Storia e redenzione. Elementi messianici nel concetto di immagine dialettica di Walter Benjamin

The epistemological structure of the “concept of history”, which Benjamin presents in a monadic dialectical image, is characterized by a temporal dimension neither linear nor progressive, but intensive and ideal, in which the cognitive concept coincides with the ideal (of the good, of justice), which is characterized by totality and eternity. Here emerges the link between the transcedent, ideal theological setting, secretly active in the immanence of redemption, and the immanent setting of the political. In fact, the redeemed past summons into present time, for a fugitive moment, the messianic time of the fulfillment of the Kingdom of God, thus providing the occasion and direction for praxis, for revolutionary action, messianically and theologically motivated, striving for the construction of a society without classes. Political action is made possible precisely by its link to the past, from the cognitive capacity of the historical materialist to restore forgotten moments and bring them to a point of explosion, fueling the destructive and liberating power of the oppressed classes through the image of their enslaved ancestors.