Jewish Marxist philosopher Walter Benjamin

1939, shortly before committing suicide upon failing to escape Nazi-occupied Europe for the United States as a
refugee, the Jewish Marxist philosopher Walter Benjamin (who we read last week concerning mass media and
politics) wrote his famously cryptic” Theses on the Philosophy of History.” There he writes:
“The tradition of the oppressed teaches us that the ‘state of emergency’ in which we live is not the exception
but the rule. We must attain to a conception of history that is in keeping with this insight. Then we shall clearly
realize that it is our task to bring about a real state of emergency, and this will improve our position in the
struggle against Fascism. One reason why Fascism has a chance is that in the name of progress its opponents
treat it as a historical norm. The current amazement that the things we are experiencing are ‘still’ possible in
the twentieth century is not philosophical. This amazement is not the beginning of knowledge—unless it is the
knowledge that the view of history which gives rise to it is untenable.”
Against the normalization of Fascism by mainstream liberals (i.e. those who treat fascistic ideas, practices, and
personalities as tolerable parts of the overall political spectrum, even if they disagree or even strongly oppose
them), Benjamin suggested that there could be a special role for the “memory-image” to spark communication
and solidarity between the living, the dead, and the yet-to-be born that would refuse to accept the intolerable
conditions of the present.
To articulate the past historically does not mean to recognize it ‘the way it really was’ (Ranke). It means to
seize hold of a memory as it flashes up at a moment of danger. Historical materialism wishes to retain that
image of the past which unexpectedly appears to man singled out by history at a moment of danger. The
danger affects both the content of the tradition and its receivers. The same threat hangs over both: that of
becoming a tool of the ruling classes. In every era the attempt must be made anew to wrest tradition away from
a conformism that is about to overpower it…Only that historian will have the gift of fanning the spark of hope in
the past who is firmly convinced that even the dead will not be safe from the enemy if he wins. And this enemy
has not ceased to be victorious.
As we move into the 2020 election, which is likely to spark a hitherto unheard of crisis of the US political
system, select a single image from the readings and screenings we have examined thus far in the class.
Analyze the image in as much detail as you can, and provide as much historical context as you can relative to
the stories of political crisis and transformation we’ve been charting (including drawing on the big-picture
background readings we have been doing in books like A People’s History of the World). Even if the image is
not treated in depth by any of the materials provided thus far, you should be able to use the materials we have
been working with to interpret it, including comparing it with other images. Explain why it is important to you to
remember the image, and to transmit it to future generations.