Walter Benjamin 1940 On the Concept of History

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The true picture of the past whizzes by. Only as a picture, which flashes its final farewell in the moment of its recognizability, is the past to be held fast. “The truth will not run away from us” – this remark by Gottfried Keller denotes the exact place where historical materialism breaks through historicism’s picture of history. For it is an irretrievable picture of the past, which threatens to disappear with every present, which does not recognize itself as meant in it. - Walter Benjamin

Benjamin is saying in this quote that historians have an uphill battle that they will ultimately fail at.  History can not be told over in second hand accounts especially when the person is in another time.  People do things at certain times because of the times they are in and the situations that they are dealing with.  Many times historians can not know the whole story of what is going on at that time and they interpret situations incorrectly.  However as the quote says that a picture is only good at the time it is taken, this is saying that even first hand recounts are not a hundred percent accurate.  Many times when we ask people what they experienced in the past they do not fully remember what happened and when we interpret their accounts we are interpreting on false accounts.  I choose this quote because I feel it is sad that this is true.  Historians try to tell the past with the most truth as possible but it is impossible for them to get the whole truth.  We as a nation try to learn from the past and their mistakes, but if we are not getting the whole truth how can we properly learn from our mistakes.          

The Great Dictator

In the Great Dictator Charles Chaplin makes a parody of Hitler.  Chaplin uses Dadaism through out the film to make his points.  He does this even before the United States declares war on Germany.  People around the world knew that Hitler was not a good person but they did not know the full extent of his evil until later.  When Commander Schultz saves the Jewish barber and Hanna he realized that the man who saved his life at the end of WWI was not an Aryan but rather a Jew.  This is showing that the Jewish people were not bad and did not do anything wrong to the Germans and yet they were being killed as if they committed a crime.  Adenoid Hynkel becomes obsessed with taking over the world and there is a scene that we see him jumping on a inflatable globe.  This is to show that Hynkel is trying to take over the world if he does he does accomplish this he will destroy the world and there would be no world to be a dictator over.  Hynkel later in the film continues to kill the Jews and when one of his top men Schultz objects to him he is captured and put into the camps with the Jews.  This show that Hitler killed anyone who opposed him and considered them as if they committed treason.  Hitler did not take to opposition very well and he killed anyone that did. At the end of the film when the barber takes over power and tells the people that it is a new day that they are coming out of the darkness and going into the light.  This is showing that the only way for there to be peace in the world is if Hitler is removed from power and another leader takes over that understood the pain of the people.  Chaplin was telling the American people that Hitler needs to be removed and by the barber talking to Hanna in his speech Chaplin was talking to each person of the public and telling them that they have a responsibility to do something to stop Hitler.       

Walter Benjamin: "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction"

Even the most perfect reproduction of a work of art is lacking in one element: its presence in time and space, its unique existence at the place where it happens to be. This unique existence of the work of art determined the history to which it was subject throughout the time of its existence. This includes the changes which it may have suffered in physical condition over the years as well as the various changes in its ownership. The traces of the first can be revealed only by chemical or physical analyses which it is impossible to perform on a reproduction; changes of ownership are subject to a tradition which must be traced from the situation of the original. - Walter Benjamin

Walter Benjamin is saying in this quote that anytime an artist pants something or draws something and he or she has a meaning of their work, the meaning of the work changes on the perspective of the viewer.  These views change as the times change, what a painting means in the early 20th century could have a very different meaning when someone looks at it in the late 20th century.  For example the swastika in 1900 had a very different meaning that it has now.  Today it is impossible to show the swastika in a good light after all the evil it has attached to it.  

This quote relates to the media today because the media has the power to make interpretations on something and make people believe it.  This is a very powerful power because many people these days do not have the time to look at something in many different ways.  Rather people hears what the media says and they believe it.  However if a person does look at the situation from an objective view they would most probably have a different view than someone else.      

Pain

As a rule one will not have to go far to uncover the pain. Indeed, even the individual is not fully free from pain in this joyful state of security. The artificial check on the elementary forces might be able to prevent violent clashes and to ward off shadows, but it cannot stop the dispersed light with which pain permeates life. The vessel, sealed off from pain’s full flow, is filled drop by drop. Boredom is nothing other than the dissolution of pain in time (p. 13). - Ernst Jünger

At the time Jünger is writing this Germany is looking like they are getting out of the Great Depression that took place five years earlier.  The Nazi took over power and the German people are starting to feel good about their country again.  Jünger is warning the German people that if they think that there is no more pain right now they are mistaken.  The German people need to give themselves to the government in order to allow the government to protect them from pain.  Jünger is saying that conformity is necessary to allow for this protection to take place.  It is boredom which represents not helping the government that causes pain to a person.  They need to help the government in any way the government says. I choose this passage because I feel that when people conform to everything that a government says is the first step to to totalitarianism.  It is governments like the United States that welcome different views and individualism that strive and become great nations.  The first step to stop totalitarianism is the first amendment, and it should never be taken away.  

Night and Fog

As a Jew I have always been told about the horrors of the concentration camps.  I have seen the images from documentaries but, every time I see another picture or another film such as this one it hurts like the first time.  I don't think that we should stop telling the story of the Holocaust because we must never forget what one man can do if given the power.  One thing that always surprises me is that the Nazis understood I feel that what they were doing was inherently wrong.  The reason I feel this way is because they tried to make the camps look nice from an outsider looking in.  They did not want to have to much attention to these camps, in order to do this they made them look nice.      

Triumph of the Will

Before I watched this film I did not have a great understanding of the German's propaganda program.  I knew that they had one but I never saw a film about it I only saw posters of propaganda.  What shocked me the most was how much Hitler wanted to show unity in the film.   I knew that he wanted the German people to feel like equals and he said he was a man of the people but I didn't realize the trouble he went through to show this.  In the film it shows solders without any rank on them to show that all of the military is just as important.  Rudolph Hess said in a speech "The Party is Hitler - and Hitler is Germany just as Germany is Hitler."  Hitler was trying his best to show that he was a regular person.  But as he says these things he also shows that he is better than the average person by flying on planes for travel and having parades.  It's strange how it worked that the German people looked at Hitler as a equal and a super human at the same time. 

State Formation as Organized Crime

Charles Tilly says that the objective for a government to have control over its territories is to have two types of control, internal and external.  The internal control is where the government has direct power of its country that it is in.  However the government needs an external agency to have control over lands that are outside the governments direct control.  This is very similar to what Weber said bout how a government should control its country.  

     The causes that make a country grow in power is war.   "The very activity of extraction, if successful, entailed the elimination, neutralization, or cooptation of the great lord’s local rivals."  In order to have power you can not have other parties in the country try to go against the government.  If this happens it weakens the power of the government, so the government uses violence to stop the upraising.