Benjamin wanted to rescue the nineteenth century from reified tradition via spontaneous memory.

Evidence

These and other programmatic notes nevertheless have a common point of departure: to show how the historical image of the nineteenth century flares up as a spontaneous memory before the historical subject at moments of crisis; in this way, to rescue this section of the past from reification by tradition; and thus to bring energies to the present age that would encourage it to make technology into a nuptial bed for communication between humanity and the cosmos. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 810 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Benjamin had the idea of combining views of the nineteenth century such as this with the quality of magical eeriness in that century’s products which was brought out by the surrealists and by authors such as Julien Green. From this combination, he drew out an image of the protohistory of the nineteenth century which indicated that the new creations and ways of life, above all those determined by the production of commodities, had not been crowned by the creation of a new form of society and given free development, but had only achieved a development that had been narrowed and misled by reified cultural concepts and was accompanied by phantasmagorias. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 839 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Benjamin’s project aimed to rescue the nineteenth century from reification through spontaneous memory — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 810; Benjamin read the nineteenth century’s commodity-driven novelties as stunted by reified cultural concepts. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 839; Benjamin rooted his Theory of Experience in a childhood memory — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History…, 1462 (+1 more)

Related

• Benjamin’s project aimed to rescue the nineteenth century from reification through spontaneous memory (similarity 0.95)
• Benjamin read the nineteenth century’s commodity-driven novelties as stunted by reified cultural concepts. (similarity 0.93)
• Benjamin rooted his Theory of Experience in a childhood memory (similarity 0.87)
• Benjamin repurposed Goethe’s genotype concept from nature into Jewish history. (similarity 0.81)
• Benjamin’s dialectical images are momentary patterns linking present and past, not gradual transitions (similarity 0.81)
• Benjamin’s Passagen-Werk was structured as an awakening from the collective dream-world into history (similarity 0.80)
• Benjamin deliberately inverted Klages’ backward gaze into a forward-looking dialectics. (similarity 0.79)
• Benjamin grounded his method of perception in dreaming and ecstasy. (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Benjamin’s project aimed to rescue the nineteenth century from reification through spontaneous memory #corroborates (1.00) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 810
• Benjamin read the nineteenth century’s commodity-driven novelties as stunted by reified cultural concepts. #expands (0.85) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 839
• Benjamin rooted his Theory of Experience in a childhood memory #exemplifies (0.75) — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 1462