Bloch’s hopeful utopianism contrasts with Benjamin’s despairing historical pessimism

Evidence

But the tone and general perspective of Bloch and Benjamin differed in the extreme: Bloch was cheerful, Benjamin was bitter. Bloch trusted in the indestructible, rebellious character of "life", which has not yet come to fulfilment in any period'; Benjamin observed with despair what Kracauer called the dangerous game’ of the historical process, in which ever more had to be saved with constantly decreasing resources. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 210

Categorization

• APHORISMS: Kracauer’s ‘dangerous game’ — ever more saved with ever fewer resources — reads as a durable image of historical effort.
• XREF: connects to: Benjamin and Bloch shared categories but diverged in tone and historical outlook — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 771; Benjamin blamed positivism for a defective reception of nineteenth-century technology — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 827
• yield-rescued: below the book’s yield-target cutoff, included anyway for connecting to: Benjamin and Bloch shared categories but diverged in tone and historical outlook — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 771; Benjamin blamed positivism for a defective reception of nineteenth-century technology — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 827

Broader Connections

• Benjamin and Bloch shared categories but diverged in tone and historical outlook #corroborates (0.97) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 771