The Experience Of Our Generation: That Capitalism

This Is How One Pictures The Angel Of History. His Face Is Turned Toward The Past. Where We Perceived A Chain Of Events, He Sees One Single Catastrophe Which Keeps Piling Wreckage And Hurls It In Front Of His Feet. The Angel Would Like To Stay, Awaken The Dead, And Make Whole What Has Been Smashed. But A Storm Is Blowing From Paradise; It Has Got Caught In His Wings With Such Violence That The Angel Can No Longer Close Them. This Storm Irresistably Propels Him Into The Future To Which His Back Is Turned, While The Pile Of Debris Before Him Grows Skyward. The Storm Is What We Call Progress.

In The Convulsions Of The Commodity Economy, We Begin To Recognize The Monuments Of The Bourgeoisie As Ruins Even Before They Have Crumbled.

The Destructive Character Knows Only One Watchword: Make Room. And Only One Activity: Clearing Away. The Destructive Character Is Young And Cheerful. For Destroying Rejuvenates, Because It Clears Away The Traces Of Our Own Age; It Cheers, Because Everything Cleared Away Means To The Destroyer A Complete Reduction, Indeed A Rooting Out, Of His Own Condition.

Let No Thought Pass Incognito, And Keep Your Notebook As Strictly As The Authorities Keep Their Register Of Aliens.

There Is No Muse Of Philosophy, Nor Is There One Of Translation.