Walter Benjamin’s “Second Technique”

a Harmonious Relationship between Humanity and Nature

Abstract

This article seeks to analyse Walter Benjamin’s concept of “second technique” to comprehend the relationship between humanity and nature that it implies. This concept emerges in L’œuvre d’art à l’époque de sa reproduction mécanisée, but has roots in previous texts. This article aims to be, in strict sense, a contribution to the interpretations of Benjamin’s concept of second technique, and, in a general sense, an input to the current debates surrounding technique and nature, within the framework of the environmental crisis. My argument is that since the mid-1920s, Benjamin introduces a conception of technique as a relationship between humanity and nature. This conception appears in several texts of the period and is crystallised in the concept of second technique, of which film provides an illustrative example. The concept of second technique, which first appears in L’œuvre d’art..., has antecedents in Einbahnstraße and Theorien des deutschen Faschismus for two reasons: in both texts 1) Benjamin defines technique as a relationship between nature and humanity; 2) this technique is posed in opposition to a misuse of technique, whether as domination in Einbahnstraße, or as destruction in Theorien des deutschen Faschismus. The concept of second technique represents an innovation that highlights the nature of this relationship, namely harmonious, and is explicitly opposed to a first technique defined by domination.