What did Ernst Jünger mean by this

Okay, I've read this now. It's not really about the apocalyptic aspects of the war, or really even its meaning. Its about the German position, in particular the dominion of the military once the war is finished.This is a journal entry nearing the end of the book, he has been reading Machiavelli and contemplating the strengthened force of military power through civil war. This transitions into comments on the recent mutinies, which he regards as bestial reactions for supplies rather than any genuine revolt. There is something much greater at hand than conflict within the military, and the 'spiritual and literary' support must be cut out immediately (I assume this is the stab in the back and the reference to various communist and democratic groups working alongside the mutiny to turn it into an insurrection, the only direct reference is Wilhelmshaven).What is significant in this is an end to tolerance, opposed countries want to see Germany destroyed, and there is even a hint that this is Europe turning against its own ideals and laws - barbarism may even be necessary to ensure German survival. 'Toleration has become a negative quality' and what is required is the weight of force, great conviction and fanaticism of the pre-Enlightenment feeling. This is separate from what Neaman has quoted, which actually reads uncapitalised: "The day of enlightenment is over. The war completed its downfall and throws us back of necessity upon feeling." I would take this latter translation as correct as he then says, "What may we not become..." if Germans secure dominion. This is a decisive moment of force and power for the German spirit, and what must be secured is what already exists as form. The freedom of Germans is secured through a negative, defending a force which will become an exception of what is tolerated in law. Opposed to liberal law one can see this as an elevation to justice whereas the liberal expects that justice can be enclosed through law. These are conflicting ideas of territory, sovereignty, and dominion which cannot be reconciled, a totality of the German state which would strengthen Europe around it rather than a unification where all nations are formalised into a mass at the cost of their force as a race.

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He then goes on to suggest a 'frenzy of Folk and Fatherland,' that it is not possible to be nationalistic enough, and how the state is subordinate to the necessity of the German people whose birthright is the boundary before which it must situate its architecture. The military will fall in revolt for such a formation, and for no other reason.There is then an incredible tone shift, considering the men returning home without fulfilling their aims, yet how they will not fall into the Romantic Revival which followed the men of 1813. These are different men, hardened by four years in the trenches, like hermits and beasts who will brutalize ideas, dig into them like a counterattack position. A dangerous brood who will meet decisions before them with a similar weight of action, thus increasing potential for reaping the rewards of any victory but also, and greatly, the risk of being carried off in a storm. These are men, professional soldiers, whose proximity to the enemy created something of a nihilism of reveling along the line of death, where neither outcome had any meaning.Yet a dishonourable loss would be even worse than this, soldiers who sacrificed four years of their life could never come to accept this. Enthusiasm and a fight for Germany which leaves material and class warfare behind is the only course of action possible, a rough and dangerous guarding of its ideals. A civil war is already forming at the level of political theology.

It is an intriguing edit considering the value in these paragraphs, and an incredible bit of writing if it was a single journal entry. Something that long only comes in great moments of inspiration, so it must have been difficult to remove. I would say there are three possibilities: he felt his position was too close to that of Lebensraum and the brutality of the NSDAP in the second war; his remarks on the nation and state were too close to the idea of liberalism and bourgeois mobilisation; or he felt that this writing could be misconstrued as being aligned with the knife-in-the-back conspiracy, and did not want the military to be caught up in any defacing. I would say the latter is the most likely of the three. (I don't know how much editing there is in the Collected Works version, but a quick look suggests that the entire section was removed, or parts of it moved somewhere else, I haven't read either yet though so I can't confirm. If anyone has the original German version I would be interested in seeing it.)As a final note, the section is an interesting counterpoint to The Peace and its total abandonment by Europe. Now all of Western people will have to become acquainted with the impossible weight which the German soldiers endured. This has been on my mind for some time, and reading this has clarified many things, so thanks to whoever posted this and got me reading it. I will have to get to reading the rest soon.

(No idea why the spacing disappeared for these posts. Copied from email and it generally works for me.)

How do you make heads or tails of Jünger when he constantly revised and contradicted himself?

Formatted and reposted here if anyone wants an easier read.
mandalietmandaliet.blogspot.com/2019/09/fragmentscorrespondance-ernst-junger.html
He didn't.

You don't. He's a boot that fits many feet.

Not at all. He's very clear, even if hard to grasp by the modern mind.
Definitely not a bowling shoe.

Just look at what he did to storm of steel over his lifetime. Stop fanboying this hard

yet progress continued
seems your refutation is refuted

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I love Jünger, but to claim he doesn't change course from his national revolutionary period in the 20s and early 30s over Strahlungen down to the federal republican writings is foolish. His thinking evolves and so do his books.

What did he do and how does that suggest that he he shifted his perspective?
But that's probably a pointless question, because we've been over this before haven't we. You say that he betrayed his original nationalism, and I say this never existed (at least not in the way you imagine it) and that he was entirely consistent with his overall worldview and spirit. The minor shifts and changes only serve to heighten the pillars which were always his main focus.

This is clear in what is being discussed in this thread (unless these are fictitious journal entries, I don't think so but perhaps someone can clarify), his position in 1918 is very similar to that in the 40s: dominion, justice, German spirit, man as a race, The specifics and situation perhaps changed but the purpose behind what his search for truth and action intended to capture were completely the same (or at least very close, simply adding detail and age to a statue the began in his youth). This is what you, and most people, do not get, there is a deep between modern thought and the classical and what made Junger special was his ability to think as an ancient in modern times. These are not concepts, dissections for display, or critiques for the beautification of modernity, they are a vital force of how to live in this age and act decisively within political theology. It is a militaristic philosophy of action attempting to carve out a territory of human will (and certainly not action or practise in the Marxist sense, but something much deeper).

His concern was with essence, and similar to Plato's 'All I know is that I know nothing' such a position Only the modern mind perceives the world, and itself, as a concept to be extracted and reformed by an instrument, leaving behind some temporary residue as truth is amassed into a universal (somehow from all this waste). It's a strange position, demanding certainty but with the ambivalence that it will be tossed into the swamp immediately.

Also keep in mind what I wrote above, there is possibly an honourable reason for his edits. I think his reasoning was different for Storm of Steel, but have you made any counterargument? I was generous in telling you before exactly how you could go about proving me wrong, have you started that project yet? (Specifically, going through the edits of the nationalistic and final version of SoS and showing how the typus of the soldier in the First World War made a better and more clear monument in the earlier edit than the later. And also showing what you claim was his betrayal of Germany, or at least his early nationalism, and self-censorship.) Perhaps you could do this before you resort to namecalling.

implying the improvement of living standards can be classed under the enlightenment concept of big-p Progress

Not what I said.
The opposing arguments are that Junger cannot be made heads or tails of.
That he is a bowling shoe.
I am saying that he was never primarily a nationalist, that the few of you spamming the internet with this shit are overblowing the importance of this very short period (as demonstrated in previous arguments and the autistic astroturfing which relies entirely upon misrepresenting Junger's character to begin with). This was a few years in the life of a man who lived for 102 years and produced perhaps 40 times that of what he wrote in that short period.
In this entire period there is an overarching theme of carving out the figure of man in the modern world so that dominion may be established. Any shifts are specifically to clarify this figure, they have nothing to do with self-censorship or a slippery ideology. This is a nonsense position which only shows a total misunderstanding of Junger's character, if he were so easily malleable he would not have been the man he was.
Now, there is a huge divide between these two positions and I doubt anyone with a cursory understanding of Junger would suggest that your position is closer to the truth than mine.

The onus is on you to prove your claim but you want to resort to dirty tricks and manipulation rather than taking the honourable route. A bit strange for 'big fans of Junger.'
I will also point out the hypocrisy in your position, you want the nationalist idea to be dominant yet here you are resorting to subversive tactics of democracy and equality. This is precisely the sort of thing that Junger stood against.

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I do not want the nationalist ideas to be dominant, you might have mistaken me for another poster. My point is not that Jünger was malleable as a person, but rather that his broad range of subjects, genres and topics in the books have something for every taste, even though he remains himself at all times. I get the feeling that you wanted to deliberately misunderstand me to get all worked up here.

Not that guy you replied to but yes he did - he changed alot. I have been reading alot of younger latley and one thing that annoys me is how he depicts heroism - technology in relation to world war 1. Let me explaion by a long post

Now is heroism possible in world war 1? And does the German fighting spirit live on in world war 1 ? The concern is that technology ruins the possibility for heroism and chivalry. I just started reading his other book “Copse 125”. In this Jünger claims that the heroism and fighting spirit is living on - in spite of technology. Yes , chivalry is dead - but the fighting spirit lives on. And in this this book technology is viewd in a positive light- technology creates a new and stronger race. Let me quote from Jünger himself.

-“Never did a man go to battle as you do, on strange machines like birds of steel, behind walls of fire and clouds of deadly gas. No troop of horse and no Viking ship was ever on so bold a journey. The earth yawns before your assault. Fire, poison, and iron monsters go in front of you”. Page 8, Copse 125

"For they who can come through this- and i say, there can only be few-what can there be that they could not come through?". Page 21, Copse 125

By reading Storm of Steel and Copse 125 i would draw the conclution that Junger does, that the fighting spirit lives on, and that heroism is possible in spite of technology. However my problem would be that But Jünger himself seems to have a reversal from this view in later life. Not only did he retract for his technology optimism in “The Glass Bees”, but in his own words heroism is dead in “modern war” When did he say this you might ask, in an interview on youtube.

In the youtube video titled "102 Years in the Heart of Europe: A Portrait of Ernst Jünger" at 40:45 Junger has this to say about modern war: "The war has disappointed me. The modern war..It doesn't live up to it's literary model. For example, there are no horses anymore. It's like being on a giant motorway, isn't it? It has nothing to do with genuine heroism. Chivalry in was has disappeared.". Now given the context he might be talking about world war 2 here, i'm not so sure what to make of it. There might be a lot to unpack here..

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So how does that amount to him constantly contradicting himself? You're just posting obvious banalities. Discussing a variety of subjects does not mean that one's core philosophy has changed. Plato similarly discussed a wide variety of topics and is generally misunderstood, yet even those who misunderstand him agree that he had a core philosophy.
Your original post agreed with the other poster that Junger cannot be grasped. As well, Junger really isn't for everyone. The book the OP posted was saying how even people around him generally did not get what he was saying and disliked it, people here disagree severely over his ideas, he is often considered boring, or simple, or overwrought, even on topics people enjoy they often are put off by his strange form and perspective, and the difficult to grasp political position outside of modern standards confuses people. Nor is he even widely read.
Stop being disingenuous.

>This has been on my mind for some time, and reading this has clarified many things, so thanks to whoever posted this and got me reading it

No problem man, glad it got you going! An interesting read. The Peace is an interesting book, i have not read it. I heard he wants to united europe in it, to create an empire. "Europe can become a fatherland, yet many homelands will remain within its territories".

In the book im not sure if he argues for an end to nation states in favor of a pre enlightenment type of europe. Where people would not be proud of their nation, but the region they are from. In Storm of Steel you can even sence his liking for reigons, as well as in Copse 125. He often talks of individuals not by calling them "german" - but by referring to the region they are born - "this lower saxon ...". I personally love when he does that, he often includes a stereotype of that place and the connection to the person he is talking about. It would be interesting to know. So far i only have the internet and reviews to go after. A revied on amazon said this to the book when describing the book. "Diversity without liberalism, Europe a single empire, the world divided by several empires. And religion guiding all... - It is the medieval plus technology!"

>hierarchy was done with after ww1

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You are right. In retrospect my initial post was poorly written because I warped the one it was responding to into something I wanted to answer and not the thing I answered.

I dont get this picture senpai

Fair enough, it happens.

He predicted the rise of post-modernism, modernism was too scientific which only leads us to two world wars and millions of death for some empiracal sytems.

I agree with you that given all his years and the wide variety of subjects it can look like he didnt change. but i often get the sense that he did. see

>he is often considered boring, or simple, or overwrought
is he really?

Strangely enough, yes. These are common criticisms here, even from people who agree generally with traditionalism. And some of the reviews of the WWII diaries are critical for these contradictory reasons.

I appreciate your effort in a real reply, pulling quotes, etc. However, you misunderstood the main problem, change does not necessarily mean that one's core philosophy has shifted, nor that it is beyond grasp. Even contradiction does not imply this, it is a reality, something in life we must grasp with - and he included this paradoxical relation to life and being in the world in his ideas, as almost all great philosophers do.

WWI was incredibly complex, a huge shift occurred in so many aspects of society. It was, in many ways, a contradiction as it did retain heroism in some areas while destroying it in others. But being able to even recognise such subtlety at the time, let alone describe it, was nearly impossible (I've posted a poem in these discussions before that does it well). In a sense it can be said that heroism died and was reborn, or that it had to be represented in keeping with the figure of this changing world.

However, neither of your Copse quotes say anything about heroism directly (they do not prove your claim that he says heroism lives on), nor was he ever technologically negative. Perhaps you are not grasping the subtlety in what he is trying to say, the difference is akin to that of beauty and the sublime, the machines are awe-inspiring, horrific, and humanity itself is dragged into the muck by its relentless claim to a universalising territory. The soldier-worker is not destroyed by technology, rather it is technology which is employed by the soldier-worker to secure the means of this new battlefield obsolescence, the rate of destruction of material, is effectively deployed by technology and the worker-soldier's ability to mobilise this destructive capacity is precisely what allows him to rise from it as a new being. A new race of men deploys this technology in its becoming. It is not an anti-technology perspective at any point, nor is it the Heideggarian concept of technology, if you are trying to conceive of it in these terms then you are mistaken.

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Nor does he ever become anti-technology. Again, Junger is not speaking in terms of critique, concepts, or modern dialectic. He is not a reductionist simply because you view the world as a reductionist (no offense intended here, it's just how most people view the world today whether or not they realise it). He says that these individual categories, examples, and analogies must be seen as a viewing device (the irony that one has to explain what a metaphor is today is quite telling of the age), as binoculars allowing us to focus in on a given territory from a particular perspective, but this reorientation of perspective itself is not meant to serve as the entire view but rather a means through which we can approach the territory. Later, he will describe this as latticework, that prose must be viewed through it - meaning that each piece lays out the structure as well as the pattern bit by bit forming an image of what is not really there. What is laid out forms the possibility of the hidden to be outlined/ (I just read this and even some of his friends did not quite get his meaning. I would even say that such a method is the intention in good writing, what is revealed is taken away, it pulses or forms a moving image, contradiction often does this when done right and it gives the writing a living quality like music.)
In other words, it is a more intricate idea of 'you can't see the forest for the trees.' This is what you and others are doing here when you get bogged down with minor changes in a thinker's methods or philosophy. It is like walking into a sharp branch and cursing the entire forest, or getting hung up on a knot in the latticework before even considering the outline formed by the entire structure. In a sense, it is a product of liberal/bourgeois thought which is overly concerned with technical precision and the reproduction of images until they form a universal.

But let us get into the main discussion here. I will repeat my argument that his fundamental philosophical question is that of the form of the modern man as well as the type of dominion he brings forth. And just as a clarification, one can define dominion as a rising of political theology within a given territory and the manner in which its power/sovereignty is secured (I have my own understanding of dominion so I hope I am not overdetermining his idea too much or distorting it, I think this is likely pretty close). The figures of man that he came up with clarify this, and can be seen as a possible dividing of eras in his life and thought: the Worker, Forest Rebel, and Anarch. I don't think anyone would disagree that this is a useful means of understanding the shifts in his philosophy, I think one other person may have mentioned this in another thread. But I will take this further, what if we use the metaphor of latticework and apply it to the figures of man in the technological state, the post-bourgeois era of modernity? What this would mean is that the figures are not the object themselves, not the end of his philosophy, but a means of outlining the shape, providing a means to catch a glimpse of dominion.

I won't say this was his intention, as one rarely has such insight into his own spiritual becoming in the world, but it may be close to what he wanted to achieve. And Junger was an impressive man, he demonstrated a combined iron will and golden spirit throughout much of his life, and in one of his later interviews he mentions this completeness of spirit across time, the unfolding of it into a totality as if we are uniting with fate. Again, I won't say that this was exactly his intention, however it may reveal a possibility to explore his thinking further. For instance, we could ask a question similar to the Euthyphro Dilemma, is it dominion which forges man or man which forges dominion? In either case technology and heroism would have to be considered lesser forms than man and dominion - and we might say that heroism is the revealing of man to himself in this new dominion, just as technology is the means of clearing the territory and arriving there (in a metaphysical sense, not materialist).

I would have to read more of his works to provide a definitive answer, and return to some of his others, but I don't think this would change much. It seems to me that there is a weaving between dominion and the figure of man, just like in latticework - neither is dominant, determined, they form one another and even unfold as a means of both material and immaterial support. Such a force of being is what allows the eternal to remain hidden and then rise up in man like a wellspring, taking over his entire vision of the world, even allowing him to unveil his nature to himself, become what was always there.

As for your last quote. Part of it is another contradiction, that of the being of man in his youth and his final years, there can be seemingly opposed perspectives which are really one in spirit, forming a whole of the figure of man across his life. Again, Junger mentions this in the Details interview. Perhaps the ultimate evidence here is what I already presented, the instant contradiction in Copse 125 between this heroic sacrifice to the nation and the almost nihilistic transition to this image of the new man and his devouring of any sensitive culture, a beast-like eruption of power. What this means is that there is no contradiction as you all want to describe it, the contradiction was always there, it is more a conflict unveiling the image of man rather an attempt to pin him down and analyze him with medical instruments. There is no precise mobilisation of technology and the figure of man in their final form because he does not see the world as a precise completion of objects to be stored away as slaves to instruments in a museum. Anti-technology is itself a bourgeois and liberal conception of technology. In this way that which we encounter in the world takes on a living form in our philosophy, and provides us us with something like judgement that we must live up to.

Anyway, this is probably way too long as is. But perhaps it will be useful to someone. I can be a bit forceful when I argue so I apologise if I was short with you. I don't really have time to go over and edit this.

See my long autism/effortpost, the 'ultimate evidence' part near the end for the short version.
The same argument can be made from "Battle as Inner Experience". Perhaps his most nihilistic and nationalistic work, yet there are similarly extreme tone shifts: between the glory of facing death without fear and the complete metaphysical exhaustion of the soldiers, even the condemnation of pacifism alongside an identification with some of its elements.
Such contradictions can be a working things out, the forming of an image/ideal through conflict, or even simply reconciliation with the fact that life is paradoxical at its core. Junger was not an Aristotelian.

Can we have a tl;dr please? It would be appreciated and welcomed.

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