Benjamin risked a crude either-or between plush interiors and steely transparency

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’? — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 227

Categorization

• QUESTION: The author is pressing a genuine tension: can ‘Experience and Poverty’ really coexist with the Proust and Kafka essays, or does Benjamin box himself into an unprepared alternative?
• XREF: connects to: Benjamin linked mechanical size-reduction of art to a salutary, alienating plainness — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 225; Benjamin hoped masses would trade auratic art for disposable entertainment aware of technology — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 852; Benjamin treated mass reproduction’s debasement of art as a salutary rupturing of artificial aura — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 847
• yield-rescued: below the book’s yield-target cutoff, included anyway for connecting to: Benjamin linked mechanical size-reduction of art to a salutary, alienating plainness — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 225; Benjamin hoped masses would trade auratic art for disposable entertainment aware of technology — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 852; Benjamin treated mass reproduction’s debasement of art as a salutary rupturing of artificial aura — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 847