Rich, I am glad you enjoyed the Adorno -- If I may go off topic here for a moment, I find it an incredibly perceptive piece, and a text I have returned to again and again for years now to understand the detrimental realities of 'urban life'. I am not at all overly keen on other texts from Adorno, ( and neither do I have a great deal of time for the other Frankfurt school thinkers, diverse as they are ) but when Adorno writes with Horkheimer, he shines in my view. These texts led me to Henri Lefebvre's "Production of Space" and more directly, to Debord's "Society of the Spectacle" -- both of which surely lead us to Baudrillard. I am sorry to go off Juenger there for a while -- Simon and Klaus introduced debate of antipathy to technology, so I add some analysis at least related to that. Greg.
--- On Fri, 23/10/09, 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: Friday, 23 October, 2009, 10:23 AM 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.
