/lit/ - Literature

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.

>>13314677
(I hope this is readable. I don't have the time to cover it at the moment, but will post it in the hopes of potential discussion.)

I would have to disagree. It is a great mistake to assume that an opponent is devoid of form, or that it is something completely in opposition to us. Clearly, and no matter how much we may want to despise it, liberalism says something about the human being, our dominion or even loss of it. It does have a form and deep meaning to it, otherwise it would not have overtaken the entire Western political and philosophical world.

The origin myth of creating a vast machine-god already tells us everything we need to know. Humanism, at its inception, is already on the other side of the apocalypse. All of its rebuilding, its philosophy and culture, is already prefigured in the form from the beginning. Only those who do not realise this find themselves in opposition, and their position only deepens the destructive qualities, as if the monster does not want to see his own hideous form in a mirror before the reconstruction is complete. The modern human does not envision the death of gods, he sees them as monstrous, lesser - and so he seeks greater forces.

One can imagine all of this within the functioning of freedom of speech, the dialectical form of reconstructing human dominion beyond the realm of the heavens. Each part of the dialectic is an assemblage, and whether it fits or not is irrelevant, as even oppositional ideas add to the monstrous quality of the vast machine - like spikes on leather armour. Devastation is precisely the quality which allows the human to adapt, to live on where nothing else can.