Episode #153 - The Frankfurt School - Walter Benjamin Pt. 2 - Distraction
Episode 153 - The Frankfurt School - Walter Benjamin Pt. 2 - Distraction
This episode continues the exploration of Walter Benjamin’s ideas by examining how technological advancements transform human perception, storytelling, and political life. It traces the historical shift from oral traditions—communal, variable, and reflective—to the solitary focus of the novel, and eventually to the mass-reproducible, fast-paced distractions of film and video. Benjamin’s analysis highlights how modern media changes not only the form of art but also how people engage with it: moving from deep concentration to habitual distraction. These new sensory and technological conditions shape collective subjectivity, reinforcing dominant ideologies while diminishing the capacity for critical reflection. The episode connects these ideas to the rise of fascism, the commodification of art, and the erosion of meaningful communication, ultimately suggesting that as media mediates more of our lives, the ability to share authentic experience becomes increasingly difficult.
Further Reading:
The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility, and Other Writings on Media — Walter Benjamin (2008)
Reflections: Essays, Aphorisms, Autobiographical Writings — Walter Benjamin (1978)
Walter Benjamin: A Critical Life — Howard Eiland and Michael W. Jennings (2014)
See the full transcript here.
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