WALTER BENJAMIN

History is the subject of a structure whose site is not homogeneous, empty time, but time filled by the presence of the Eternal Now. Thus, to Robespierre, ancient Rome was a past infused with the time of the Now, which he blasted out of the continuum of history. The French Revolution viewed itself as Rome reincarnate. It evoked ancient Rome the way fashion evokes costumes of the past. Fashion has a flair for the topical, no matter where it stirs in the thickets of long ago; it is a tiger’s leap into the past. This jump, however, takes place in an arena where the ruling class gives the commands. The same leap into the open air of history is the dialectical one, which is how Marx understood the Revolution.