Thoughts on Walter Benjamin

Just posted this on my Facebook page:

Rereading Walter Benjamin’s great essay “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” (1936) I came across this brilliant statement in the Epilogue about Fascism:

Fascism attempts to organize the newly created proletarian masses without affecting the property structure which the masses strive to eliminate. Fascism sees it salvation in giving these masses not their right but instead a chance to express themselves. …Fascism seeks to give them [the masses] an expression while preserving property.

If you substitute the Tea Party Right for “the masses,” and Trumpism/White Nationalism for Fascism you have a fairly prescient description of right-wing politics today in the U.S. and Western Europe.

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