Gary Kern wrote: Wait a minute! There are two different concepts here:
1. A person's life is complete, no matter how or at what age he dies. 2. No one dies before his work is done. The first is the idea that EJ has been arguing in DIE SCHERE. I strongly disagree with it, but understand how one could interpret life this way. The second may have been expressed in DIE SCHERE, but if so, I missed it. In any event, I reject it even more strenuously than the first. Thomas Friese writes: Despite your clear examples, I fail to see the intrinsic incompatibility of these two statements (and indeed of your examples). Mozart dies when his allotted work is done - not before, not after. Who are we to judge what was allotted to his life, to make an external judgement on what constitutes a "full" life in each individual case? In fact the only person who could ever judge would be the subject himself. The anarch has this orientation to justification of a life - "no judge above me", not gods or other men! A tragic perspective on life would reconcile the above two ideas - a life is imperfect and full of unfulfilled potential even when it perfectly conforms to its plan - as Junger would put it, the fault lies in the initial imperfection of Creation. What is "preposterous" is not the second idea but the act of speculating on "what if" with anything more than intellectual play in mind. Replay Mozart's last years with just a few changes and so much else in others' lives would also change - right up to you and I and to the future even. To some degree, Venator can do this with the Luminar, however all that he reaps is a deeper understanding of the tragic nature of history. I am also curious: if you start to play the game of "what if", where do you draw the line? Put in your own terms, would the creative forces of Mozart et al ever be exhausted? If not, then their deaths, even after a millenium, would remain tragic... So you would argue for degrees of tragedy then? Example: Mozart dies in his prime, failing to complete his Requiem. Süssmeyer completes it for him, and does a good job. Mozart achieves the status of the great youthful talent who achieved so much--his last two symphonies, written in haste, are his "mature" works, the culmination of a long string of symphonies. His Requiem, with its mysterious commission, becomes the stuff of legend. Old Salieri, who lived on, is set in opposition to the forever young and brilliant Mozart. That's the first concept. But can we also say: Mozart was finished. He had no more to say. His Requiem was left in just the right form--had he lived another month in remarkably good health and spirits (as sometimes happens with the dying) he could not have added another note. Had he lived 10 more years he would not have added to his output of great works, but would have spoiled his overall accomplishment. Yes, Mozart, Schubert, Salieri were done, they were finished as creative forces, then they died. This is the second idea, and it's preposterous. I think EJ had strong motives to try to find a meaning in the way people are cut off from a full life. He had seen too many people die, both when he was young and then over the long decades of his astonishingly long life. And so he tried to turn things around by the power of his mind. But human life really is cruel, great talents are cut off well before they are done, and to reverse that reality is a falsification of it. It is the nature of man to oppose nature. TKF: ... and to always fail ...? I truly believe that Junger would view a tragic perspective as the only salvation from the inescapable cruelty of life.
