Abstract

The main purpose of this article is to relate the ideas of Walter Benjamin and Hannah Arendt regarding the exacerbation of the value of the bare life as a central element of Modernity. While Benjamin speaks of the dogma of the sacredness of life, Arendt describes it in terms of the supreme good. In both cases, reference is made to a certain status of protection of life, which is soon revealed as a phenomenon that tends, rather, to exercise an essential domination over the vital.