Benjamin’s Jetztzeit meant a rupture in temporal continuity, not the present

Evidence

Miss Arendt adds a footnote to the English translation in which she argues that Benjamin meant a mystical nunc scans rather than the more prosaic Gegenwart (the normal German word for the present). Ernst Bloch in his “Erinnerungen an Walter Benjamin,” Per Monat, XVIII, 216 (September, 1966), suggested that Jetztzeit meant a break in the continuity of the temporal now, in which the past suddenly became present (p. 40). — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 1469

Categorization

• DEFINE: Clarifies Benjamin’s crucial term Jetztzeit as a mystical nunc stans or break in temporal continuity rather than the prosaic present — a key concept for understanding his historical-materialist messianism.
• SEED: Potential essay: how a footnote dispute over a single term (Jetztzeit) reveals the whole division between Benjamin’s messianic and Marxist readers.
• XREF: connects to: Leibniz and Bergson treated temporality as mere immanent continuity; Time is not the container of becoming but is itself the becoming — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel: Plasticity,…, 257; Chronological periodization distorts the meaning of historical processes. (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• Chronological periodization distorts the meaning of historical processes. #exemplifies (0.80)
• Leibniz and Bergson treated temporality as mere immanent continuity #corroborates (0.75)
• Time is not the container of becoming but is itself the becoming #corroborates (0.70) — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel, 257