Youth, genius and romanticism in Walter Benjamin

Abstract

This article seeks to articulate the notion of romantic youth as an ideal of formation in the thinking of student Benjamin. In the first essays dedicated to pedagogical themes, the philosopher proposed a new model of education based on romanticism, starting from a critique of the institutions of his time that divided the totality and unity of the young person's life. In his writings while he was a student, Benjamin recovers, with his criticism, the need to look at art, literature, education, in short, the whole of human culture, as a combined set of historical experiences. Romanticism, in Benjamin's thought, will be, therefore, fundamental to the pedagogical discussions. Youth, seen as a community, has the duty to be creators, to transform themselves into a convention of geniuses of the present time, in their spaces of action, that is, in training institutions. In general, it is only possible to perceive and acquire the specific knowledge of a profession if academic institutions realize that they must aim at universal education, through the genius creation model, as youth is understood as the one that guarantees the production of new values, opposed to those of experience - synonymous with rigidity of knowledge - which do not establish a link with life. To find this truth of life, it is necessary an act of courage and meaning to be, thus, in front of free spirits. Youth, in this way, is translated as a human concept or category dependent on an awakening of self-awareness. Given this, it will be able to promote changes within the institutional-school and academic spheres, but, at the same time, this awakening of the youth's historical awareness will define a specific way of dealing with human culture. Therefore, in this article, under the light of romantic aspects, we tried to show youth as a human category, with a determined age group, surrounded by concerns about the school and academic reality, and also from a universal point of view, that is, philosophical -pedagogical, as a category of thought that means the vanguard, everything that is not determined and fixed, creating new precepts and ways of life.

Keywords: Youth. Genius. Romanticism. Formation. Walter Benjamin.