This article is excerpted from Writing and Redemption: Selected Writings of Benjamin
Author: Walter Benjamin
Translators: Li Maozeng, Su Zhongle
With the great advances in technology, a new kind of poverty has befallen human beings. On the other side of this poverty is the suffocating wealth of thought. These ideas have been deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, or have swallowed people up. These ideas are accompanied by the regeneration of astrology and yogic wisdom, Christian scientology and palmistry, vegetarianism and gnosis, scholasticism, and spiritism. But not real regeneration, but a brief awakening stimulated by an electric current. It is therefore necessary to recall Enzo's remarkable paintings: in the picture, all the streets of the metropolis are filled with various ghosts; Dressed in carnival costumes, wearing deformed masks, and crowns made of flour and cardboard, the courtiers wandered the streets. Perhaps these paintings are a reflection of the ghostly, chaotic, and high hopes of many people. It is here, however, that it is clear that the poverty of our experience is part of the greater poverty. Once upon a time, this greater poverty had acquired a new look—its silhouette and clarity like that of the beggars of the Middle Ages. For, if we have dissolved our marriage to experience, where do our cultural values begin? When experience can only be stimulated or acquired by improper means, when it has become clear to us that in the last century experience has been reduced to the product of a terrible hodgepodge of styles and ideas—we see it so clearly that we think it is inappropriate to speak ill of our corruption—where will our culture go? It is true (and we should admit this) that the poverty of experience is no longer confined to the individual, but to the poverty of human experience in the general sense. That is, a new state of barbarism.
Masaaki Moto
Barbaric state? That's right, barbarism. We say this in order to introduce a new and positive concept of barbarism. How does the poverty of experience help such barbarians? It forced him to start from scratch; Let him have a fresh start; Let him do more with less; let him do more with less and concentrate on building. Of all the great Creators, there has never been a shortage of those who have resolutely purged all stereotypes. They need a drawing table; they are builders. Descartes was such a builder whose entire philosophy was based on a precise premise, "I think, therefore I am." That's his starting point. Einstein was also such a builder; in the whole physical world, he had no interest in anything but the slight differences between Newton's equations and his astronomical observations. When artists learn from mathematicians to build the world in geometric forms like Cubists, or engineers like Klee, persistence from scratch becomes a hallmark of artists. Just as all parts of a good car, including the body, must be subordinated to the needs of the engine, Klee's characters seem to be designed on a drawing board, and even their most general expressions serve the heart of the characters. It is the heart, not the inside; this is where their barbarism lies.
In many places, the best minds are already thinking about these concepts. They have no illusions about the times, but at the same time they are unreservedly dedicated to it – and that is their mark.
This article is reproduced for Peking University Public Communications
The copyright belongs to the author
Edit | Tu Xinru
Image source | Internet
Welcome to cooperate with | Submission