Cortar la mecha encendida antes de que la chispa llegue a la dinamita. El problema del vínculo entre humanos, técnica y naturaleza en la obra de Benjamin a la luz de los debates actuales sobre la catástrofe ecológica

Abstract

In this article, we have sought to approach the relationship between technique, nature and humanity in the work of Walter Benjamin. We intend to show that, for Benjamin, a technique that does not have as its objective the capitalist exploitation of human labor can transcend the conception of it as the domain of nature and understand it as a non-anthropocentric interaction between humans and non-humans. To show this, we will examine some passages from One-Way Street, the fragments about Charles Fourier from The Arcades Project, and the writings about Lesabéndio by Paul Scheerbart. From the utopian dreams of these authors, a path is opened to think about technique in a non-anthropocentric way. This will allow us to put Benjamin’s ideas in dialogue with various contemporary approaches (the cosmopolitics of Isabelle Stengers or Bruno Latour, Huk Hui’s cosmotechnics, Benjamin Bratton’s terraforming, Michael Löwy’s ecosocialism, Donna Haraway’s Chthulucene, etc.) that take on the challenge of thinking about ways to cope with the contemporary ecological catastrophe.