Benjamin deliberately inverted Klages’ backward gaze into a forward-looking dialectics.

Evidence

But was Benjamin not submitting himself unnecessarily to a crude alternativeeither plush or steel, either the interior strewn with traces of the past or transparency with no traces, either the baggage of a collector or antiquarian' or the new, positive concept of barbarism’? … Instead of speaking of the people', as Klages did, Benjamin spoke of the masses’, of the crowd'; instead of speaking of the image’, he spoke of the dialectical image'; instead of speaking of prehistory’, he spoke of the `protohistory of the nineteenth century’. Where the highest value of Klages was to feel a breath of wind from prehistoric times, for Benjamin it was to feel a breath of wind from a coming dawn. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 853

Categorization

• XREF: The Klages contrast resonates with the reader’s prior notes on Walter Benjamin’s divergence from Lebensphilosophie and proto-fascist vitalism in Against Postmodernism’s Marxist critique. — connects to: Benjamin’s dialectical images are momentary patterns linking present and past, not gradual transitions — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 841; Benjamin’s thought operates on parallel discontinuous levels of allegorical meditation — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 140; The Dialectic of Enlightenment rests on two uncredited themes from Weber and Klages — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1368

Broader Connections

• Benjamin’s dialectical images are momentary patterns linking present and past, not gradual transitions #expands (0.85) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 841
• The Dialectic of Enlightenment rests on two uncredited themes from Weber and Klages #qualifies (0.85) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1368
• Benjamin’s thought operates on parallel discontinuous levels of allegorical meditation #complicates (0.75) — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 140