Language:
French
Year of publication:
1993
Titel der Quelle:
Les Temps Modernes
Angaben zur Quelle:
568 (1993) 7-29
Keywords:
Weber, Max,
;
Kafka, Franz,
;
Benjamin, Walter,
;
Holocaust (Jewish theology)
Abstract:
Evoking atrocities of the Holocaust and the use of modern technology to execute the Final Solution, discusses books written before the Holocaust which were a kind of augury of the times to come. Max Weber was the first to observe the menaces of the modernization process and the possibility of an alliance between barbarism and nationality. Walter Benjamin, in the 1920s, saw "chemical war" as a symbolic sign of technological progress. Analyzing Kafka's literary work, states that the incompatibility of "The Trial"'s hero, Joseph K., with his surroundings, ruled by Law of the Tribunal, foreshadowed the condition of Jews in Nazi Europe. Concludes that the Holocaust represented, however, pathological manifestations of modernity and not its negation.
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