Therefore the historical past that Benjamin cherishes as source for political motion can be the historical past that has to be handled indifferently, as dispensable, with no reverence. For a clearer view of this paradox, and its significance in constructing a politics " after historical past" that still attracts its energies from old awareness, we go back to Benjamin's enigmatic angel. The determine of the angel in Benjamin's 9th thesis at the philosophy of heritage vehicle­ ries (but doesn't exhaust) his critique of growth and hence contributes to a reframing of the matter of political wisdom and political motion within the period of posthistoire. 12 Gershom Scholem's family tree of Benjamin's crafting of this determine (from Klee's Angelus Novus, which Benjamin owned, in addition to from different resources) is immensely precious during this regard, as is Niethammer's studying of the 9th thesis. Scholem starts off via noting that the Hebrew mal'ak, which "angel" (in Greek, angelos) interprets, additionally ability "messenger. " He provides that during one pressure of Jewish culture, each one people is assumed to have a private angel that represents our mystery self, albeit in a frustrating manner: this angel can input into competition to and pressure with the human to whom it's hooked up. thirteen So Benjamin's messenger of historical past, harboring history's mystery that means, instantly casts h istory as tragic: unknow­ in a position to i tsel f a n d in stress with i tsel f, h istory is prope l l ed towards a fu tur t w h i h i t ba ok i t u m d n d w h i h a rr i 1 a n ing on l y a h h ru h f hello t L'Y i t b t n a . eb u l fi1 h ; l 1 p h p SPECTERS AND ANGELS • 159 extra vital, history's " mystery" is that its circulation has no inher­ ent that means in any respect. The messenger of background can be sarcastically mute: it can't communicate to the long run, whilst background is implicated sooner or later. that's, historical past has touching on the long run insofar because the typhoon from Paradise is blowing towards the longer term (p. 261 ) . however the angel can't glance there, it can't communicate, nor can it intrude within the hurricane into which it is just and regularly blown backward. The muteness and the impotence of the backward body-neither eyes nor arms can come to phrases with the place it truly is going, neither are of any use in greedy or shaping the body's experience-together determine the organization of the that means of heritage as nearly not anything. Paradise, Scholem indicates during this interpreting of Benjamin, is the primal earlier of humanity to boot the utopian snapshot of our destiny redemption; Benjamin borrows from Karl Krause a determine of Paradise as either foundation and target. 14 however the hurricane prevents the angel-history's that means­ from the redemptive paintings instructed the following. The angel can't "stay, wake up the useless, and make complete what has been smashed" (p. 257), which Benjamin claims as its craving, simply because there's a ahead (nonprogressive) press of heritage, and as the angel is powerless and speechless. The angel is driven towards a destiny into which it doesn't gaze, can't gaze, yet can't now not pass, and likewise appears out over a earlier that it can't redeem whilst it longs to take action.