Walter Benjamin and messianic materialism: dialogue based on the readings of Bolívar Echeverría and Enrique Dussel

Abstract

This article analyzes the work of Walter Benjamin, focusing on his "Theses on the Philosophy of History" and his critique of progress as a central axis of capitalist and socialist modernity. Drawing on the reflections of Bolívar Echeverría and Enrique Dussel, the text argues, from a reading that intertwines Benjamin's Jewish condition and his connection with European culture, that the vision of progress is a historical construction that hides the underlying barbarity in power structures, both in capitalism and in real socialism. When the author proposes his interpretation of history "against the grain," he challenges the linear and triumphalist conception of progress, proposing a historical materialism based on the memory of the oppressed and the redemption of the victims of the past. The work also highlights how Benjamin's critique of modernity, far from being an abstract reflection, has a practical and revolutionary dimension, linking his ideas with Latin American liberation philosophies and the need for a new critical look at history. In this sense, the article argues that theology, in Benjamin's thought, does not propose a doctrine, nor a treatise on God, but rather a critical tool that allows for the interruption of the hegemonic narrative of progress and the reconfiguration of social struggles from a radically new perspective, centered on resistance and the historical transformation of the oppressed.