> 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).
*******************************
GK:
The incompatibility is this: In the first case, Mozart (or anybody)
dies and we interpret that life in a way that makes that life complete.
We interpret his last symphonies as his last ("mature") symphonies, we
see the steps leading to his death and we find an overall concept for
his short life: he is the child prodigy, the genius for whom everything
was easy, the eternally youthful spirit.
In the second instance we say, prior to that interpretation,
conceptuaally even prior to his death, that his work was done. He was
already finished, he had already expressed himself to the full, his
death came only as an end to his life, not to his art, which was
complete prior to it. In other words, Mozart had gone as far as he
could go, had his say, done what he had to do.
The one is post factum, the other is (conceptually) a priori: that's
the incompatibility.
TF:
Sorry, but to me there is no fundamental incompatibility - these are two
different viewpoints on the same facts. The first case looks at the life
from a purely human perspective once the facts are in, whereas the second is
an attempt to see a life as it might have been planned in its Creator's mind
before its realization. Presumably this Creator also has budgets of some
mysterious kinds to balance - hence the incomplete expression of potential
genius. The expression might have been incomplete, but the life, given the
constraints that were applied a priori, is complete. Contrary to you, I find
the second viewpoint much stronger and more inspiring. I don't think it
leads neccessarily to passivity either. The individual, not knowing the
creator's plan, can only try his best and accept what turns out to be
outside the plan. As the cliche goes, you'll never know until you try...
********************************
TF:
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?
GK:
Who are we? We are human beings who feel pain when tragedy strikes, who
mourn a life cut off prematurely, who rage against the murderous and
indifferent blows of fate. If we take the view that no one dies before
his work is done and a person's life is complete no matter when he dies,
then there is no tragedy, the whole course of human history is reversed.
We become impartial, impersonal, inhuman grains of sand.
TF:
There is tragedy even when a life follows a perfectly predictable course of
events. Do we not say "a tragic destiny"? In other words, a predictable
"premature" end. I feel that tragedy in part stems from the fact that we are
humans thrust into an inhuman, impersonal world. And we cannot escape this
unfair fate - except through the transcendance that a tragic
viewpoint/experience confers.
Gk:
It is not presumptious of us to deem a person's work incomplete when he
is cut off in the full prime of his powers. Let us take a graphic
example. A lexicologist begins an encyclopedia of German etymology; he
projects a set of 10 volumes, A to Z. He is working on volume 3, letter
G, and has just penned a couple of sentences on the word "Gott" when he
runs out of coffee and decides to go out and get his favorite Kenya AA.
He crosses the street, remembers that he meant to put a note "See
Visigoth," and is struck dead by a MacDonald's hamburger truck. Is it
presumptuous to say that the young lexicologist, even given his fatal
passion for rich coffee, had not yet completed his work?
TF:
The lexicon was incomplete - his life was complete. Why judge a life purely
on the basis of its external creative output? Perhaps the whole thing was
already completed in his mind, as was Mozart's Requiem. Junger regularly
states that it is the moment of creation that is most valuable, whether or
not it translates into a book or gallery painting.
And what do you mean "allotted"? Biologically Mozart was allotted 60-70
years, but historically he lived only 35. Surely you don't mean that
God allotted him 35, and we should not judge God's plan. But if you do,
then I must say that I judge God's plan every day.
TK:
Indeed, I do mean the creator(s) of the life allotted him this period (I
prefer avoiding capital G God.).
**********************************
GK:
I agree entirely that the fault lies in the initial imperfection of
Creation. Do you remember Schopenhauer? He wrote that since God is
conceived as all-powerful, he could have arranged things better. Things
are not for the best. Schop advised us to consider the perspectives of
two animals, one of which is engaged in eating the other. It is man who
sees the flaw here.
If you accept proposition 2, then you cannot sustain a tragic view of
life. Everyone completes his work and dies in time. Where's the pity
there?
TF:
Because the whole bloody thing is tragic in its conception, in its
planning - it has a tragic destiny. Was it in Birth of Tragedy somewhere
that it is stated that if Men could understand what an awful destiny awaits
them, they would all commit immediate suicide. Only Apollo's beautiful
illusions save us.
************************************************************
TF:
> 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?
>
GK:
There is no "what if" about it, if we are talking about degrees of
certainty. If Mozart had not died, would he have lived to an older age?
Yes, of course. That's not "what if." Would he have gone on composing
and, as he aged, created wonderful works? There can be no doubt about
it. If the embryo is not aborted, will it become a human being? Yes, it
is teleologically predestined to be such. No "what if" about it. If a
little girl is not killed by a rapist, will she not grow into a woman
and lead a certain sort of life? If a poet is not sent to a Siberian
death camp, will he not write poetry? The "what if" factor is simply
the act of opposing "what happened," not the act of speculating on a
changed future.
*********************
GK: 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.
GK:
You can't say, "AND always to fail," because you haven't accepted the
preceding statement. If you accept the initial two propositions, taken
from EJ, then there is no opposition to nature, fate, God, but rather
total acceptance. A young man was blown apart in the trenches--it's OK,
his work was already done, his life was finished anyway. A mathematical
genius had a bad love affair and committed suicide--it's OK, he had
already thought up his best formulas, and somebody else will improve
upon them. A nation sent millions of "enemies of the people" to
concentration camps, radioactive death camps, firing squads--it's OK,
all of those millions had completed their "allotted" tasks, their work
was done, what followed did not affect the fullness of their lives.
No, I am not trying to politicize your position, but only to draw out
the consequences of it. That is why I think this discussion is so
important. Jünger's mental gymnastics are themselves a response to
tragedy, but they lead to total quietism. What is, is right. Any
dictator, gang banger or drunken driver can kill you, and we'll say, no
problem, his life was lived, his work was done, no need to get upset.
In this case, we will have been the losers too, because we will have
ceased to raise a human cry against tragedy. We will have deprived
ourselves of the right to judge, to have a critical view of life.
TF:
These are important questions and please don't think that my answers are as
clear and non-problematic in my head as they are on paper. But in response
to the type of events described above (we risk opening a previous
discussion if we make it specific!) what is the most human response? I have
to leave this now (more mundane studies call), but I will pursue it later.
Thanks for all the thought provoking material!
Thomas Friese
