björn thorsteinssontheology into its service, if it places theology inside its machine, in the
engine room, as it were. The automatic victory of historical materialism
can only be ensured, says Benjamin, if it deploys the resources harbored
by theology. Why theology? Before turning to that question, let us try
and elucidate a little the question of the automatism. At issue here is
no less than the key question concerning Marx’s legacy — the feverishly
debated topic of economic determinism versus subjective activism.^4 If
capitalist society carries the seeds of its own destruction, if the forces
of production are bound to be to an ever greater degree hampered by
the relations of production until an eruption or explosion occurs and
a novel type of society comes into being — then where does that leave
presently living individuals — workers, intellectuals, or, perhaps most
appropriately, the proletariat? What should be the task of the subject,
revolutionary or not, while we all wait for the inevitable to happen:
the arrival of the new society, whatever its shape and structure? Or, in
more concise terms, how should we wait?
Keeping these questions in mind, it is perhaps not surprising that
Benjamin found it necessary, or strategically important, to seek re-
course in theology — for, to put the matter somewhat bluntly, are not
the adherents of religions, at least of the messianic mould, precisely
experts in waiting? And, perhaps more importantly, are not Judaic and
Christian theology inherently torn between different modalities of
waiting — an active and a passive one?^5 It is well known that Benjamin
closes his Theses by referring to the Jewish belief that “every second of
- One way of throwing a light on this issue would be by recourse to Georg Lukács,
whose 1923 book History and Class Consciousness, as we know, had a formative im-
pact on Walter Benjamin. For an illuminating discussion of Lukács, see Slavoj
Žižek, “Postface: Georg Lukács as the philosopher of Leninism,” in Georg Lukács,
A Defence of History and Class Consciousness: Tailism and The Dialectic, trans. Es-
ther Leslie, London and New York: Verso, 2000. - A middle ground between these two alternatives — the middle voice, as it
were — is represented today by Christian sects that, somewhat impatiently but also
with a tangible degree of satisfaction, accumulate the signs of the oncoming “rap-
ture.” A case in point is the so-called “Rapture Index,” which is calculated daily
and made public at the website raptureready.com. The higher the index, the better
we are doing: the greater the odds that the Second Coming is upon us. At the time
of writing, the index is at 168 points; according to the website, this amounts to
the recommendation that we should “fasten our seat belts.”