War Quote of the Day

They are killing the people who they want to liberate. You cannot liberate a people by killing them.” (Husni Shiyad, University of Al Isra, as reported by Michel Cormier on CBC Television’s Canada Now)

Comments

andrea's picture
andrea on April 2, 2003 - 15:33 Permalink

I have been thinking a lot lately of what Walter Benjamin wrote in his Theses on the Philosophy of History:

A Klee painting named

Kevin's picture
Kevin on April 2, 2003 - 17:43 Permalink

Tell me more about Walter Benjamin.

andrea's picture
andrea on April 2, 2003 - 18:56 Permalink

He was a German philosopher/critic — fringe member of the Frankfurt school (adorno, horkheimer, marcuse) — but his drug experimentation and interest in jewish mysticism kept him slightly apart from the group. He was intending to join his friends in the U.S. but while making his escape from Paris and attempting to cross the Spanish border, he was chased by the gestapo and killed himself.

He wrote the Theses on History shortly before his attempted escape. You can find it in a book of his essays called “Illuminations” which also includes his most famous essay “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”.