Walter Benjamin on “constellar thinking”

“Culture appears reified. Its history then becomes nothing but the residue of memorabilia that have been unearthed without ever entering into human consciousness through any authentic, that is, political experience....

The historical researcher must give up the tranquil, contemplative attitude toward the object in order to become conscious of the critical constellation in which precisely this fragment of the past is positioned with regard to precisely this present....

It is not that the past throws its light on the present or the present its light on the past, but that the past must come together with the present in a constellation.”