walter on messianic time

intro’d while reading serafinski’s blessed is the flame

googling ‘messianic time benjamin’ got: The ethical, political and «historical task» pertaining to the collective agent and subject of knowledge is founded on a conception of time that is not empty and mechanical, but that is full, intensive, and redemptive: it is the messianic time.

intro’d to benjamin via m of care – feb 8 and m of care – mar 23 – walter on art

so actually.. page is serfenski on baeden turning to walter’s messianic time via blessed is the flame

notes/quotes from that:

33

Messianic Time

What is to be gained by shattering the progressive conception of time or by abandoning our attachment to futurity? How can we conceive of the chronological mode embodied by those inmates who escaped Lager-time, despair, and suspension, and fought back? Bæden once again turns to Benjamin and the concept of messianic time, which is an “irrational now-time,” an “interruption of linear time,” and which exists as “splinters diffused through the empty fabric of capitalist time.” As a rupture from oppressive chronological modes, it contains “unlimited possibilities” and “threatens to interrupt the continuum of history.” The Invisible Committee, also taking inspiration from Benjamin, applies this concept to resistance generally: “Every attempt to block the global system, every movement, every revolt, every uprising should be seen as a vertical attempt to stop time.” Here we might remember those rebels who spent the first evening of the July revolution of 1830 shooting out clock towers in Paris, or the (semi-mythical) anarchist Biofilo Panclasta who, in the final days of his life, is said to have escaped from an old folks’ home and climbed to the top of a clock tower where he “arrested the movement of the clock’s hands, which so carefully marked the passage of time.” When the monotonous rhythms of society’s clocks have ceased and the death march of progress has been brought to a halt, messianic time is the space where new forms of life can be birthed. The CCF looks for this historical rupture in the moment of an attack against a system, and in the precious moments afterwards, before the system has turned its switches back on (e.g. after the riot, before the cleanup); these moments of “unstuck time” are where our desires for the impossible come to the surface, and “in these holes, negations against this world can be born.” This project of stopping time is an attempt to break free from the ideologies of progressivism and the spell of reproductive futurity, and to enter into combat with the existing order. Those in the camps who spontaneously fought back knowing that death would be the immediate consequence erupted out of oppressive, paralyzing, and illusory concepts of time, and entered into this space of messianic time.

all sounds great.. except (to me) if still fighting.. still in same song

Here I do not mean to argue that those who fought back in the Lagers experienced some mystical chronological transcendence that granted them supernatural bravery. Rather, I am pointing towards the possibilities that exist when we confront our own futurelessness and find the will to act: When we don’t believe the lies about where we’re heading, when we don’t sink into absolute despair about how fucked we are, and when we don’t just keep our heads down and think about the present moment — when we step out of that debilitating sequence and act against the existing order, no matter the odds. This often means confronting death, imprisonment, alienation, and a variety of other dangers. For the anarcho-nihilists, it also means opening oneself up to new possibilities of being alive. These cries to “stop time” and to discover jouissance are essentially asking us to sever any attachments we have to the existing order, and to position ourselves outside of and against its progress. So long as Häftlinge saw a future for themselves in the camps, or remained suspended in the present moment, or gave up on living completely, the Nazis would never have to deal with a moment of defiance. By shattering those chronological modes, some inmates broke with the rhythms of the camp and carved out a different fabric of time. Similarly, so long as we believe that this society is making progress, and so long as we can glimpse a future for ourselves within it or a future for our children, we will remain in some way wed to it. When anarcho-nihilism urges us to abandon those chronological modes, it is in essence asking us to sever all ties to the continuation of society and work instead to negate its existence. *In this rupture of time we find a richness of life unimaginable within the existing order. Messianic time is the chronological awareness in which jouissance can flourish, for rather than deferring our rage to the future we can finally realize that now is the time we’ve been waiting for.

*again.. if still in existing order.. same song

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root of problem

legit freedom will only happen if it’s all of us.. and in order to be all of us.. has to be sans any form of measuring, accounting, people telling other people what to do

how we gather in a space is huge.. need to try spaces of permission where people have nothing to prove to facil curiosity over decision making.. because the finite set of choices of decision making is unmooring us.. keeping us from us..

ie: imagine if we listened to the itch-in-8b-souls 1st thing everyday & used that data to connect us (tech as it could be.. ai as augmenting interconnectedness)

need to try the unconditional part of left to own devices ness..

there’s a legit use of tech (nonjudgmental exponential labeling) to facil the seeming chaos of a global detox leap/dance.. the unconditional part of left-to-own-devices ness.. for (blank)’s sake.. and we’re missing it

ie: whatever for a year.. a legit sabbatical ish transition