The Arcades Project - Operi

the immersion of what has been into layers of dreams, represented not an end in itself for
the Passagen- mrkJ but rather its methodological anangemel1t, a kind of experimental
setup, The nineteenth century is the dream we must wake up from; it is a nightmare that
will weigh on the present as long as its spell remains unbroken. According to Benjannl1,
the images of dreaming and awakening from the dream are related as expression is related
to interpretation. He hoped that the images, once interpreted, would dissolve the spelL
Be annn' s concept of awakening means the "genuine liberation from an epoch" (hO,3), in
the double sense of Hegel's Alifhebung: the nineteenth century would be transcended in
that it would be preserved, "rescued" for the present. Benjamin defines "the new, the
dialectical method of doing history" in these words: "with the intensity of a dreaIn, to pass
through what has been (dar Geweselle), in order to experience the present as the waking
world to which the dream refers" (F°,6). TIlls concept is based on a mystical conception of
Instory that Benjamin was never to abandon, not even in his late theses "On the Concept
of History?' Every present ought to be synchronic with certain moments of history, just as
every past becomes "legible" only in a certain epoch-"namely, the one in which humanity,
nlbbing its eyes, recognizes just this particular dream unage as such. It is at this
moment that the historian takes up , , . the task of dream interpretation" (N4,1), Tow3Td
this end, we need not a dragging of the past UltO the mythological, but, on the contrary, a
"dissolution of 'mythology' Ul the space of history" (H°,l7). Benjamin demanded a "concrete,
materialist meditation on what is nearest" (das Ndc/zste); he was interested "only in
the presentation of what relates to us, what conditions us" (CO ,5). In this way the Instorian
should no longer try to enter the past; radler, he should allow the past to enter his life. A
"pathos of nearness" should replace the vanishing "empathy" (1°,2). For the historian,
past objects and events would not then be fixed data, an unchangeable given, because
dialectical thinking "ransacks them, revolutionizes them, turns them upside down"
(D°,4); this is what must be accomplished by awakening from the dream of the nineteenth
century. That is why for Belamin the "effort to awaken from a dream" represents "the
best example of dialectical reversal" (D°,7),
TIle key to what may have been Benjamin's intention while working on the first phase
of the PasJtlgen-Werk may be found Ul the sentence, "Capitalism was a natural phenomenon
with which a new dream-filled sleep came over Europe, and, through it, a reactivation
of mytincal forces" (KIa,8), Benjamin shares his project ) the desire to ulVestigate capitalism,
with historical materialism, from which he may well have appropriated the project in
the [rrst place. But the concepts he uses to define capitalism-nature, dream, and mythoriginate
from the terminology of his ovvI1 metaphysically and theologically inspired
thought. 'nle key concepts of the young Benjamin's philosophy of history center around
a critique of myth as the ordained heteronomous ) which kept man banished Ul dumb
dependence throughout prehistory aIld which has since survived in the most dissimilar
forms, both as unmediated violence and in bourgeois jurisprudence. H The critique of
capitalism in the first Arcades sketch remaulS a critique of myth, sUlCe in it the nineteenth
century appears as a domain where "only madness has reigned until now." "But ) )) Benjannll
adds, "every ground must at some point have been turned over by reason, must
have been cleared of the undergrowth of delusion and myth. This is to be accomplished
here for the tenain of the nineteenth century" (Go,13). His interpretation recognizes
forms still unlnstorical, still unprisoned by myth, forms that are only preparing dlemselves,
in such an interpretation, to awaken from myth and to take away its power.
Benjamin identifies them as the dominant forms of consciousness and the imagery of
incipient high capitalism: the "sensation of the newest and most modern,)) as well as the