Welcome to a space for the objective study of the life and works of Ernst Jünger, with a primary focus on his figure of the anarch as developed in his 1977 novel Eumeswil.
To avoid wasting anyone's time, let it be clear that this space is NOT for:
Clearly we are most interested in Ernst Jünger's mature works, though we take all of his work seriously. We do not necessarily agree with all his views; for there would be no point in making the effort to read his works if we did not make an equal effort to digest, understand, verify and integrate these conclusions into our own being - and discard what we cannot agree with or use. Ernst Jünger would have been satisfied with nothing less.
As an aid to aspiring anarchs, I will gradually compile a list of all quotes on the anarch from Eumeswil. Here, as an appetiser, is one that describes an excellent approach to profiting personally from everyday life and work in society.
To avoid wasting anyone's time, let it be clear that this space is NOT for:
- anarchists who have not grasped the essential gulf between their merely anti-establishment worldview and the more exalted freedom of an anarch. This opposition indeed defines the anarch and will be developed in future posts (see posts Anarch vs Anarchist)
- the fundamentally or radically politicised of the left or right. I refer to Jünger's misguided right-wing fanatics or left-wing critics, who, through a superficial reading or a second-hand knowledge of some early works believe they have found a figure useful in a positive or negative sense to support their essentially impotent political activism. We consider both these applications of his work abuses of its real value, particularly regarding the deeply apolitical works of the mature post-WWII Jünger.
Clearly we are most interested in Ernst Jünger's mature works, though we take all of his work seriously. We do not necessarily agree with all his views; for there would be no point in making the effort to read his works if we did not make an equal effort to digest, understand, verify and integrate these conclusions into our own being - and discard what we cannot agree with or use. Ernst Jünger would have been satisfied with nothing less.
As an aid to aspiring anarchs, I will gradually compile a list of all quotes on the anarch from Eumeswil. Here, as an appetiser, is one that describes an excellent approach to profiting personally from everyday life and work in society.
"The days in the Casbah are fairly uniform. I can barely distinguish between work and leisure. I like them equally. This is consistent with my principle that there can be no empty time, no minute without intellectual tension and alertness. If a man succeeds in playing life as a game, he will find honey in nettles and hemlock; he will even enjoy adversity and peril.
What causes the feeling of being constantly on vacation? Probably the fact that the mental person liberates the physical one and observes his game. Far from any hierarchy, he enjoys the harmony of rest and motion, of invulnerability and extreme sensitivity."
