Dear Greg,
the Adorno enclosure makes very interesting reading - there's weekend ahead, I
shall take all the time to thoroughly read it.
As far as EJ's diary goes, an influence of Heidegger regarding his antipathy
towards technology is evident, he must have liked Heidegger's term "das
Gestell" as kind of a totalizing word describing this phenomenon. The word is
used ambiguously here. It can be interpreted as a rack or a framework,
technically speaking, but one can more freely deduce from "etwas verstellen".
Bearing a meaning of blocking, "obstructing one's view" etc.
But of course lots of his antipathy derives from personal experience. Examples
given in his diary are countless. And reading FGJ's books, which also include
many autobiographical references, one can see FGJ certainly wasn't a great
friend of chainsaws.
Yours
Rich
----- Original Message -----
From: Gregory Whitfield
To: juenger_org@yahoogroups.de
Sent: Friday, October 23, 2009 6:14 AM
Subject: [juenger_org] Re-publication of The Failure of Technology
Relative newcomer to Juenger that I am , I wonder to what degree Juenger
was influenced -- if at all -- by Jaspers, Spengler and Heidegger regarding his
antipathy towards modernity and technology ?
Taking the point further ( the banality and dangers of technology as
mass 'culture' ) I find Horkheimer and Adorno's "Dialectic of Enlightenment /
Enlightenment as Mass Deception" to be very relevant, though I markedly qualify
that by saying I am no great fan at all of the Frankfurt School and their aims
and affiliations.
http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/adorno/1944/culture-industry.htm
Greg.
--- On Thu, 22/10/09, Richard Krähenbühl <ri...@t-online.de> wrote:
From: Richard Krähenbühl <ri...@t-online.de>
Subject: Re: [juenger_org] Re-publication of The Failure of Technology
To: juenger_org@yahoogroups.de
Date: Thursday, 22 October, 2009, 11:34 PM
Dear Simon,
who knows, perhaps the growing perplexity of mankind in today's world
may on the other hand favor and promote some deeper analysis, some analysis
hitherto overlooked. People assailed by the all the evident secondary effects
of today's technology may be happy to find out about Friedrich Georg Jünger
having written his prophetic book long ago. Published at a time when people
still had high hopes in the liberating promises of technology. As once stated
here, i would not have known EJ and his brother FGJ, if it were not from
reading the works by a notable German astrologer, Wolfgang Doebereiner, who
quite often quoted EJ and FGJ in his books. Doebereiner somewhere even goes so
far as to modify the popular Goebbels slogan to the masses: "Wollt ihr den
totalen Krieg", which resounded with an overwhelming "Jaaaah" from the
hypnotized public; modifying it with a more contemporary sounding "Wollt ihr
die totale Technik?"
Ample reasons to be pessimistic, it seems.
For me, Georg Friedrich's book "Perfektion der Technik" has got
something of an unsparing diagnosis. As you say, gründlich, and with a depth of
vision lacking in so many contemporary commentators, and, of course, endowed
with the WOW-effect, as i would call it, of someone having been capable to
foresee all these present troubles, be it environmental, exploitative. ..you
name it. My optimism derives from the fact that an unsparing diagnosis may have
a better chance of healing the disease. My optimism derives from the fact that
people often are not as stupid as they are believed to be. Your blog and the
list here are just one instance among many others to prove it. And of course,
there have been all those develompments to the year 2009, for the better or for
the worse.
It may sound strange, but reading the Juenger brothers always
instills some hope in me. For instance EJ often brings in the grand serpent. He
sees the serpent shedding it's skin whenever cataclysms happen, the
catastrophes you are talking about. What is he talking about?
"...An ancient Force ascending serpentine
The unhasting spirals of the aeonic road.
That's Sri Aurobindo speaking; in a sonnet called "Evolution".
Evolution as a serpentine force unfolding.
Man has been called the "crown of evolution": Sri Aurobindo
challenges this statement. From a Christian point of view, the theologician
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin has written about this evolutionary topic as well.
Has evolution ended with the appearance of man? Or is it continuing? Will there
be something beyond? That's the question arising in me, when EJ talks about the
skin-shedding serpent.
Hey, that was great,Simon, what you wrote about the elements, the
fire and it all.
Yours
Richard
----- Original Message -----
From: Simon Friedrich
To: juenger_org@yahoogroups.de
Sent: Thursday, October 22, 2009 9:19 AM
Subject: AW: [juenger_org] Re-publication of The Failure of
Technology
Yes, Richard, it made my day too when they replied this way. I
wasn't expecting it. I wonder what sort of distribution and marketing it will
get though.... I don't know Alethes or the International Institute of Arts and
Letters (though name of the latter is impressive enough), I wonder how much
publicity this reprint will get. We'll have to help them with own little
efforts!
This book explains so much about technology and so "grundlich" -
far more than the cleverest contemporary commentators, who mess around on the
surface and have lost sight of the fire in all the smoke of details and
"solutions".
Unfortunately I also find reading this book very depressing - it
only confirms that our developments can only end in catastrophe. The only
question is the degree of that catastrophe and if humanity will learn anything
by it. As EJ says, the Titans are only stopped by catastrophe. This will
inevitably happen, and thank the gods that it will, for humanity's sake and the
earth's. But the question remains if humanity will learn anything from it all.
I am pessimistic - two world wars only promoted the perfection and faith in
technology.
Dare I be quite frank? I can only assume that the coming
catastrophes will dwarf even the world wars. The elemental powers that FGJ
talks about are only more enslaved and pent-up now than back then. When they
find their freedom from man's chains, may the gods help us. Of the 4 elements
it is Fire that is particularly worrisome. Water and Earth have been exploited
and exhausted, but Fire has only been multiplied and distributed to every small
corner of the world. It is momentarily contained - in refineries, nuclear and
other power plants, factories, combustion engines, heating furnaces, the whole
electrical grid. But fuel is everywhere, and increased in its volatility by the
retreat of water and earth. If, WHEN, this fire gets loose, the "firestorms" of
Ernst Juenger's Eumeswil may be the result. Even the summer fires in Greece,
California, Spain etc are not unrelated - bad omens.
I told my father recently that if I were to write a book about the
last few centuries of civilization it would be called "The failure of
humanity". Imagine: we come all this way over so many generations, with so much
hope and so much sacrifice to realize a future utopia, only to arrive and
discover that we have actually destroyed humanity, merely prepared the ground
for someone else, be it the insect or the robot - or most likely, the robot-man
of a Brave New World. Talk about a grand disappointment!
All the more reason to become an anarch and find your own meaning
in life beyond society's successes or failures.
Forgive my pessimistic tone - but "succeed in playing life as a
game and you will find honey in nettles and hemlock" (badly paraphrased from
Eumeswil).
Simon
http://ernst- juenger.blogspot .com
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Von: Richard Krähenbühl <ri...@t-online. de>
An: juenger_org@ yahoogroups. de
Gesendet: Mittwoch, den 21. Oktober 2009, 22:09:52 Uhr
Betreff: Re: [juenger_org] Re-publication of The Failure of
Technology
You made my day, dear Simon. That's great news!
FGJ was so ahead of his time.
He seems to be catching up. I always found it such a pity that his
works should have fallen into oblivion.
Thanks once more.
Rich
----- Original Message -----
From: Simon Friedrich
To: juenger_org@yahoogroups.de
Cc: Tobias Wimbauer
Sent: Wednesday, October 21, 2009 8:19 AM
Subject: [juenger_org] Re-publication of The Failure of Technology
Dear List,
I eventually got around to writing to the rights holders of F.G
Jünger´s "Die Perfektion der Technik" (The Failure of Technology) to persuade
them to reprint this magically insightful book in English.
They replied that Alethes Press, the publishing arm of the
International Institute of Arts and Letters, will shortly be publishing it!
Excellent news - I am re-reading it now and am again and again
impressed by F.G.J´s deep insights into the true foundations and consequences
of technology. Insights which I believe also prove that myth speaks about
deeper realities than reason can reach - he certainly came to much of his
understanding through his deep knowledge of Greek mythology, in particular of
the nature of the Titans.
This book matches anything EJ wrote - and I say that as a very
devoted fan of EJ´s.
Simon
http://ernst- juenger.blogspot .com
------------------------------------------------------------------
I am using the Free version of SPAMfighter.
We are a community of 6 million users fighting spam.
SPAMfighter has removed 662 of my spam emails to date.
The Professional version does not have this message.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
I am using the Free version of SPAMfighter.
We are a community of 6 million users fighting spam.
SPAMfighter has removed 662 of my spam emails to date.
The Professional version does not have this message.
