess der Zivilisation (Frankfurt am Main,
1976; trans. Edmund Jephcott as The Civilizing Process: Power and Civility
[New York, 1982]).
10. See Klaus Theweleit, Male Fantasies, trans. Stephan Conway (Minneap-
olis, 1987), vol. 2.
11. Mario Erdheim, “‘Heiße’ Gesellschaft—‘kaltes’ Militär,” Kursbuch 67
(1982): 59 –72.

217
218 Notes to Pages 6 –13

12. See Karl Heinz Bohrer, Die Ästhetik des Schreckens: Die pessimistische
Romantik und Ernst Jüngers Frühwerk (Munich, 1978).
13. See Helga Geyer-Ryan and Helmut Lethen, “The Rhetoric of Forget-
ting,” in Convention and Innovation, ed. D’Haen, Grübel, and Lethen (Amster-
dam, 1989); see also Helmut Lethen, “Kältemaschinen der Intelligenz: Attitüden
der Sachlichkeit,” in Industriegebiet der Intelligenz, ed. E. Wichner and H. Wies-
ner (Berlin, 1990), 118 –53.
14. Karl Heinz Bohrer, ed., Plötzlichkeit: Zum Augenblick des ästhetischen
Scheins (Frankfurt am Main, 1981).
15. Fernand Braudel, Sozialgeschichte des 15–18 Jahrhunderts: Der All-
tag, 93.
16. Sighard Neckel, Status und Scham: Zur symbolischen Reproduktion
sozialer Ungleichheit (Frankfurt am Main, 1991), 17, 22. The following para-
graphs are guided by Neckel’s sociology of shame, as well as Kittsteiner’s cul-
tural history of the conscience. But, as is evident here and in the chapter on Pless-
ner and Serner, the conclusions I come to differ from Neckel’s.
17. See Carrie Asman, “Brecht and Kafka,” in Cross-Illuminations (Minne-
apolis, 1994).
18. Hans-Thies Lehmann, “Das Welttheater der Scham: Dreißig Annähe-
rungen an den Entzug der Darstellung,” Merkur 45, no. 10 (October 1991).
19. Léon Wurmser, Die Maske der Scham (Berlin, 1990), 447.
20. Neckel, Status und Scham, 93.
21. Helmut Berking, Masse und Geist: Studien zur Soziologie in der Wei-
marer Republik (Berlin, 1984), 65 – 89.
22. Karl Jaspers, Die geistige Situation der Zeit (Berlin, 1931), 78; cf. Berk-
ing, Masse und Geist, 62.
23. Jaspers, Die geistige Situation, 78.
24. Gustave Le Bon, La psychologie de foules (Paris, 1895).
25. The postwar literary landscape of the collective vexation and the armor-
ing taken on against shaming has been depicted and analyzed in two major
works. See Theweleit, Male Fantasies; and Peter Sloterdijk, Kritik der zynischen
Vernunft (Frankfurt am Main, 1983).
26. Walter Serner, Letzte Lockerung manifest dada (1920), in Letzte Locke-
rung: Ein Handbrevier für Hochstapler und solche, die es werden wollen (1927)
(Munich, 1981), 31.
27. Helmuth Plessner, Grenzen der Gemeinschaft: Eine Kritik des sozialen
Radikalismus (1924), in vol. 5 of Gesammelte Schriften (Frankfurt am Main,
1982), 111.
28. Bertolt Brecht Poems, 1913–1956, ed. John Willett and Ralph Manheim
(New York, 1976), 34 –35.
29. Walter Benjamin, “Schicksal und Character,” in Zur Kritik der Gewalt
und andere Aufsätze, with an afterword by Herbert Marcuse (Frankfurt am
Main, 1965), 76. The suggestion to consult Benjamin here I owe to Patrick Pri-
mavesi. See his paper, “Die Scham bei Benjamin,” presented at the International
Walter-Benjamin-Kongreß, Osnabrück, June 1992.
30. Ibid., 68 ff.
31. Sigmund Freud, Reflections on War and Death (1915).
Notes to Pages 13–22 219

32. Ibid.
33. See Neckel, Status und Scham, 41–59.
34. The most important analysis of these dichotomous concepts in our con-
text is in Elias, Über den Prozess der Zivilisation. A useful overview can be found
in Hans Joachim Krüger, “Aspekte der Zivilisationsanalyse von Norbert Elias,”
in Kultur: Bestimmungen im 20. Jahrhundert, ed. H. Brackert and F. Wefel-
meyer (Frankfurt am Main, 1990), 317– 43.
35. Krüger, “Aspekte der Zivilisationsanalyse,” 322.
36. See Helmut Lethen, “Der Jargon der Neuen Sachlichkeit,” Germanica 9
(1991).
37. Hannes Meyer, Die neue Welt (1926), in Bauen und Gesellschaft: Schrif-
ten, Briefe, Prospekte (Dresden, 1980), 27 f.
38. Alfred Döblin, “Der Geist der naturalistischen Zeitalters,” Die Neue
Rundschau (1924); reprinted in Aufsätze zur Literatur (Freiburg, 1963), 70.
39. Robert Musil, Die Zeit der Tatsache (1923), in Tagebücher, Aphoris-
men, Essays und Reden, ed. Adolf Frisé (Hamburg, 1955), 8:1384.
40. Hermann von Wedderkop, “Wandlungen des Geschmacks,” Der Quer-
schnitt: Das Magazin der aktuellen Ewigkeitswerte, July 1926.
41. Alfred Adler, “Körperform, Bewegung und Charakter,” Der Quer-
schnitt, September 1930, 342.
42. Walter Benjamin, Einbahnstrasse (Berlin, 1928), 63.
43. Ibid., 47 ff.
44. Bertolt Brecht, Schriften zum Theater, 1918–1933 (Frankfurt am Main,
1963), 116 ff.
45. Neckel, Status und Scham, 51.
46. Bertolt Brecht, Gesammelte Werke (Frankfurt am Main, 1967),
18:180 ff.
47. This idea was stressed in Kittsteiner’s various commentaries on cultural
history.
48. Brecht, Gesammelte Werke, 18:117.
49. See Lethen, “Jargon der Neuen Sachlichkeit.”
50. Wurmser, Maske der Scham, 230.
51. Ulrike Baureithel stresses this point; see “Masken der Virilität,” Die Phi-
losophin 8 (1993): 24 –35.
52. Neckel, Status und Scham, 151.

CHAPTER TWO

1. Siegfried Kracauer, “Die Unterführung,” in Aufsätze 1932 –1935, Schrif-

ten, ed. Inka Mülder-Bach, vol. 5, bk. 3 (Frankfurt am Main, 1990), 40 – 42. On
Unterführung see Inka Mülder-Bach, “Schlupflöcher: Die Diskontinuität des
Kontinuierlichen im Werk Siefried Kracauer,” in Siegfried Kracauer: Neue Inter-
pretationen, ed. M. Kessler and T. Levin (Tübingen, 1990), 253 ff.
2. “. . . which began just at that point to present itself as a permanent fea-
ture of modern society” (René König, Leben im Widerspruch: Versuch einer in-
tellektuellen Autobiographie [Frankfurt am Main, 1984], 62).
3. See Jean-Luc Evard, Einrichtungen der Angst, ed. K. Ratschiller and
220 Notes to Pages 23–32

C. Subik, Klagenfurter Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vienna, 1991). This chapter

owes certain of its critical ideas to Evard’s considerations.
4. On this point see the findings of Martin Lindner, Leben in der Krise: Zeit-
romane der Neuen Sachlichkeit und die intellektuelle Mentalität der klassischen
Moderne (Stuttgart, 1994), 119 – 42. Lindner’s research offers completely new
insight into the decade of the new objectivity; its polarity-based thought seems
to remain deeply immersed in vitalist philosophy. Since I became aware of this
book only near the completion of my own work here, I address its findings only
marginally and in regard to individual points.
5. Philipp Lersch, Aufbau des Charakters (1942), 100; quoted in ibid., 169.
6. Felix Weltsch as cited in Thomas Anz, Literatur der Existenz (1988), 66;
quoted in ibid., 169.
7. Gottfried Benn, “Roman des Phänotyp: Landsberger Fragment 1944,” in
Der Ptolemäer (Stuttgart, 1988), 42 f.
8. Odo Marquard, Transzendentaler Idealismus: Romantische Naturphilo-
sophie, Psychoanalyse (Cologne, 1987), 38 ff.
9. Helmuth Plessner, Grenzen der Gemeinschaft: Eine Kritik des sozialen
Radikalismus (1924), in vol. 5 of Gesammelte Schriften (Frankfurt am Main,
1982), 80.
10. Ibid., 95.
11. Ezra Pound, “Definitions etc.,” Der Querschnitt: Das Magazin der ak-
tuellen Ewigkeitswerte, ed. Christian Ferber (reprint, Berlin, 1981), 29.
12. Ernst Jünger, Das Abenteuerliche Herz: Figuren und Capriccios (Stutt-
gart, 1979), 173.
13. Siegfried Kracauer, Aufsätze 1927–1931, Schriften, ed. Inka Mülder-
Bach, vol. 5, bk. 1 (Frankfurt am Main, 1990), 376 ff.
14. Broder Christiansen, Das Geschichte unserer Zeit (Buchenbach in Ba-
den, 1930).
15. Martin Wagner, Das Formproblem eines Weltstadtplatzes (1929); re-
printed in Tendenzen der Zwanziger Jahre, 15. Europäische Kunstausstellung
(Berlin, 1977), catalog 2/105.
16. Christiansen, Das Geschichte unserer Zeit, 40.
17. Siegfried Kracauer, “Stadterscheinungen” (Frankfurter Zeitung, 6 Au-
gust 1932), in Schriften, vol. 5, bk. 3, 93.
18. Siegfried Kracauer, “Kleine Signale,” in Schriften, vol. 5, bk. 2, 234 –36.
19. Carl Schmitt, “Theodor Däublers Nordlicht” (1916); quoted in Norbert
Bolz, Auszug aus der entzauberten Welt: Philosophischer Extremismus zwischen
den Weltkriegen (Munich, 1989), 84.
20. Arnold Bronnen, “Moral und Verkehr,” in Sabotage der Jugend: Kleine
Arbeiten, 1922 –1934, ed. F. Aspetsberger (Innsbruck, 1989), 127.
21. Bertolt Brecht, “Ten Poems from A Reader for Those Who Live in
Cities,” in Bertolt Brecht Poems, 1913–1956, ed. John Willett and Ralph Man-
heim (New York, 1976), 137.
22. Helmuth Plessner, Die Stufen des Organischen und der Mensch (1928;
Berlin, 1965), 320.
23. Alfred Adler, “Körperform, Bewegung und Charakter,” Der Quer-
schnitt, September 1930, 338.
Notes to Pages 32 –38 221

24. Béla Balázs, Der sichtbare Mensch oder die Kultur des Films (Leipzig,
1924), 23.
25. Siegfried Kracauer, “Der blaue Engel,” Die Neue Rundschau (1930); re-
printed in From Caligari to Hitler: A Psychological History of the German Film
(Princeton, 1947). There is much information on resistance to psychoanalysis in
Carl Pietzcker, “Brechts Verhältnis zur Psychoanalyse,” in Psychoanalyse und
Literatur, ed. W. Schönau (Amsterdam, 1984), 275 –317. On the reception of
behaviorism, see Jan Knopf, Bertolt Brecht: Ein Forschungsbericht (Frankfurt
am Main, 1974), 80 –90; Hans Jürgen Rosenbauer, Brecht und der Behavioris-
mus (Bad Homburg, 1970); Heinrich Berenberg-Gossler, Hans-Harald Müller,
and Joachim Stosch, “Das Lehrstück—Rekonstruktion einer Theorie oder Fort-
setzung eines Lernprozesses?” in Brechtdiskussion, ed. J. Dyck et al. (Kronberg,
1974), 121 ff.
26. Herbert Jhering, “Die Kreatur: Bruckner in der Komödie” (11 March
1930), in Von Reinhardt bis Brecht (Berlin, 1961), 3:48 –50.

CHAPTER THREE

1. Walter Benjamin, “Erfahrung und Armut,” in Illuminationen: Ausge-

wählte Schriften (Frankfurt am Main, 1961), 314.
2. Ernst Jünger, In Stahlgewittern (Berlin, 1942).
3. Bertolt Brecht, Ozeanflug (1929), in Gesammelte Werke (Frankfurt am
Main, 1967), 2:584.
4. Walter Serner, Letzte Lockerung: Ein Handbrevier für Hochstapler und
solche, die es werden wollen (1927) (Munich, 1981), 69.
5. Werner Krauss, Graciáns Lebenslehre (Frankfurt am Main, 1947), 86.
[Translator’s note: in this chapter’s discussion, further references to Graciáns Le-
benslehre will be by page number.] See Werner Krauss, Lendemains 18, nos. 69 –
70 (1993).
6. Werner Krauss, “Bericht über meine Beteiligung and der Aktion Schulze-
Boysen,” Beglaubigte Abschrift des eigenhändigen Berichts (Werner-Krauss-
Archiv, Berlin), 16. Krauss also worked during his confinement on the novel
PLN: Die Passionen der halkyonischen Seele, which was published in 1946 by
Vittorio Klostermann in Frankfurt.
7. Karlheinz Barck, “Eine unveröffentliche Korrespondenz: Erich Auerbach /
Werner Krauss,” Beiträge zur Romanischen Philologie 26, no. 2 (1987): 312.
8. Balthasar Gracián, The Art of Worldly Wisdom, trans. Joseph Jacobs
(New York, 1943).
9. Krauss, “Bericht über meine Beteiligung,” 17.
10. Hans Robert Jauss, “Ein Kronezeuge unseres Jahrhunderts: Werner
Krauss in seinen nachgelassenen Tagebüchern,” Romantische Zeitschrift für Li-
teraturgeschichte 14, nos. 3– 4 (1990): 421.
11. Ibid.
12. Bertolt Brecht, “Ten Poems from A Reader for Those Who Live in
Cities,” in Bertolt Brecht Poems, 1913–1956, ed. John Willett and Ralph Man-
heim (New York, 1976), 131.
222 Notes to Pages 38 – 47

13. Ludwig Flachskamp, rev. of Graciáns Lebenslehre in Romanische For-

schung 62, nos. 2 –3 (1950): 263.
14. Ibid.
15. Ibid., 264.
16. Arnold G. Reichenberger, rev. of Graciáns Lebenslehre in Hispanic Re-
view 17 (1949): 171. The third review on file in the Krauss archive also stresses
the status of the persona concept: see H. Kunz, review of Graciáns Lebenslehre
in Studia Philosophie (1949): 189. But Erich Auerbach, in a letter of 13 Octo-
ber 1947, emphasizes the chapter about Gracián’s “concept of measure” (see
Barck, “Eine unveröffentliche Korrespondenz”). I go into this humanist evalua-
tive shift below, when I discuss the conduct codes’ historical context.
17. Marcel Mauss, “Eine Kategorie des menschlichen Geists . . . ,” Journal
of the Royal Anthropological Institute 68 (1938) [Huxley Memorial Lecture of
1938]; reprinted in Soziologie und Anthropologie (Frankfurt am Main, 1978),
2:238.
18. Ibid., 252.
19. Karl Vossler, Geist und Kultur in der Sprache (1925) (Munich, 1960),
16; Karl Löwith, Das Individuum in der Rolle des Mitmenschen (Munich,
1928). Both books were in Karl Krauss’s library; they led me to the René König
essay, “Freiheit und Selbstentfremdung in soziologischer Sicht” (1962), in Stu-
dien zur Soziologie (Frankfurt am Main, 1971).
20. Krauss, “Bericht über meine Beteiligung,” 16.
21. Max Weber, “Science as a Vocation,” in From Max Weber: Essays in So-
ciology, trans. H. H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills (New York, 1946).
22. Max Weber, “Politics as a Vocation,” in ibid., 128.
23. See Gary L. Ulmen, Politischer Mehrwert: Eine Studie über Max Weber
und Carl Schmitt (Weinheim, 1991), 124.
24. Karl Mannheim, Konservativismus: Ein Beitrag zur Soziologie des Wis-
sens, ed. David Kettler et al. (Frankfurt am Main, 1984), 214. See Pierre Vay-
dat, “Neue Sachlichkeit als ethische Haltung,” Germanica 9 (1991): 37–54.
25. Carl Schmitt, Der Begriff des Politischen (1927; Berlin, 1963), 53 (trans.
George Schwab as The Concept of the Political [New Brunswick, N.J., 1976]).
26. Ursula Geitner, Die Sprache der Verstellung: Studium zum rheto-
rischen und anthropologischen Wissen im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert (Tübingen,
1992), 221.
27. Ibid., 220.
28. Helga Geyer-Ryan, “Zur Geschichte des weiblichen Vernunftverbots,”
in Konstellationen der Moderne: Rationalität—Weiblichkeit—Wissenschaft, ed.
Chr. Kulke and E. Scheich (Freiburg, 1992), 7. See Helga Geyer-Ryan, Fables of
Desire: Studies in the Ethics of Art and Gender (Cambridge, 1994).
29. See Andreas Kuhlmann, “Souverän im Ausdruck: Helmuth Plessner und
die ‘neue Anthropologie,’” Merkur 45, no. 8 (August 1991).
30. Klaus Theweleit, Male Fantasies, trans. Stephan Conway (Minneapolis,
1987). Michael Rohrwasser, Saubere Mädel, starke Genossen: Proletarische
Massenliteratur? (Frankfurt am Main, 1975); see Michael Rohrwasser, Der Weg
nach oben: Johannes R. Becher, Politics of Writing (Basel, 1980); Michael Rohr-
wasser, Der Stalinismus und die Renegaten: Die Literatur der Exkommunisten
Notes to Pages 47–51 223

(Stuttgart, 1991). Nicolaus Sombart, Die deutschen Männer und ihre Feinde,
Carl Schmitt: Ein deutsches Schicksal zwischen Männerbund und Matriarchats-
mythos (Munich, 1991). Carl Pietzcker, Ich kommandiere mein Herz (Würz-
burg, 1988). Peter Sloterdijk, Kritik der zynischen Vernunft (Frankfurt am
Main, 1983).
31. Ulrike Bauereithel has made these points in several publications: most re-
cently, in “Kollectivneurose moderner Männer: Die Neue Sachlichkeit als Symp-
tom des männlichen Identitätsverlust—Sozialpsychologische Aspekte einer li-
terarischen Strömung,” Germanica 9 (1991): 123– 45; see also Bauereithel,
Masken; and Peter Gay, “The Revenge of the Father: Rise and Fall of Objectiv-
ity,” in Weimar Culture: The Outsider as Insider (New York, 1968), 119 – 45.
Claudia Szcesny-Friedmann, Die kühle Gesellschaft (Munich, 1991).
32. Sombart, Deutschen Männer, 80.
33. Sloterdijk, Kritik der zynischen Vernunft, 940. See Helmut Lethen, “Von
Geheimagenten und Virtuosen: Peter Sloterdijks Schulbeispiele des Zynisimus
aus der Literatur der Weimarer Republik,” in Peter Sloterdijks “Kritik der zy-
nischen Vernunft” (Frankfurt am Main, 1987), 324 –55.
34. Bertolt Brecht, Songs der Dreigroschenoper, in Gesammelte Werke
(Frankfurt am Main, 1967), 11:146.
35. Robert Musil, Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften (Hamburg, 1952), 780.
36. Max Scheler, Die Stellung des Menschen im Kosmos (1928) (Bonn,
1991), 55 ff.
37. Helmuth Plessner, Grenzen der Gemeinschaft: Eine Kritik des sozialen
Radikalismus (1924), in vol. 5 of Gesammelte Schriften (Frankfurt am Main,
1982), 127. [Translator’s note: in this chapter’s discussion, further references to
Grenzen will be by page number.]
38. Sigmund Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents (1930), trans. James
Strachey (New York, 1961), 67.
39. Schmitt, Begriff des Politischen, 59.
40. Ernst Jünger, Der Arbeiter: Herrschaft und Gestalt (1932), 4th ed.
(Hamburg, 1941), 18.
41. See Albert O. Hirschman, Leidenschaften und Interessen (Frankfurt am
Main, 1980), 17–19.
42. Jacob Taubes, “Leviathan als sterblicher Gott,” in Der Fürst dieser Welt:
Carl Schmitt und die Folgen, ed. J. Taubes (Munich, 1985), 12.
43. Walter Benjamin, Der Ursprung des deutschen Trauerspiels (Frankfurt
am Main, 1963), 56.
44. Ibid., 75.
45. On these issues I am following Heinz-Dieter Kittsteiner, Die Enstehung
des modernen Gewissens (Frankfurt am Main, 1991), 229 – 44.
46. Schmitt, Begriff des Politischen, 28.
47. This formulation, which elaborates the paradox of Hobbes’s precepts of
reason, comes from an instructive introduction by Wolfgang Kersting, Thomas
Hobbes (Hamburg, 1922), 127.
48. Geitner, Sprache der Verstellung, 6.
49. This characterization follows Kersting (Hobbes, 59 –98) in the details,
though I do not necessarily share his interpretations.
224 Notes to Pages 51–57

50. Osip Mandelstam, “Gespräch über Dante,” Gesammelte Essays 1925–

35 (Reinbek, 1990), 160.
51. Kersting, Hobbes, 78 ff.
52. Sloterdijk, Kritik der zynischen Vernunft, 935.
53. Helmuth Plessner, Macht und menschliche Natur: Ein Versuch zur An-
thropologie der geschichtlichen Weltansicht (1931), in vol. 5 of Gesammelte
Schriften (Frankfurt am Main, 1982), 147.
54. Siegfried Kracauer, Philosophie der Gemeinschaft, in Aufsätze
1927–1931, Schriften, ed. Inka Mülder-Bach, vol. 5, bk. 1 (Frankfurt am Main,
1990), 269.
55. Ferdinand Tönnies, Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft: Grundbegriffe der
reinen Soziologie (Darmstadt, 1979).
56. René König, “Gemeinschaft,” in Fischer Enzyklopädie des Wissens, “So-
ziologie” (Frankfurt am Main, 1958), 83– 88.
57. Plessner, Macht und menschliche Natur, 199.
58. Helmut Lethen, “Lob der Kälte: Ein Motiv der historischen Avant-
garden,” in Die unvollendete Vernunft: Moderne versus Postmoderne, ed.
D. Kamper and W. van Reijen (Frankfurt am Main, 1987).
59. Quoted in Andreas Haus, Moholy-Nagy, Fotos und Fotogramme (Mu-
nich, 1978), 64.
60. Richard Sennett, The Fall of Public Man (New York, 1976).
61. Walter Benjamin, Gesammelte Schriften (Frankfurt am Main, 1991 [?]),
6:62.
62. Lionel Trilling, Das Ende der Aufrichtigkeit (Munich, 1980; originally
Sincerity and Authenticity [Cambridge, 1971]).
63. Freud uses this allegory from Parerga und Paralipomena in his Group Psy-
chology and the Analysis of the Ego, trans. James Strachey (New York, 1960), 41.
64. Günther Dux, “Helmuth Plessners philosophische Anthropologie im
Prospekt,” afterword to Philosophische Anthropologie, by Helmuth Plessner
(Frankfurt am Main, 1970), 275.
65. Arnold Gehlen, Der Mensch: Seine Natur und seine Stellung in der Welt
(1940) (Wiesbaden, 1986), 80; see Karl Siegbert Rehberg, “Zurück zur Kultur?
Arnold Gehlens anthropologische Grundlegung der Kulturwissenschaften,” in
Kultur: Bestimmungen im 20. Jahrhundert, ed. H. Brackert and F. Wefelmeyer
(Frankfurt am Main, 1990), 276 –316.
66. See Martin Lindner, Leben in der Krise: Zeitromane der neuen Sachlich-
keit und die intellektuelle Mentalität der klassischen Moderne (Stuttgart, 1994).
He offers an astounding profile of the epoch of vitalism, from 1890 to 1955, in
which polarization works to structure thought.
67. Georg Simmel, “Die Krisis der Kultur,” in Expressionismus: Manifeste
und Dokumente zur deutschen Literatur 1910 –1920, ed. T. Anz and M. Stark
(Stuttgart, 1982), 206.
68. Joachim Fischer, “Plessner und die politische Philosophie der zwanziger
Jahre,” in Politisches Denken, Jahrbuch 1992, ed. V. Gerhardt, H. Ottmann,
and M. P. Thompson (Stuttgart, 1992), 61.
69. Helmuth Plessner, Die Stufen des Organischen und der Mensch (1928)
(Berlin, 1965), 316 f.
Notes to Pages 59 –71 225

70. Joachim Fischer, “Spricht die Seele,” FAZ, 37.

71. Ibid.; Dux, “Plessners philosophische Anthropologie,” 308.
72. See Dux, “Plessners philosophische Anthropologie,” 309.
73. Léon Wurmser, Die Maske der Scham (Berlin, 1990), 453.
74. Dux, “Plessners philosophische Anthropologie,” 305.
75. Wurmser, Maske der Scham, 78.
76. Ibid., 86 ff.
77. The following quotations are from Trilling, Ende der Aufrichtigkeit, spe-
cifically the chapter on society and authenticity, 106 –33. Carl Wege referred me
to artificiality’s technological dimension in a conversation on 25 November 1991.
78. Friedrich Nietzsche, The Will to Power, trans. Walter Kaufmann and
R. J. Hollingdale (New York, 1968), 496 –97.
79. Nietzsche, Werke in drei Bände (Munich, 1963), 2:604.
80. On this see Hans-Thies Lehmann, “Das Welttheater der Scham: Dreißig
Annäherungen an den Entzug der Darstellung,” Merkur 45, no. 10 (October
1991): 836.
81. Johann Gottfried Herder, Abhandlung über den Ursprung der Sprache
(Stuttgart, 1962), 80 f.
82. Ibid., 26.
83. Gehlen, Der Mensch, 84.
84. This point, which Hans Dietrich Irmscher confirms in his afterword to
the 1962 edition of Herder’s Abhandlung (174), is all the more astonishing be-
cause Plessner’s habilitations lecture was about Herder.
85. Erich Auerbach, Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Lit-
erature, trans. Willard R. Trask (Princeton, 1968), 360. Here I follow a refer-
ence Renate Schlesier gave me.
86. Ibid.; see “The Faux Dévot,” 359 –95.
87. Sigrid Weigel, “Zum Verhältnis von ‘Wilden’ und ‘Frauen’ im Diskurs
der Aufklärung,” in Topographien (Hamburg, 1990), 118 – 42. See Geitner,
Sprache der Verstellung, 295 ff.
88. In Philosophie in Selbstdarstellungen, ed. Ludwig I. Pongratz (Hamburg,
1975), 1:269 –307.
89. Lehmann, “Welttheater des Schams,” 827 ff.
90. Gay, Weimar Culture. Ulrike Baureithel reinforces the thesis in “. . . in
dieser Welt von Männern erdacht” (master’s thesis, Universität Karlsruhe, 1987).
91. Alfred Döblin, Wissen und Verändern: Offene Briefe an einen jungen
Menschen (Berlin, 1931), 35 ff.
92. Ibid., 36 ff.
93. Nor did Bertolt Brecht shy away from using them. See Carl Pietzcker,
“Brechts Verhältnis zur Psychoanalyse,” in Psychoanalyse und Literatur, ed.
W. Schönau (Amsterdam, 1984).
94. Arnold Gehlen, Anthropologische Forschung: Zur Selbstbegegnung und
Selbstentdeckung des Menschen (Reinbek, 1961), 56.
95. An overview of the situation of anthropology in the twenties, which I
follow extensively here, is Jürgen Habermas, “Anthropologie,” in Das Fischer
Lexicon, Philosophie, ed. A. Diener and I. Frenzel (Frankfurt am Main, 1958),
18 –35.
226 Notes to Pages 72 – 88

96. Plessner, Stufen des Organischen, 316 ff.

97. In this context see Baureithel, “. . . in dieser Welt von Männern erdacht.”
98. See Jürgen Habermas, On the Logic of the Social Sciences, trans. Shierry
Weber Nicholsen and Jerry A. Stark (Cambridge, Mass., 1988), 117 ff.
99. Geitner, Sprache der Verstellung.
100. Scheler, Stellung des Menschen, 18.
101. Karl Bühler, Ausdruckstheorie: Das System an der Geschichte auf-
gezeigt (1933), 2d ed., with an introduction by Albert Wellek (Stuttgart, 1968).
[Translator’s note: in this chapter’s discussion, further references to Ausdrucks-
theorie will be by page number.]
102. See Habermas, “Anthropologie,” 29.
103. Ludwig Klages, Ausdrucksbewegung und Gestaltungskraft, 3d and 4th
eds. (1923), 47 f.; quoted in Bühler, Ausdruckstheorie, 165.
104. Walter Benjamin, Fragmente: Autobiographische Schriften, Gesam-
melte Schriften (Frankfurt am Main, 1991 [?]), 6:177.
105. Helmuth Plessner, “Das Lächeln” (1950), in Philosophische Anthropo-
logie (Frankfurt am Main, 1970), 176.
106. Ibid., 91.
107. Helmuth Plessner, “Die Deutung des mimischen Ausdrucks: Ein Bei-
trag zur Lehre vom Bewußtsein des anderen Ichs” (1925), in Gesammelte Schrif-
ten (Frankfurt am Main, 1982), 7:67–130.
108. Scheler, Stellung des Menschen, 15.
109. Ibid., 77.
110. Ibid., 69.
111. Max Scheler, Vom Sinn des Leidens, 64 ff.; quoted in Sloterdijk, Kritik
der zynischen Vernunft, 828.
112. Ibid.
113. Peter Heintel and Thomas H. Macho, “Der soziale Körper: Zynismus
und Organisation,” in Kritik der zynischen Vernunft (Frankfurt am Main,
1983), 828.
114. Bertolt Brecht, “Lyrik als Ausdruck,” in Schriften zur Literatur und
Kunst, 1920 –1932 (Frankfurt am Main, 1967), 74 ff.
115. Rudolf Leonhard, Alles und Nichts! (1920); quoted in Expressionis-
mus: Literatur und Kunst 1910 –1923, Sonderausstellung des Schiller-National-
museums, catalog no. 7 (Munich, 1960), 216.
116. Brecht, “Lyrik als Ausdruck,” 75. On the theory of the gesture, see Car-
rie Asman, “Die Rückbindung des Zeichens an den Körper,” presented at the In-
ternational Walter-Benjamin-Kongreß, Osnabrück, June 1992.
117. Heinrich Berenberg-Gossler, Hans-Harald Müller, and Joachim
Stosch, “Das Lehrstück—Rekonstruktion einer Theorie oder Fortsetzung
eines Lernprozesses?” in Brechtdiskussion, ed. J. Dyck et al. (Kronberg, 1974),
121–71.
118. Benjamin, Ursprung des deutschen Trauerspiels, 194.
119. Rüdiger Kramme has made a detailed examination of the correspon-
dences between the theories of Plessner and Schmitt. I am indebted to his work
for many suggestions, even if I do not share his conclusions. See Rüdiger
Kramme, Helmuth Plessner und Carl Schmitt: Eine historische Fallstudie von
Notes to Pages 89 –98 227

Anthropologie und Politik in der deutschen Philosophie der zwanziger Jahre

(Berlin, 1989).
120. Schmitt, Begriff des Politischen, 143.
121. Plessner, Macht und menschliche Natur, 143.
122. Ibid., 155, 148, 234.
123. Norbert Bolz, Auszug aus der entzauberten Welt: Philosophischer Ex-
tremismus zwischen den Weltkriegen (Munich, 1989), 90.
124. See Eckhard Nordhofen, “Vor der Bundeslade des Bösen,” Die Zeit,
9 April 1993, 61.
125. Geitner, Sprache der Verstellung, 111.
126. Weber, “Science as a Vocation,” 152.
127. Quoted in Bolz, Auszug, 13.
128. Ernst Jünger was also termed “Lucifer.” See Heinz-Dieter Kittsteiner
and Helmut Lethen, “‘Jetzt zieht Leutnant Jünger seinen Mantel aus . . . ,’ Über-
legungen zur ‘Ästhetik des Schreckens,’” Berliner Hefte: Zeitschrift für Kultur
und Politik, no. 11 (May 1979): 20 –50.
129. Schmitt, Begriff des Politischen, 60.
130. See Ulmen, Politischer Mehrwert, 42.
131. Plessner, Macht und menschliche Natur, 192.
132. Schmitt, Begriff des Politischen, 27, 33.
133. Ibid.
134. Kramme, Helmuth Plessner und Carl Schmitt, 7, 208.
135. Plessner, Macht und menschliche Natur, 192.
136. Ibid., 194.
137. Raphael Gross, “Carl Schmitts ‘Nomos’ und die ‘Juden,’” Merkur
(1993).
138. Plessner, Macht und menschlicher Natur, 126.
139. An observation by Léon Poliakow, passed on by Ulrich Raulff in “Die
Libido des Polizeistaats,” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 10 August 1991, 25.
On the fascination the figure of the Grand Inquisitor held for intellectuals of the
twenties, see Sloterdijk, Kritik der zynischen Vernunft, 344 – 69.
140. Helmuth Plessner, Die verspätete Nation (Frankfurt am Main,
1989), 189.
141. Plessner, Macht und menschliche Natur, 192.
142. Norbert Elias, Die höfische Gesellschaft (Darmstadt, 1969; trans. Ed-
mund Jephcott as The Court Society [New York, 1983]).
143. Ibid., 171.
144. Norbert Elias, Über den Prozess der Zivilisation (Frankfurt am Main,
1976), 390.
145. Hans Joachim Krüger, “Aspekte der Zivilisationsanalyse von Norbert
Elias,” in Kultur: Bestimmungen im 20. Jahrhundert, ed. H. Brackert and F. We-
felmeyer (Frankfurt am Main, 1990), 338.
146. I am indebted to Renate Schlesier for both the reference to Kantoro-
wicz’s book The King’s Two Bodies and the idea of “textual space.”
147. Barck, “Eine unveröffentliche Korrespondenz,” 169.
148. This constellation is depicted in greater detail in Hirschmann, Leiden-
schaften und Interessen, 28 –51.
228 Notes to Pages 98 –110

149. Martin Meyer, Ernst Jünger (Munich, 1990), 337.

150. Ernst Jünger, Strahlungen (Stuttgart, 1980), 1:474 ff.

CHAPTER FOUR

1. I developed this idea in conversations with Hortense von Heppe and

Heinz Wismann.
2. See Sighard Neckel, Status und Scham: Zur symbolischen Reproduktion
sozialer Ungleichheit (Frankfurt am Main, 1991), 93.
3. Paul Tillich, Die sozialistische Entscheidung (Berlin, 1980), 38.
4. See Klaus Garber, “Baroque und Moderne im Werk Benjamins,” Litera-
turmagazin 29 (1992).
5. My argument is guided by Samuel Weber, “Taking Exception to Decision:
Walter Benjamin and Carl Schmitt,” paper delivered in Utrecht, December
1991. My thanks to Weber for providing me a copy of his (then unfinished)
manuscript. It has since appeared in Enlightenments: Encounters between Criti-
cal Theory and Contemporary Thought, ed. H. Kunnemann and H. de Vries
(Kampen, 1993), 141– 62.
6. The idea that the literary text can become the “crooked plane” of the pro-
grammatic idea I have taken from Carrie Asman’s essay, “Brecht and Kafka,” in
Cross-Illuminations (Minneapolis, 1994).
7. My attention was drawn to the following points on difference by Sigrid
Weigel, Renate Schlesier, Hans-Thies Lehmann, Patrick Primavesi, and Rich-
ard Faber, in a discussion at the 1992 international Benjamin congress in
Osnabrück.
8. Walter Benjamin, “Der Surrealismus: Die letzte Momentaufnahme der eu-
ropäischen Intelligenz,” in Angelus Novus, 202.
9. Walter Benjamin, “Franz Kafka” (1934), in ibid., 261.
10. Carl Schmitt, Glossarium: Aufzeichnungen der Jahre 1947–1951 (Ber-
lin, 1991), 234. [Translator’s note: in this chapter’s discussion, further references
to Glossarium will be by page number.]
11. Benjamin, “Franz Kafka,” 250.
12. S. Weber, “Taking Exception.”
13. Philipp Lersch, Gesicht und Seele (1932), cited in Karl Bühler, Aus-
druckstheorie: Das System an der Geschichte aufgezeigt (1933), 2d ed., with an
introduction by Albert Wellek (Stuttgart, 1968), 87 ff., 206 ff.
14. Ibid., 86.
15. Lersch cited in ibid., 87.
16. Ibid., 210.
17. Ibid., 207.
18. Bertolt Brecht, “Ten Poems from A Reader for Those Who Live in
Cities,” in Bertolt Brecht Poems, 1913–1956, ed. John Willett and Ralph Man-
heim (New York, 1976), 138 ff.
19. Joseph Roth, “Bekenntnisse zum Gleisdreieck” (1924), reprinted in
Werke: Das journalistische Werk, 1924 –1928, ed. Klaus Westermann (Cologne,
1990), 221.
20. See Max Scheler’s characterization of decadence philosophy in “Der
Notes to Pages 110 –123 229

Mensch und die Geschichte” (1926), in Philosophische Weltanschauung (Bern,

1954), 82.
21. Max Scheler, “Der Mensch im Weltalter des Ausgleichs” (1927), in ibid.,
101–5.
22. Franz Blei, Talleyrand oder der Zynismus (Munich, 1984). For this ref-
erence I am indebted to Klaus Ratschiller (Klagenfurt). [Translator’s note: in this
chapter’s discussion, further references to Talleyrand oder der Zynismus will
be by page number.] My commentary on Blei’s novel took form subsequent to
my reading of Nicolaus Sombart, Die deutschen Männer und ihre Feinde (Mu-
nich, 1991).
23. Sombart, Deutschen Männer, 286 ff.
24. Stefan Zweig, Joseph Fouché: Bildnis eines politischen Menschen
(Frankfurt am Main, 1991), 22 f.
25. See Wolfgang Iser, Das Fictive und das Imaginäre: Perspektiven litera-
rische Anthropologie (Frankfurt am Main, 1991), 226 – 61.
26. Theodor Lessing, “Der Maupassant der Kriminalistik” (1925); quoted
in Walter Serner, Der Abreiser: Materialien zu Leben und Werk, ed. Thomas
Milch (Munich, 1984), 81– 84.
27. On Iser’s version of Plessner’s anthropology of enactment, see Das Fik-
tive und das Imaginäre, 148.
28. Ibid., 150.
29. See Neckel, Status und Scham, 240. Neckel refers to Pierre Bourdieu,
Die feinen Unterschiede (Frankfurt am Main, 1982), 500 ff.
30. Walter Serner, Letzte Lockerung: Ein Handbrevier für Hochstapler und
solche, die es werden wollen (1927) (Munich, 1981).
31. Ernst Fuhrmann in his 1928 review of Letzte Lockerung; quoted in
Serner, Der Abreiser, 156.
32. Raoul Hausmann quoted in Hanne Bergius, “Der Da-Dandy—Ein ‘Nar-
renspiel aus dem Nichts,’” in Tendenzen der Zwanziger Jahre (Berlin, 1977),
3/12 –3/29.
33. See Hiltrud Gnüg, Kult der Kälte: Der klassische Dandy im Spiegel der
Weltliteratur (Stuttgart, 1988).
34. Serner, Der Abreiser, 19.
35. S. Lyman and M. Scott, Coolness in Everyday Life (1968), quoted in
Neckel, Status und Scham, 267.
36. Agnes Heller, The Power of Shame (1985), quoted in Neckel, Status und
Scham, 53.
37. Ursula Geitner, Die Sprache der Verstellung: Studium zum rhetorischen
und anthropologischen Wissen im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert (Tübingen, 1992), 98.
38. Werner Krauss, Graciáns Lebenslehre (Frankfurt am Main, 1947), 20.
39. Walter Benjamin, “Kommentar zu dem ‘Lesebuch für Städtebewoh-
ner,’” in Versuche über Brecht (Frankfurt am Main, 1966), 68.
40. Serner, Handbrevier für Hochstapler, 16.
41. Ibid., 19.
42. Ibid., 17.
43. Here I am following the justification of Nietzsche’s behavioral doctrines
in Geitner, Sprache der Verstellung.
230 Notes to Pages 123–133

44. Ibid., 12.

45. Walter Serner, Der Pfiff um die Ecke (Munich, 1982), 51.
46. Walter Serner, Der isabelle Hengst (Munich, 1983), 7 ff.
47. Peter Sloterdijk, Kritik der zynischen Vernunft (Frankfurt am Main,
1983), 725 –28.
48. Thomas Milch, “‘Ein gewaltiger metaphysischer Rülpser’: Randbemer-
kungen zum Stand der Serner-Forschung,” in dr. walter serner 1889–1942: Aus-
stellungsbuch, ed. Herbert Wiesner (Berlin, 1989), 64.
49. Ibid., 65.
50. Ibid. All of the materials are gathered in Serner, Der Abreiser.
51. Lionel Trilling, Das Ende der Aufrichtigkeit (Munich, 1980), 144.
52. Neckel, Status und Scham, 115.
53. Ibid., 116.
54. Ibid.
55. Milch, “Ein gewaltiger metaphysischer Rülpser,” 70.
56. Serner, Der Abreiser, 167.
57. Walter Benjamin, Briefe, ed. Gershom Scholem and Theodor Adorno
(Frankfurt am Main, 1966), 2:698.
58. See Kraft Wetzel, “Lug und Trug: Zum 100. Geburtstag von Ernst Lu-
bitsch,” Freitag, 24 January 1992, 9.
59. See Walter Benjamin, Gesammelte Schriften (Frankfurt am Main, 1991
[?]), 6:187.
60. Bertolt Brecht, “Nordseekrabben,” in Gesammelte Werke: Prosa (Frank-
furt am Main, 1967), 1:135. See also Klaus-Detlef Müller, Brecht-Kommentar
zur erzählenden Prosa (Munich, 1980), 79 ff.
61. Bruno Taut, Die neue Wohnung: Die Frau als Schöpferin, 5th ed. (Leip-
zig, 1928), 46, 60, 50.
62. Ibid., 11, 51 ff.
63. Here I follow Nancy J. Troy, The Totally Harmonious Interior: Paradise
or Prison? (The Hague, 1985). In his critique, Brecht follows a story that Adolf
Loos had told in 1900: “Von einem armen reichen Mann,” in Ins Leere ge-
sprochen, 1897–1900 (Vienna, 1962), 201–7. I am grateful to Regina Busch for
the reference.
64. Klaus Theweleit has uncovered and analyzed this image reservoir in
Male Fantasies, trans. Stephan Conway (Minneapolis, 1987).
65. Mario Erdheim, “‘Heiße’ Gesellschaft—‘kaltes’ Militär,” Kursbuch 67
(1982): 59 –72; Helmut Lethen, “Blitzschnelle Metamorphosen: 7 Überle-
gungen zu einem Putzfleck,” in Geschichte als Literatur: Formen und Gren-
zen der Repräsentation von Vergangenheit, ed. H. Eggert, U. Profitlich, and
K. Scherpe (Stuttgart, 1990), 242 – 49.
66. Carl Wege, “Gleisdreieck, Tank und Motor: Figuren und Denkfiguren
aus der Technosphäre der Neuen Sachlichkeit,” Deutsche Vierteljahreszeit-
schrift (1994).
67. Roth, “Bekenntnis zum Gleisdreieck,” 218 –21.
68. Walter Benjamin, “Theorien des deutschen Faschismus: Zu der Sammel-
schrift Krieg und Krieger,” in Das Argument 6, no. 30 (1964): 133.
69. Brecht, “Ten Poems from A Reader,” 137.
Notes to Pages 134 –141 231

70. Ibid., 131–32.

71. See Helga Geyer-Ryan and Helmut Lethen, “The Rhetoric of Forget-
ting,” in Convention and Innovation, ed. D’Haen, Grübel, and Lethen (Amster-
dam, 1989), 305 – 48.
72. Brecht, “Ten Poems from A Reader,” 140.
73. Rudof Arnheim, in Die Weltbühne, 14 June 1932.
74. Béla Balázs, “Sachlichkeit und Sozialismus,” Die Weltbühne, 18 Decem-
ber 1928.
75. Walter Benjamin, “Der destruktive Charakter,” in Illuminationen: Aus-
gewählte Schriften (Frankfurt am Main, 1961), 310 –12. Benjamin, “Erfahrung
und Armut,” in ibid., 313–18. For more on the reception history, see my study
in The Other Brecht: Brecht Yearbook 17, ed. H.-T. Lehmann and R. Voris
(Madison, 1992), 77–100.
76. Benjamin, Versuche über Brecht, 67– 68. In 1944, incidentally, the
poem “N.N.” by Koos Schuur appeared in the context of the Dutch resistance,
in the loose-leaf collection Berijmd Verzet; it borrows passages directly from
Brecht’s rules for behavior in illegal conditions. My thanks to Els Andringa for
the reference.
77. Benjamin, “Der destruktive Charakter,” 311.
78. Benjamin, Gesammelte Schriften, 6:540.
79. Bertolt Brecht, Gedichte für Stadtbewohner, ed. and with an introduc-
tion by Franco Buono (Frankfurt am Main, 1980), 153.
80. Edmund Licher, Zur Lyrik Brechts: Aspekte ihrer Dialektik und Kom-
munikativität (Frankfurt am Main, 1984), 168 –73.
81. Friedrich Nietzsche, The Use and Abuse of History, trans. Adrian
Collins (Indianapolis, 1957), 6.
82. Ibid., 5.
83. Licher, Zur Lyrik Brechts, 172 f.
84. Peter L. Oesterreich, Fundamentalrhetorik: Untersuchung zu Person und
Rede in der Öffentlichkeit (Hamburg, 1990), 139, 137.
85. “Ten Poems from A Reader,” 146. See Licher, Zur Lyrik Brechts, 172 f.
86. I am indebted for this thought to a conversation on 18 November 1991
with Rüdiger Safranski.
87. My attention was drawn to this implement at the International Brecht
Symposium of 1991 in Augsburg by Hans-Thies Lehmann and Susanne Win-
nacker. See Hans-Thies Lehmann, “Schlaglichter auf den anderen Brecht,” in
The Brecht Yearbook 17 (Madison, 1992), 1–13. I am indebted to Lehmann’s
observations on Brecht’s early lyrics for the deepest insights.
88. “Mann ist Mann, Hauptmann-Manuskript,” in Brechts Mann ist Mann,
ed. Carl Wege (Frankfurt am Main, 1982), 282. My thanks to Carl Wege for this
reference.
89. Jürgen Manthey, “Staatsdichter im Kinderland,” Die Zeit, 6 March
1992, 77–78.
90. See the publications of Ulrike Baureithel (cited above and below).
91. Paul de Man, Blindness and Insight: Essays in the Rhetoric of Contem-
porary Criticism (London, 1983), 161.
92. Telling in this context are the later passages in which Carl Schmitt re-
232 Notes to Pages 141–147

flects on the dialectic of legal positivism and “devouring the fathers”: Glossa-
rium, 26, 148, and 234.
93. Tillich, Die sozialistische Entscheidung, 38.
94. Ulrike Baureithel, “. . . in dieser Welt von Männern erdacht” (mas-
ter’s thesis, Universität Karlsruhe, 1987), 140. See also Ulrike Baureithel,
“Die letzte tolle Karte im Männerspiel,” Literatur für Leser, 3, no. 90 (1990):
141–54.
95. Marieluise Fleißer, Mehlreisende Frieda Geier: Roman vom Rauchen,
Sporteln, Lieben und Verkaufen (Berlin, 1931).
96. Ibid., 52.
97. Ibid., 310.
98. Ibid., 170.
99. Ibid., 311.
100. Marieluise Fleißer, Ein Pfund Orangen und neun andere Geschichten
der Marieluise Fleißer aus Ingolstadt (1929) (Frankfurt am Main, 1984), 80.
101. Marieluise Fleißer, Avantgarde: Erzählungen (Munich, 1963), 11.
102. Fleißer, Ein Pfund Orangen, 80.
103. Fleißer, Avantgarde, 11. See Gisela von Wysocki, Die Fröste der Frei-
heit: Aufbruchphantasien (Frankfurt am Main, 1980). On conditions between
the sexes in the Weimar Republic, see the works referenced by Ulrike Baureithel
and Ursula Krechel, “Linksseitig, Kunstseidig: Dame, Girl, und Frau,” in In-
dustriegebiet der Intelligenz, ed. E. Wichner and H. Wiesner (Berlin, 1990),
96 –117. See also Sissi Tax, marieluise fleißer—schreiben, überleben: Ein bio-
graphischer versuch (Frankfurt am Main, 1984).
104. Fleißer, Ein Pfund Orangen, 80.
105. Carl Schmitt, Der Begriff des Politischen (1927; Berlin, 1963), 26.
106. Fleißer, Ein Pfund Orangen, 83.
107. Fleißer, Mehlreisende, 57.
108. Fleißer, Avantgarde, 10.
109. Siegfried Kracauer, Ginster: Von ihm selbst geschrieben (Berlin, 1928).
My discussion takes its lead from the commentary by Inka Mülder-Bach, Sieg-
fried Kracauer—Grenzgänger zwischen Theorie und Literatur (Stuttgart, 1985),
125 – 45.
110. Kracauer, Ginster, 226 f.
111. Ibid., 334.
112. Ibid.
113. Ibid., 216.
114. Ibid., 221 f.
115. Ernst Jünger, Der Arbeiter: Herrschaft und Gestalt (1932), 4th ed.
(Hamburg, 1941), 7. [Translator’s note: in this chapter’s discussion, further ref-
erences to Der Arbeiter will be by page number.]
116. Robert Musil, “Triëdere,” in Nachlaß zu Lebzeiten (Hamburg, 1957),
82. On the attitude of the sharp-sighted dandy, see Karl Heinz Bohrer, Die Äs-
thetik des Schreckens: Die pessimistische Romantik und Ernst Jüngers Früh-
werk (Munich, 1978).
117. Ossip Mandelstam, “Gespräche über Dante,” Gesammelte Essays
1925–35 (Reinbek, 1990), 160.
Notes to Pages 147–155 233

118. Walter Benjamin, “Programm eines proletarischen Kindertheaters”

(1928), in Gesammelte Schriften, vol. 2, bk. 2 (Frankfurt am Main, 1977), 766.
119. Ernst Jünger, “Über den Schmerz” (1934), in Sämtliche Werke (Stutt-
gart, 1986), 7:143–95.
120. Ernst Jünger, Strahlungen (Stuttgart, 1980), 2:131.
121. Benjamin, “Der Surrealismus,” 210.
122. Jünger, “Über den Schmerz,” 182.
123. Bertolt Brecht, Der Dreigroschenprozeß, in Bertolt Brechts Dreigro-
schenbuch: Texte, Materialien, Dokumente, ed. S. Unseld (Frankfurt am Main,
1960), 93.
124. Siegfried Kracauer, Die Angestellten: Eine Schrift vom Ende der Wei-
marer Republik (Allensbach, 1959), 9.
125. Robert Musil, “Ansätze zu neuer Ästhetik,” in Gesammelte Werke,
8:1146.
126. See Helmut Lethen, “Eckfenster der Moderne: Wahrnehmungs-
experimente bei Musil und E. T. A. Hoffmann,” in Musil-Studien, ed. Josef
Strutz (Munich, 1987), 15:195 –229.
127. Karl Popper, Ausgangspunkte (Hamburg, 1979), 68 ff.
128. See Bernhard Waldenfels, “Wahrnehmung,” in Handbuch philosophi-
scher Grundbegriffe (Munich, 1974), 6:1669 –78.
129. Wolfgang Kaempfer, Ernst Jünger (Stuttgart, 1981), 111.
130. Musil, “Triëdere,” 82.
131. Carl Schmitt in Glossarium; see the following discussion.
132. Vilém Flusser, Für eine Philosophie der Fotographie (Göttingen, 1983),
122 ff. Carl Wege drew my attention to this text.
133. During our conversation in November 1991 Rüdiger Safranski gave me
this reference.
134. Flusser, Für eine Philosophie, 31.
135. Ibid.
136. Ibid., 34, 26.
137. Ibid., 20.
138. Vilém Flusser, Gesten: Versuch einer Phänomenologie (Düsseldorf and
Bensheim, 1991), 140.
139. Flusser, Für eine Philosophie, 26.
140. Siegfried Kracauer, “Die Photographie” (1927), in Aufsätze 1927–
1931, Schriften, ed. Inka Mülder-Bach, vol. 5, bk. 2 (Frankfurt am Main, 1990),
83–97.
141. Ibid., 96.
142. Geitner, Sprache der Verstellung, 255.
143. Martin Lindner, Leben in der Krise: Zeitromane der neuen Sachlichkeit
und die intellektuelle Mentalität der klassischen Moderne (Stuttgart, 1994). Lin-
der cites here Heinrich Schmidt’s formulation in the Philosophisches Wörter-
buch, 9th ed. (Leipzig, 1934), 677.
144. Lindner, “‘Krise’ und ‘Leben,’” 173.
145. Gottfried Benn, “Dorische Welt: Eine Untersuchung über die Bezie-
hung von Kunst und Macht,” in Essays und Reden, ed. Bruno Hillebrand (Frank-
furt am Main, 1989), 305.
234 Notes to Pages 155 –169

146. Robert Musil, Gesammelte Schriften, 8:1404.

147. Quoted in H. G. Vierhuff, Die Neue Sachlichkeit: Malerei und Foto-
grafie (Cologne, 1980), 71. An instructive overview of the tendency in painting
and photography to isolate types is Jost Hermand and Frank Trommler, Die
Kultur der Weimarer Republik (Munich, 1978), 396 – 401.
148. Jünger, Strahlungen, 2:139 f.
149. Benjamin, “Der Surrealismus,” 290.
150. See Marcus Paul Bullock, The Violent Eye: Ernst Jünger’s Visions and
Revisions on the European Right (Detroit, 1992), 25.
151. Jünger, “Über den Schmerz,” 160.
152. Ibid., 158.
153. Ibid., 170.
154. Ibid., 160.
155. Wieland Schmied, “Die Neue Sachlichkeit: Malerei der Weimarer
Zeit,” Germanica 9 (1991): 222.
156. On this see Baureithel, “Die letzte tolle Karte,” 141–54.
157. Wilhelm Reich, Charakteranalyse (Vienna, 1933).
158. Alfred Adler, Studie über die Minderwertigkeit von Organen (Munich,
1927). See Adler’s summary in the chapter “Der Minderwertigkeitskomplex,” in
Der Sinn des Lebens (1933) (Frankfurt am Main, 1973), 67–79, esp. 69.
159. See the works mentioned above by Klaus Theweleit, Nicolaus Sombart,
and Ulrike Baureithel.
160. Jünger, “Über den Schmerz,” 175.
161. Robert Musil, “Der Riese Agoag” (1936), in Nachlaß zu Lebzeiten
(Hamburg, 1957), 101–5.
162. Walter Benjamin, Einbahnstraße (Berlin, 1928), 80 ff.
163. For analysis of this issue see Martin Meyer, Ernst Jünger (Munich,
1990), 163–214.
164. Lindner, “‘Krise’ und ‘Leben,’” 148.
165. Ibid., 150.
166. This example was advanced as a central argument against Ernst Bloch’s
theory of non-simultaneity in Heritage of Our Times. See Hans Günther, “Erb-
schaft dieser Zeit,” Internationale Literatur 6, no. 3 (1936): 91.
167. This example is taken from Friedrich Kittler’s study, Grammophon,
Film, Typewriter (Berlin, 1986), 154.
168. Ibid., 26. On the theory of sound, see also Helmut Lethen, “Sichtbar-
keit: Kracauers Liebeslehre,” in Siegfried Kracauer: Neue Interpretationen, ed.
M. Kessler and T. Levin (Tübingen, 1990), 195 –228.
169. Russell A. Berman, “Written Right across Their Faces: Ernst Jünger’s
Fascist Modernism,” in Modernity and the Text: Revision of German Mod-
ernism, ed. A. Huyssen and D. Bathrik (New York, 1989), 68.
170. Robert Musil, “Die Amsel,” in Nachlaß zu Lebzeiten (Hamburg,
1957).
171. Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media (New York, 1964), 83.
172. An appendix to the 1981 edition includes excerpts from letters that
mention canonical names and sources, such as Goethe’s theory of primeval plant
life, Marx’s analysis of industrialization, and Leibniz’s monadology.
Notes to Pages 170 –184 235

173. See Helmut Lethen, “Ernst Jünger, Bertolt Brecht e il concetto di ‘mo-
dernizzazione’ nella republica di Weimar,” in Ernst Jünger: Un convegno inter-
nazionale, March 1983 (Naples, 1987), 55 –71. See also the recent work by
Uwe-K. Ketelsen, “Ernst Jüngers Der Arbeiter—Ein faschistisches Modernitäts-
konzept,” in Kultur: Bestimmungen im 20. Jahrhundert, 219 –54.
174. Lindner, “‘Krise’ und ‘Leben,’” 185.
175. Arnold Gehlen, “Über kulturelle Kristallisation,” in Studien zur An-
thropologie und Soziologie (Neuwied, 1962).
176. Boris Groys, Gesamtkunstwerk Stalin: Die gespaltene Kultur in der
Sowjetunion (Munich, 1988), 12.
177. Sombart, Deutschen Männer, 240, 245, 323.
178. See also Raphael Gross, “Carl Schmitts ‘Nomos’ und die ‘Juden,’”
Merkur (1993).
179. Walter Benjamin, “Zu Ignatius von Loyola,” in Fragmente: Auto-
biographische Schriften, Gesammelte Schriften (Frankfurt am Main, 1991),
4:71 ff.
180. Carl Schmitt, Ex Captivitate Salus: Erfahrungen der Zeit 1945– 47
(Cologne, 1950), 79 f.
181. The verse is taken from the new biography: Paul Noack, Carl Schmitt
(Berlin, 1993), 282. [Translator’s note: a more literal rendering of the final line
would signal that where Jaspers belongs is in the mirror (Spiegel; also the news
magazine’s name) and on the “telewiper”—which “wipes,” presumably, ac-
cording to the wishes of reigning prejudice.]
182. Schmitt, Ex Captivitate Salus, 76.
183. My thanks to Gerd Giesler for the information that Carl Schmitt was
tormented by auditory hallucinations in his final years. Giesler mentions Ernst
Hüsmert (“Die letzen Jahren von Carl Schmitt,” in Schmittiana, ed. P. Tommis-
sen [Brussels, 1988], 1:46), who reports Schmitt’s experience: “Sound waves
permeate the house from all sides. The emanations of all kinds of electrical ap-
pliances conduct voices of extreme clarity over hundreds of miles. Surveillance
bugs were hidden all over the house.”
184. Sombart, Deutschen Männer.
185. Benjamin, “Franz Kafka,” 248 ff. I owe this reference to Carrie Asman,
who uses the Pushkin anecdote to discuss the gestural in Kafka and Brecht: “Die
Rückbindung des Zeichens an den Körper,” presented at the International
Walter-Benjamin-Kongreß, Osnabrück, June 1992.
186. Gross, “Carl Schmitts ‘Nomos.’”
187. Carl Schmitt, Gesetz und Urteil, quoted in Gross, “Carl Schmitts
‘Nomos.’”
188. This point is amply documented in ibid.
189. Quoted in Wolfgang Kersting, Thomas Hobbes (Hamburg, 1922), 75.
190. See Carl Schmitt, “Raum und Rom,” Universitas 6, no. 1 (1951): 963–
67. See also Ernst Jünger, “Lob der Vokale,” in Sämtliche Werke, vol. 8 (Stutt-
gart, 1986).
191. Hugo Ball, Die Flucht aus der Zeit (Zurich, 1992), 100. My thanks to
Mariusz Kieruij for this reference.
192. McLuhan, Understanding Media, 83.
236 Notes to Pages 184 –193

193. Vilém Flusser, Nachgeschichten, ed. Volker Rapsch (Düsseldorf,

1990), 90 ff.
194. Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno, Dialectik der Aufklärung
(Frankfurt am Main, 1971), 143.
195. Franz Kafka, “Betrachtungen über Sünde, Leid, Hoffnung und den
wahren Weg,” in Franz Kafka (Frankfurt am Main, 1965), 199.
196. Franz Kafka, Das Schloß (1926; Frankfurt am Main, 1992), 91.
197. Siegfried Kracauer, “Franz Kafka: Zu seinem nachgelassenen Schrif-
ten” (1931), in Schriften, vol. 5, bk. 2, 367.

CHAPTER FIVE

1. David Riesman’s Lonely Crowd (New Haven, 1950) was published in a

German edition in 1958. In the introduction to this edition, Helmut Schelsky
shows how difficult it would be for German sociology to separate the “other-
directed” type from the “collectivism” of the National Socialist regime, on the
one hand, and the ideal type of the bourgeois, on the other: “We in Germany ex-
perience the materialism of a life devoted to enjoyment . . . as a setback over
against the disappointed idealism of political engagement and as the conse-
quence of a period of material want” (Die einsame Masse: Eine Untersuchung
des amerikanischen Charakters [Reinbek, 1958], 13).
2. Riesman, The Lonely Crowd, 74.
3. Ibid., 250.
4. Siegfried Kracauer, “Der Sklarek-Prozeß,” in Aufsätze 1932 –1935, Schrif-
ten, ed. Inka Mülder-Bach, vol. 5, bk. 3 (Frankfurt am Main, 1990), 11–15.
5. Bertolt Brecht, Gesammelte Werke, 18:171 ff.
6. Siegfried Kracauer, “The Mass Ornament,” in The Mass Ornament: Wei-
mar Essays, trans. Thomas Y. Levin (Cambridge, Mass., 1995), 79.
7. Walter Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduc-
tion,” in Illuminations, trans. Harry Zorn (New York, 1969), 238.
8. Ibid., 240.
9. Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno, Dialectik der Aufklärung
(Frankfurt am Main, 1971), 220.
10. Ernst Jünger, Der Arbeiter: Herrschaft und Gestalt, 4th ed. (Hamburg,
1941), 267.
11. Quoted in Karin Hirdina, Pathos der Sachlichkeit: Traditionen materia-
listischer Ästhetik (Berlin, 1981), 49 ff.
12. Albert Sigrist [Albert Schwab], Das Buch vom Bauen (1930), 135;
quoted in Hirdina, Pathos der Sachlichkeit, 50 ff.
13. Ibid.
14. Hannes Meyer, Bauen und Gesellschaft: Schriften, Briefe, Prospekte
(Dresden, 1980), 52.
15. See the commentary on Tucholsky by Friedrich Rothe, in Geschichte der
deutschen Literatur, ed. Saalfeldt, Kreidt, and Rothe (Munich, 1989), 576.
16. Riesman, The Lonely Crowd, 146.
17. See Ulrike Baureithel, “Reisende durch viele Leben: Wiederbegegnung
mit Irmgard Keun,” Freitag, 5 July 1991, 20.
Notes to Pages 193–206 237

18. See Heinz Dieter Kittsteiner, “Max Weber und die schöne neue Welt,” in
Kultursoziologie—Symptom des Zeitgeistes?, ed. Helmut Berking and Richard
Farber (Würzburg, 1989), 116 –39.

CHAPTER SIX

1. Karl Rahner and Herbert Vorgrimmler, Kleines Theologisches Wörter-

buch (Freiburg, 1962), 215.
2. See Walter H. Sokel, Der literarische Expressionismus (Munich, n.d.), 73.
3. Leonhard Frank, Die Räuberbande (1914), 291; quoted in ibid., 84.
4. See Peter Sloterdijk, “Prothesen—vom Geist der Technik: Funktionalis-
tische Zynismen II,” in Kritik der zynischen Vernunft (Frankfurt am Main,
1983), 2:791– 807.
5. Leonhard Frank, Der Mensch ist gut (Zurich, 1919), 182, 143.
6. Ibid., 153.
7. Ibid., 166.
8. Heinz-Dieter Kittsteiner and Helmut Lethen, “Ich-Losigkeit, Entbürger-
lichung und Zeiterfahrung: Über die Gleichgültigkeit zur ‘Geschichte’ in Büch-
ners Woyzeck,” Georg Büchner Jahrbuch 3 (1983): 240 –70.
9. Ludwig Turek, “Leben und Tod meines Bruders Rudolf,” in 30 neue
Erzähler des neuen Deutschlands, ed. Wieland Herzfelde (Berlin, 1932),
17–28.
10. I am following here the commentary by Hans-Thies Lehmann, “Der
Schrei der Hilfslosen,” in Bertolt Brechts “Hauspostille”: Text und kollektives
Lesen, by Hans-Thies Lehmann and Helmut Lethen (Stuttgart, 1978), 74 –99.
The poem’s English text comes from Bertolt Brecht Poems, 1913–1956, ed.
John Willett and Ralph Manheim (New York, 1976), 89 –92.
11. Arnold Zweig, Der Streit um den Sergeanten Grischa (Berlin, 1929). The
commentary from Brecht is in Gesammelte Werke, 18:52 –53.
12. See Helmut Lethen, “Zynismen der Avantgarde und Arnold Zweigs Ro-
man Der Streit um den Sergeanten Grischa,” in Arnold Zweig—Poetik, Juden-
tum und Politik, Jahrbücher für internationale Germanistik, ser. a, 25 (1989).
13. Walter Benjamin, Der Ursprung des deutschen Trauerspiels (Frankfurt
am Main, 1963), 148.
14. Gert Mattenklott, “Ostjuden in Berlin,” in Reise nach Berlin (Berlin,
1987), 210 –16. Arthur Tilo Alt, “Zu Arnold Zweigs Das ostjüdische Antlitz,
in Arnold Zweig—Poetik, Judentum und Politik, Jahrbücher für internationale
Germanistik, ser. a, 25 (1989): 171– 86.
15. Zweig, Streit um den Sergeanten Grischa, 527.
16. Arnold Gehlen, “Über die Geburt der Freiheit aus dem Geist der Ent-
fremdung” (1952).
17. Zweig, Streit um den Sergeanten Grischa, 493.
18. Joseph Roth, “Bekenntnisse zum Gleisdreieck” (1924), reprinted in
Werke: Das journalistische Werk, 1924 –1928, ed. Klaus Westermann (Cologne,
1990), 2:218 –21.
19. Siegfried Kracauer, Aufsätze 1927–1931, Schriften, ed. Inka Mülder-
Bach, vol. 5, bk. 1 (Frankfurt am Main, 1990), 321 f.
238 Notes to Pages 210 –216

20. Walter Benjamin, Zur Kritik der Gewalt und andere Aufsätze (Frankfurt
am Main, 1965), 39, 56.
21. Sigmund Freud, Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego, trans.
James Strachey (New York, 1960), 15.
22. Ernst Jünger, review of O. S., in Der Scheinwerfer 3 (1929): 29 –30.
23. Arnold Bronnen, O. S. (Berlin, 1929), 311. [Translator’s note: in this
chapter’s discussion, further references to O. S. will be by page number.]
24. I owe this thought to conversations with Heinz-Dieter Kittsteiner.

AFTERWORD

1. Léon Wurmser, Die Maske der Scham (1990); quoted in Hans-Thies

Lehmann, “Das Welttheater der Scham: Dreißig Annäherungen an den Entzug
der Darstellung,” Merkur 45, no. 10 (October 1991): 825.
2. Hannah Arendt, Elemente totaler Herrschaft (Frankfurt am Main, 1958),
277.
3. Balthasar Gracián, El Discreto, quoted by Werner Krauss, Graciáns Le-
benslehre (Frankfurt am Main, 1947), 149.
Index

Acoustic space, 176 –78, 180, 181– 83 182, 205; and political relations, 88 –
Adler, Alfred, 162 89, 91, 92, 103, 111; and radar type,
Adorno, Theodor W., 21, 97, 163, 184, 73; and ridiculousness, 61– 62; and
190 Scheler, 72; and Schmitt, 172; and
Aesthetics: and anthropology, 59, 62 – 63; shame, 13, 15, 61– 62; and sudden
and architecture, 130; and Benjamin, transformation, 4, 5
103– 4; and body, 103– 4; and cool Anti-Semitism, 93, 171, 180, 182
persona, 107; and horror, 6; and irra- Anxiety, 22, 25, 97, 103, 109, 193, 205
tionalism, 7; and Nietzsche, 62; and Apel, K. O., 51
Plessner, 58 –59, 62 – 63, 64, 103; and Appearance, 40, 46, 123, 178
sudden transformation, 6 –7 Architecture, 21–22, 54, 109, 128 –31,
Alain (Émile-Auguste Chartier), 74 190, 191
Alienation, 47, 56, 109, 215 Arendt, Hannah, 216
Allegory, 87 Armoring: and anthropology, 65; and
Alter ego, 37 coolness, 85, 95, 161; and cool per-
Anarchism, 50, 104, 198 sona, 46, 107, 161; and dignity, 59 –
Anders, Günther, 163 60; and ego, 23, 36, 46, 50, 65, 122,
Angerstein, Fritz, 206 –10 136, 145, 161– 62, 195, 197; and
Animal behavior, 70, 71, 78, 81, 106, fictional characters, 33, 139; and gaze,
109, 148, 195 157; and individuality, 62 – 63; and
Annales school, 2 mobility, 30 –31; and psychoanalysis,
Anthropology: and aesthetics, 59, 62 – 161– 62, 163; and subjectivity, 23,
63, 64; and armoring, 65; and artifi- 107, 108, 131–32, 145, 188, 205
ciality, 56, 61, 62 – 63, 64, 65; and Arnheim, Rudolf, 135
conduct codes, 72, 81– 82, 107; and Artificial groups, 5, 210
cool persona, 72, 73, 107; and crea- Artificiality, 53– 67, 72, 73, 82, 83, 115,
ture, 204 –5; and dualism, 60; and ex- 123, 205, 214
pression, 75, 81– 82; and Herder, 65; Asman, Carrie, 87
and natural drives, 48 –51, 65, 70; and Auerbach, Erich, 34, 65, 97, 222n16
new objectivity, 73, 81– 82; and per- Authenticity, 14, 37, 46, 46, 54, 57, 58,
ceptual acuity, 148; and pessimism, 63; 63, 88, 115, 118, 123, 126 –27, 195,
and Plessner, 55 –57, 59, 61– 66, 72, 216
73, 88 – 89, 91, 92, 96, 107, 116, 158, Authoritarianism, 50, 187, 194

239
240 Index

Authority, 13, 15, 186 and expression, 76, 77, 80, 83, 84, 87;
Autonomy: and cool persona, 47, 143; and forgetting, 59, 103– 4, 182; and
and ego, 39, 47, 118, 198, 206; and mind-body dualism, 60, 70; and nat-
free will, 69; and persona, 39; and po- ural drives, 71; and reflexivity, 59; and
litical relations, 40 – 41; and radar typology, 154, 155
type, 187, 188, 194; and subjectivity, Bohrer, Karl Heinz, 7
156 Boundaries: and blurring, 107, 150; and
Avant-garde: and armoring, 145; and body, 53, 58; and conceptual realism,
cool persona, 145; and crystalline 149, 155 –56; and cool persona, 24 –
structure, 169, 170; and extremism, 25; and ego, 59, 182; and fluidity, 101,
102; and fictional characters, 33, 145; 113, 150; and morality, 147; and new
and forgetting, 141; and humanism, objectivity, 32; and Plessner, 53, 57–
97; and Lucifer, 90; and morality, 39, 58, 59, 62, 64, 91, 93, 103; and politi-
147; and natural drives, 48 – 49, 51; cal relations, 41; and self, 57, 103,
and perceptual acuity, 147; and spatial 137, 143; and shame, 62
relations, 8; and suddenness, 6 –7; and Bourdieu, Pierre, 16
traffic, 26, 28 –29 Bourgeoisie: and conduct codes, 138 –39;
and cool persona, 107; and creature,
Balázs, Béla, 16, 135 200 –201, 206; and cultural gradation,
Ball, Hugo, 171, 183– 84 101; and inner-directed type, 188, 189,
Balzac, Honoré de, 112 214; and interiority, 37; and liberalism,
Barbarism, 5, 8, 14, 17, 50, 71, 88, 97, 112; and modernity, 5, 8; and moral-
110, 129 –30, 210 ity, 148; and public sphere, 61; and
Bauereithel, Ulrike, 47 Tallyrand, 112, 113
Bauhaus, 54, 109, 128 –31 Braudel, Fernand, 8
Beauty, 21 Brecht, Bertolt, 28, 33, 37, 47, 58, 64,
Bechterev, V. M., 74 73, 85, 88, 108 –9, 127–32, 145, 147,
Behavior: animal, 70, 71, 78, 81, 106, 148, 149, 158, 164, 172, 230n63; and
109, 148, 195; civil, 14; and conduct conduct codes, 127–28, 131–32, 133–
codes, 17–18; cool, 10; and culture 42, 215, 231n76; and coolness, 130,
of shame, 16; Dionysian, 84; mass, 20; 131, 145; and cool persona, 131–32,
and natural drives, 71, 84; and new 132, 145; and creature, 198 –201; and
objectivity, 28; prebourgeois, 96; ratio- new objectivity, 128, 134, 145, 215 –
nal, 96; reflexive, 28, 51; and scientific 16; poetry of, 11–12, 17, 31–32, 38,
research, 70 –71, 74 –75; and traffic, 48, 73, 108, 133– 42, 198 –200; and
27, 28 –29; and visibility, 74 radar type, 108, 190; theater of, 15,
Behaviorism, 73, 75, 76, 87, 189, 196 17, 51, 87, 131
Bell, Charles, 84 Bronnen, Arnold, 28, 30, 64, 109, 210 –
Benedict, Ruth, 13 14
Benjamin, Walter, 12, 44, 58, 73, 81, 87, Büchner, Georg, 103, 202
89, 90, 94, 126, 137, 148, 156, 172, Bühler, Karl, 75 – 80, 86, 88, 105 – 6
179, 190, 194, 210; and baroque Buono, Franco, 136
tragedy, 49, 57, 103, 170, 173; and Buytendijk, F. J. J., 83
Brecht, 136, 201; and electromagnetic
field, 163, 166 Canetti, Elias, 19 –20
Benn, Gottfried, 105, 154 –55, 172 Capitalism, 23, 50
Berlin, 21, 22, 28, 29, 163, 211 Catholicism, 91, 106, 174, 195
Birth trauma, 161 Chaos, 21–22, 50, 128, 130, 131
Bismarck, Otto von, 66, 104 Chaplin, Charles, 146
Blei, Franz, 111–15, 133 Characters, fictional: and armoring, 33,
Bloch, Ernst, 179 139; and cool persona, 102, 103, 106,
Bloch, Marc, 36, 139 143, 145; and eccentricity, 74, 116; and
Bloy, Léon, 174 gender, 73–74; and masking, 116; and
Body: and aesthetics, 103– 4; and amor- mobility, 33, 142; new objectivity, 111,
phousness, 183; and artificiality, 61; 141, 145; and psychology, 33; and ra-
and boundaries, 53, 58; and commu- dar type, 192 –93; subcomplex, 33, 70
nity, 53, 57–58; and coolness, 105, Character type. See Typology
164; and culture of shame, 16, 19 –20; Christianity, 38, 197
Index 241

Cinema. See Film Conscience, 4 –5, 11–13, 15, 37, 38, 44,
Circulation: of commodities, 30; and 113, 122, 132, 175, 214, 215
conduct codes, 26, 32; frenzy of, 30, Constructivism, 54, 156
32; of traffic, 26 –28, 29 –30 Consumerism, 132, 188, 189, 190, 193–
Civil behavior, 14, 15 94
Civilization: and anxiety, 97; and bar- Contours, 31, 101, 150, 151, 153, 159,
barism, 97, 210; and conscience, 13; 160, 168, 190
distinguished from community, 52 –53, Contradiction, 57
73, 110; distinguished from culture, Coolness: and architecture, 130; and ar-
14; and fragmentation, 53 moring, 85, 95, 161; and authenticity,
Classification mania, 22 –23 123; and body, 105, 164; and Brecht,
Class struggle, 69 –70, 73. See also Social 130, 131, 145; and community, 53;
class and conduct codes, 101, 145; critique
Cold War, 171, 178 of, 46 – 48; and culture, 6, 131; and
Comedy, 65, 65, 122 –23, 125 –26, 126 – distinction, 46; and family relations,
27, 131, 145 – 46 73; and Fleißer, 143, 145; and gaze,
Commodity, 88, 110, 111, 175, 193 105 – 6, 148, 151, 158, 196; and gen-
Communism, 42, 44, 73, 106, 131, 132, der, 142 – 43, 143– 44; and Jünger,
136, 159 147, 158, 164; and military, 6, 131–
Communitarianism, 53, 54, 94, 95 32; and mobility, 101; and morality,
Community, 46, 47, 52 –53, 72 –73, 82, 147; and paternal law, 140; and per-
92, 95, 110, 141, 143, 211 ceptual acuity, 148; and Plessner, 53,
Conceptual realism, 148 –53, 155, 180, 54, 55; and romanticism, 123; and sci-
181 ence, 147; and Serner, 123, 124
Conduct codes: and anthropology, 72, Cool persona: and aesthetics, 107; and
82, 107; and artificiality, 61, 73; and anthropology, 72, 73; and anxiety, 25;
Blei, 112 –13; and body, 164; and and armoring, 46, 107, 161; and artifi-
Brecht, 127–28, 132, 133– 42, 215, ciality, 214; and autonomy, 47, 143;
231n76; and Bronnen, 213; and circu- and Blei, 115; and boundaries, 24; and
lation, 26, 32; and Communism, 132; Brecht, 132, 133, 145; and comedy,
and confidence man, 115; and cool- 65; and Communism, 132; and con-
ness, 101, 145; and cool persona, 107, duct codes, 107, 118, 120, 157, 195,
118, 120, 157, 195, 215; courtly, 37, 215; and confidence man, 115; and
40 – 41, 96, 97, 115, 123; and dis- conscience, 44; and creature, 172, 195;
tance, 107, 113, 143, 164; and Döblin, critique of, 46 – 48, 107; and dandy,
42; and ego, 18, 37; and gender, 82 – 117–18; and economic relations, 107;
83, 138, 142 – 43; and Gracián, 34 – and electric media, 167– 68; and fate,
38, 40, 44, 46, 46, 67, 98 –100, 112, 20; and fathers, 102; and fictional
120, 136, 137, 173, 175, 216; and characters, 102, 103, 106, 143, 145;
heroism, 96; and Hobbes, 50 –51; and and Fleißer, 143, 145; and gender, 46,
identity, 95; and Jünger, 157, 163– 64; 47, 142 – 43; and Gracián, 44, 56; and
and Krauss, 34 –38, 40, 44, 46, 46; heroism, 107; and Jünger, 66, 107,
and masculinity, 83; and masking, 132, 145, 147, 148, 152 –53, 157,
164; and modernism, 50; and modern- 160, 163, 167– 68, 213; and Lucifer,
ization, 96; and morality, 63, 136; and 170, 171; and Marxism, 107; and
new objectivity, 18, 42, 44, 51, 134, masking, 195; and military, 106, 131–
138 –39, 163– 64; and objectivity, 17– 32; and mobility, 44; and moderation,
19; and Plessner, 54, 55 –56, 61, 63, 100; and morality, 44; and neurosis,
65, 66, 67, 73, 81– 82, 83, 88, 95, 96, 47, 48; and new objectivity, 72 –73,
107, 113, 158; and power, 95, 96; and 104, 118, 142, 145; and perceptual
radar type, 96; and Scheler, 72; and acuity, 147, 148, 150, 157; and pho-
Schmitt, 175 –76; and Serner, 115, tography, 148, 152 –53; and Plessner,
118, 120 –21, 122, 123, 125; and 72, 107, 145, 182; and polarization,
shame, 17–18; and subjectivity, 24; and proletariat, 198; and psycho-
36 –37; and Tallyrand, 112 –13; and analysis, 47, 120, 161– 62; and psy-
Weber, 42 – 44 chology, 44, 46, 47, 214; and radar
Confidence man, 17, 115 –16, 120, 122, type, 188; and Rousseau, 46; and
125, 135 Schmitt, 115, 145, 171, 172, 173; and
242 Index

Cool persona (continued) Diogenes of Sinope, 47– 48, 82

self-portraits, 104, 106; and Serner, Dionysian quality, 84, 130, 135
115, 117, 118, 120, 145; and social Disenchantment, 42, 109, 110, 198
class, 107; and sovereignty, 103, 104; Disgrace, 8 –10, 65, 117, 161, 174, 197,
and totalitarianism, 216; and Weber, 205
43 Disillusionment, 44, 52, 79, 124
Courtly codes, 37, 40 – 41, 96, 97, 115, Disraeli, Benjamin, 114
123 Dissimulation, 51, 118, 123, 137
Creativity, 57 Distance, 47, 52, 54, 55, 56, 57–58, 58,
Creature, 20, 25, 61, 64, 73, 85, 103, 62, 65, 66, 81, 96, 122; and conduct
107, 108, 132; and anarchism, 198; codes, 107, 113, 143, 164
and animal behavior research, 195; Distinction, 37, 46, 107, 168, 215
and anthropology, 204 –5; and artifi- Distraction, 190
ciality, 214; and authenticity, 195; and Dix, Otto, 105
Brecht, 198 –201; and Bronnen, 213; Döblin, Alfred, 42, 69 –70, 71, 198
and cool persona, 172, 195; and dis- Donne, John, 67
grace, 197, 205; and expression of Dostoyevsky, F. M., 93
pain, 196, 197; and Kracauer, 206 – Drives, 47, 48 – 49, 51, 59, 65, 70, 71,
10; and legal relations, 198, 200 –201, 82, 84, 97
206 –10; and magic, 198; and mask- Dualism, 60, 70, 82, 83, 159
ing, 195, 197, 209; and new objectiv-
ity, 196, 197, 198, 205, 206; and psy- Eccentricity, 59, 72, 73, 74, 91, 116
choanalysis, 195, 209; and radar type, Economic relations: and Blei’s work, 113;
195; and shame, 195; and theology, and cool persona, 107; and free will,
195 –96, 198, 200 –201; and Zweig, 69 –70; and liberalism, 91; and psy-
198, 201–3 chology, 70; and radar type, 189
Crowds, 10, 19, 21, 23 Ego: and alter ego, 37; and armoring, 23,
Crystalline structure, 169 –70 36, 46, 50, 65, 122, 136, 145, 161–
Culture: and artificiality, 56; and cool- 62, 195, 197; and autonomy, 39, 47,
ness, 6, 131–32; and counterculture, 118, 198, 206; and boundaries, 59,
216; and culture industry, 163, 190; of 182; and conduct codes, 18, 37; and
guilt, 8, 11–15, 17, 118, 172, 173–74; culture of guilt, 13; and illusion, 38;
of shame, 8, 12 –17, 18, 19 –20, 67, and persona, 38 – 40, 206; and sudden
103, 118, 173, 216 transformation, 6
Curtius, E. R., 172 Electric field, 70, 163, 165, 166 – 68
Cynicism, 31, 52, 111, 114, 123, 124, Elias, Norbert, 5, 47, 96 –97
125, 188, 192 Enemy. See Friend-enemy relation
Engel, Johann Jakob, 76
Dadaism, 11, 31, 65, 109, 117, 120, Engels, Erich, 58
122, 124, 156 Epic theater, 15, 87
Dandy, 62, 117–18, 132, 142, 148, 156, Essentialism, 53
206 Ethics: and relativism, 44, 112; and sci-
Darwin, Charles, 83 ence, 44, 51; of Spinoza, 84; and truth,
Darwinism, 105 112
Däubler, Theodor, 93, 171 Ethnology, 13, 32, 155
Decadence, 71, 72, 110 Evil, 84, 90, 91, 114, 148, 156, 170,
Decentering, 23, 145 171, 172
Decisionism, 92, 94 –95, 96, 103, 104, Exceptional circumstances, 4
113, 143, 145, 154, 183 Exchange cynicism, 31
Deconstruction, 136, 183 Exposure, 59 – 62, 63, 63
Democracy, 66, 187 Expression, 74 – 88, 118 –19, 158 –59,
Denazification, 173 196, 197; Bühler’s theory of, 75 – 80,
Desublimation, 110, 111 88, 105 – 6; Darwin’s theory of, 83,
Dialectical image, 23 105; Klages’s theory of, 76 –79, 83, 88;
Dialectics, 22, 49, 111, 181 Plessner’s theory of, 61, 63, 75, 78,
Dignity, 15, 59 – 60, 61 81– 85, 87, 88; Scheler’s theory of, 83,
Dilthey, Wilhelm, 93 85
Index 243

Expressionism, 24, 48, 50, 54, 60, 81, epic theater, 87; and mass psychology,
86, 122; compared to new objectivity, 10, 79; and traffic, 27–28, 75
4, 17, 31, 44, 46, 138 –39, 140, 141, Giesler, Gerd, 235n183
196, 197 Goebbels, Joseph, 211
Exteriority, 15, 33 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 76,
234n172
Family relations, 73, 121, 139 – 41, 206 Goffman, Erving, 16, 118, 125
Farce, 2, 7, 9 Goodness, 48, 50, 50, 91, 97, 100, 111–
Fascism, 10, 94, 110, 168, 187 12
Fate, 20, 42, 69 Gracián, Balthasar, 33– 41, 44 – 45, 113,
Fathers, 47, 68 – 69, 102, 104, 139 – 42, 115, 117, 133, 138, 139, 141, 215;
161, 176, 186, 216 and concept of persona, 37– 41, 46,
Femininity, 46, 47, 66 – 67, 73–74, 142 – 99, 135; and conduct codes, 34 –38,
45 40, 44, 46, 67, 98 –100, 112, 120,
Feminism, 46, 68, 73 136, 137, 173, 175, 216
Fetishism, 69, 145, 171 Gross, Raphael, 93, 180
Film, 16, 32, 74, 75, 79, 126, 190, 192 Grosz, George, 48, 105, 140
Fleißer, Marieluise, 28, 74, 142 – 45 Guilt: culture of, 8, 11–15, 17, 118, 172,
Flusser, Vilém, 152 –53, 184 173–74
Force field, 24, 163, 166 – 67
Fordism, 26 Hausmann, Raoul, 117
Forgetting, 59, 103– 4, 136, 139, 182 Hedonism, 189, 192
Fouché, Joseph, 114 –15 Hegel, G. W. F., 4, 181
Frank, Leonhard, 48, 197 Heidegger, Martin, 40, 58, 89, 94 –95,
Freedom, 57, 58, 63 135, 139, 185
Free will, 69 Heinrich, Klaus, 31
French moralists, 98 –99, 112 Heller, Agnes, 118
Freud, Sigmund, 5, 13, 47, 48, 60, 66, Herder, Johann Gottfried, 65
70, 93, 104, 162, 187, 209, 210 Heroism, 16 –17, 20, 41, 54, 65, 96,
Friend-enemy relation, 91, 92, 93, 102, 107, 146, 160, 162, 163
176, 213 Hirschfeld, Magnus, 65
Fromm, Erich, 194 Historicism, 93, 97
Functionalism, 26, 28, 48, 87– 88, 128, History: and anxiety, 22; and artificiality,
130 56; and crystalline structure, 170; and
Fusion, 101–2, 107 dialectics, 22; and historical moment,
Futurism, 6, 16, 211 3– 4; philosophy of, 41, 98; and sud-
denness, 2 – 4, 7– 8
Game playing, 55, 63 Hitler, Adolf, 177, 182
Gay, Peter, 68 Hobbes, Thomas, 50, 51, 52, 91, 111,
Gaze: and armoring, 157; cool, 105 – 6, 170, 171, 175, 180
148, 150, 158, 196; functionalist, 28, Hofmannsthal, Hugo von, 6, 65
87; and guilt, 11, 13; and objectivity, Horkheimer, Max, 97, 163, 184, 190
63; and perceptual acuity, 147, 148, Horror literature, 6
163; public, 85, 209; and shame, 9; Horváth, Ödön von, 28, 110 –11
supervisory, 18 Humanism, 50, 51, 54, 72, 97–98, 158,
Gehlen, Arnold, 56, 65, 75, 170, 202 –3, 171, 215, 222n16
214 Huxley, Aldous, 64
Geiger, Theodor, 53, 132 Hygiene, 54, 54, 82, 128, 129
Geitner, Ursula, 154
Gender: and conduct codes, 83, 138, Id, 33, 161
142 – 43; and cool persona, 46, 47, 143; Idealism, 59
and Fleißer’s work, 142 – 45; and Gra- Identity: and anxiety, 103; and conduct
cián’s work, 46, 99; and new objectiv- codes, 95; and persona, 37; racial, 93;
ity, 73–74, 216; and Plessner’s work, and self-knowledge, 39; and visibility,
66 – 67, 82 – 83; and radar type, 193 74
Gesture: Bühler’s theory of, 75, 76, 79 – Immediacy, 62, 63, 69, 82, 86
80; and culture of shame, 16, 20; and Impotence, 45, 52, 58, 61, 64, 81, 109
244 Index

Impressionism, 151, 156 Kitsch, 61

Indifference, 117 Klages, Ludwig, 71, 76 –79, 83, 88
Individuality: and armoring, 63; and Kracauer, Siegfried, 21–22, 27, 30, 52,
community, 53; and decisionism, 94 – 58, 88, 145 – 47, 148, 153, 186, 206 –
95; and distance, 55 –56; and masking, 10
62 – 63; and mass behavior, 20; and Kramme, Rüdiger, 226n119
modernization, 15; and morality, 39; Krauss, Werner, 33– 42, 44 – 45, 46, 97–
and new objectivity, 23, 24, 32; and 98, 120, 215
polarization, 24, 24; and reflexivity, Kretschmer, Ernst, 153–54
58, 59; and social roles, 55; and sover- Krockow, Christian Graf von, 94
eignty, 103; and sudden transforma-
tion, 4 –5; and technical reproduction, Lavater, Johann Kaspar, 76
23 Law, 44, 93, 178, 180, 181, 185 – 86,
Individuation, 37, 210 198, 200 –201, 206, 210; and legal
Industrial design, 130 positivism, 104, 180, 186. See also
Industrialism, 50, 54 Paternal law
Inferiority complex, 162 Le Bon, Gustave, 10, 44
Inner-directed type, 187– 89, 214 Lehmann, Hans-Thies, 140
Institutions, 18, 44, 57, 62, 91, 96, 102, Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm, 234n172
188, 202 –3, 215 Lenin, V. I., 90, 172
Interiority, 14, 37, 58, 75, 123, 124 Leninism, 132
Intersubjectivity, 26, 62, 83, 88 Leonhard, Rudolf, 86
Intimacy, 54 –55, 55, 62, 96, 154 Lersch, Philipp, 80, 105 – 6
Irony, 137, 139 Lessing, Theodor, 53, 116
Irrationalism, 7, 45 Liberalism, 50, 89, 91, 112, 151
Isherwood, Christopher, 111 Lichtenberg, Georg Christoph, 76
Lindner, Martin, 154, 220n4
Jaspers, Karl, 10, 16, 79, 174, 235n181 Locke, John, 50
Jesuitism, 34, 37, 38, 41, 45, 173 Loos, Adolf, 230n63
Jhering, Herbert, 58 Löwith, Karl, 39, 40
Jugendstil, 110 Loyola, Ignatius of, 115
Jünger, Ernst, 6, 48, 49, 80, 81, 94, 95, Lubitsch, Ernst, 126 –27
98, 109, 114, 132, 133, 147–70, 172, Lucifer, 90, 170, 171
176, 181, 210, 211; and armoring, Lukács, Georg, 30, 172
157, 161– 63; and Bronnen, 210, 211, Lumpen proletariat, 159 – 60, 197
213; and conceptual realism, 149, 153, Luther, Martin, 89
155 –56; and conduct codes, 157, Lutheranism, 45
163– 64; and coolness, 148, 158, 164;
and cool persona, 65, 107, 131–32, Machiavellianism, 94, 111, 112
145, 147, 148, 152, 157, 160, 163, Magic, 156, 198
167– 68, 213; and crystalline structure, Magnetic field, 24
169 –70; and electric media, 165, 166 – Malinowski, Bronislaw, 32, 154
69; and expression of pain, 158 –59; Mandelstam, Osip, 147
and magic, 156; and masking, 161, Mann, Thomas, 6, 14, 58, 72, 102
164; and mobility, 155; and perceptual Mannheim, Karl, 43, 58
acuity, 147, 150, 157, 163; and pho- Manthey, Jürgen, 140, 177
tography, 148, 150 –53; and traffic, Market relations, 8, 23, 40, 50, 88, 187
155, 165; and typology, 152, 153–56, Marx, Karl, 3, 7, 44, 167, 234n172
158, 159 Marxism: and cool persona, 107; and
fetishism, 69; and Gracián’s work, 38;
Kafka, Franz, 104, 173, 184 – 86 and idealism, 71; and masking, 71,
Kallai, Ernö, 54, 58 135; and modernization, 167; and
Kantorowicz, Ernst, 97 traffic paradigm, 29
Kästner, Erich, 28, 192 –93 Masculinity, 46, 47, 60, 73, 74, 83, 99,
Keaton, Buster, 117 213
Kessel, Martin, 192 Masking, 39, 45, 60, 62 – 63, 67, 71, 80,
Keun, Irmgard, 188, 193 116, 117, 127, 135, 161, 164, 195,
Kierkegaard, Søren, 44, 58, 90 197, 209
Index 245

Masses: amorphousness of, 159, 160; ality, 39; and Krauss, 34, 38; and nat-
and culture of shame, 19 –20; distrac- ural drives, 48 – 49, 50; and objectivity,
tion of, 190; and gesture, 10, 16, 20, 27; and perceptual acuity, 147, 157;
79; and political relations, 10, 41; psy- and Plessner, 63; and political relations,
chology of, 10, 20; and sudden trans- 112; and radar type, 188, 193; and
formation, 5; and theatrics of disgrace, traffic, 27. See also French moralists
9, 10 Moses, 104
Mass society, 16, 187 Mothers, 67, 73–74, 102, 141, 186,
Master-slave dialectic, 4, 181 215 –16
Materialism, 69, 71 Mülder-Bach, Inka, 23, 146, 147
Maternal relations. See Mothers Müller, Heiner, 157
Mauss, Marcel, 38 – 40 Musil, Robert, 6, 48, 102, 145, 149,
McLuhan, Marshall, 169, 184 155, 162, 168, 198
Mead, George Herbert, 16, 37
Mead, Margaret, 13 Narcissism, 46, 59 – 60, 145
Meaninglessness, 42, 168, 169 Naturalness, 66
Media, 32, 63, 86, 88, 120, 121, 148, Nazism, 34, 41– 42, 46, 102, 126, 159,
165 – 69, 184, 211; and radar type, 73, 182, 193, 236n1
188, 189, 190, 191, 192, 193, 195 Neckel, Sighard, 125
Mehring, Walter, 192 Negation, 44, 49, 50, 65, 72, 91, 102,
Melville, Herman, 186 108, 135, 147, 190, 216
Meyer, Hannes, 28 Neurosis, 47, 48, 60, 161– 62
Middle Ages, 5 Neutrality, 55, 75, 87, 90, 136
Middle class, 190 New objectivity: and anthropology, 73,
Milch, Thomas, 124, 126 81– 82; and architecture, 54, 191; and
Military: and Bronnen, 210; and comedy, artificiality, 63, 72, 73; and bound-
65, 145; and coolness, 6, 131–32; and aries, 32; and Brecht, 127–28, 134,
cool persona, 106, 131–32; and de- 145, 215 –16; and Bronnen, 212; and
structive instincts, 210; and Jünger, capitalism, 23; and civilization, 72 –
159 – 60, 161; and militarization, 26, 73; and community, 58; and conduct
30, 40; and new objectivity, 131–32; codes, 18, 36, 42, 44, 51, 73, 134,
and radar type, 132; and sudden trans- 138 –39, 163– 64; and cool persona,
formation, 5 – 6, 132; and traffic, 26, 73, 104, 118, 143, 145; and creature,
30 –31 196, 197, 198, 205, 206; critique of,
Mind: and mind-body dualism, 60, 70, 73–74; and dandy, 132; and deca-
82; and natural drives, 72 dence, 110 –11; and design, 54, 128,
Mobility: and Brecht, 133–34; and cool- 191; and desublimation, 110 –11; and
ness, 101; and cool persona, 44; and disenchantment, 109 –11; and disillu-
femininity, 142; and fictional charac- sionment, 43; and distance, 57–58;
ters, 33, 142; and Gracián, 37; and and expressionism, 4, 17, 31, 44, 46,
Jünger, 155; and Krauss, 37; and mili- 138 –39, 140, 141, 196; and expres-
tary, 131–32; and new objectivity, sion of pain, 85 – 86; and family rela-
131–32, 212; and persona, 37; and tions, 73–74, 206; and fathers, 68 – 69,
radar type, 188, 193; and reason, 51; 73–74; and feminism, 73; and fictional
and science, 51; and subjectivity, 51, characters, 111, 142, 145; and Fleißer,
88; and traffic, 26 –31, 155 74, 142, 143; and functionalism, 87–
Moderation, 97–98, 99 88; and gender, 73–74, 111, 142, 143,
Modernism, 50, 102, 131, 145, 163, 168 216; and goodness, 48; and guilt, 12,
Modernity, 5, 8, 62 17; and individuality, 23, 25, 32; and
Modernization, 7, 15, 25, 30, 63, 70, 72, Jünger, 147, 160 – 61, 163– 64; and
109, 163, 167, 169 Kracauer, 145; and Krauss, 36, 39, 40;
Moholy-Nagy, László, 191 and military, 131–32; and mobility,
Molière, 65 – 66 131–32, 212; and modernization, 63,
Morality: and boundaries, 147; and 109, 110; and mothers, 215 –16; and
Communism, 132; and conduct codes, painting, 31, 140, 161; and perceptual
63, 136; and coolness, 147; and cool acuity, 147; and Plessner, 66 – 67, 68,
persona, 44; and culture of guilt, 11, 72, 73; and polarization, 23, 24,
13; and Gracián, 34, 38; and individu- 220n4; and portraiture, 31, 140; and
246 Index

New objectivity (continued) Pietzcker, Carl, 47

psychoanalysis, 70; and radar type, 73, Pleasure principle, 84
187, 189, 191, 192; and reification, Plessner, Helmut, 11, 26, 32, 37, 40, 48,
88; and ridiculousness, 65; and 52 – 67, 71, 122, 125, 129, 133, 135,
Schmitt, 172, 175; and sentimentality, 143, 161, 163; and anthropology, 20,
65; and Serner, 117, 133; and shame, 56 –57, 58 –59, 61– 65, 72, 73, 88 – 89,
17; and subjectivity, 88; and traffic, 28, 91, 92, 96, 107, 116, 158, 182; and
29 –30; and turn from culture to civi- boundaries, 53, 58, 59, 62, 63, 91, 93,
lization, 14; and vitalism, 220n4; and 103; and conduct codes, 53, 56, 61,
Weber, 44; and women, 73–74, 111, 63, 65, 66, 67, 73, 81– 82, 83, 88, 95,
138, 141– 45, 216 96, 107, 113, 158; and cool persona,
Nietzsche, Friedrich, 7, 12, 36, 44, 85, 72, 107, 145, 182; and decisionism,
90, 94, 117, 123, 139, 183, 189; and 92, 94 –95, 96, 103, 104, 113, 143,
aesthetics, 62 – 63; and barbarism, 17, 145, 154, 183; and political relations,
71; and Dionysian quality, 84, 135; 59, 61, 88 –94, 114; and ridiculous-
and North Pole explorer, 43, 104; and ness, 59 – 62, 63, 66, 81– 82, 84, 107,
Plessner, 56, 62 – 63, 82 121–22; and Schmitt, 88 –95, 96, 103,
Nihilism, 49, 152 104, 172, 182 – 83, 226n119; and sov-
Nuremberg trials, 173 ereignty, 59, 73, 103, 104; and theory
of expression, 61, 64, 75, 77, 78, 81–
Objectivity: and authenticity, 58; and 85, 87, 88
conduct codes, 17–19; critique of, 47; Poetry: of Brecht, 11–12, 31–32, 38, 48,
and fetishism, 145; and gaze, 64; and 73, 133– 42, 198 –200; of Kästner, 192
Gracián, 36; and Kracauer, 206; and Polarization, 13–14, 22 –26, 30, 46, 56 –
Krauss, 40; and morality, 27; and pa- 57, 59, 101, 102, 130, 216, 220n4
ternal law, 186; and Plessner, 56, 58; Political parties, 41, 44, 106 –7
and Schmitt, 186; and social roles, Political relations: and aestheticization,
206; and traffic, 26, 27, 29 –30; and 94; and anthropology, 88 – 89, 91, 92,
virility, 73; and Weber, 44. See also 103, 111; and autonomy, 40 – 41; and
New objectivity Blei, 111–15; and boundaries, 41; and
One-dimensionality, 187, 190 Christianity, 38; and decisionism, 92,
Origin, 46, 101, 102, 141 94 –95, 96, 103, 104, 113; and free
Other, 18, 37, 39, 74, 93, 120, 143, 214, will, 69; and friend-enemy relation, 91,
236n1; and radar type, 25, 187– 88, 92, 93, 102, 143; and goodness, 50;
193 and Gracián, 38, 40 – 41; and heroism,
Otherness, 20, 58, 91, 102, 158 41; and Krauss, 38, 40 – 41; and
masses, 10, 41; and morality, 112; and
Pain, expression of, 85 – 88, 158 –59, 197 natural drives, 48 – 49; and Plessner,
Painting, 31, 140, 161, 234n147 59, 61, 88 –94, 114; and polarization,
Paradox, 108, 111, 137, 139, 141, 145 101, 102; and racial identity, 93–94;
Parody, 31, 139 and radar type, 189; and romanticism,
Paternal law, 140 – 41, 186 113, 141, 186; and Schmitt, 89 –94,
Patriarchy, 47, 59, 68, 186. See also 102, 111, 112, 113, 143– 44, 170; and
Fathers separation, 101–2; and typology, 155;
Paul, Saint, 4 and Weber, 44
Pavlov, Ivan, 74, 78, 79 Portraiture, 31, 106, 107, 140
Perceptual acuity, 147–50, 157, 163 Positivism, 70; legal, 104, 180, 186
Persona: Gracián’s concept of, 37– 41, Postmodernism, 131, 187
46, 99, 135; Plessner’s concept of, 59, Potemkin, Grigory Aleksandrovich, 179,
61, 65 – 66. See also Cool persona 180
Pessimism, 64 Pound, Ezra, 26
Petit bourgeoisie, 114, 206, 207 Power, and conduct codes, 95, 96
Phenomenology, 62, 149, 150 Pragmatism, 51
Photograms, 80 – 81 Prebourgeois subject, 6, 96, 131, 197
Photography, 23, 86, 88, 148, 150 –53, Print medium, 32
155 –56, 234n147 Private property, 30
Pietism, 5 Private sphere, 56, 58, 67
Index 247

Progress, 26, 110 Reality principle, 7

Projection, 8, 13, 15 Reason: and mobility, 51; and sublima-
Proletarian literature, 6, 110, 132, 198 tion, 84
Proletariat, 4, 73, 109, 160, 193 Rebellion, 3, 4, 7
Protestantism, 37, 96, 173, 174, 187 Reflexivity, 28 –29, 51, 58, 59, 61, 103,
Psychoanalysis: and armoring, 161– 62, 182
163; and cool persona, 47, 120, 161– Reflexology, 74, 78 –79, 213
62; and creature, 195, 209; and culture Reich, Wilhelm, 161– 62
of guilt, 13; and exteriority, 33; and Reification, 57, 88
natural drives, 70; and new objectivity, Relativism, 43, 93, 102, 112
70 –71; and shame, 66; and sudden Richter, Hans, 124
transformation, 6 Ridiculousness, 59 – 62, 63, 66, 81, 84,
Psychology: and artificiality, 57; and be- 107, 121–22, 127, 161
havior research, 70 –72, 74 –75; and Riesman, David, 5, 16, 25 –26, 97, 187–
cool persona, 44, 46, 47, 214; and cul- 88, 193, 194, 236n1
ture of guilt, 12 –13; and economic re- Rohrwasser, Michael, 47
lations, 70 –71; and expression, 75, Roles. See Social roles
76 –77, 80 – 83, 88, 105 – 6; and fic- Romanticism, 113, 123, 141, 148, 186
tional characters, 33; mass, 10, 20; and Roth, Joseph, 109, 132, 164, 198
natural drives, 48 –51, 70, 72; and ra- Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 46
dar type, 193, 214; subcomplex, 33, Russell, Bertrand, 111
70; and sudden transformation, 4 –5;
and typology, 154; and visibility, 31, 32 Salvation, 45 – 46, 89, 90
Public sphere, 56, 57, 58, 59, 61, 62 – 63, Sander, August, 155
67– 68, 82, 88, 174 Schad, Christian, 140
Scheler, Max, 22, 40, 48, 57, 71–72, 82,
Quintilian, 75, 81 83, 85, 89, 110
Schelsky, Helmut, 236n1
Racial identity, 93 Schematicism, 22 –23, 30, 31, 123
Radar type: and anthropology, 72; and Schmitt, Carl, 4, 29, 40, 45, 47, 48, 49,
architecture, 191; and artificiality, 214; 50, 66, 122, 149, 171– 86; and
and autonomy, 187, 188, 194; and acoustic space, 176 –78, 180, 181– 83,
Brecht, 108, 190; and conduct codes, 235n183; and Blei, 111–15; and con-
96; and conformity, 188, 190; and ceptual realism, 180, 181; and conduct
consumerism, 188, 189, 190, 192 –93; codes, 175 –76; and cool persona, 115,
and cool persona, 188; and creature, 145, 171, 172, 173; diary of, 171– 84;
195; and cynicism, 188, 192; and eco- and friend-enemy relation, 91, 92, 93,
nomic relations, 189; and fictional 102, 143, 150, 176, 213; and Hobbes,
characters, 192 –93; and gender, 193; 170, 171, 175 –76, 180; and Jünger,
and hedonism, 189, 192; and media, 176, 181; and Kafka, 104, 173, 184 –
73, 188, 189, 190, 191, 192, 193, 195; 86; and Plessner, 88 –95, 96, 103, 104,
and military, 131–32; and mobility, 172, 182 – 83, 226n119; and political
188, 193; and morality, 188, 193; and relations, 88 –94, 102, 111, 112, 113,
new objectivity, 73, 187, 189, 191, 143– 44, 170; and sovereignty, 103,
192, 193; and other, 25, 187– 88, 193; 104
and political relations, 189; and psy- Schopenhauer, Arthur, 55, 90, 152
chology, 193, 214; and Riesman, 25, Schütz, Alfred, 150
187– 88, 193, 194; and sentimentality, Schuur, Koos, 231n76
188, 193; and sociology, 187, 193–94 Science: and behavioral research, 70 –72,
Räderscheidt, Anton, 140 74 –75, 76; and coolness, 147; and
Radicalism, 44, 52, 53, 94 ethics, 44, 51; and expression, 75, 76 –
Radio, 86, 184, 190 77, 80 – 81, 83; and free will, 69; and
Rank, Otto, 47, 161 mobility, 51; and perceptual acuity,
Rathenau, Walther, 30 147; and relativism, 43
Rational behavior, 96 Seifert, Franz W., 156
Realism, 43, 79, 91; conceptual, 148 –53, Self: and armoring, 63; and boundaries,
155, 180, 181; heroic, 160, 163 57, 103, 137, 143; and conduct codes,
248 Index

Self (continued) State, 47, 49, 50, 51, 141, 155, 171, 172,
18; construction of, 15; and modern- 180, 215
ization, 15 Stirner, Max, 177
Self-control, 5 Subcomplex characters, 33, 70
Self-defense, 46 Subjectivity: and armoring, 23, 107, 108,
Self-direction, 5, 6, 18 131–32, 145, 188, 205; and auton-
Self-empowerment, 136, 138 omy, 156; and conduct codes, 36 –37;
Self-knowledge, 37, 39, 122 and conscience, 37; decentered, 23;
Self-portraits, 104, 106, 173 and masculinity, 59 – 60; and mobility,
Self-representation, 40 51, 88; and new objectivity, 88; pre-
Self-revelation, 55 bourgeois, 6, 131; and unity, 150
Sennett, Richard, 55 Sublimation, 82, 84, 110
Sentimentality, 65, 158, 188, 193 Sudden transformation, 2 – 8, 132
Separation, 25, 53, 101–2, 121, 134, Suhrkamp, Peter, 15
137, 138, 141, 143 Superego, 13, 187
Serner, Walter, 11, 17, 81, 95, 115 –26, Surrealism, 156
133, 135, 137, 157; and cool persona, Szcesny-Friedmann, Claudia, 47
115, 117, 118, 120, 145
Sexuality, 193 Tallyrand, Charles Maurice de, 111
Shame: and anthropology, 61– 62; and Taut, Bruno, 129 –30
boundaries, 62; and conduct codes, Technical reproduction, 23
17–18; and creature, 195; culture of, Technology: and acoustic space, 182; and
8, 12 –17, 18, 19 –20, 67, 103, 118, artificiality, 63; and community, 53;
173, 174, 216; and dadaism, 117; and distinguished from culture, 14; and ex-
narcissism, 59 – 60; and public sphere, pression, 80 – 81, 87; and heroic real-
61, 67– 69; and self-exposure, 59 – 62, ism, 160; and male fantasies, 213; and
63; and sociology, 8 –10, 16; theater perceptual acuity, 148
of, 8 –10, 62, 67 Theater, 8 –10, 15, 51, 62, 65, 67, 70, 78,
Simmel, Georg, 54, 56 –57, 194 79, 80, 111; Brechtian, 15, 51, 87, 131
Sincerity, 54, 55, 55 Theology, 4, 38, 40, 41, 49, 195, 198,
Sloterdijk, Peter, 31, 47, 52 200, 201
Social change, 22 –23 Theweleit, Klaus, 47, 213
Social class, 5, 6, 31, 88, 107 Tillich, Paul, 58, 102, 141, 186
Social Democratic party, 111, 132 Tönnies, Ferdinand, 53
Social rank, 31 Totalitarianism, 216
Social roles, 55, 62 – 63, 161, 206 Toulouse-Lautrec, Henri de, 131
Society: distinguished from community, Traffic, 26 –31, 55, 63, 73, 75, 155, 211
52 –53; mass, 16, 187; and neutrality, Tragedy, 49, 54, 57, 103, 170, 173
55; and separation, 53 Transcendence, 41, 49
Sociology: and community, 52 –53; and Trilling, Lionel, 55
consumerism, 132; and masking, 62 – Truth, 40, 112
63; and Plessner, 62; and radar type, Tucholsky, Kurt, 192
187, 193–94; and roles, 62 – 63; and Turek, Ludwig, 198
Sennett, 55; and shame, 8 –10, 16; and Typology, 152, 153–56, 158, 159, 187,
Simmel, 54; and typology, 187, 214, 214, 234n147, 236n1. See also
236n1 Classification mania
Sombart, Nicolaus, 47, 178
Sorel, Georges, 44, 90 Uexküll, Jakob von, 65, 71, 170
Sovereignty, 59, 74, 103, 104, 137 Uncanny, 6, 91, 93, 102, 145, 159
Soviet Union, 74, 78 Unconscious, 33, 59, 67, 103, 182, 209
Space: acoustic, 176 –78, 180, 181– 83; Unity: and community, 53; and polariza-
and market relations, 8; multinational, tion, 24; and subjectivity, 150
7; and perceptual acuity, 149 Utilitarianism, 145
Spengler, Oswald, 66, 190 Utopia, 22
Sperber, Manès, 2, 3, 7, 8, 10
Spinoza, Benedict de, 84 Velde, Henri van de, 130
Staël, Madame de, 113 Verhaltenheit, 82, 85, 88, 89
Index 249

Violence, 13, 14, 15, 44, 49, 53, 89, 91, Wilhelmian period, 22, 27, 130, 161
108, 210 Winnacker, Susanne, 140
Virility, 60, 73, 139, 143, 145 Wish projection, 13, 15, 107
Visibility, 16, 31, 32, 74, 178; and per- Wittfogel, Karl, 194
ceptual acuity, 147–50, 157, 163 Women, 46 – 47, 66 – 67, 82 – 83; and
Vitalism, 22, 23–24, 30, 56, 58, 59, 167, cool persona, 143; and new objectivity,
220n4 73–74, 111, 138, 141– 45; and radar
Vossler, Karl, 39, 40 type, 193
Working class, 25, 44, 110, 132
Wagner, Martin, 28 World War I, 5, 11, 110, 168
Warmth, 25, 54, 55, 101, 130, 132, 133, World War II, 98
135; and community, 53, 73, 110, 141, Wundt, Wilhelm, 76
143 Wurmser, Léon, 10, 59, 62
Weber, Max, 42 – 44, 54, 70, 72, 81, 90,
91, 109, 154, 187 Youth movement, 59, 60, 81, 83, 90,
Weltsch, Felix, 24 104, 110
White-collar employees, 23, 132, 148,
187 Zweig, Arnold, 136, 198, 201–3
Wilde, Oscar, 62 Zweig, Stefan, 114
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