David Fishkind
Progress vs. Catastrophe: Underworld by and beyond Benjamin’s Angel of History
In 1940, Walter Benjamin published an essay, consisting of a collection of brief reflections, titled “Theses on the Philosophy of History.” The ninth thesis describes Paul Klee’s Angelus Novus, in which an angel “look[s] as though he is about to move away from something he is fixedly contemplating” (Benjamin 257). Benjamin links this to “the angel of history” observing the world through the position of the past. While the future pushes on inevitably—insists he take notice—the angel is turned away, caught up in the disasters of the past. This overseer wants to arrest the present, stop progress altogether in order to amend the disasters and failures of history, and finds itself in a struggle against the powerful reality of the ever-advancing state of existence. Thus, a rivalry between progress and catastrophe is established.
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