Benjamin saw history as unredeemed moments of struggle, not forward progress.

Evidence

WHEN BENJAMIN LOOKED at history, he saw something other than a horizontal march toward ever greater territories. Directly opposed to the notion of technological progress, what he saw was a series of unredeemed moments of contingency, in which people struggled over and over against the ruling class. In an address to the Free Student League of Berlin in 1914, Benjamin said that “the elements of the end condition are not present as formless tendencies of progress, but instead are embedded in every present as endangered, condemned and ridiculed creations and ideas.” In every moment of history, something was trying to happen, like two ends of something striving to meet each other. — Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing, 671

Categorization

• XREF: Benjamin’s apocalyptic-yet-utopian history from the Frankfurt School reading connects here.