For Benjamin the secular problem is opaque intentions between persons, not self versus nature

Evidence

Thus when Benjamin distinguishes between subject and object he begins not with the contrast between self and nature (as de Man does) but with the opposition between persons. It is the obscurity of intentions not of objects that generates suspicion, desire, and deceit in the exercise of power, and that makes a simple resort to sincerity impossible. — Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular, 314

Categorization

• XREF: Christian opacity-of-heart themes parallel the vaulted argument about how Protestant inwardness gets privileged in secular modernity.