Re: [-empyre-] "what is to be done?" Lenin's words--forward from Claudia Reiche

[claudia reiche <office@claudia-reiche.net>]

> seemingly the problem […] is that when we are critical of
> others we tend not to judge ourselves or our solutions by the same 
> terms -- the failure
> to be self reflexive leaves us running in place
 One can judge, that's for sure,  if the same terms (words) are used 
....
hmm,  I do not know how to judge  myself for instance  by the same 
terms like Lenin or Buergel?
Could you?
The only sure way of not running in place I've heard of is to judge the 
difference that lies between the repetition of words, events, images 
etc.  and  their former appearence, or even to notice that there will 
have been a repetition.
One could even call this the core of education,  as potentially freeing 
history  from running in place.

Claudia

"The true picture of the past flits by. The past can be seized only as 
an image which flashes up at the instant when it can be recognized and 
is never seen again. ‘The truth will not run away from us’: in the 
historical outlook of historicism these words of Gottfried Keller mark 
the exact point where historical materialism cuts through historicism. 
For every image of the past that is not recognized by the present as 
one of its own concerns threatens to disappear irretrievably […] To 
articulate the past historically does not mean to recognize it ‘the way 
it really was’ (Ranke). It means to seize hold of a memory as it 
flashes up at a moment of danger. […] The danger affects both the 
content of the tradition and its receivers. The same threat hangs over 
both: that of becoming a tool of the ruling classes. In every era the 
attempt must be made anew to wrest tradition away from a conformism 
that is about to overpower it.." Walter Benjamin, On the concept of 
history