This paper examined Walter Benjamin’s criticism of modern technology under the political background of the German conservative revolution and fascism in the early 20th century, explaining his counterstrategy for mechanical reproduction (technische R...
This paper examined Walter Benjamin’s criticism of modern technology under the political background of the German conservative revolution and fascism in the early 20th century, explaining his counterstrategy for mechanical reproduction (technische Reproduzierbarkeit). Benjamin understood war and fascism not as negative phenomena that suddenly appeared in a specific era but as historical catastrophes caused by technology that mankind developed for natural domination. From this point of view, Benjamin sought the possibility of a new technological view that can overcome the modern perspective of technology through mechanical reproduction in the 20th century. This paper provides an overview of the Conservative Revolution (German neoconservative movement) discourse and a modern perspective of technology, focusing on German fascism theories and Benjamin’s criticism of modern technology. Furthermore, Benjamin’s dialectical view of technology was examined through the concept pair of the first and second technologies, focusing on Artworks in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. Finally, how mechanical reproduction can work as a counterstrategy for historical catastrophe was assessed through the case of movies at the time as a second technology.