Abstract

In his “Theses on the Philosophy of History,” Walter Benjamin fiercely criticizes optimistic views which see human history as a story of progress where humanity’s ever expanding scientific and moral knowledge has led to ever increasing freedom and happiness. Benjamin’s critique exposes this view as a violent ideology whose persuasiveness lies in its reliance on a commonsense notion of time as linear and uniform where each moment is discrete. To contest this ideology, Benjamin establishes an alternative understanding of time and our relationship to the past which is incompatible with the notion of progress. This alternative understanding of time views historical events not as temporally distant and merely causally related to the present but instead constituting a unity with the present in which we may find ourselves engaged in the same struggle as the victims of history. Benjamin’s view of history is pessimistic due to its emphasis on the constant violence done to marginalized groups as well as its rejection of optimistic faith in progress, but it is both hopeful and revolutionary insofar as the past opens up the possibility of radically breaking with the violent continuity of history. This paper will defend Benjamin’s pessimistic view of history as well as more explicitly draw out what this means for thinking about political action and revolutionary change.

Keywords: Walter Benjamin, Progress, Pessimism, Revolution

How to Cite:

Pearce, J., (2024) “Walter Benjamin's Pessimistic Politics: Between Historicism and Postmodernism”, Footnotes: A Journal of History 6(1), 32-40.