Statesmanship in the age of mechanical reproduction: Why Xi, Kim, Putin, and Khamenei have

Carlos L. Garrido 

Source: Al Mayadeen English 

Carlos Garrido argues that true political “aura” today belongs to leaders who have broken with the US-led capitalist order, while Western politicians, endlessly reproducible and interchangeable, remain hollow and authenticity-free.

In 1935, in the midst of an era giving birth to the mass reproducibility of art, the German philosopher and literary critic Walter Benjamin writes that what “withers in the age of mechanical reproduction is the aura of the work of art.” The uniqueness and authenticity of the original – which forms the fundamental basis of its “aura” – is spoiled when the mechanical reproduction of art is put in place. While such development does have a democratizing potential – one which was put to work by the 20th century world communist movement, which greatly brought culture to the mass of people through these means – in the capitalist West, the mass reproducibility of art and culture has been subsumed under the logic of profit, and hence primarily is found in the culture industry’s “pop” forms of constantly repeated flat “art.”

The logic of mass reproducibility and the loss of authenticity and originality that is conjoined to it is far from being limited merely to culture, of course. One can see the same process at play all across society. I wish to explore here the ways in which it is operative at the level of statesmanship.

With no reference to Benjamin’s work, but employed in a manner which overlaps with it, the term “aura” has become increasingly popular with the youth. “Aura farming” is a concept often employed to describe actions taken (and, of course, recorded) which increase the aura of the subject engaging in it – that is, which enhance their image as unique, original, and cool.

Some might be surprised to see that one of the most common usages of such concepts I have witnessed is in edits made of leaders of the multipolar world like Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong-Un, and Ayatollah Khamenei.

With Xi you often see his iconic image riding in the Hongqi parade inspection vehicle, demonstrating the unique military might of the People's Republic of China.

With Putin it could be anything from him holding a puppy to him giving a speech calling out the Janus-faced character of the West’s discourse on human rights.

With Kim it is almost always the masterful edits of him inspecting his ballistic missiles.

And finally, with the Ayatollah Khamenei, his aura stems from a deep ascetic and spiritual presence captured by his lectures or discussions with the Iranian people.

In each case, the presence – the aura – of these great statesmen is felt, even by those from the regions of the world who’ve only been taught to see them as “evil pariahs.”

It is an interesting thought experiment to contrast the aura attached to these leaders with the replaceability of the Western ones. Western leaders, from the US to Europe and their puppets around the Western hemisphere, are thoroughly aura deficient. The edits the White House has recently made trying to make Trump, Rubio, and Hegseth look tough come off as cringe. Their attempt to “aura farm” on eroded soil produces only bad harvests – and the people can plainly see it.

The Western politicians, like the pop culture which predominates them, is mass reproducible. There is no aura in any of them – they are all unoriginal, inauthentic reproductions. Just as their productions of culture– subsumed under the logic of profit – only result in inauthentic and superficial art (postmodern art, the art which Fredric Jameson said embodies the cultural logic of contemporary capitalism), the statesmen produced have the same superficiality, depthlessness, and reproducibility.

While their form might change here and there, their common hollowness of originality remains. They are vehicles whose content is always the same – upholding the US-dominated world capitalist-imperialist order. The perfect metaphor for the Western politician is that of an M&M candy – the outside might have different colors, but internally they are all the same.

Creatively employing the framework developed by Benjamin helps us understand the disparities in aura between the Western leaders and the leaders of the multipolar world. Western leaders are embedded within the system of profit and debt-driven mass reproducibility, and hence, they have no aura. The leaders of the multipolar world, on the other hand, have had to take the revolutionary act – as Slavoj Zizek calls it – to break with the dominant order of U.S. super-imperialism. This act, or, to put it in the terms employed by Alain Badiou, this event, is a rupture with the fabric of the world of profit-driven mass reproducibility. Hence, it stands with uniqueness, originality, and irreplaceability. This is where the aura comes from – the revolutionary stance, or break, they perform to the established order. Xi, Putin, Khamenei, Kim, Traore, Diaz-Canel, Ortega, Sheinbaum, Maduro, etc. all have aura because of their position – in relation to the dominant social order – as revolutionaries.

The cost of alignment with the dominant order today, then, is aura deficiency. No amount of “hard edits” can overcome this lack. Aura carries with it a presence which manifests itself precisely through a tangible absence. It cannot get easily pinned down, as you could, for instance, a fashion item. This is why it cannot be cheaply reproduced by the imperialists; aura is the terrain of an authentic rupture. Aura is a mark of originality and authenticity, and in today’s world, the only statesmen with it are those that have taken the courageous risk, the revolutionary act, to break with the order of global capitalism. The only true way to aura farm today, then, is by being the revolutionary which breaks with the levelled unremarkableness of capitalist pop mediocrity.