>Social Democratic theory, and even more its practice, have

>>9531054
You're gonna have to forgive me because my english is shit for mundane tasks, let alone explaining Benjamin. But what he's arguing is that social democracy tries to generalize progress as a constant through history, when the very notion of progress is tied to a very specific material-historical condition, and that there is no REAL progress if we accept progress in the terms of capitalism. Basically, he's saying social democracy can only generate more capitalism and that reformism is generating empty time, false progress which further delays the oncoming revolution.

>>9531083
And no, social democrats never recovered, they just closed their eyes and years and yelled while capitalism completely disassembled any possibility of a worldwide revolutionary left and things have come to the point where guys like Sanders or Corbyn, extremely moderate socdems, have become the most radical shit there is.

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>>9531083
>>9531092
It's a sad state of affairs

>want to destroy capitalism
>need to read guys like benjamin
>need to go to university
>spend years of life at university
>realize university is capitalism

>>9531054
Plz stop sharing Benjamin on here. Don't let him be defiled by the memesters and pseuds.

>>9531054
>>9531083
>>9531092
>>9531130
>>9531359
/pol/ here. Want me to redpill you on this guy and the Frankfurt School?

>>9531054
He is saying that the idea of progress rests upon the notion of it progressing linearly through homogenous/empty time. The basis of a critique of the notion of progress must then take basis in a critique of the ground on which this conception of progress rests. History passing linearly through a homogenous, empty time.

Benjamin's whole project then is to rethink the notion of historical time. Basically then, history breaks down into dialectical images/constellations of fragmented meaning of past/present.

NOT stories/narratives because they presuppose empty/homogenous time. (And yes, then historical narrative is authoritarian).

>>9531421
http://youtu.be/Rwm22uTWSaM
41:01 she puts it nicely

>>9531375
oh god....please no.

>>9531375
Don't bother, we already know what you are gonna say.

>'jewish zionist/cultural marxist trying to employ occult kabbalist/masonic techniques in the project of white genocide'.

Go back to /pol/.

>>9531441
>she
dropped

>>9531359
Honest question: why is Benjamin admired so much by some people.
I actually studied a lot of his writings during my academical education. I started out considering him an interesting guy and finished considering him a neglectable, drivelling idiot. He's drivelling on a very high level imo but he's still drivelling.
I know some logicians critizised him heavily for his inconsistency and contradictoriness (and I pretty much think the same about him) but his admirers praise him for the very same thing which they call his "intended incomprehensibility".
Honest question: Does he have some (let's say) "objective" qualities I simply don't get or is he just some kind of an academic fad (maybe due to his biography).

>>9531497
which logicians

>>9531505
To be honest, I can't drop names (since I stopped dealing with him quite some time ago and I neither have copies of works dealing with him at home nor on my computer anymore). But you don't even have to ask: his writing style is a logician's nightmare - there are no conclusions, there's no reasoning, there's no logical structure at all.
I actually have a bad feeling if someone says "Benjamin said this...", "The work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction tells that..." because it's quite impossible to prove what Benjamin is actually saying in a logical way. It's like a dreamy, vague stream of consciousness; a little bit like Montaigne but in a more enigmatic style. I can appreciate that from an aesthetic point of view, but as someone who wants to understand things and structurs and processes I simply hate it because it doesn't help me at all.

Just another delusional commie

>>9531670
good post

>>9531375
>Want me to redpill you on this guy and the Frankfurt School?
you mean the bullshit conspiracy theory about critical theory, that somehow manages to be a watered down boogieman version of critical theory?

>>9531615
I can guarantee you Benjamin is not the only philosopher who turns to shit if you autistically aproach them as a logician. He's not trying to write a epistemological treatise or some shit, his goal is completely different and judging it by logical standards seems pretty dumb.

>>9531832
>you're an autist and a dum dum, ben is on the money :p

>>9531841
>imma use this standard which has absolutely nothin to do with anything the philosopher in question is trying to do just so I can show my redpilled friends how dumb marxsist are :^)

He completely btfo'd dialectical materialist Marxists, imo (aka orthodox Marxists).

He perfectly pointed out how they're quietist fucks, intellectually lazy and expect everything to be given to them.

For all the shit /pol/ gives Benjamin and Adorno...they really strongly critiqued Marxist-Hegelian teleology and no fucking orthodox Marxist wants to deal with that. Monkeys like Slavoj still think their revolution is guaranteed.

>>9531846
>being logical is an "standard"
kek why are marxists so fucking retarded?

>>9531849
Do you not get Benjamin and Adorno?

They bitch slapped Marxists for thinking their revolution is inevitable. This is one of the biggest beliefs in Marxism and they crushed it.

Marxist here. The revolution is still inevitable no matter what your meme philosophers says. Seriously read Marx.

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>>9531864
It's over, kid. Time to stop LARPing as the next Che and grow up

>>9531881
wow you really convinced me

>>>/pol/

>>9531864
the exact logic that prevents it from happening

I basically split from Marxism because of how stubborn and intellectually spoiled Marxists are. How they stick their head in the sand and avoid any problems with the theory. You guys are a fucking gift to capitalists and that's what Benjamin was on about.

>>9531864
tips victor history

you sure you're not a capitalist?

>>9531886
see: >>9531885

>>9531885
You're NOT a revolutionary warrior. Your teenage riots mean nothing

>>9531890
lmao

>>9531889
Yeah, all the Benjamin and Adorno readers better go to /pol/. Wow. I've seen it all.

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>>9531893
That's right: society at large laughs at you and your pretense. Not a hero, merely an annoyance

>>9531900
>>9531905
lmao

>>9531907
We can only hope one day you'll grow up and stop being a narcisistic, egomaniacal teen

Is this how all philosophers talk? He seems to be saying nothing of importance at all.

>>9531912
lmao

>>9531916
exactly. no philosophers have been able to refute marx. they all say a lot without saying much

>>9531923
There's a lot of Marxists that have refuted Marx. Arrighi, Harvey, Debord, Adorno and Benjamin (of course).

You just don't read.

>>9531933
lmao

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>>9531893
>>9531907
>>9531917
>>9531934
>STOP TALKING THE REVOLUTION IS HAPPENING SOON STOP TALKING THE REVOLUTION IS HAPPENING SOON RREEEEE

>>9531940
lmao

>>9531934
> lmao

That's exactly what Benjamin characterized as quietist Marxism. You're doing it in your very post.

>>9531959
lmao

Does anyone else find it strange that "progress" in the minds of modern liberals, is basically the opposite of eugenics? They want societies to become less intelligent, less attractive, and more diverse/chaotic. The only "progress" they are right about is environmental and their rejection of religion. But their steadfast egalitarianism feels like a race to the bottom.

>>9531972
Not on the mind of "modern" liberals you fucking dolt, this is the basis to fucking liberalism as a whole, and not "liberalism" in the retarded american sense either, liberalism in the actual historical and academical sense.

>>9531975

The proponents of the American/French revolutions were egalitarians only in the legal sense (nobody is above the law). Culturally they did not consider all cultures or people as equal.

>>9531972
The problem is that liberals think there's always progress being made. They don't get negative dialectics. They forgot the purpose of progress. Instead we have progress without purpose. We're regressing. This is literally what Adorno argued in Dialectic of the Enlightenment.

The cult of progress always masks a regress within it.

>>9531832
I'm actually this guy
>>9531497
>>9531615
Didn't say anything else in this thread (just in case you get confused about with whom you're dealing with).
I actually have a M.A. degree in philosophy so you don't have to tell me about other philosophers. But I still don't get it. What's Benjamin's goal? I mean, maybe I'm too much of a Wittgensteinian, but I still think "What cannot be spoken about should be kept quiet". If you understand the things you're talking about you should be able to explain them - explain them in simple words and with logical consistency. But that's not what Benjamin's doing. You can argue about the experience of texts/speeches to be an end in itself (for example what Meister Eckhart did in his preachings) - but Benjamin doesn't seem to be about that, too.
So... what exactly is his effing goal?

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Yeah bro soc-dems are so silly! Let's dismantle stable projects that actually improved the conditions for workers everywhere and try our hands at the revolution again. It will work this time, I swear!

>>9532022
It's basically Pauline messianism, when it comes down to it.

It's what Taub and Agamben concluded.

>>9532022
The tricky thing is replying to Hegel. It's what makes Benjamin and Adorno so dense. How do you reformulate a desire for revolution without encouraging the idea that this revolution is inevitable and guaranteed to be successful.

I'll admit it's opaque as fuck, but Benjamin is after a kind of spontaneity in his notion of messianic time.

>>9531375
/lit/ is a leftist marxist board, fuck off

>>9531497
Never understood the Benjamin meme in academia. He's very popular amongst burned-out lefty boomers who traded in youthful activism for a cushy, tenured professorship. The way these types mimic Benjamin's melodramatic writing style and melancholic outlook is insufferable.

>>9532063
Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Benjamin believe he was the reincarnation of a 17th Century Eastern European rabbi who claimed to be the Jewish messiah? I don't mean that to make him sound like a blithering lunatic, but he had some esoteric ideas.

>>9532148
I think he's popular with academics in the humanities primarily because of The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, since it can serve as a justification for treating literature and other art in a purely political fashion.

>>9532293
>didn't Benjamin believe he was the reincarnation of a 17th Century Eastern European rabbi who claimed to be the Jewish messiah
Can you verify this by a quote or something else, please. Just out of curiosity - I never heard of this before.

>>9532362
Looks like I was mistaken, Benjamin didn't consider himself to be a "reincarnation", but a close Jewish friend of his, Gershom Scholem, alternated between seeing Benjamin and seeing himself as a sort of Kabbalistic recurrence of the 17th century Jewish prophet Sabbatai Zevi, who claimed to be the Jewish messiah. It looks like Benjamin was interested in the Sabbateans as well, and helped Scholem conduct research on Zevi.

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/1980/12/18/the-master-of-mysticism/
http://forward.com/culture/369255/gershom-scholem-prophet-provocateur-and-prude/
http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-arts-and-culture/books/1051/the-storm-called-progress

>>9532362
>>9532513
I figured out where I got the "reincarnation" and "Eastern European" notions from: Walter Benjamin felt a close affinity with 18th century Polish Jewish heretic Jacob Frank, who claimed and believed he was an actual reincarnation of Sabbatai Zevi. I must have elided Jacob Frank into Walter Benjamin.

https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/theology/events/2013/critical-theory-and-jewish-thought.aspx

>>9531900
Gotta fight for the revolution somehow.

>>9531889
drowning in irony over here

>>9532105
I think that a fair portion of us are neither /pol/heads nor marxists.

>>9531832
>judging it by logical standards seems pretty dumb.

No dumber words have ever been spoken.

>>9532811
this

Social Democracy and free market capitalism? It's all the same as far as I am concerned.

I am waiting for something world changing to occur, such as actual Communism or National Socialism etc. Democracy is overrated and leaves you choosing between the two same neo liberal demagogues every time.

>>9533719
>I am waiting for something world changing to occur

marxists have been waiting for a long time