Dolor y melancolía en el concepto de historia: El pensamiento benjaminiano en el horizonte del archivo

Abstract

Este artículo parte de sostener que el concepto de historia de Walter Benjamin poneen el centro de la escena el dolor padecido, no para configurar una experiencia deaprendizaje ni para conformarse con la rememoración, sino para subrayar el estadode deuda para con el pasado y evidenciar que solo en estos términos tiene sentidola reflexión sobre la acción política. La atención al dolor de los vencidos se articulaen Benjamin con un afecto que sobrevuela toda su producción teórica –y también suvida– como es la melancolía por el pasado truncado. De este modo, dolor y melancolía se convierten en las condiciones de posibilidad de la comprensión de la historia.

This article starts by arguing that Walter Benjamin’s concept of history puts the pain at the center of the scene, not to configure a learning experience or to settle for remembrance, but to underline the state of debt to the past and to show that only in these terms does reflection on political action make sense. The attention to the pain of the vanquished is articulated in Benjamin with an affection that flies over his entire theoretical production -and also his life- such as the melancholy for the truncated past. In this way, pain and melancholy become the conditions for the possibility of the understanding of history. Likewise, in a context such as the current one that has been called the era of the archive, in which the collection and the techniques and policies of archiving and declassification seem to be unavoidable devices of the thought of history, it becomes central to inquire about the way in which pain and melancholy deepen the experience and are the privileged vectors of its knowledge.