“In point of fact we are faced with a situation—for which the last decade in Germany furnishes complete proof—in which the bourgeois apparatus of production and publication can assimilate an astonishing number of revolutionary themes, and can even propagate them without seriously placing its own existence or the existence of the class that possesses them into question. This is certainly true as long as the apparatus is transmitted by hacks, even if they are revolutionary hacks. I define a hack as a writer who fundamentally renounces the effort to alienate the apparatus of production from the ruling class in favour of socialism, by means of improving it. I further affirm that a substantial part of so-called left-wing writers have no other social function whatever, than eternally to draw new effects from the political situation in order to amuse the public.”
- Walter Benjamin, The Author as Producer (via spectaculardistractions)
- Walter Benjamin, The Author as Producer (via spectaculardistractions)
