/lit/ - Literature

"every human being is a bearer of inviolable dignity" - behold, he retreats into his soul like the hedgehog into its spines.

"It is in this last respect that The Worker takes on a disturbing relevance for our own times. For the uniformity of the new age is symbolised, Jünger suggests, by the sudden proliferation of the mask in contemporary society. “It is no coincidence”, he writes, “that the mask is again beginning to play a decisive role in public life. It is appearing in many different ways … be it as a gas mask, with which they are trying to equip entire populations; be it as a face mask for sport and high speeds, seen on every racing driver; be it as a safety mask for workplaces exposed to radiation, explosions, or narcotic substances. We can assume”, he continues, with an eerie prescience, “that the mask will come to take on functions that we can today hardly imagine”.

https://thecritic.co.uk/the-dystopian-age-of-the-mask/