"Theses defining the developmental tendencies of art can therefore contribute to the political struggle in ways that it would be a mistake to underestimate. They neutralize a number of traditional concepts - such as creativity and genius, eternal value and mystery - which, used in an uncontrolled way (and controlling them is difficult today), allow factual material to be manipulated in the interests of fascism. In what follows, the concepts which are introduced into the theory of art differ from those now current in that they are completely useless for the purposes of fascism. On the other hand, they are useful for the formulation of revolutionary demands in the politics of art [Kunstpolitik]."
Walter Benjamin, "The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility" in Selected Writings, vol. 4, 1938-1940, ed. Howard Eiland and Michael W. Jennings, trans. Edmund Jephcott (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 2006), p. 252.
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