The Production of theMuselmannand the Singularity of Auschwitz: A Critique of Adriana Cavarero's Account of the “Auschwitz Event”

Leonhard Riep

doi:10.1017/hyp.2020.41

Abstract

AbstractFeminist philosopher Adriana Cavarero claims in her bookHorrorism: Naming Contemporary Violencethat the core of the horror of Auschwitz is constituted by the figure of theMuselmann. I argue that Cavarero's lack of an accurate historical engagement with this figure in particular and with Auschwitz in general leads her to a speculative turn, thereby universalizing the phenomenon of theMuselmannby making ittheexample of Auschwitz, and moreover, the key factor to explain its singularity. I show that the phenomenon of theMuselmann, although a particular horrible effect of Auschwitz, is not limited to this concentration and extermination camp system. Consequently, the characteristic that makes Auschwitz aunicumcannot be found in theMuselmann. Rather, as I elucidate, the singularity of Auschwitz and the Shoah in general must be understood in relation to the true goal of this camp: the final extermination of European Jewry.

Highlights

In Horrorism: Naming Contemporary Violence and in “‘Destroy Your Sight with a New Gorgon’: Mass Atrocity and the Phenomenology of Horror” (Cavarero 2009; 2018), Adriana Cavarero tries to analyze the specific structure of horror, and to give an account of a particular horrible event: “Any present-day reflection on horror must, sooner or later, come to terms with Auschwitz” (Cavarero 2009, 34)
Throughout this article, I will argue that Cavarero’s concentration on the Muselmann as the decisive factor to explain the horror of the “Auschwitz event” and, its singularity, cannot be maintained
My suggestion is that Cavarero’s lack of an accurate historical engagement with the phenomenon of the Muselmann in particular and with Auschwitz in general leads her to a speculative turn, thereby universalizing the phenomenon of the Muselmann by making it the example of Auschwitz, and the key factor to explain its singularity

Summary

The Horror of Auschwitz and the Production of the Muselmann

Asking how to come to terms with the unicum of Auschwitz, with this “apex of Horrorism” (Cavarero 2009, 33), Cavarero proceeds in two steps: first, by dealing with Levi, second, by discussing Arendt. Cavarero acknowledges the centrality of the ontological attack on uniqueness, she criticizes Arendt’s Origins of Totalitarianism for not considering—as Levi does emphatically—the fundamental vulnerability that, according to Cavarero, is at stake: The helpless one stands at the center of the scene, he shows all the signs of his atrocious perversion by the concentration-camp machinery, but he does not rise explicitly to the status of criterion of horror. In this sense, in his comprehension of the horrorism of which Auschwitz constitutes the unrivaled paradigm, Levi goes further than Arendt. The problem is that “[n]o analysis of [the horror of Auschwitz] that cannot account for the extermination of European Jewry is fully adequate” (Postone 1986, 303).

Historical Account and Speculative Philosophy

The Muselmann and the Question of the Singularity of Auschwitz

Why Auschwitz is Singular