Great Regulars: The further one reads,

however, the clearer it becomes that what [Walter] Benjamin was really seeking, in the guise of school reform, was spiritual and social rebirth. Thus, in an essay on "Moral Education," he concludes that "all morality and religiosity originates in solitude with God"--a prescription that seems to leave little role for school reform, or for schools in general. The tension between Benjamin's private and public agendas becomes even clearer in the unpublished pieces in Early Writings, the poems and stories and sketches he showed only to a few friends. There, the rhetoric of the youth-movement essays clouds over into the dense, tormented prose that would be so characteristic of the adult Benjamin.

In "The Metaphysics of Youth," for instance, he writes: "Greatness is the eternal silence after conversation. It is to take the rhythm of one's own words in the empty space."

from Adam Kirsch: Tablet: Youth in Revolt

~~~~~~~~~~~