Benjamin framed technology as an all-or-nothing fork between salvation and catastrophe.

Evidence

It was precisely the effort to take up what was bad in technological innovation, Benjamin was convinced, which deepened one’s insight both into prehistoric terrors, which had continued up till the present, and into the constructive tendencies in the recent past which offered a means of liquidating the forces of magic. Either technology would become the means of salvation, or there would be no salvation. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 221

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the Frankfurt School material already read on nature-domination and instrumental reason — same apocalyptic binary about technique. — connects to: Benjamin framed technology as either mass salvation or catastrophic regression — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 826; Benjamin’s seemingly eccentric concepts about technology and mass media pinpointed the era’s central problems. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 895; Benjamin framed technology’s dream consciousness as serving humaneness and cultural survival — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 227 (+1 more)
• DEEPTHINKING: The idea that insight into prehistoric terror and future liberation come from the same act of ‘taking up what is bad’ in technology resists quick summary.
• yield-rescued: below the book’s yield-target cutoff, included anyway for connecting to: Benjamin framed technology as either mass salvation or catastrophic regression — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 826; Benjamin’s seemingly eccentric concepts about technology and mass media pinpointed the era’s central problems. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 895; Benjamin framed technology’s dream consciousness as serving humaneness and cultural survival — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 227 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Benjamin framed technology as either mass salvation or catastrophic regression #corroborates (0.97) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 826
• Benjamin framed technology’s dream consciousness as serving humaneness and cultural survival #complicates (0.78) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 227