2021-04-02
24 分钟Hello,
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So something important to consider about Walter Benjamin that maybe isn't as much the case with a lot of other thinkers we've covered on this show is
that his work is in many ways just as relevant today as it was when he was writing it.
Philosophers obviously are always doing their work within a particular historical context.
This context often shades the questions they think are even worth asking.
So when they come up with answers to these pressing questions, as interesting as their work may be,
as much practical value as you might get out of it if you studied it,
the world sometimes can pass their work by in terms of direct relevance.
The work of Walter Benjamin though is not this way, because as we talked about last time,
one of the main things
that concerned him was this relationship between technological innovations and the sensory experience and subjectivity of people.
You change the technology that surrounds a person, you change the person.
This is what we're going to be talking about partially today.
So when he's giving examples, he's going to be referencing things like film and radio and TV,
probably all three things that are on their way out in our modern world.
But the way he thought these affected the individual subject and the political subject can just as easily be applied to different technologies,
things like the internet, things like smartphones, self-driving cars, whatever you want.