Affirming educative violence: Walter Benjamin on divine violence and schooling

ABSTRACT

In his ‘Towards the Critique of Violence’, Walter Benjamin introduces the concept of ‘educative violence’ as a contemporary manifestation of ‘divine violence’. In this paper, we aim to interpret ‘educative violence’ by examining other instances where the young Benjamin addresses pedagogical issues. By connecting the concept of divine violence to Benjamin’s ideas of education in tradition and of the schooling of Geist, our goal is twofold: firstly, to comprehend the productive role that violence may play in the pedagogical context, and secondly, to apply it to the conception of schooling presented by Jan Masschelein and Maarten Simons to highlight its relevance to school education. By linking scholastic violence to divine violence, we argue that schools must be defended not despite but because of the violence they inhere. In doing so, we contribute another layer to the defense of the school and offer fresh insights into Benjamin’s notion of divine violence.

KEYWORDS:

• Walter Benjamin
• school education
• schooling
• divine violence
• educative violence

Introduction

In his 1921 work ‘Towards the Critique of Violence,’ which has become one of the seminal texts on violence, Walter Benjamin introduces the concept of ‘educative violence’ (erzieherische Gewalt) as a contemporary manifestation of what he terms ‘divine violence.’ Despite extensive research on Benjamin’s concept of violence (Butler 2012; Derrida 1992; Hamacher 2000; Martel 2012; Moran and Salzani 2012), and the growing interest in his pedagogical views (Friedlander 2018; Johannßen and Zechner 2022; Khatib 2018; Leslie 2016; Lewis 2020; Paechter, Rosen, and Bibby 2016; Snir 2021), the notion of educative violence remains enigmatic and controversial. This is partly due to the fact that the rich semantic field encompassed by the German term Gewalt has brought scholars writing in English to translate it variously as ‘force of education’ (Johannßen and Zechner 2022), ‘educative power’ (Martel 2018), and most commonly (as in the following), ‘educative violence’ (Charles 2016; Fenves 2021; Geulen 2005; Lewis 2020).

We believe this term has important practical implications for the field of education, yet the dense and complex text in which it appears, coupled with Benjamin’s limited elucidation thereof, have given rise to somewhat abstract interpretations remaining at a meta level. Eva Geulen (2005) argues that just like divine violence, educative violence should be understood as pure means, devoid of purpose. Martel (2018) underscores that it is not identical with divine violence, but rather starkly contrasts with the projection of power found in mythic violence. An important interpretation by Charles (2016) offers a more concrete understanding, stating that Benjamin’s term, with its valorization of destruction, enables reaction against ‘the current pedagogical valorizations of creativity and productivity’ (Charles 2016, 526). Nevertheless, Charles’ comprehension of the term as violence directed at the educational apparatus rather than at the child remains on a meta level, as opposed to the level of pedagogical practices. Finally, in his recent interpretation of Benjamin’s educative violence as an awakening from a dream, Lewis (2020) reads it as anti-Fascist education. He concedes, however, that his is an ‘imaginative interpretation’ (Lewis 2020, 2), blending this early Benjaminian term with subsequent ones.

In this paper, we aim to interpret ‘educative violence’ by examining other instances where the young Benjamin addresses pedagogical issues, and by connecting them to the concept of divine violence. Our goal is twofold: firstly, to comprehend the productive and emancipatory role that violence may play in the pedagogical context; secondly, to highlight its relevance to school education. To achieve these goals, we apply Benjamin’s concept of educative violence to the seminal conception of schooling presented in Jan Masschelein and Maarten Simons’ In Defence of the School: A Public Issue (2013). While this book barely mentions the violence inherent to school education, reading it through the lens of Benjamin’s concept allows us to argue that schools must be defended not despite but precisely because of the violence they inhere.

The concept of divine violence emerges in Benjamin’s ‘Towards the Critique of Violence’ as antithetical to mythic violence, namely to the law-positing violence which is ultimately inseparable from law-preserving violence. Mythic violence does not merely manifest the power of the gods, but is also fundamental to every legal and political order. Its underlying principle is not justice, but the power to set boundaries and punish transgressors. It begins ‘a circle of violence, blood and guilt’ (Rotlevy 2024), as the inevitable transgression generates the need for even more laws and boundaries, and further law-preserving violence to maintain them. Benjamin (2021, 57) summarizes this antithesis as follows:

If mythic violence is law-positing, divine violence is law-annihilating; if the former establishes boundaries, the latter boundlessly annihilates them; if mythic violence inculpates and expiates at the same time, divine violence de-expiates; if the former threatens, the latter strikes; if the former is bloody, the latter is lethal in a bloodless manner.

The example Benjamin cites to illustrate divine violence is the account of Korah and his horde in Numbers 16. After Korah, a Levite, assembles 250 other leaders to challenge the authority of Moses and Aaron, the earth opens its mouth and swallows them whole. How might such divine violence be relevant to education? While violence and coercion have historically been seen as integral to education, as in Plato’s Allegory of the Cave (2004, 208–210 [514a-516e]), modern education has increasingly aimed to minimize or eradicate violence (Allen 2014; Charles 2016, 525). Benjamin is aware of this, as his essay mentions ‘Laws limiting the powers within education to inflict punishment’ (2021, 42).¹ However, he does not argue for the elimination of violence from education. Rather, he writes that ‘divine violence […] has at least one hallowed manifestation in present-day life. What, as educative violence, stands in its completed form outside of law is one of its forms of appearance’ (2021, 58).

Benjamin notes that divine violence is not necessarily exercised by God, but is rather defined by bloodless striking, de-expiation, and the absence of law-positing. Still, he does not elaborate on how violence exercised within a pedagogical context can exhibit these characteristics. We address this as follows. In the first section, we reflect on a violent image Benjamin presents of education in tradition, where he depicts the student as a wave in the surging sea of teachings. Next, we examine a practice of schooling outlined in Benjamin’s Origin of the German Trauerspiel (2019), which disrupts the fundamental structure of subjectivity and opens up the possibility for truth that transcends the ordinary process of knowledge. In the final two sections, we apply the notion of divine violence to link Benjamin’s thoughts on education to Masschelein and Simons’ (2013) conception of school, and offer an account of the violence inherent in it by focusing on how it is used to suspend social hierarchies, and by looking at the violent process of de-subjectivation.

Education and tradition

Although Benjamin has not developed a systematic educational theory, pedagogical concerns have preoccupied him throughout his intellectual life, as evident in ‘The Life of Students’ (Benjamin 1996a), his work on children’s theatre (Benjamin 1999), radio broadcasts (2014), and emphasis on pedagogical aspects in the Arcades Project (Benjamin 1999). An early reference is found in a letter to his friend Gershom Scholem from September 1917 (1994, 92–95), written a few years prior to his essay on violence. At that time, he was writing ‘On the Program of a Coming Philosophy’ (1996b), containing the idea of knowledge transcending subject-object relations. The letter provides insights into the questions that interest us: Benjamin responds to Scholem’s (1917) essay on Zionist education, which argues that a transformative education capable of liberating individuals from exile and preparing them for Zionism can only be achieved if educators exemplify this transformation within themselves. Benjamin is sympathetic to the notion of transformative pedagogy, yet opposes Scholem’s emphasis on personal example. He believes that such emphasis creates a separation between praxis and theory, as well as between the teacher and the act of teaching. It marginalizes the concept that, according to Benjamin, should stand at the core of pedagogical discussions: instruction. The alternative pedagogical conception Benjamin presents in the letter, albeit succinctly and enigmatically, is based on the connection between instruction, teachings and tradition.

The notion of education rooted in tradition may appear not only outdated but also inherently violent. Traditional education brings to mind notions of coercion, reducing individuals to mere links in a chain, assimilating them into a collective, and compelling them to conform to its values. However, Benjamin’s understanding of tradition, and consequentially his conception of education in tradition, is quite different, albeit not devoid of violence. He writes,

He who has not learned cannot educate, for he does not recognize the point at which he is alone, where he thus encompasses in his own way the tradition and makes it communicable by teaching. Whoever has grasped his knowledge as something transmitted, in which alone it is transmittable, will be free in an unprecedented way. The metaphysical origin of the Talmudic witticism comes to mind here. The teachings are like a surging sea, but for the wave, (if we take it as an image of man,) all that matters is to surrender itself to its motion in such a way that it crests and breaks with foam. This enormous freedom of the breaking wave is education in its actual sense. The lesson: tradition becoming visible and free. It’s rushing from lively abundance (Benjamin 1994, 94, translation modified).

Before we turn to the central image here, note the allusion to the Talmud, which has attracted little attention from readers of this passage in the context of educative violence, such as Charles (2016) and Lewis (2020), and is analyzed outside this context by Rotlevy (2020). Scholem is the source of Benjamin’s conception of the Talmud, and his contemporary diary entries on this topic provide significant insights. Scholem (2004, 368) notes that in the Talmud, ‘the very fact of doubting doctrine hands it down.’

The Talmud includes the Mishna, the oral Torah, surrounded on every page by the Gemara – interpretations and discussions of the Mishna and related sections of the written Torah. The transmission of the Torah, of ‘the teachings’, occurs through what Scholem (2007, 286) calls their ‘decomposition’, their thorough linguistic analysis and sophisticated and often skeptical discussion. Thus, the very transmission of the Torah through its discussion undermines the canon and its authority. The dialectics of transmission, of tradition, is that of continuity and breaking: ‘The “decomposition” of the teachings […] is an act of breaking what is whole into parts and of breaking the authority of the whole. Moreover, this break is what facilitates the handing down of tradition’ (Rotlevy 2020, 201).

The allusion to the Talmud explains why Benjamin thinks of the breaking of tradition as an act of transmission. Instruction does not mean dogmatic inculcation of the teachings (translated in Hebrew as Torah, as Scholem notes), but rather their handing down in a critical, creative and destructive manner through which they should be approached and transmitted in future acts of instruction. Yet, while Scholem focuses on the method of decomposition, on violence toward tradition, Benjamin’s image focuses also on the individuals involved in the pedagogical process (Cf. Charles 2016, 534).

As mentioned, Benjamin portrays the student as a wave rising from the sea of teaching that constitutes tradition, before breaking down as part of its internal motion. Clearly, this is a violent image: the wave does not break free of the sea but rather breaks back into it, surrendering to its force. How can a violent image of breaking and surrendering represent education for freedom?

The key to the answer lies in the beginning of the aforementioned citation. Students can be set free by perceiving the teachings as transmissible and, equally important, by viewing themselves not merely as passive relay stations, but as agents who express the transmitted teachings in their own way. Although waves are part of the sea, no two are identical. The student’s agency is manifested through surrender and devotion to the movement of the teachings, as well as in the individual manner in which he revives, interprets, and gives them form before passing them on, as the next wave rises and breaks. The student generates a transformation in tradition when he reads it in his own manner, effectively ‘breaking’ it. Significantly, the student undergoes a profound transformation in this form of education, not merely in the superficial sense of acquiring knowledge, but rather in transforming from one taught by his teachers to one who actively and uniquely participates in transmitting the teaching, as a teacher in his own right.

This should be understood as a contrast to the Enlightenment model of education, to the process of Bildung, which constructs autonomous adult subjects who liberate themselves from traditions and external authorities. As Dennis Johannßen and Dominik Zechner (2022) note, from his earliest thoughts on pedagogy, Benjamin views it as transformative rather than formative, as related to Umbildung rather than Bildung. In the above quote, the great achievement of education is the devotion to the process of transmitting the teachings to the point of their unique embodiment. This means relinquishing the subject position, as knowledge is no longer an object standing opposed to the student, or merely internalized thereby, ready to be communicated to others. Instead, the student becomes the embodiment of knowledge in the act of transmission. Rather than facing the teachings, the student is involved in them, ‘touching’ them from within.

What pedagogical practices, however, undermine the subject position by favoring the surrender to the transmission of teachings? While Benjamin’s letter alludes to the Talmudic context, eight years later, in his habilitation, he contemplates a practice that has similar effects in the Christian scholastic context and adopts it within a contemporary framework.

Schooling out from the subject position

In the foreword to his Origin of the German Trauerspiel (2019), Benjamin criticizes German idealism for its epistemological limitations, or more specifically, for turning the subject’s tendency towards systematicity into the fundamental axis of the process of knowing. Eventually, through this process truth is perceived as that which fits into the conceptual framework imposed by the subject onto the world. Such cognition, rooted in the subject position, eliminates the possibility of genuinely knowing whatever is characterized by inherent contradictions, such as that which stands at the center of Benjamin’s book: Baroque plays and the Baroque era itself. Systematic knowledge always seeks to reconcile contradictions. Conversely, comprehending the plays, Baroque, and consequently also modernity at large – with its inherent tensions and contradictions – requires a form of cognition that transcends the subject position and the appropriation of knowledge based on the subjects’ own scale.

Benjamin refers to this kind of cognition as ‘truth.’ He does not conceive truth as correspondence between knowledge (or language) and reality, or as a correct way of representing the world in the mind. For him, truth is beyond any specific representation, description, definition or determination. It cannot be re-presented but only presented.² Benjamin’s project in the Trauerspiel book is to present the truth of the plays and Baroque, a presentation that goes beyond their systematic representation, and thus captures their dynamic tensions.

What is significant for our purpose is that Benjamin concludes his foreword by addressing the schooling of Geist, which is essential for such cognition of truth – an understanding that encompasses contradictions and tensions without attempting to dissolve or eliminate them. What does this schooling entail? In what sense does it encompass a violence akin to that found in education in tradition, which disintegrates or disrupts the subject position? A clear instance of this schooling is the writing method of the scholastic tractate, which Benjamin describes as follows: ‘Method is indirection. Presentation as indirection, as the roundabout way – this […] is the methodological character of the tractatus’ (2019, 2). In the medieval tractate, the text does not lead readers directly to a conclusion, as in a typical argument. Instead, it takes them on detours through opposing positions, which are expressed through quotes from the scriptures, Church Fathers, or authoritative philosophers. The text becomes a polyphony of diverse voices, and the author is present primarily through the act of presentation, by decontextualizing the citations and placing them alongside one another. Even when the author responds to counterarguments, his voice is not authoritative or decisive. Truth is not represented from the single perspective of an authoritative subject, but rather emerges out of a multiplicity of voices, enabling its manifestation within and through them, in a manner that transcends knowledge systematically appropriated by a subject.

Writing or reading a tractate is a form of schooling in the sense that it generates a process of unlearning the subject’s position and cultivating a different attitude to the world. Benjamin refers to this as a non-intentional attitude. The flow of thought is repeatedly diverted from its intended course by citations that are presented without their original context and without being meticulously interpreted. Both reading and writing this text are an exercise in undermining the tendency for systematic, progressive reading. Benjamin describes the tractate text as designed to prompt the readers’ thought to pause after each sentence, preventing the continuation of the initial intention with which they approached the text or identification with the author’s intention. The goal of this exercise is not direct approximation to truth, but rather profound transformation of the mind: departure from the authoritative subject position seeking to appropriate truth, and habituation to an alternative position in relation to it. In doing so, the tractate undermines intentionality, which is fundamental to the subject position (Rotlevy 2017).

Giving up on the subject position is not easy, not solely due to the extensive duration of the exercise. It entails relinquishing a familiar and convenient stance that implies authority, power, and even violence: appropriating the world by imposing a conceptual framework on it, adopting an instrumental approach to it, and reducing it to knowable objects. De-subjectifying education thus responds to the inherent violence within the subject position with its own form of violence.

The Benjaminian adoption of the tractate method in his Baroque text, employing over 600 citations, should therefore be seen as a violent act of schooling. It is designed to deconstruct a fundamental mental structure, opening the readers to a truth that transcends the type of knowledge made possible by the subject position – that systematic type, which German idealism regarded as the highest form of knowledge. This form of education enables us to concentrate not only on the educational violence that Benjamin presents but also on its connection to divine violence. In the following sections, we employ the notion of divine violence not only to better understand Benjamin’s conception of education, but also to analyze the violent dimension of a contemporary conception of scholastic education.

Divine violence and the suspension of school hierarchies

Let us now examine Benjamin’s biblical illustration of divine violence. Korah and his horde were Levites, ‘privileged ones’ (2021, 57). They challenged the leadership of Moses and Aaron, apparently in the name of equality: ‘Wherefore then lift ye up yourselves above the congregation of the Lord?’ (Numbers 16:3). However, as Moses understood, they actually wanted power beyond what God had bestowed upon them. By challenging Moses, they sought to leverage their privilege to gain more privileges. They wanted to set the boundaries between them and the congregation by themselves, thus initiating a cycle of violence.

When God struck them down lethally yet bloodlessly, He broke the potential cycle of violence and undermined the social order he had sanctioned himself: Korah and his Levite followers were struck despite and at the same time because being privileged. The divine strike rendered the social hierarchy, not flawed in itself, temporarily irrelevant. It was not a punishment that restored order. It was not concerned with expiation, compensation, or the theatricality of the trial. As an act of divine violence, it annihilated the law and broke the cycle of mythical violence. In the face of its immediate and consuming presence, all were rendered powerless, all were equal.

The link between education and divine violence as exemplified in Korah’s story does not imply, of course, that education is lethal or that students are utterly and equally powerless in relation to the teacher. Instead, it suggests that violence may play a necessary and constructive role in education, and that it is crucial to differentiate between its different mechanisms and manifestations: not between its presence and absence (as if non-violent education is possible), or between corporeal and other, more subtle forms of violence, but rather between mythic violence that preserves the sociopolitical order by assimilating students into it and divine violence that subverts it by breaking the cycle of violence it generates.

While Benjamin does not explicitly connect his ideas of education in tradition and de-subjectifying education to the concept of divine violence, his reading of Korah’s story enables us to recognize the common element of targeting seemingly natural privileges and hierarchies. This common thread binds together the different forms of educative violence we saw in Benjamin, and prompts us to consider its relevance to other forms of education.

The point on which the remainder of the discussion hinges is the notion of schooling, which extends beyond Benjamin’s specific usage, enabling us to further explore the idea of divine violence outside Benjamin’s writings and to consider the violence inherent in school as a manifestation of divine violence. To be clear, this discussion will not reconstruct a view actually held by Benjamin – who is mostly critical of formal education – but rather utilize his ideas and apply them to the educational field in ways that clearly extend beyond his original intentions (Lather and Kitchens 2017). Our discussion will also not focus on existing schools, analyzing how they operate as ideological state apparatuses (Althusser 2001), or as mechanisms for reproducing the social hierarchy (Bourdieu and Passeron 1990). Instead, like Benjamin’s, it will concentrate on the philosophical level of conceptualizing proper scholastic education.

To achieve this aim, we turn to Jan Masschelein and Maarten Simons’ book, In Defence of the School: A Public Issue (2013), in which they rethink the ‘scholastic’ and defend it against various attempts at de-schooling, which are by no means merely theoretical (Illich 2000). The defense presented in this book revolves around a specific conception of the scholastic, not necessarily as implemented in schools as we know them, which can be seen as ‘de-schooled schools’ (Masschelein and Simons 2013, 29), calling instead for a rethinking and reinventing of the school. While this book has sparked extensive discussions (Bergdahl and Langmann 2017, 2018; Korsgaard 2019; Lewis 2019; Lewis and Friedrich 2016; Oral 2022; Snir 2016), the issue of structural violence within scholastic education remains largely unexplored. We aim to address this gap and, by linking scholastic violence to divine violence, argue that schools must be defended not despite but precisely because of the violence they inhere. In doing so, we will contribute another layer to the defense of the school and offer fresh insights into Benjamin’s notion of divine violence.

The word ‘school’ derives from the Greek scholé, or ‘free time.’ According to Masschelein and Simons (2013), this implies that school is a particular form of education originating from the Greek polis, where the time devoted to education was liberated from the demands of everyday life. Consequently, the first characteristic of school is suspension, namely ‘(temporarily) rendering something inoperative, or in other words, taking it out of production, releasing it, lifting it from its normal context’ (Masschelein and Simons 2013, 33). What is liberated at school is primarily time itself, which is no longer bound by efficiency and productivity (at school, time is not money), but rather dedicated to study and practice (cf. Masschelein 2011; Masschelein and Simons 2015).

However, unlike the many forms of private education, where only a privileged few can afford free time – making time not truly free but rather entangled in producing and perpetuating social hierarchies – Masschelein and Simons (2013) argue that school is public by definition. It transforms free time into a ‘common good’, accessible to all regardless of origin and social status. In its (conceptual and historical) origin, school challenges the elites’ exclusive claim to free time and the particular form of education this enables: ‘the Greek school emerged as an encroachment on the privilege of aristocratic and military elites in ancient Greece’ (Masschelein and Simons 2013, 27). This implies that for time to be truly free, the children attending school must be liberated from the constrains imposed on them by their social positions, placing all class and social distinctions within brackets and temporarily rendering them inoperative:

the school provided free time, that is, non-productive time, to those who by their birth and their place in society (their ‘position’) had no rightful claim to it. Or, […] what the school did was to establish a time and space that was in a sense detached from the time and space of both society (Greek: polis) and the household (Greek: oikos)’ (Masschelein and Simons 2013, 27–28, emphasis in the original).

At school, one is no longer rich or poor, the son of a merchant or a craftsman – for a time, all become the same thing: students. Knowledge and skills – teachings in the broadest sense – are expropriated from the elites, breaking the chain of familial inheritance and becoming accessible to everyone – in a word, public.

Such a school is inherently democratic, anti-elitist and egalitarian. However, it is by no means free of violence. One can argue that expropriating knowledge and skills from the elites and making them available to all violates the social order and is therefore violent. Equally important, violence is also applied to the students. This is true not only in the trivial sense of school discipline, often associated with ‘oppression, subjugation, repression, control and surveillance, compliance and obedience’ (Masschelein and Simons 2013, 57); rather, the very act of suspension can be considered violent. Masschelein and Simons describe the liberating moment of suspension as ‘what allows young people to enter into another world in which they can stop being “son” or “daughter”’ (2013, 31), and as what ‘gives people the chance (temporarily, for a short while) to leave their past and family background behind and to become a student just like everyone else’ (2013, 31–32). But children do not necessarily wish to relinquish their family affiliations and social positions, to give up privilege, or simply to suspend their familiar place and identity. As Masschelein (2015) points out elsewhere, the etymological origin of ‘pupil’ is the Latin word for foundling or orphan, and even if being an orphan at school is conceptualized as temporary and enabling, this status is clearly imposed on the children, and not without violence.

Rather than use this violent dimension as an excuse for de-schooling, which could subject the children to various equally harsh forms of violence in the socioeconomic spheres (and sometimes even at home), we can embrace it as an embodiment of divine violence. Similar to the case of Korah, this violence is directed against privileges, and while it does not annihilate them, it disrupts their reproduction, making it challenging for the elite to preserve and expand its power. As mentioned, this violence is not about expiation, but rather about suspending all privilege through a broader, anonymous, and more universal power. It is a law-annihilating violence in the most radical sense: it does not serve the existing order, but actively renders it inoperative, at least temporarily. However, unlike the fate of Korah and his followers, the violence directed against students at school is not lethal. As Benjamin puts it, ‘it is annihilating only in a relative sense […] never absolutely with regard to the soul of the living’ (2021, 58). It is aimed at privileges, not the privileged, to whom it ascribes no guilt and of whom it requires no expiation.

To substantiate our assertion concerning the relevance of divine violence to school education, we now explore certain points of convergence between Benjamin’s conception of education and that of Masschelein and Simons, with renewed emphasis on the theme of relinquishing the position of the subject.

Divine violence and scholastic formation

Despite its emphasis on knowledge, learning is not the primary focus of school. This is not only because learning does not necessarily require traditional teachers and a structured curriculum, or because learning opportunities are currently available everywhere and all the time (Hern 2008). Rather, it is primarily because learning, according to Masschelein and Simons, ‘involves the strengthening or expanding of the existing I, for example, through the accumulation of skills or the expanding of one’s knowledge base,’ whereas school education is a matter of formation, which entails ‘constantly going outside of oneself or transcending oneself’ (2013, 45). This means not only that social status and family origin are suspended at school, but also that the individual self – one’s inclinations, interests, abilities, and limitations – is placed within brackets and temporarily rendered inoperative. School is literally a different world – a cave (Masschelein 2018) where students are not prisoners but are rather free to forget themselves and transform into someone or something else: a mathematician, historian, musician, scientist…

This idea of formation aligns with the de-subjectification observed earlier in Benjamin’s approach to scholastic education. While the formation described by Masschelein and Simons is not concerned with conceiving truth as being beyond representation, similarly to Benjamin, they believe scholastic education entails dismantling the common, everyday position from which people typically address the world with intentions of utility and domination, and transitioning to a more open and receptive approach.

As observed earlier, Benjamin considers writing and reading a tractate as a scholastic technique that enables a non-subjective stance. Similarly, Masschelein and Simons argue that school ‘technology’ – which need not be high-tech but can encompass traditional tools such as blackboards and textbooks, as well as school architecture – is not employed to dominate and appropriate the world: ‘These are not tools or environments that can be freely used or that are used according to one’s intentions. The student or the teacher does not automatically assume total control over them. Rather, there is always an inverse element at work: these instruments and spaces assert control over the student and teacher’ (2013, 50; cf.; Vansieleghem and Masschelein 2012). They orient them toward what is presented on the table in class, away from the student as subject and towards the world as subject matter, as something of value that, in a sense, assumes control over the student.³

The exercises characteristic of the school, such as the traditional practices of recitation, dictation, and copying, which may appear old-fashioned (or even sadistic to some), are to be understood as ‘scholastic gymnastics’ (2013, 55) designed to cultivate attention, devotion, and even embodiment of the subject matter (2013, 68), akin to how Benjamin envisions the student as a wave in a surging sea. Hence, orienting students to the subject matter does not imply telling them precisely what to do with it. Attending to the subject matter, to the world as subject, means that both teacher and student renounce their subject positions and surrender to the world’s inner logic and motion.

The technologies and techniques Masschelein and Simons discuss are therefore not dissimilar to how Benjamin describes the medieval tractate as fostering an approach to the text in which thought does not progress in a straight, efficient manner towards a predetermined destination, but rather lingers, wanders, and explores different paths. Practicing the writing and reading of tractates enables the Benjaminian student to relinquish his original intentions and be receptive to new, unpredictable possibilities.

Following Michel Serres (1997), Masschelein and Simons describe school education as a ‘middle ground’ irreducible to a mere empty space one needs to cross to get from one place (ignorance) to another (knowledge). By valuing this middle ground in its own right, one can linger on it, savor its possibilities, and discover new avenues within it: ‘This kind of “middle ground” has no orientation or destination but makes all orientations and directions possible’ (Masschelein and Simons 2013, 36). This concept pertains not only to what is learned at school and the potential to encounter new ideas and subjects students never knew they were interested in, but also to scholastic formation. Such formation is not about conforming to a preexisting pattern (Bildung), but rather about an open and continuous process of trans-formation: ‘“formation” through study and practice is not functional. It is knowledge for the sake of knowledge and skills for the sake of skills, without a specific orientation or a set destination’ (2013, 79).

The student’s transformation at school, where one explores the potential to shape oneself in alignment with things rather than use them solely to achieve predetermined goals, closely resonates with Benjamin’s concept of de-subjectivation. Similarly, it involves an element of violence: it is not always easy or pleasant to step outside one’s self, to suspend one’s identity and self-definition. It is not without reason that scholastic technology is often perceived as oppressive and likened to a collection of torture instruments. Although it appears that Masschelein and Simons are untroubled by this violent dimension, it still requires acknowledgment and defense, which we aim to provide by associating it with the notion of divine violence.

As argued above, when children are transformed into students, their privileges are targeted in a manner akin to how divine violence struck Korah when he sought to exploit his privilege for greater power. Now, we can further assert that scholastic violence is directed against the most fundamental privilege, especially in modernity: that of the subject in relation to the object. When scholastic violence affects the students – without drawing blood and without inculpating or expiating – it does not posit or preserve any law, but instead, annihilates what appears to be the most fundamental law: the one that establishes the individual as a subject who approaches the world as an object to be used.

This process of de-subjectivation should be understood not only through the negative moment of suspension but also in light of the complementary positive moment that, following Giorgio Agamben (2015), Masschelein and Simons (2013, 38) refer to as profanation: ‘ A profane time and place, but also profane things, refer to something that is detached from regular use, no longer sacred or occupied by a specific meaning, and so something in the world that is both accessible to all and subject to (re)appropriating meaning (see also Masschelein 2011, 531; Masschelein and Simons 2015). Profanation represents a movement of unlocking potential, of rejecting fixed meanings to allow for new possibilities. While Masschelein and Simons focus on the profanation of the world, which is transformed at school into subject matter, it can also be applied to the students themselves as they are dethroned from their subject positions, thereby gaining the potential for radical transformation, albeit often against their will.⁴

We contend that the profaning violence present at school can be seen as a form of divine violence. Despite originating from a far-from-divine source and being wielded by the most secular authority, namely the state, it undermines the very order it upholds. Its vast power, disproportional to all those it is applied to, provides school with the radical potential to generate potentials, to open unexpected possibilities that would otherwise remain concealed.

Characterizing scholastic violence as divine does not imply justifying it. Divine violence, as described by Benjamin, lies outside the realm of justified means and ends, operating beyond the purview of law and order. However, by contrasting this violence with mythic violence – which posits and preserves the law, acknowledging only manifestations of power – we can comprehend it, acknowledge its presence, and potentially even affirm its significance. The lesson Benjamin teaches us, then, is to affirm educative violence: not the violence that serves the sociopolitical order, but rather that which suspends the structures that perpetuate violence and inequality. This form of violence offers an alternative to progressive education, which seeks to distance itself from any form of violence, providing instead the possibility for a genuinely radical and democratic education.

Afterword

The connection we have drawn between school education and the scholastic education Benjamin discusses must not obscure the significant differences between the public educational institution of school and Benjamin’s vision of education. These differences extend beyond Benjamin’s unfavorable experiences at the schools he has attended as a child. There are undeniable distinctions between his educational ideas and the nature of school as presented by Masschelein and Simons: while they adopt an institutional framework for education, Benjamin distances himself from such a framework; while the school they discuss always involves more than one student, in Benjamin the plurality of students in processes of learning and transformation all but disappears; and while their concept of school draws on secular origins, Benjamin’s ideas draw on religious ones.

Nonetheless, Benjamin’s assertion in ‘Toward the Critique of Violence,’ that educational violence is one hallowed manifestation of divine violence in present-day life presents us with an invitation, an opportunity, and a potential for independent and collaborative reading, rooted in the subject matter we have studied while simultaneously transcending it to offer a fresh interpretation. We hope that we have managed to be good students, if not teachers.

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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. This awareness, and the preliminary context of corporeal punishment, justifies translating the multifaceted term Gewalt as violence, in the context of education.

2. In Wittgensteinian terms, truth cannot be told, but can be shown. For further comparison between the thinkers, see (Friedlander 2016).

3. Lewis (2019) contrasts Masschelein and Simon’s view to that of Benjamin, contending that while they, in alignment with prevailing educational thought, underscore the significance of attention, Benjamin provides an alternative perspective on the educational merits of distraction: ‘It is through diffuse alertness that the world opens up’ (Lewis 2019, 183). Our argument implies that the disparity between Benjamin and Masschelein and Simons is not as substantial as Lewis proposes.

4. Elsewhere (Simons and Masschelein 2010) Masschelein and Simons use the term ‘pedagogic subjectivation’ to refer to the dis-identification that takes place in school, and the consequent experience of potentiality and ‘being able to.’ This special kind of subjectivation is explicitly posited against the Foucauldian ‘governmental subjectivation,’ which ‘ties [the subject] to his own identity by a conscience or self-knowledge’ (quoted in Simons and Masschelein 2010, 591).