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1942 Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno edit To the Memory of Walter Benjamin where Theses on the Philosophy of History first appears.
1955 Theodor W. Adorno and Gretel Adorno edit the two-volume selection of Benjamin's Schriften for the publisher Suhrkamp.
1972 Publication of the six-volume critical edition of Benjamin's Gesammelte Schriften [Collected Writings] is begun by Suhrkamp. The final book, Vol. 7: 2, was completed in 1989.
1990s Harvard University buys the copyright from Suhrkamp Verlag
1924
1940
1914
2000
1890
1914 C.F. Heinle, commits suicide with his fiancée in the 'Sprechsaal'
1915 Makes the acquaintance of Gerhard (Gershom) Scholem.
1915/17 Studies in Munich. Benjamin becomes further acquainted with the Stefan George circle and the work of the Americanist, Walter Lehmann, in whose classes on Ancient Mexican culture WB first meets Rainer Maria Rilke.
1917 Benjamin marries Dora Sophie Pollak
1918 Birth of son, Stefan. Acquaintance with Ernst Bloch.
1940 Works on the "Theses on the Philosophy of History" Through the intercession of Max Horkheimer, Benjamin receives an affidavit and visa for the USA. He leaves Paris in June and makes his way to Lourdes. An attempt to flee across the Pyrenees fails. In the border town of Port Bou, Benjamin takes his life with a lethal dose of morphine on 27 September.
There is a view of history that puts its faith in the infinite extent of time and thus concerns itself only with the speed, or lack of it, with which people and epochs advance along the path of progress. [Hegelian Progress]
This corresponds to a certain absence of coherence and rigor in the demands it makes on the present. [No Agency for the Present]
The following remarks, in contrast, delineate a particular condition in which history appears to be concentrated in a single focal point, like those that have traditionally been found in the utopian images of the philosophers. The elements of the ultimate condition do not manifest themselves as formless progressive tendencies, but are deeply rooted in every present in the form of the most endangered, excoriated, and ridiculed ideas and products of the creative mind. The historical task is to disclose this immanent state of perfection and make it absolute, to make it visible and dominant in the present. [Give agency to the present]
This condition cannot be captured in terms of the pragmatic description of details (the history of institutions, customs, and so on); in fact, it eludes them. Rather, the task is to grasp its metaphysical structure, as with the messianic domain or the idea of the French Revolution. [to show that the present always also has agency]
"messianic domain"
--a return to an older era (i.e., the Davidic kingdom) that was revolutionary but only within the confines of the tradition
"French Revolution"
--The utopian-catastrophic model
(Scholem also calls it apocalyptic) envisions a rupture of tradition and the inauguration of an entirely new era.
It is well-known that an automaton once existed, which was so constructed that it could counter any move of a chess-player with a counter-move, and thereby assure itself of victory in the match. A puppet in Turkish attire, water-pipe in mouth, sat before the chessboard, which rested on a broad table. Through a system of mirrors, the illusion was created that this table was transparent from all sides. In truth, a hunchbacked dwarf who was a master chess-player sat inside, controlling the hands of the puppet with strings. One can envision a corresponding object to this apparatus in philosophy. The puppet called “historical materialism” is always supposed to win. It can do this with no further ado against any opponent, so long as it employs the services of theology, which as everyone knows is small and ugly and must be kept out of sight.
-Men enter into "relations of production" based on the stage of material production.
-This creates the total economic structure of society and laws are made based on this foundation.
-This, in turn, shapes the consciousness of men.
-At some point, the material productive forces causes things to change
-Then there is a revolution!
-NO to Soviet 'diamat' (dialectical materialism)
-YES to Trotsky and anti-Stalinists
-NO to Soviet police practices that looked just like fascist police.
-YES to USSR remaining anti-fascist ally
-NO, NO, NO! TO MOLOTOV-RIBBENTROP PACT, which was a non-aggression treaty between the Soviets (USSR) and the Fascists (Germany) in August 1939.