Dear friends, dear list:Please kindly find attached and copied below an excerpt from a small monograph on Juenger that I've been working on for a number of years. Simon's post earlier today prompted the post--as our projects are similar. You might notice the date of the monograph stretches between 2004 and 2008. That is because in some ways, the book is perhaps my own Condor birdwatching station of intellectual retreat within the academic forest. Leon NiemoczynskiSouthern Illinois University Carbondale / 2008
THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF EUMESWIL: COLLECTED NOTES & EPIGRAMS OF AN EUMENIST LEON NIEMOCYZNSKI, Southern Illinois University Carbondale Ernst Jünger remains an underdeveloped point of study in the English-speaking literature. That is unfortunate considering his tremendous influence upon both the contemporary literary and philosophical worlds. Jünger’s mastery over language is prosed in a highly polished, elegant and refined style that transgresses all boundaries and all identifications. His work is close to literary realism and modernism, but also close to philosophical postmodernism, existentialism, and hermeneutic phenomenology. Thus, Jünger might be viewed as a simultaneously modern and postmodern writer, a realist and surrealist, a warrior and philosophical hermeneut, just because his work encompasses yet exceeds all boundaries and definition in an astoundingly wide and daring literary philosophical vision. On reading Jünger’s writing, for example, Bruce Chatwin wrote it was as if one was viewing “the prose equivalent of an art noveau object in glass.” Such is the case more notably in Jünger’s aphoristically and highly stylized fiction: elegant and refined concrete descriptions suddenly burst forth with philosophical insight; as if from the sun, drawing the reader just beyond the surface, voyaging in luminous space straight to the depths of the universe. Encased in a luminous glass box glares a well-crafted and illusory modern artwork ala trans-moderne. Yet, what of Jünger for the English-speaking world?—there is little, he is simply unknown to the Anglo-American reader. There exist only a handful of translated works and a few mentions of his name, and Jünger’s arguably most important philosophical treatise, The Worker: Domination and Form (1932) has not within English speaking circles of study seen the light of day. By and all, what does this mean for the English-speaking reader? Quite simply that the wartime memoirist of Storm of Steel and On the Marble Cliffs (1939) overshadows the postmodern philosopher whom represents the more significant philosophical and literary works produced during the later half of the twentieth-century, and given even that literary output aside, the bulk of Jüngerian writing remains hidden, untranslated, overlooked. For the particular study of this short book, I have deliberately chosen selections of aphoristically styled excerpts from Jünger’s literature translated into English; because such might be a friendly existing point of entrance for the English speaking reader so as to attain access to Jünger’s philosophy. Jünger’s philosophy, afterall, is what makes reading him so fascinating, and he often ruminated philosophically through his stories and personal journals. It is tragic that his philosophy is mostly unknown—and entrance into it particularly marred by controversial political affiliations. Yet, some have still managed to indirectly encounter Jünger in the world of philosophy, and not in politics, through reading the work of his close colleague, Martin Heidegger (1889-1977.) Incidentally, Heidegger delivered an entire lecture course dedicated to the study of Jünger’s most important early philosophical work, The Worker, now available as part of Heidegger’s Gesamtausgabe as Bd. 90, as Zu Ernst Jünger (2004.) Ernst Jünger appears frequently in the work of Heidegger, and some mention of Jünger is found in Heidegger’s translated writings: consider for example the excerpt written by Heidegger on ‘total mobilization’ in Contributions to Philosophy: From Enowning (1936/38, respectively), not a small account by Heidegger’s means—as the Contributions is widely regarded as Heidegger’s second most important work after Being and Time (1927.) Jünger again appears in Heidegger’s follow up to the Contributions, namely a text translated as Mindfulness (1937/38.) And, Heidegger did discuss frequently the concept of nihilism and its relationship toward culture, technology and science with Jünger. Such is noted by Heidegger’s letter and essay to Jünger, entitled “On the Question of Being” (1955) found in the Pathmarks collection, edited by William McNeil. With some searching, one does find that commentators have at least acknowledged the presence of Jünger while meditating on Heidegger, although such acknowledgement is in paucity. Two prime examples are: David Farell Krell, in his analysis of Heidegger’s Nietzsche lectures, and Rudiger Sanfranski, in his biography Martin Heidegger: Between Good and Evil—both authors unearthing detail about the Heidegger and Jünger reading circle during the winter semester of 1934. It could be argued Jünger was a major influence on Heidegger’s thinking about Nietzsche, and that he exceptionally influenced Heidegger’s thinking concerning the will-to-power as it was translated as a technological type of nihilism. Heidegger scholars only mention Jünger in passing on these points, however, but Heideggereans such as Michael Zimmerman and Theodore Kisiel both have been known to nod their head on occasion in recognition of Jünger’s impact upon Heidegger. Finally, and I believe such to be true agreeing with Nietzsche, Heidegger / Jünger scholar Javier Ibänez-Noè (a contemporary English speaking philosopher who wrote his dissertation on Jünger), that a reading of Heidegger is incomplete until one has thoroughly read Jünger as well. As I have argued elsewhere, Jünger’s importance for Heidegger is key and essential. Additionally, it is my view Jünger remains influential for not only Heidegger, but for much of the contemporary philosophical landscape—including postmodernism in many of its current streams. For example, Kevin Södergren and I have placed the French postmodernist Michel Foucault (1926-1984) next to Jünger, claiming that both represent a unique vision about how one might survive and augment power as individuality within a totalizing world. We have attempted to do as much as possible to bring about an understanding of Ernst Jünger’s importance and vitality, and to this day Jünger is still the subject of my personal study, as well as the primary subject for papers and items submitted for publication. In a positive sense, the aim of this study is to transform the tragic neglect of Jüngerian writing and philosophy into an inviting entrance point for the English reader: specifically through the already translated literary works of The Glass Bees (1950), Eumeswil (1977) and Aladdin’s Problem (1984.) I will also include some select quotes from the translated into English essays “Fire” (1922), “On Danger” (1931), “Total Mobilization” (1932), and brief quotes from The Worker (1932) as only small segments of that book have so far been published in anthologies. All of these select quotes will be compared to their original German, and I will insert philosophical summary after pertinent quotes. The above mentioned quintessential works represent through existential-phenomenological-fictional literature Jünger’s philosophy in its most accessible form, for those who are ready to enter into it either out of the spirit of “play”—or perhaps from spiritual necessity. A much needed introduction, then, to the thinking of Ernst Jünger should be paramount through commentary about selections from his major translated works, and several smaller surrounding essays. Hopefully by assembling various excerpts grouped by Jünger’s-what I entitle- “transmodern” concerns, i.e.; writing, time, language, metaphysics, history, phenomenology and so on; it may be possible to light in English-speaking readers an interest that may provoke all the curiosity, appreciation and inclusion for the writing of Ernst Jünger that is much deserved. -Leon Niemoczynski, Pennsylvania/Illinois 2004-2008. 1 Survival in the Postmodern Age from Eumeswil … Translated by Joachim Neusgroschel. New York: Marsilio, 1993. Commentary by Leon Niemoczynski, Southern Illinois University THE TEACHERS 1. Form and Function “The loss of perfection can be felt only if perfection exists.” (p. 21) 2. Form and Function “….The only things that are real are those that cannot be invented.” (p.26) 3. The Political “Whenever a highly cultured man has harmonized with the Zeitgeist, it has always been a happy fluke, a rare exception. Nowadays one had best stick with the ancient sage: To keep from falling victim to a thief, Conceal thy gold, thine absence, thy belief. This is practiced even by the rulers: they don the smocks-of-all-trades.” (p. 27) 4. History “In the analysis of history, two main perspectives crystallize, one of which is directed at men, the other at might. This also corresponds to a rhythm in politics. Monarchies, oligarchies, dictatorships, tyranny as opposed to democracies, republics, the okhlos as opposed to the collective. For insiders, needlesstosay, these antitheses are necessary yet also illusory; they are motives serving to wind up the clock of history. Only seldom does a Great Noon shine, making the antithesis dissolve in happiness.” (p. 28) 5. The Political “If everyone is moving, and in the same direction at that –whether right or left, whether up or down-the stationary person is in the way. He is taken as a reproach, and since people collide with him, they brand him as the offender.” (p. 30) 6. The Anarch “The vaguer the substratum on which he [anarch] moves, the stronger the expert. No more bonds, no more biases; the power rises from the base to the exponents. The man with the least amount of ethical and ethnic baggage is the matador of quick spins and chameleon-like transformations…. Beyond that and outside the arbitrary pro and con, he keeps a third possibility intact and in reserve: his own substance. He knows more than what he embodies and teaches, has other skills along with the ones for which he is paid. He keeps all that to himself; it is his property. It is set aside for his leisure, his soliloquies, his nights. At a propitious moment, he will put it into action, tear off his mask….But casually, every goal is a transition for him.” (p. 36, 37) 7. The Anarch “….Everyone is anarchic; this is precisely what is normal about us. Of course, the anarchic is hemmed in from the very first day by father and mother, by state and society. Those are prunings, tappings of the primordial strength, and nobody escapes them. One has to resign oneself. But the anarchic remains, at the very bottom, as a mystery, usually unknown even to its bearer. It can erupt from him as lava, can destroy him, liberate him. Distinctions must be drawn here: love is anarchic, marriage is not. The warrior is anarchic, the soldier is not. Manslaughter is anarchic, muder is not. Christ is anarchic, Saint Paul is not….Those are not antithesis, but degrees. The history of the world is moved by anarchy. In sum: the free human being is anarchic, the anarchist is not.” (p. 41) 8. The Anarch “The anarchist’s hazy idealism, his goodness without sympathy or else his sympathy without goodness, makes him serviceable in many ways and also useful for the police. He does sense a secret but can do more than sense it; the tremendous strength of the individual. It intoxicates him; he spends himself like a moth burning up in a flame….The doer has sold himself too cheaply. That is why he [the anarchist] usually achieves the opposite of what he intends….The positive counterpart of the anarchist is the anarch. The latter is not the adversary of the monarch but is his antipode, untouched by him, though also dangerous. He is not the opposite of the monarch, but his pendant. After all, the monarch wants to rule the many, nay, all people; the anarch, only himself. This gives him an attitude both objective and skeptical toward the powers that be….” (p. 42-43) 9. Form and Function “Ethics, instinct, and sheer kinetics dictate our actions. Our cells are composed of molecules and the latter of atoms.” (p. 44) 10. Technology “…Is technology the right word? Metatechnology would, no doubt, be more fitting. It applies to not the perfecting of means, but to their sudden transformation into a different quality. When a runner reaches his top speed, running turns into flying….Once, people got fed up with pure dynamics, and so technology declined in larger areas. This was matched on the other side by its plutonian concentration in the hands of a small, now autonomous personnel.” (p. 64) 11. The Anarch “Although an anarch, I am not anti-authoritarian. Quite the opposite: I need authority, although I do not believe in it.” (p. 67) 12. History “I consider it poor historical form to make fun of ancestral mistakes without respecting the eros that was linked to them. We are no less in bondage to the Zeitgeist; folly is handed down, we merely don a new cap.” (p. 70) 13. The Anarch “I sidestep, as I have said, any affection, any personal sympathy. As an anarch, I have to steer clear of such feelings. Working somewhere is unavoidable; in this respect, I behave like a condottiere who makes his energy available at a given moment, but, in his heart of hearts, remains uncommitted. Furthermore, as here in the night bar [place of employment], work is a part of my studies –the practical part.” (p. 73) 14. Language “There is a depth from which logic ascends into language…the kind that establishes the universe and that, by rising into the ramifications of the universe, constantly keeps reorienting it.” (p. 74) 15. Technology “Technology has a subsoil. Now, it is starting to feel queasy about itself. It is approaching the immediate realization of thoughts, as is achieved in dreams. Only a tiny step appears to be missing; this step could emerge from the dream itself as if from a mirror…Every desired place could be reached in the twinkling of an eye. Any world is drawn from the ether or, as at the luminar, from the catacombs.” (p. 81) 16. Language “The decay of language is not so much a disease as a symptom. The water of life is dwindling. Words have meaning still, but not sense. They are being replaced largely by numbers. Words are becoming incapable of producing poetry and ineffective in prayer. The crude enjoyments are supplanting the spiritual ones….Loss of history and decay of language are mutual determinants;…The assault on evolved language and on grammar, on script and signs, is part of the simplification that has gone down in history as cultural revolution. The first world-state casts its shadow.” (p. 84) 17. The Titans “Now and again, the earth shows its totem, that of the ancient Serpent, by casting off or pulling in its limbs. This explains the world-state, the atrophy of civilization, the dying-out of animals, the monocultures, the wastelands, the increase in earthquakes and plutonian eruptions, the return of the Titans –say, Atlas, who embodies unity, and Antaeus, the strength, and Prometheus, the cunning of the mother. The fall of the gods was tied to all that. They returned—they who had driven their father from his throne; that which had once been the diamond sickle that emasculated him was now reason and science. Bruno [Heidegger] pointed out the underworldly character of technology, its feeding on ore and fire, the plutonian glare of its landscapes.” (p. 87) 18. Authority “….I have nothing against authority, nor do I believe in it. Rather, I need authority, for I have a conception of greatness. That is why, although not without skepticism here too, I associate with the top rank.” (p. 90) ISOLATION AND SECURITY 19. Authority “I am an anarch—not because I despise authority, but because I need it. Likewise, I am not a nonbeliever, but a man who demands something worth believing in. On this point, I am like a bride in her chamber: she listens for the softest step.” (p. 97) 20. Time “At times I see them [relationships] as if I were walking through the streets of Pompeii before the eruption of Vesuvius. This is one of the historians delights and, even more, his sorrow. If we someone doing something for the last time, even just eating a piece of bread, this activity becomes wondrously profound. We participate in the transmutation of the ephemeral into the sacramental. We have inklings of eras during which such a sight was an everyday occurrence.” (p. 98) 21. The State “Gullibility is the norm; it is the credit on which states live: without it, even their most modest survival would be impossible.” (p. 103) 22. Music “”….Not only is technology changing, but so is the human ear. So even if a recording is perfect, we hear differently—aside from the fact that the best machine cannot replace an absent orchestra. To be sure: with that invention, jukeboxes began to invade music. This led to the first universal musical style and therewith to the generalizing and vulgarizing of folk tunes—an also, incidentally, to an arsenal of extremely hideous instruments.” (p. 108) 23. Work “My about-face is not as simple as it may look at first glance. For one thing, I have to succeed in treating my work as a game that I both play and watch….It presumes that one can scrutinize oneself from a certain distance like a chess figure—in a word, that one sees historical classification as more important than personal classification….The special trait making me an anarch is that I live in a world which I “ultimately” do not take seriously. This increases my freedom; I serve as a temporary volunteer.” (p. 111) 24. Professors at the University “Incidentally, I notice that our professors, trying to show off to their students, rant and rail against the state and against law and order, while expecting that same state to punctually pay their salaries, pensions, and family allowances, so that they value at least this kind of law and order. Make a fist with the left hand and open the right hand receptively—that is how one gets through life.” (p. 123, 124) 25. The Anarch “The anarch is a forest fleer, the partisans are a collective. I have observed their quarrels both as a historian and a contemporary….If I love freedom ‘above all else,’ the any commitment becomes a metaphor, a symbol. This touches on the difference between the forest fleer and the partisan: this distinction is not qualitative but essential to nature. The anarch is closer to Being. The partisan moves within the social or national party structure, the anarch outside it. Of course, the anarch cannot elude the party structure, since he lives in society.” (p. 136, 137) 26. Transcendence “The view that external things like rank, money, and honors bring happiness has frequently been criticizes, but it is not necessarily incorrect. After all, these things belong, as Aquinas would have it, among the ‘accidents.’ Accidens is the unessential, which includes the body. If one manages to separate essence from flesh, if one manages, that is, to gain distance from oneself, then one climbs the first step toward spiritual power….However, once the self has been successfully distanced, the essential can be brought back to the accidental. This process, resembling a vaccination with one’s own blood, is initially manifested as a reanimation of the body. The physiognomy takes on the kind of features seen in paintings by old masters….This also applies to objects; they were meaningful, now they gain a new sense. A new light shines on things, they glow….First we must forget what we have learned…They play has not yet begun; the musicians are tuning their instruments, there seems to be a stirring behind the curtain. In from of the mirror I practice the removal of my self. Its return, however; that is the problem.” (p. 140, 141) 27. The Flight to the Forest “The forest flight confirms the independence of the anarch, who is basically a forest fleer anywhere, any time, whether in the thicket in the metropolis, whether inside or outside society. One must distinguish not only between forest fleer and the partisan but also between the anarch and the criminal; the difference lies in the relationship to the law. The partisan wants to change the law, the criminal break it; the anarch wants neither. He is not for or against the law. While not acknowledging the law, he does try to recognize it like the laws of nature, and he adjusts accordingly….When it is hot, you doff your hat; in rain you open your umbrella; during an earthquake, you leave your house. Law and custom are becoming subjects of a new field of learning. The anarch endeavors to judge them ethnographically, historically, and also—I will probably come back to this—morally. The State, will be generally satisfied with him; it will scarcely notice him.” (p. 146) 28. The Waldergänger “The forest fleer and the partisans are not, as I have said, to be confused with each other; the partisan fights in society, the forest fleer alone. Nor, on the other hand, is the forest fleer to be confused with the anarch, although the two of them grow very similar for awhile and are barely to be distinguished in existential terms. The difference is that the forest fleer has been expelled from society, while the anarch has expelled society from himself. He is and remains his own master in all circumstances. When he decides to flee to the forest, his decision is less an issue of justice and conscious for him than a traffic accident. He changes camouflage; of course, his alien status is more obvious in the forest flight, thereby becoming the weaker form, though, perhaps indispensable.” (p. 147) 29. Servitude and Independence “For the anarch, things are not so simple, especially when he has a background in history. If he remains free of being ruled, whether by sovereigns or by society, this does not mean that he refuses to serve in any way. In general, he serves no worse than anyone else, and sometimes even better, if he likes the game. He only holds back from the pledge, the sacrifice, the ultimate devotion. These are issues with metaphysical integrity….By the same token, one does not chitchat with men who think there is plenty of room for improvement or who actually promise you a heaven on earth.” (p. 148) 30. The Great Encounter “The forest flight resembles the perfect crime in both its planning and its failures. Nothing is easier than opting for autonomy, nothing is harder than bringing it about. Man has forgotten how to stand for himself—on his own two feet, which grasp the ground directly. He does no like doing without helpers and accomplices. They introduce the first cracks into the system.” (p. 149) 31. The Anarch is not an anarchist “The anarch differs from the anarchist in that he has a profound sense of rules. Insofar as and to the extent that he observes them, he feels exempt from thinking. This is consistent with normal behavior: everyone who boards a train rolls over the bridges and through tunnels that engineers have devised for him and on which a hundred thousand hands have labored. Thos does not darken the passenger’s mood; settling in comfortably, he buries himself in his newspaper, has breakfast, or thinks about his business. Likewise the anarch—except that he always remains aware of the relationship, never losing sight of his main theme, freedom, that which also flies outside, past hill and dale. He can get away at any time, not just from the train but also from any demand made on him by state, society, or church, and also from existence. He is free to donate existence to Being, not for any pressing reasons, but just as he likes, whether out of exuberance or boredom.” (p. 154) 32. Freedom “So much for equality. Freedom is based on the expansion of that maxim: on the anarch’s awareness that he can kill himself. He carries this awareness around; it accompanies him like a shadow that he can conjure up. ‘A leap from the bridge will set me free.’….The anarch, as I have mentioned elsewhere, is the pendant to the monarch; he is as soverign as the monarch, and also freer since he does not have to rule. The hilltop bulwark is the chapel of my freedom, whether or not I enter it. It will serve as my stronghold when I change into a warring power and obtain my freedom against the demands of society—my exact courage against their exactions.” (p. 155) 33. Respectare “I began with the respect that the anarch shows toward the rules. Respectare as an intensive of respicere means: ‘to look back, think over, take into account.’ These are traffic laws. The anarchist resembles a pedestrian who refuses to acknowledge them and is promptly run down. Even a passport is disastrous for him.” (p. 156) NIGHT BAR NOTES 34. Perspectival Theory of Existence “I agree with my teacher Vigo that we succeed only in achieving more or less sharp-edged perspectives—lanes through the grown forest. Above all, we have to disregard the will, disregard partisanship. The true historian is more of an artist, especially a tragedian, than a man of science.” (p. 160) 34. The Vultures of the New World “Power is not entirely absorbed in politics; personal elements unavoidably seep in. This is the limit at which both tyrants and demagogues stoop to despotism. Mania forces its way in, out-stripping power and often verging on the comical. Despite his weak voice, Nero wanted to rank first even as a singer. Recently I watched his grotesque performance at the circus in Naples, where five thousand hippies were distributed in gangs across the tiers in order to applaud. Another, Commodus, who claimed to be a descendant of Hercules, personally killed wild beasts in the Colosseum and guzzled from a cudgel-shaped glass. Incidentally, I find this Commodus strange: the embodiment of the anarch manqué. I am not alluding to details reported by Lampridius—say, that he gathered noble-women in the palace, ordered them to strip naked, and then examined them like a buyer at a brothel. What was unusual was that he had this and others of his obscene exploits recorded in the government protocols. The anarch’s study of history of the caesars has more of a theoretical significance for him—it offers a sampling of how far rulers can go. In practice, self-discipline is the only kind of rule that suits the anarch. He, too, can kill anyone (this is deeply immured in the crypt of his consciousness) and, above all, extinguish himself if he finds himself inadequate.” (p. 186) 35. Myth and the Anarch “It is no coincidence that precisely when things started going downhill with the gods, politics gained its bliss-making character. There would be no reason for objecting to this, since the gods, too, were not exactly fair. But at least people saw temples instead of termite architecture. Bliss is drawing closer; it is no longer in the afterlife, it will come, though not momentarily, sooner or later in the here and now—in time….The anarch thinks more primitively; he refuses to give up any of his happiness. ‘Make thyself happy’ is his basic law. It is his response to the ‘Know thyself’ at the temple of Apollo in Delphi. These two maxims complement each other; we must know our happiness and our measure.” (p. 192) 36. Genius and the World of Appearance “Whatever never happened anywhere, That alone is true….Sometimes a moment of happiness disrupts history like a magic spell. Order subsists, with distinctions—and yet these move in a different way, from king to the kitchen boy to the convict who shows his chains….Genius is transmuted into visible harmony. This is its identity, its immediate link with the masterpiece that is the world. Genius dwells not in some afterlife but in our midst; anything is possible, now and here.” (p. 201) 37. Writing “A gloss on compulsory education: the anarch learns how to read and write if and when it pleases him. Many children are drawn to a book by innate curiosity. Charlemagne was still illiterate after many years of ruling his tremendous empire. Even when associating with scholars like Alcuin and Peter of Pisa, he had not gotten very far with writing; after all, he had more and better things to do….It is unlikely that Himer knew how to write; the letter inhibits free singing. At any rate, caution is indicated when a boat leaves the sea and glides unto the canals—the most dangerous thing of all is numbers. As a historian, I depend on the written word; as an anarch, I can do without it. Incidentally, people in the catacombs devised methods for making script superfluous; the luminous pencil is a sample of this development—but that is a different story.” (p. 201) 38. The Anarch “Compulsory schooling is essentially a means of curtailing natural strength and exploiting people. The same is true of military conscription, which is developed within the same context. The anarch rejects both of them—just like obligatory vaccination and insurance of all kinds. He has reservations when swearing an oath. He is not a deserter, but a conscientious objector. I owe that expression to an old poet whom I summoned to the luminar Gustav Sack…The anarch can kill anyone, and this is the basis of his self confidence, yet he kills only where and when he likes—in any case, far more seldom than the criminal, the chauffeur, or the sate. The archaic figure of the mercenary is more consistent with the anarch than is the conscript, who reports for his physical examination and is told to cough when the doctor grabs his scrotum…’Give me gold and I’ll defend your cause, but I can give you notice at any time.’ This may happen out of necessity, out of boredom, or because one likes a man and his cause. In any event, the anarch will reserve his decision when a demand is placed on him—even by his own family…If a weapon is forced on him, he becomes not more reliable but even more dangerous. The collective can shoot in only one direction, the anarch all around.” (p. 202) A DAY IN THE CASBAH 39. How to Live as an Anarch: Sleep “It is time I outlined my daily schedule to the extent that it is helpful to my narrative. I would do better to start with the night, for my day is merely its reflection…Late to bed, and late to rise; the day belongs to me….After I have stood behind the bar all night, it may already be light out, often close to noon, by the time I awaken—but I am still lying in the dark, for I sleep behind a thick curtain in the alcove. I then spend another quarter hour in bed before getting up. (p. 207) 40. The Anarch “…the anarch is again no different from anyone else. But he does not like to attach himself. He does not squander his best energies. He accepts no substitute for his gold. He knows his freedom, and also what it is worth its weight in. The equation balances when it is offered something credible. The result is ONE….There can be no doubt that gods have appeared, not only in ancient times but even late in history; they feasted with us and fought at our sides….The anarch lets all this be; he can bide his time. He has his ethos, but not morals. He recognizes lawfulness, but not law; he despises rules. Whenever ethos goes into shalts and shalt-nots, it is already corrupted. Still, it can harmonize with them, depending on location and circumstances, briefly or at length….One error of the anarchists is their belief that human nature is intrinsically good. They thereby castrate society, just as the theologians (‘God is goodness’) castrate the Good Lord. This is a Saturnian trait….Lawfulness must be sought in the atoms and even deeper, including our own atoms. From these depths, the ethical and aesthetic usually appears as ugly. The dangers increase in the ascent, as of a bridge across the chasm of hell. Never is the temptation to summon the gods more powerful and never is there greater merit in resisting it….moral arrogance is a prerequisite.” (p. 209) … _________________________________________________________________ Stay in touch when you're away with Windows Live Messenger. http://www.windowslive.com/messenger/overview.html?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_Refresh_messenger_052008
Juenger book.doc
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