[lbo-talk] "Mechanical marxists"

Yoshie Furuhashi furuhashi.1 at osu.edu
Fri Apr 4 21:08:06 PST 2003


At 12:54 PM +0800 4/5/03, Grant Lee wrote:
>Hey, where can I get one of these things? Can they be programmed to
>automatically take out individual elements of capital, or do they
>have to be guided to their targets?

Walter Benjamin's image of one is available on the Net, free of charge:

***** The story is told of an automaton constructed in such a way that it could play a winning game of chess, answering each move of an opponent with a countermove. A puppet in Turkish attire and with a hookah in its mouth sat before a chessboard placed on a large table. A system of mirrors created the illusion that this table was transparent from all sides. Actually, a little hunchback who was an expert chess player sat inside and guided the puppet's hand by means of strings. One can imagine a philosophical counterpart to this device. The puppet called 'historical materialism' is to win all the time. It can easily be a match for anyone if it enlists the services of theology, which today, as we know, is wizened and has to keep out of sight.

(Walter Benjamin, "On the Concept of History," <http://www.tasc.ac.uk/depart/media/staff/ls/WBenjamin/CONCEPT2.html>) ***** -- Yoshie

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