History’s Fool: The long century of Ernst Jünger

https://harpers.org/archive/2023/03/historys-fool-ernst-junger/

by apollinaire • 3 years ago

42 17 3 years ago

rwnbgc• 3 years ago

A rather good article, even though it dwells a little too long on WW1, and not enough on the psychedelic sci-fi of his later years. My favorite is Eumeswil,with Heliopolis a close second.

DeathArrow3• 3 years ago

But the part about first war explains the path Junger turned to later.

oska• 3 years ago

I felt several times that I remembered lines from this piece as I was reading it but after finishing it I looked at the url and saw that it has only recently been published

richardjdare• 3 years ago

There was another Jünger piece[0] on HN a few months ago. It was written by Jessi Jezewska Stevens who wrote the foreword to the new edition of "On the Marble Cliffs" discussed in today's article. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34024219

DeathArrow3• 3 years ago

Sometimes it pays off to be a fool and ignore the politics and the realities of the world you live in.

hutzlibu4• 3 years ago

Especially when you think the Nazis were not radical enough and despise democracy. Then you are surely better of ignoring all politics.

“I hate democracy as I do the plague"

"He disapproved of the Nazis not because they were radical but because they were not radical enough"

(Even though that is a debatable conclusion from the article)

DeathArrow3• 3 years ago

I read this in a different key.

Especially when you think the Nazis were not radical enough and despise democracy.

More likely he didn't trust democracy and by being radical he thought about taking the power instead of using the democracy and its institutions like elections, like the nazis were doing at that time.

He despised the nazis for killing jews and mistreating russian war prisoners. His son was sent in a suicidal mission and died because he said Germany should lose the war.

He clearly disliked the bourgeoisie and capital owners and he envisioned a different world, more like in ancient Sparta where avery many should be a hero - like he tried to be in WWI. That's why the article made references to Iliad.

He clearly sees more order in the natural world than in the world in which he lived. He wanted to see the same kind of order and reasoning in the world surrounding him, but the world surrounding him was much more absurd.

At first he was trying to change the world in a quite donquijotesque manner. Realising he can't change the world and there aren't many people with his vision and wanting to rally in that mission, he stepped out and observed the world from his refuge with the clinical interest of an enthomologist.

Later, he derived pleasure from building imaginary worlds.

tourgen• 3 years ago

Democracy is mob rule. Democracy is one of the worst political systems ever conceived of. The men that built the USA knew this and did all they could to protect against it. Unfortunately it did not last and here we are: people with no vested interest in the system making decisions.

mif• 3 years ago

The English translation of his famous book “Storms of Steel” doesn’t carry the same weight as the original German title “In Stahlgewittern”. (German compound words are the best).

Thinking about it it made me realize what a stark contrast that title is compared to “All Quiet on the Western Front” (by Erich Maria Remarque). And both authors talk about the same WW I.

svara• 3 years ago

I found it fascinating to read those two books back-to-back. Really explained a lot to me about the mindset of people at the time. Importantly, he was an officer, while Remarque describes the experience of a "small man".

RalfWausE• 3 years ago

And more importantly: He (Ernst Jünger) was regarding to his biography a special kind of personality, even before his time in WWI he joined the french foreign legion as a means "to see Africa". So, lets just say he had a bit more life experience than Remarque at the beginning of the war.

selimthegrim• 3 years ago

Usually translation has the title in singular, no?

History’s Fool: The long century of Ernst Jünger

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