Aestheticization of Politics: Benjamin, Fascism, and Communism

• In Event: The Rhetorical Character of Political Theory

Abstract

Walter Benjamin’s famous condemnation of fascism as aestheticized politics in his artwork essay does not amount to a rejection of all aestheticized politics. Benjamin implicitly commends a communist version of aestheticized politics which would realize the unfulfilled promise of art in the age of technological reproducibility.

Author

• Jonathan Simons, Indiana University