–Essay–
KIEL — Once upon a time, Herostratus picked up a torch and set to work. His infamous act of arson destroyed the greatest temple of the Greek world, one of the Seven Wonders, a masterpiece of technical and artistic brilliance built in honor of the goddess Artemis, the twin sister of Apollo.
For the latest news & views from every corner of the world, Worldcrunch Today is the only truly international newsletter. Sign up here.
By setting fire to the temple, he destroyed a pinnacle of human skill and a symbol of human humility before the divine. Just like that. Simply because he wanted to and because he could. No one stopped him. His arson made him famous. Later, under torture, he confessed his motive: He wanted fame at any cost and saw no other way to achieve it.
Herostratus was a nameless man with no past and no future, no history and no significance. And yet, neither his act nor the official attempt to erase him — a decree forbidding his name from being recorded in history books — could prevent his notoriety, nor stop him from achieving his goal. Destruction, after all, is a way of violently carving oneself into time, stamping the present with one’s own mark and making it an era that bears one’s name.
Herostratus’ name has become synonymous with those who destroy for the sake of notoriety. It’s a forgotten name, perhaps, but one that defines a whole type of character, one worth dusting off and applying to the present-day situation in the United States.
For months, words of destruction have shaped political discourse — at first in fearful but still incredulous anticipation after U.S. President Donald Trump’s reelection, and now, week by week, with growing certainty.
The political rhetoric of recent weeks speaks of an 80-year-old transatlantic alliance being torn apart, entire components of the U.S. government are being hacked away with a metaphorical chainsaw: research university budgets are being slashed, trust eroded, the hopes of Ukrainians crushed, and the dignity of a sovereign state undermined.
A concept from the 1930s
The list could go on endlessly, fueled by the daily news. The world looks on — shocked, appalled, yet in some quarters, strangely fascinated — by the emergence of a destroyer on the global stage. But why?
“He is capable of seeing at any moment that ‘things cannot go on like this.’… For him, the only thing that matters is the certainty that he does not live a single moment without a historical mission.” These are the words of German philosopher Walter Benjamin, written in 1931 as he grappled with the political and economic crises that would soon pave the way for the Nazis’ rise to power.
In this fragment, Benjamin defines what he calls the “destructive character,” elevating it — if only briefly — into a conceptual framework, though without making any direct reference to the ancient figure Herostratus.
Tomorrow doesn’t matter
Today, this concept offers a lens through which we can interpret the boundary-breaking and upheavals we experience daily. The destroyer considers himself the chosen one, a man of destiny, shaping his era by forcefully dismantling what exists.
“Some preserve things by making them untouchable and conserving them; others preserve situations by making them disposable and liquidating them. These are the destructive ones,” Benjamin writes. The destructive character is always at work, which is precisely what makes him so compelling.
Destruction brings a sense of liberation.
He seems almost youthful, propelled by a relentless speed of action. Any pause would invite reflection — an awareness of the consequences of destruction — and that, in turn, could spell the destroyer’s own demise. The moment is the destroyer’s measure of time.
Take Trump, for example. If he were to broker a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine, one that merely froze the conflict without securing peace, it would fit perfectly within this logic of the moment. The now, not the later. A quick cut here, then on to the next thing, each day bringing new rubble. When asked whether this pace would be maintained, the White House press secretary responded without hesitation: “Absolutely!”
Benjamin ties this pattern of action to a time factor — an overwhelming speed that surprises, even stuns, and distracts.
The joy of destruction
And he notes something else: an unbridled joy in destruction. Laughing, almost infectiously happy, smirking in triumph, basking in both the act itself and the shock it provokes in others. The exaggerated signatures with a thick black marker on daily executive orders, gleeful destruction updates marked off on social media, a jubilant cabinet meeting.
For Benjamin, destruction brings a sense of liberation — it sheds excess baggage, reduces everything to its essence: “Destruction rejuvenates, it cheers one up, because clearing things away offers the destroyer clarity, a radical simplification, if not an affirmation of his own state. And how much simpler the world becomes when viewed solely through the lens of its worthiness for destruction.”
Fun, lightness, but most of all, the radical simplification of an overwhelmingly complex and seemingly incomprehensible politics — that is what Trump promised on the campaign trail and now delivers daily. Rejuvenation! If expensive creams, diets, supplements, surgery and garish yellow hair dye can bring back individual youth, why shouldn’t an entire aging society be revived? And hasn’t America, the “young” continent, already demonstrated that by severing ties with Britain, it could rid itself of the burdens of tradition and history?
The destroyer amuses because he gives the wildest ideas a platform — without concern for reality — rather than acting responsibly and acknowledging problems. A stark contrast, clearly visible in the campaigns of Trump and his Democratic opponent in the 2024 presidential election, Kamala Harris.
Endless paths ahead
For Benjamin, destruction also holds the potential for new possibilities: “The destructive character sees nothing as permanent. But for that very reason, he sees pathways everywhere. Where others encounter walls or mountains, he sees a way through.”
This is precisely the moment when we all heard, in stunned disbelief, that the Russian war against Ukraine could be ended in no time, with a mere wag of the finger at Ukraine’s president, instructing him on the supposed path to peace. Such “paths” can lead to ruin or to escape.
If we combine Benjamin’s idea with the philosophy of French art historian Georges Didi-Huberman, we see new ways of thinking about human history and the arrangement of the world. Previously unthinkable paths — because they contradict the fundamental values of the global order — are now treated as viable, even innovative, as if they offer instant solutions.
A society riddled with stagnation and aimlessness finds itself drawn to the destroyer’s visible energy.
In Trump’s supposed “peace” for Ukraine, there is no concern for the suffering nation’s salvation or destruction — only his own repositioning as an actor on the world stage, reshuffling existing factors to serve his interests. America is inserted into the equation not as the guardian of freedom but as a self-serving force. He sees paths others dismiss, paths where sovereignty, human rights and national integrity are thrown in the ditch like garbage.
According to philosopher Maria Teresa Costa, destructive figures are those who “ultimately enable a new use of objects.” In other words: For their own interests, anything goes. And this is precisely where the fascination lies for a segment of the public: breaking the rules. Not secretly, but in plain sight, without restraint, without limits. Is this not a reflection of childhood impulses now turned into political reality?
A society riddled with stagnation and aimlessness finds itself drawn to the destroyer’s visible energy, his relentless movement. He appears as a savior for those who dream of taking action but lack the means. It is hyperactive, mindless, wildly productive chaos — with devastating consequences. But does that matter? For his followers, at least something is happening, at a speed bureaucracy could never match.
Simply because he can
Herostratus left ruins behind. Benjamin’s “destructive character” leaves an empty space that opens up new futures without predetermining them. Unlike Herostratus, Benjamin’s “destructive character” is not purely negative but transitional. Trump’s brand of destruction, however, is temporal and erratic, mindlessly reconstructing from the wreckage according to the taste of the moment.
This requires potency and the ability to diagnose the times. It is his rapid action (and not just his words) that instinctively gauges time and its mood, creating not necessarily change but at least movement at the seemingly right moment. Destruction and creation, born from his own observation, will and recognition of the deficiencies of others.
The archaic figure of the destroyer, and to some extent Benjamin’s destructive character, shape an entirely unique contemporary figure — one who forcibly imposes his presence on history. Just as he seeks to leave his mark by shattering a time once shared by many, defined by common norms, and reshaping it in his own image. Simply because he can, and because in doing so, he is writing his own history: the modern Herostratus of 2025.
Let us not surrender our time or the temple of our values to him!
