Benjamin’s thought contained irreconcilable theological and materialist commitments.

Evidence

Benjamin himself was aware of the problem of how to bring the theological-metaphysical, the historical-materialist, the mystical and the political poles of his thinking into a convincing relationship. On a more basic level, the problem concerned the correctness of, and connection between, three fundamental elaborations. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 228

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: Frames the central interpretive puzzle of Benjamin’s oeuvre: four poles of thinking held in unresolved tension.
• DEFINE: Enumerates the four poles — theological-metaphysical, historical-materialist, mystical, political — that structure any reading of the Passagen-Werk.
• XREF: connects to: Benjamin’s Passagen-Werk merged historical materialism with theological concepts of nature, dream, and myth; Benjamin secularized theology into the Marxist commodity fetish concept — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 215; Adorno supervised Benjamin’s attempt to fuse theology with historical materialism (+6 more)
• yield-rescued: below the book’s yield-target cutoff, included anyway for connecting to: Benjamin’s Passagen-Werk merged historical materialism with theological concepts of nature, dream, and myth; Benjamin secularized theology into the Marxist commodity fetish concept — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 215; Adorno supervised Benjamin’s attempt to fuse theology with historical materialism (+6 more)

Broader Connections

• Adorno supervised Benjamin’s attempt to fuse theology with historical materialism #corroborates (0.95)
• Benjamin secularized Jewish messianism into his Marxist theory of revolutionary time #exemplifies (0.92) — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 600
• Theology-Marxism mediation hindered rather than helped Benjamin’s originality #complicates (0.85) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 890