“Fringes blown by the wind”: High Hopes for Expanded Consciousness in Benjamin and Brecht

“Fringes blown by the wind”: High Hopes for Expanded Consciousness in Benjamin and Brecht by Lauren Hawley. This article takes up destabilized notions of intoxication in order to refigure “sobriety” as a narcotized state of conventionality and intoxication as the means of awakening. Hawley argues that both Walter Benjamin and Bertolt Brecht use intoxication in order to achieve “euphoric expansion.” In this analysis, intoxication is no longer seen as a narcotized state into which one escapes from reality, but rather as a means of disrupting dangerous, “narcotized” habits of mind. Rather than producing an escapist comfort, intoxication creates discomfort, which can then “enhance one’s receptivity to thoughts, feelings, ideas, and objects that regimented patterns of consciousness tend to repress.