Walter Benjamin’s thoughts on books
I read this quote From Walter Benjamin online:
Und heute schon ist das Buch, wie die aktuelle wissenschaftliche Produktionsweise lehrt, eine veraltete Vermittlung zwischen zwei verschiedenen Kartotheksystemen. Denn alles Wesentliche findet sich im Zettelkasten des Forschers, der’s verfaßte, und der Gelehrte, der darin studiert, assimiliert es seiner eigenen Kartothek.
This quote is from Benjamin’s book, One-way Street, and Other Writings. I felt that the English translation of the book didn’t quite capture its meaning, so here’s DeepL’s translation instead:
And already today, as current scholarly practices demonstrate, the book is an outdated intermediary between two different filing systems. For everything of substance is found in the card index of the researcher who wrote it, and the scholar who studies it assimilates it into his own card index.
I’ve been especially interested in how we assimilate information by relating what we encounter to what we already know, and then revisit and express those associations in different contexts.
Much like the scholar Benjamin refers to, when I read a book, I write down the ideas that support, improve or contradict my own ideas in my own “card index” i.e. notes on my computer.
I believe Benjamin is suggesting that the book is just one way of organizing research, and that directly accessing the researcher’s collection of ideas could be a more straightforward way of transmitting those ideas.
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I think this is a good example of how this website is meant to work.
