/lit/ - Literature

"When we study the financial and currency system of today, we enter an area where there reigns profound confusion. There can be no doubt that we are living in an era of general deterioration of currencies. This is shown by the withdrawal of precious metals from circulation and by the constant migration of gold in its flight from danger zones to zones of greater financial safety. Inflationary and deflationary movements, devaluations, and withdrawals from circulation affect all currencies, which have to be protected artificially by the most intricate regulations. Possession of precious metals or foreign banknotes, export of holdings by the owner or his agents, re-importation of currency into the country of its origin – all are put under the strictest control. Eventually, under pressure of exchange difficulties, we see the state reverting to a kind of primitive barter economy, an economy of peculiar financial and economic consequences.

All these mysterious and often contradictory phenomena become clear once we perceive that progressive technology can have no interest in stable currencies, that, on the contrary, it interferes with the organization of finance in order to undermine the stability of currencies. It is childish to imagine that events like inflation, which deprive whole classes of the population of their savings and abandon them to impoverishment, are the work of a band of clever speculators. For even if we harbor exaggerated notions of the power of those behind what is popularly termed "high finance," or Wall Street, events like inflations are not thereby explained.

>>15769617
3
One can also consider the manner in which the free-spirited woman is 'tainted' in our times. Perhaps it is that she approaches freedom in a technical manner, similar to how the uncultured woman falters in elegance. Her movement is forced, unnatural, following the function rather than the form. This is a matter of character, and for women there may be a greater force of fate from which it is more difficult to break free from. Feminism can be seen as a misunderstanding of, or even failure to cultivate, this force.

Ernst Junger mentions the intimidating nature of an Athena figure as opposed to an Aphrodite. This may be isolated to our own era in that fear of the irrational world also reduces Athena to an enlightenment idol - all other character must be stripped from her. Aphrodite survives, as she always does but is otherwise unmentionable, a minor figure or even cursed to the fate of a nymph. This is opposed to the ancient understanding, where Aphrodite controls a dominion beyond that of the other gods; the monstrous and the gigantic, as becomes clear in the Judgement of Paris. All beings are threatened, whereas Athena curses the beautiful who stray from the human realm. This distinction is deepened in the myth of Pandora, where Athena gives her the gift of craft, weaving as a power to extend her beauty through skill - and through Aphrodite, the inborn cunning and cruel longing of earth forces which would both curse man to titanic striving and reduce him to weakness. Psyche and the invisible war of women, men carried off by the winds of Zephyr; Orphic tales often run backwards as a curse against power.

Gloriantur
et letantur
in melle dulcedinis
qui conantur,
ut utantur
premio Cupidinis;
simus jussu Cypridis
gloriantes
et letantes
pares esse Paridis.

(They gloryand rejoice
in honeyed sweetness
who strive
to make use of
Cupid’s prize;
At Venus’ command
let us glory
and rejoice
in being Paris’ equals. Ah!)

Woman's power is often in her silence, this may be easily misinterpreted as a foolishness or necessity of moral law. Instead one should consider the natural force, the fate which proceeds without need of naming. In one sense the taking of another name is a sacrifice, and in another the receiving of higher qualities, a natural right she had been given at birth. But instead women have abandoned this ritual and demand their own rites of patriarchal rule, a naming which is not of their own. The relation between man and woman centers around the delicate balance of opposing worlds and the giving of one material for another is necessary in this - taking of the name is also a gift in that the man has freely received her beauty. The woman's fate is certain, but only together may they serve higher principles, whether that be freedom or the unity of a state.

>>14834101
Mostly from my own understanding of the myths. Much of which is from attempting to understand the dominant gods of our era, lots of contemplation of the Carmina Burana. Nietzsche would be similar in some sense, although my position is something like comparative religion and attempting to reconcile them rather than being outright anti-Christian. Junger would be the closest in terms of myth, although I can't say if he goes into what I have discussed here. His idea of dominion is similar to how I understand the gods, and how force is dominant over law.

A couple recent comments that are related:
>>/lit/thread/S14707598#p14710887
>>/lit/thread/S14749906#p14750549

And if you are interested, a writing on the Theological Turn, how Christianity, paganism, and nihilism relate to the spirit of the age; and the potential difficulties in reconstructing a religion when its means of thought are mostly lost to us.
https://mandalietmandaliet.blogspot.com/2019/10/cult-of-unknown-god.html

As for your question, it is partly answered in the second link. The necessity of faith and ritual can be roughly understood as a means of reconstitution, as if the divine or elemental force has been lost to us and we must reground ourself to it. Otherwise, it may be said that our divine and worldly being are at odds. However, despite our being the force will forever remain the same, it is unchangeable and irreducible.