Benjamin seems to suggest that the happiness we know or feel comes from our past experiences. (I might be wrong ;-))
“Our image of happiness is indissolubly bound up with the image of redemption.”
He also writes, that the power we have now doesn’t really belong to us, it belongs to the past, or to the past generations. This brings me back to Foucault’s theory that knowledge is power. The knowledge we have has been learnt from past events (history); therefore our power belongs to the past.
Benjamin moves on to say that: “only a redeemed mankind receives the fullness of its past-which is to say, only for a redeemed mankind has its past become citable in all its moments.”
Continue reading “Discussion: Walter Benjamin’s Thesis on the Philosophy of History”
Voice With Purpose 