Klaus and Simon, I have really enjoyed reading your insightful exchange. Thanks. Lots to consider. Greg.
--- On Mon, 2/11/09, klaus gauger <klaus_gau...@yahoo.com> wrote: From: klaus gauger <klaus_gau...@yahoo.com> Subject: AW: [juenger_org] Heidegger, Nietzsche, Juenger, seinvergessenheit, etc To: juenger_org@yahoogroups.de Date: Monday, 2 November, 2009, 5:41 PM Hi Simon, thanks for your mails. But I am so involved in the "Referendariat" at the moment that I don´t have time to give long explanations in English of Heideggers philosophical concepts. I am sure there are a lot of good books in English about Heideggers critique of technology. I know that there are very good american academic interpreters of Heidegger in several universities in the U.S.A. As to the difference between Heidegger and Jünger - there is a big difference, the same difference that exists between Jünger and Carl Schmitt: Heidegger and Carl Schmitt got involved into the politics of the national-socialist regime and tried to make a career in the national-socialist system. Both - Heidegger and Schmitt - failed at the attempt, but there public image was heaviliy damaged after 1945. Jünger stayed out of all nationalsocialist organizations and saw early, what kind of regime the Third Reich was. So his image was not too damaged after 1945 and he managed to get a second chance after 1945. Schmitt and Heidegger didn´t have that chance, especially Schmitt stayed an outsider in the "Bundesrepublik" . Heidegger finally was able to work again as a professor, but his image was seriously damaged and there were always serious doubts about his political views. Jünger became an "anarch" in Wilflingen and lived much longer than Schmitt and Heidegger. At the end, in the 90s, Jünger was again a very popular man, political leaders like Felipe Gonzalez, Helmut Kohl, Francois Mitterand visited him as one of the relics of World War I and the "conservative revolution" of the republic of Weimar and as a reverence to a prolific and important writer and thinker. So the difference is in the biography. The ideas of the Jünger-brothers and Heidegger when it comes to technology were similar, though especially Ernst Jünger wasn´t only critical about technology - he included technology into his science-fiction novels and late conceptions, and he wasn´t only critical about technology, for him modern technology is also a real chance for the world to solve important problems of mankind in general, though there are always dangers in the use of modern technology. As I told this list several times before, I wrote a long essay about these questions that is online in the web: http://www.lammla. de/domains/ arnshaugk/ diktynna/ ej_technikkritik .pdf Yours, Klaus --- Simon Friedrich <simonfriedrich@ yahoo.de> schrieb am Mo, 2.11.2009: Von: Simon Friedrich <simonfriedrich@ yahoo.de> Betreff: [juenger_org] Heidegger, Nietzsche, Juenger, seinvergessenheit, etc An: juenger_org@ yahoogroups. de Datum: Montag, 2. November 2009, 10:21 Thanks Klaus - indeed, as I was reading your summary F.G.J's description of man's exploitative attitude to nature came to my mind too. Then you made the same comment at the end. I haven't read a word of Heidegger in original, only syntheses of his thought - so can anyone explain to me concisely why he thought technology was so intrinsically anti-being? I fully agree with him - from my purely personal view, it has something to do with the mechanicalness of technology vs the wholeness/unity of being. Being is precisely not mechanical, it is an inexplicable wholeness and oneness which cannot be described by the sum and interrelations of its parts - whereas technology only deals with and can integrate machines, mechanisms. A technological society thus leaves no room for human wholeness and growth. We now have to fight for it. ("Human perfection and technical perfection are incompatible. If we strive for one, we must sacrifice the other.... Technical perfection strives towards the calculable, human perfection towards the incalculable. .... The fear and enthusiasm we experience at the sight of perfect mechanisms are in exact contrast to the happiness we feel at the sight of a perfect work of art. We sense an attack on our integrity, on our wholeness".) Actually the conflict between being and machine is part of human nature, it was always this way. "One of our modern magi" (as Juenger calls him in Annäherungen) has the idea of the antithesis of being and mechanicalness at the very basis of his system. In Gurdjieff's system, we ARE, only to the degree that we are beyond mechanicalness. It is at all times in the nature of Man to become progressively mechanical as he lives his life - simply put, a rut naturally develops with repetition and the rut then promotes further repetition. This must happen, unless a person makes conscious effort to overcome this natural trend. But in a mechanically- oriented and structured society, ie a technological one, this tendency is far more pronounced and difficult to resist. Because the whole structure around one, including above all the people, operates on a mechanical basis. Your summary of Heidegger's theories thus resonates with me, but it seems to me that there is fundamental difference between a philosopher and somone representing an ancient system of self-development. Whereas Heidegger may have understood that self-forgetting is the problem, he does not, as far as I know, present a solution. Gurdjieff on the other hand does - how to "self-remember" is the most fundamental exercise in his system. And he says that it is not a uniquely modern, technologically- based problem, though it may be exacerbated today by technology. Ernst Juenger is to me a special case in that he seems to provide guidance, not in the explicit way of a Gurdjieff but implicitly. For what I know, Juenger didn't belong to any esoteric schools - although, by the nature of true esotericism, this can by no means be ruled out simply because he nevers mentions it. Perhaps the difference I sense has to do simply with a higher level of being. Which aligns in turn with Juenger's level of involvement with real life, successful involvement moreover. In comparison with Nietzche, Heidegger etc, Juenger was able to engage with life at the same level and in a manner entirely consistent with his intellectual creation. Heidegger, Nietzsche, etc may have been brilliant thinkers and diagnosticians of the spirit of the times. But in my experience none of them offered solutions to the challenges of the states they were able to describe. Heidegger and Nietzsche (like so many other brilliant thinkers and artists) had problems, each in their own ways, engaging succesfully with real life. In the end, this is why I respect EJ so much more - he is much more than a philosopher. Forgive all the digressions. ...! Looking forward to an explanation of Heidegger's technology vs Being concept :-) Simon http://ernst- juenger.blogspot .com Von: klaus gauger <klaus_gauger@ yahoo.com> An: juenger_org@ yahoogroups. de Gesendet: Freitag, den 23. Oktober 2009, 15:11:10 Uhr Betreff: AW: AW: [juenger_org] Re-publication of The Failure of Technology Dear Simon, the difference between Jünger and Heidegger is this: Jünger was mainly an exact observer, not a philosopher. His observations of modern world and especially the modern war all merge into the figure of the "worker", which is the coming "Gestalt" of the 20th and 21th century. Heidegger was no brilliant observer, but a philosopher. His interest in modern technology is connected with the fundamental question of being (Seinsfrage) which he started to develop in his fundamental book "Being and Time" (Sein und Zeit). Heidegger asks himself, how a genuine, real "being" is possible in a modern technological society. Modern technology himself is for Heidegger the practical and concrete outcome of the western metaphysics that started in ancient Greece 3000 years ago. Heidegger read Jüngers "The worker" and his conclusion was: The present technological age with his coming "Gestalt", the worker, is the culmination of the total "Seinsvergessenheit " (total oblivion of being). In his lectures about Nietzsche he talks about the "european nihilism" and "the will to power" (Wille zur Macht") that is the driving force behing the european nihilism that uses technology as his main instrument for his unlimited will to power (This is a precise philosophical description of the figure of the worker of Ernst Jünger, and Heidegger understood this figure and the book "The Worker" quite well). The "Gestell" (which is the sum of all technological instruments and installations in our society) makes a genuine, real "being" in our world absolutely impossible. So modern technology makes a real, genuine being impossible. Heidegger says that modern man has to overcome the present technological stage and has to overcome the instrumental thinking (Horkheimer/ Adorno) which started with the subjectivism of Descartes and modern rationalism and Heidegger says that we have to develop a new way of thinking. He gives the following example: There are several ways to see a river (like the Rhine in Germany, our biggest river). If we see it in a rational way, as a mean of transportation for boats, as a mean for irrigation for the fields, as a mean to produce electricity (for powerplants driven by water), etc. we perceive the Rhine only as an instrument for our technological and comercial goals. What we need is a new way of thinking where we see nature not only as a mean for our comercial and instrumental goals, as a big reserve that we can exploite freely and without mercy. We need a thinking where we see nature and the objects of nature as a value in itself, not only as a value in relation to our comercial and instrumental interests. As you can see, Heidegger said in more philosophical words more or less the same things as Friedrich Georg Jünger in his "failure of technology". And Ernst Jüngers "The worker" is the platform, the diagnosis from where the ideas of F.G. Jünger and also Heidegger started. Yours, Klaus --- Simon Friedrich <simonfriedrich@ yahoo.de> schrieb am Fr, 23.10.2009: Von: Simon Friedrich <simonfriedrich@ yahoo.de> Betreff: AW: AW: [juenger_org] Re-publication of The Failure of Technology An: juenger_org@ yahoogroups. de Datum: Freitag, 23. Oktober 2009, 11:30 Well done, Klaus. The more prominent is not necessarily therefore the leader. Simon http://ernst- juenger.blogspot .com Von: klaus gauger <klaus_gauger@ yahoo.com> An: juenger_org@ yahoogroups. de Gesendet: Freitag, den 23. Oktober 2009, 11:22:28 Uhr Betreff: AW: [juenger_org] Re-publication of The Failure of Technology Dear Greg, it´s just the opposite way how it happened: Heidegger was influenced deeply by Ernst Jünger and maybe also by his brother Friedrich Georg. Heidegger read "The worker" in the thirties and was impressed by this book. The anotations and comments Heidegger made to "the worker" are published now (http://www.perlenta ucher.de/ buch/20065. html). I wrote myself a longer essay about Jünger and the question of technology that is online in the WWW: http://www.lammla. de/domains/ arnshaugk/ diktynna/ ej_technikkritik .pdf Yours, Klaus --- Gregory Whitfield <gregd...@yahoo. com> schrieb am Fr, 23.10.2009: Von: Gregory Whitfield <gregd...@yahoo. com> Betreff: [juenger_org] Re-publication of The Failure of Technology An: juenger_org@ yahoogroups. de Datum: Freitag, 23. Oktober 2009, 8:14 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.
