Walter Benjamin
Walter Benjamin
Walter Bendix Schönflies Benjamin was a German Jewish philosopher and cultural critic. An eclectic thinker, combining elements of German idealism, Romanticism, Western Marxism, and Jewish mysticism, Benjamin made enduring and influential contributions to aesthetic theory, literary criticism, and historical materialism. He was associated with the Frankfurt School, and also maintained formative friendships with thinkers such as playwright Bertolt Brecht and Kabbalah scholar Gershom Scholem. He was also related by law to German political theorist Hannah Arendt through her first marriage...
NationalityGerman
ProfessionCritic
Date of Birth15 July 1892
CountryGermany
I think it's really hard to plan if you don't believe you can implement those plans.
And it is that one percent, the heads of large corporations, who control the policies of news media and determine what you and I hear on radio, read in the newspapers, see on television. It is more important for us to think about where the media gets its information.
I think that people who want to change this planet have to seriously understand that as human beings we have to work to be good.
I think that any time anybody gets rid of oppression, intervention, exploitation, cruelty - that's positive.
People think that in order for something to work, it has to be complicated, but a lot of times the opposite is true. We usually reach success by putting the simple truths that we know into practice.
The people who are running this planet are insane - they are literally destroying it. I don't know where they think they're gonna drink water, breathe air.
I think that one of the great things that the Cuban revolution has done is preserve history.
I think anybody who is honestly struggling against racism must struggle against imperialism and vice versa.
I think that one of the problems that exists in the United States and in many places in the world is that people don't believe that they can make a difference. So a lot of times we're defeated before we even start. We've become consumers of a world vision, of Kentucky Fried Chicken, of McDonalds.
I think that the movement against the World Bank, against the globalization process that is happening, is very positive. We need a globalization, a globalization of people who are committed to social justice, to economic justice. We need a globalization of people who are committed to saving this earth, to making sure that the water is drinkable, that the air is breathable.
I think that the greatest betrayal that a revolutionary can participate in is to become like the people you are struggling against. To become like your persecutors. I think that is a betrayal and a sin.
I think that, like many sisters, I was raised to be a Superwoman. I am a serious woman, and I want to be taken seriously.
The usual way the people are taught to think in amerika is that each subject is in a little compartment and has no relation to any other subject. For the most part, we receive fragments of unrelated knowledge, and our education follows no logical format or pattern. It is exactly this kind of education that produces people who don’t have the ability to think for themselves and who are easily manipulated.
White people's fear of Black people with guns will never cease to amaze me. Probably it's because they think about what they would do were they in our place. Especially the police, who have done so much dirt to Black people - their guilty conscience tells them to be afraid. When Black people seriously organize and take up arms to fight for our liberation, there will be a lot of white people who will drop dead from no other reason than their own guilt and fear.