Law emptied of content ceases to exist and merges with life

Evidence

In Agamben’s account, whereas Scholem insists that the relation with the law is one in which law “does not signify,” yet “still affirms itself by the fact that it is in force,” Benjamin objects to “Scholem’s notion of a being in force without significance.” Benjamin argues that “a law that has lost its content ceases to exist and becomes indistinguishable from life.” Benjamin reads Kafka as announcing “law’s fulfillment,” its “becoming indistinguishable from the life over which it ought to rule.” With Kafka, Benjamin would thus let “no form oflaw remain in force beyond its own content.” Life, daily life, life in all its might, would also be the musical instrument that, no longer accompanying anything with its only score, remains lying in overfilled attics. — Gil Anidjar, The Jew, the Arab, 755

Categorization

• DEFINE: Distinguishes Benjamin’s ‘law indistinguishable from life’ from Scholem’s ‘being in force without significance’ — a core conceptual framing.