Theses on the Philosophy of History

It is not his storytelling about the angel of history that is so valuable in Benjamin’s Theses, but rather his assassination of the doctrine of historical progress. Adorno, for one, never gave up on progress, but it is inextricable from the doctrine of the Christian supersession of Judaism and so impossible for a Jew to embrace. Strauss showed us the way on this. Historical teleology is an appropriation of an Aristotelian way of thinking that had no inkling of the use to which it would be put. It is thrown on the rising garbage-heap of history that the receding angel eyes.