In a lot of the reading we've done this semester -- including Fasolt, Weber, Schmitt, Arendt, Adorno, and Ranke -- we've been working toward an understanding of the "iron cage" in which we find ourselves, as we experience, read, write, and make in the United States in 2011. This iron cage, as we have seen, is made up of a whole lot of interrelated and interlocking parts, such as the lonely isolated self-conscious ego, the state of exception, the manipulation of past and present in the media, and the capitalistic ethos of obsessive self-betterment (or as Charlie Sheen would say: "Winning!").
In "Theses on the Philosophy of History" (better translated as "On the Concept/Idea of History"), Walter Benjamin considers how we might break out of this cage.
He does not have The Answer. You'll note how short, and how fragmented, this text is. What he presents are thoughts, ideas, sketches, and beginnings of strategic possibilities. And -- as you'll find out when you do some context research on him -- he wasn't writing these things while idling about in his study: he had just watched his whole life-work, toward creating a world in which workers could have better lives and a better government, get consumed by the National Socialist German Workers' (Nazi) Party -- a negative dialectic indeed. He wrote this text while on the run from the Nazis. He would not make it out alive.
In this final blog post -- which I intentionally leave a little more open than previous posts -- I want you to
(1) reflect on some the things you find most striking and important in this text, including answers to some (not necessarily all) of the following questions:
-- Why has "historicism" (Benjamin's term for the iron cage) been so harmful? What damage has it done? How, and to whom?
-- What is "historical materialism," and how and why does Benjamin think it can defeat "historicism"?
-- How does Benjamin position himself in relation to people such as Weber, Schmitt, and Ranke (who are all directly quoted in the text), and why?
-- What is to be done? How, in the most concrete and immediate sense, can "we" make history differently, and use that new history to fight Hitler? And all the other Hitlers in our midst? (And who is "we"?)
and,
(2) connect your reflections on Benjamin's text to one or two things in your life/experience -- personal stories, news stories, work stories, etc. How might Benjamin's understanding of history help you both understand these things better and, perhaps more importantly, do something about the problems you have faced there? You may want to think about your final projects here: how can Benjamin help us strategize effective ways to make history, charismatically? You may also want to think about experiences from this class, and things people have said, and stuff you're taking away with you; remember that this is (*tear*) your last required blog post.
As always, be as specific as you can -- cite relevant moments from Benjamin, and from whatever other texts or experiences you're connecting to -- and as thorough as you can, thinking ideas through as opposed to just mentioning them and moving on. Benjamin's theses, especially, encourage us to make the unexpected, unconventional, untraditional moves and connections -- so do it! Everything (and everyone!) in this class, and in the wider world, is fair game. As I once heard the German military historian Michael Geyer say, in his gravelly old staid German voice: "When you study history, you've got to be ready to go wild."
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