Walter Benjamin’s Niobe and “Mythic Violence”

­­­Proud of her ability to bear many children, Niobe — daughter of Tantalus, wife of Amphion — taunted the titan goddess Leto, who had mothered only two children, Apollo and Artemis. Leto’s children punished Niobe for her hubristic act by killing all of her children. On seeing this tragedy unfold, Niobe’s husband Amphion either killed himself or was killed by Apollo for swearing revenge. Although the gods spared Niobe’s life, their punishment of her ended in her petrification on Mount Sipylus in Phrygia.[1]

Unlike a Heracles, or an Antigone, Niobe did not challenge the gods with virtuous or heroic behaviour. Rather, she challenged their superiority with reckless abandon, leading to her becoming a cautionary exemplum of hubris in the works of Ovid, Homer, Sophocles, Aeschylus, and Pindar.[2] In this post, I will focus on Walter Benjamin’s interpretation and usage of the myth of Niobe in his essay, “Towards the Critique of Violence,” published in 1921.

Benjamin was a German Jewish philosopher who had only recently begun his academic career. “Towards the Critique of Violence” was meant to be a contribution to philosophy of law but its legacy in continental philosophy and critical theory focuses more on it as a comment on revolutionary violence.[3] Benjamin presents two concepts of violence in his essay, namely, “mythic violence” and “divine violence”. I shall concentrate here on the former.

Presented as an alternative to natural law theory and legal positivism, Benjamin posits mythic violence as the true source of law. Whereas natural law theory claims that the source of law or legal norms is God, legal positivism argues that human beings created law and that we can historically locate the origin of law. In contrast to these arguments, Benjamin claims that law came into existence when the gods began to pass judgment on human beings. This is where Benjamin refers to the myth of Niobe and argues that her punishment marks the origin of law.[4] For Benjamin argues that Niobe’s behavior did not transgress any previously established norm, but her punishment led to the creation of a new law. It is safe to say that we can interpret Benjamin as suggesting that this “new law” was an unwritten law or norm regarding the respectful treatment of the gods, and its failure would risk invoking their wrath.

Benjamin further claims that the Sipylean stone into which Niobe is cast functions as an emblem representing guilt. She remains forever a mute herald of her punishment for hubristic arrogance. Classical representations and interpretations of the myth of Niobe do not go so far as to suggest that Niobe represents the beginning of law or that she represents guilt. It is in this sense that Benjamin’s interpretation is innovative. The idea of guilt in relation to the law and punishment is prevalent more in the Judeo-Christian tradition than the tradition of ancient Greece, which is perhaps is why ancient interpretations of the myth of Niobe do not portray her as figure of guilt.

What is most unique about this interpretation is Benjamin’s use of the myth of Niobe as the starting point for law. At the beginning of his essay, Benjamin argues that both natural law theory and legal positivism fail to justify their legitimacy as the source of law because they seek to justify the use of violence based on the logic of means and ends. He claims that natural law and positive law are united in the dogma that “just ends can be attained by justified means, and justified means can be used for just ends.”[5] What this means is that for natural law if the end goal is desirable based upon the norms of its system, then any means used to achieve that goal are justified. Conversely, for legal positivism, if the law employs just or fair means to achieve a goal, then that goal is justified due to its being fairly achieved. The “means” in this context is the use of violence. Benjamin’s main hypothesis in this regard is that the use of violence cannot be justified through the means/ends relation because violence is nothing but an avenue for the state to express its power. To argue that it is possible to justify violence is not to truly understand the nature of violence.

It is in this respect that Benjamin’s use of Niobe’s myth acts as the perfect example for his concept of mythic violence. Mythic violence for Benjamin is the immediate use of violence to assert power, without invoking any kind of justification for that violence. The violence faced by Niobe and her family cannot be justified through the lens of natural law or positive law because neither its end nor means can be justified. The violence that creates law, or law-positing violence as Benjamin calls it, is an “act of an immediate manifestation of violence.”[6] Irrespective of the justificatory means-end relation, this kind of violence is purely an assertion of state power.

Benjamin’s concept of mythic violence, as a source of law did not gain much traction as it did not efficiently engage in the question of the source of legal and moral norms. Neither does it present a political theology regarding the origin of the state. But it does tell us two things: (1) that neither God, an omnipotent entity, nor human beings are the source of law, the human encounter with the consequences of our actions are the source of law; and (2) violence cannot be justified but just is and presents itself when power is asserted.

Benjamin’s reception of the myth of Niobe is not just a radical act of interpretation but also an act of redemption with regard to a figure that was previously conceived as an outcaste. In classical times, one was meant to learn the lesson of humility from this figure but if viewed from Benjamin’s lens, this figure instantiates the price one pays for boldly asserting a fact that is not palatable to figures of authority. There is nothing fair about the punishment given to Niobe and her family, and this is most probably why Benjamin refers to her case as the source of law. In his perspective, the law does not concern fairness or justice – but rather it concerns the assertion of its existence – in the form of violence.

 

This post was written by Aakanksha Mansukhani, a graduate student at Binghamton University, SUNY in the state of New York. Her dissertation focuses on understanding the nature of violence and its relation to the state via the works of Walter Benjamin.

 

References:

[1] Kornarou, “The Mythological ‘Exemplum’ of Niobe in Sophocles ‘Antigone’ 823-833. Rivista di cultura classica e mediovale, Vol 52, No. 2 (December 2010), 264.

[2] Ahmadi, Amir. “Benjamin’s Niobe.” In Towards the Critique of Violence: Walter Benjamin and Giorgio Agamben, 57-73. Edited by Brendan Moran and Carlo Salzani. New York: Bloomsbury, 2015.

[3] Benjamin, Walter. “Toward the Critique of Violence.” In Toward the Critique of Violence: A Critical Edition, 60. Edited by Peter Fenves and Julia Ng. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2021.

[4] Benjamin, “Towards the Critique of Violence,” 47.

[5] Benjamin, “Towards the Critique of Violence,” 40.

[6] Benjamin, “Towards the Critique of Violence,” 56.