/lit/ - Literature

Probably. But the same underlying conditions are still there.

>>19244598
>any development

You can’t actually talk about this man’s books or ideas on this board.

>>19244598
Why don't you make this thread more accessible to those of us who haven't read The Worker by giving a brief outline of the main points you want the thread to consider?

>>19246274
There were a lot of great threads about.

whats his deal anyway? ive only read what im pretty sure was a gimped version of storm of steel, but looking into his other stuff, he seems to be all over the place as far as his beliefs go

>>19246981
He's the Chad-slayer.

>>19246864
This was one of the best
>>/lit/thread/S17138742

>>19246296
very well. when i return home from -- work -- i shall be the first to offer an argument and counterargument for my questions.

>>19246864
It’s always the same. The same guy posts these never-ending purple beyond all belief write ups about him and quotes from him that lack context, say nothing in particular, and go nowhere.

>>19247149
Try something more your speed anon.

>>19247199
Ironically, I’ve read a lot from his author. I just can’t stand the vaguery and intentionally concealing language. What’s being concealed? Precisely nothing in particular.

>>19247245
Doesn't describe Junger. I think you got filtered.

>>19247547
I wasn’t speaking about Jünger actually.

>>19247554
>quotes from him that lack context, say nothing in particular, and go nowhere
So who are you talking about?

>>19247592
The guy that always posts about him.

>>19247662
So why'd you say Junger?

>>19247009
>>>/lit/thread/S17138742
thanks for the link, missed this one

>>19246296
>>19246981
Check the warosu, very good introduction.

HERVIER: Can you still recall the period when you wrote The Worker, and your view of the world during that phase of your life?

JÜNGER: It must have been around the year 1930 when I began dealing with these issues. I see The Worker as a mythical figure making his entrance into our world; the issues of the nineteenth century, which essentially involve economy, have only a secondary interest for me. That is to say: the person who holds the power in his quality of a Titan, naturally also possesses the money - I was also interested in those questions of power in a short narrative, Aladdin's Problem.

The important thing in The Worker is vision. The gist is a grandeur that is neither economic nor political, but quasi-mythological: the age of the gods is over, and we are entering the age of the titans. This is obvious everywhere. People behave exactly as I analyzed the situation, but they're annoyed if you point it out to them. They want to be seen as lovers of mankind or as Marxists, but in reality, they are mere holders of power: which, incidentally, I prefer-a question of upbringing, no doubt! What irks me is that they claim they're playing a certain role, whereas they've been cast in an entirely different role. Furthermore, in one sense, they play it very well.

>>19247245
>>19247554
Anon, why are you lying? In the last thread you said that even FG Jünger is obtuse and says nothing, even though he is far more clear and straightforward than Ernst. And you evaded my question when I asked about Tocqueville.
I can't even say you have a personal vendetta against me, it's more of a narcissism in how you read things. You demand that the author and all his ideas must hold something for you, must be evident to you, and even that their world must conform to yours.
I don't want to be rude, but you clearly have an issue expressing yourself, let alone understanding any of these ideas or commenting on them.

>>19248257
And here are your thoughts on Jünger from the last thread:

"My challenge remains. If any a reader finds a shred of praxis in this author, then say so, because I, for myself, find nothing.
> be a forest rebel
> be an anarch
> make art and poetry
This from the man who wrote exhaustively on the ever-expanding reach of the technological world state and the methods by which it throttles art, chokes off poetry. If this is his praxis, it is beyond useless.
Here I would like to add that Jünger was a very valuable writer, an important figure, and admirable man. But he was not a worker. He did not no work, economy, or even technique (ironically). Ernst Jünger knew war, the machine, thought, and writing, but he knew little else. He was a romantic. He was the last remnant of a heroic ideal which was allied to shine brightly just before it faded from the world. He did his military service and retired to live his life as an essayist and then a bohemian writer, like a Greek. What can the modern man in say, Britain or America, deprived of estate and pensions, get from him? Or the student, trapped between disciplines and a ballooning debt burden? Or the man who wants to return to the other, but has to work for a living, forced to live in the dredge and muck of a modern megalopolis while he works as a Sys Admin for the city? Nothing. He has nothing to offer them. He’s a man who, like others in the 20th century, held romantic and idealistic notions about art, poetry, and myth especially, but conveniently forgot that the ever-expanding technological machine and its global apparatus is precisely the throttling of art and the death of poetry, something he foresaw and diagnosed himself. Those myths were not even his own, but belonged to the Greeks, and those which he leaves us have no praxis at all, and barely an origin which can be relied upon. Modern man cannot live inside those myths any more than he can live inside those which we find in the Holy Bible or in the works of Homer. That is to say, he can’t live inside them at all. And those capable of realizing dome abstract, Jungerian ideal (were it to exist)? Ironically, they are the extremely few and the only ones who have no need for him at all.
> you’re just missing the forest for the trees
Perhaps I am. But either way, I grow very tired of engaging with nonsensical and illusive language that can hardly be parsed out at all. It’s extremely frustrating."

And OP, I have a quote from Schmitt on another figure, but would like to read your thoughts first.

>>19248257
Here he is like clockwork. You need to take your meds.

And this is from the summary, I can post the whole thing if anyone is interested. Admittedly it is a very difficult work.

"1.The age of the third estate was an age of illusory rule. 2. The effort to perpetuate this age is expressed in the transfer of bourgeois templates to workers’ movements. 3. Correspondingly, the worker is seen as bearer of a particular ‘class’ or social ‘estate’, 4. as the bearer of a “new” society, 5. and as the bearer of a world in which economy and fate are synonymous.

6. The attempt to situate and understand the worker at a higher and more comprehensive rank than the bourgeois is ever able to imagine him 7. can only be dared if one suspects that, behind his appearance, lies a great, independent form, subordinated to its own very different lawfulness. 8. By ‘form’ we indicate a supreme meaning-giving reality. Appearances are important as symbols, representatives, imprints of this reality. The form is a whole which includes more than the sum of its parts. We call this ‘more’ totality. 9. Bourgeois thinking is not capable of relating to totality. Consequently, it was only capable of seeing the worker as a mere appearance or as a concept – as an abstraction*7273 of man. By contrast, the truly “revolutionary” act of the worker consists in laying claim to totality by understanding himself as the representative of a higher form. 10. The “seeing” of forms*7475 allows the revision of a world in which the spirit has become self-governing and self-serving through a uniform being . 11. Both the rank of the individual and of communities depends on the degree to which form is represented in them. A contrast of value between ‘mass’ and ‘individual’, or between “collective” and “personal” initiative is meaningless. 12. Likewise, the form – as composed, stable being – is more significant than any movement through which it affirms its presence. The consideration of movement as value, for example as “progress”, belongs to the bourgeois age."

>>19248048
I didn’t.

>>19248349
"13. The worker announces himself through a new relationship to the elemental. He disposes thus of more powerful reserves than the bourgeois who only recognizes security as the highest value and deploys his abstract reason as the means to ensure this security. 14. Romantic protest is nothing other than a futile attempt to escape from bourgeois space. 15. The worker replaces romantic protest through action in the elemental space, in which – from now on – the inadequacy of bourgeois security reveals itself very clearly. 16. The worker announces himself furthermore through a new relationship to freedom. Freedom can only be experienced if one takes part in a unitary and meaningful life, 17. as is occasionally indicated, time-wise, in the memory of great historical powers, 18. or, space-wise, beyond the play and counterplay of mere interests. 19. The space of work is equal to all great historical spaces; in it, the claim to freedom appears as a claim to work. Freedom is here an existential dimension; that is, one disposes of freedom to the same extent to which one is responsible to the form of the worker. 20. The growing feeling for this kind of responsibility announces extraordinary accomplishments. 21. Finally, the worker announces himself through a new relationship to power. Power does not appear here as a “fluctuating” dimension, 22. rather, being legitimised by the form of the worker, is thus the representation of this form. This legitimation is attested by the fact that it is able to bring into service a new mankind 23. and new means. 24. The deployment of these means, that are at the disposal of the worker alone, is facilitated by the extended condition of anarchy left behind by an abstract “universality”."

And a summary of each paragraph in the first chapter:

1. There are hidden borders which separate Germany from the figure of the bourgeoisie and the third estate; the poorly cut cloth does not fit him, thus the worker's clothing cannot be the same for Germans.
2. The German revolt against the values emblazoned on the shield of enlightenment is of a spiritual and elemental battle; its heroism, even though meagerly nourished, digs into the soil like roots, over which forms a new sky of power and justice; the law of blood and spirit takes shape in this conflict.
3. The blood is tested in a final rebellion which forms the species, and German statesmen mobilise forces of the past against the incursions of the new order; the blood rather than the spirit meets with victory and defeat.
4. A martial interim in the mobilisation of values; the German finds no happiness and no use for his freedom, it stands as a battle flag before still distant armies.
5. Thus the force of mobilisation enters Germany like a poor translation, while a primordial language resides beneath it; here German fate rests in the balance, a return of the Peasants' War.
6. Freedom must be perfected through obligation, and strength through inheritance; its legitmacy is written as a seal in the dominion and heart of man.
7. As the iconography of a coat of arms freedom is certain its fate, its being upheld by duty, enfeoffment; decision cuts pathways, and the German must follow his order even where the world has ended.
8. The leader is the first servant, and obedience unites the dominion between the roots and the sky with the flash of lightning.
9. Dominion and service are one; the Third Estate replaces this law with cheap pleasures; it can never know the sacrifices of the poet exiled to the forest nor the warrior in the final flames of battle.
10. The old forces now lost, all that remains of heroism is in the eyes of the worker.

OP here. As I was thinking on the topic this morning I tried to uncover something to which the world of work could be truly juxtaposed. For as Junger makes clear, things like unemployment, vacation, retirement, leisure (time-off), and so on, are centered around work, and so cannot be thought of as true opposites. What shortly came to mind as something truly remote from the work world was Dream. I must clarify my meaning. I do not mean to point merely to sleep or the dreams periodically occurring therein. However, sleep might be used as a starting point, and not only because it is 'opposed' in certain ways to work, as in the time of day opposite to waking hours, or as consisting of rest in contrast to the exertion of mental and physical work. If sleep is to be a starting point, it must first be understood not merely as a negation of work. It is fitting that in the context of work, sleep is thought of as a sort of maintenance or 'process', as 'recharging' the body, or as serving some kind of therapeutic function -- as if the type of the worker is to be thought as a psychological standard. Sleep and dream are even today scarcely understood. Thus, though we recognize sleep as 'important', we have actually no idea what is a 'good sleep'. We simply mean one which leaves us feeling refreshed in the morning -- that is, the good sleep is the one which 'works' for us, so that we don't have to think about it. We try to 'account' for sleep, insofar as we allegedly 'need' so many hours a night of sleep. We do not even think of making an attempt to account for dreams. So the world of sleeping and dreaming is like a mysterious blind spot. And perhaps we ought not to disturb it.Yet if we give up hope in gaining understanding of Dream, what shall we profitably juxtapose with Work?

What I have in mind, as a 'method' for exploring Dream is its comparative analysis with the 'wakeful' state. I would not consider such a method if I did not think the 'working self' could be penetrated. In my own experience, the world of the dream, not its content, but its 'atmosphere' can linger into wakefulness; sometimes for only a few seconds after 'waking', and sometimes for a more extended period of time. Moreover, the 'freshness', the feeling of rejuvenation, of lightness felt more or less upon waking does not always deteriorate in a consistent manner; again, it seems sometimes to 'stay with us' for longer than at other times. Moreover, there is an obvious connection, or 'bridge', as it were, in the case of relaxation, for which there are various techniques by which we can bring ourselves to an altered 'state' besides the usual one we see in ourselves and others during our time at work and also during 'time-off'. For as Junger says, the character of the worker stamps itself upon all his activities, and not only his 'work'. I see potential profit if close attention is paid to the activity of the mind during times when the boundaries between sleep and wakefulness are blurred.

>>19248340
you sound like a sore loser. please exit this thread if this is the extent of your contribution towards it.

>>19248765
huh?

>>19248765
There is certainly something to this. The technical world crushes freedom, especially for the poetic man, and the response is much like a dream-state. This is central to the question of romanticism, although perhaps in its most positive form.
However, there is also a dreaming in technology itself, "annihilation through polishing." One sees this in the early utopias, Fourier's seas of lemonade and ships hauled by dolphins, which FG Jünger mentioned.
Drugs and the Visit to Godenholm are also related, and we see the highest expression of the worker in such places. There are positive and negative expressions of the romantic world, and so too the titanic. The end of the world may not even reach a man who exists at the edges, he can fish and sleep in the fog and sunsets. Myths of the longest winter and the forest of Lif and Lifprasir strengthen our sense of this.

I have brought up the Seven Sleepers, and the Sleeping King in the Mountain, many times. And it turns out that Jünger referenced this as well. If one is able to find Atlas then one may comfortably sleep in the shadow of the cosmks.
Hölderlin gave us the image of wealth where even Cerberus is brought to patient sleep. And also the Centaur sleeping at the edge of a misty brook. How do his dreams differ from the bourgeois man, or the worker who only returns nightly to the mechanisation of time and his life? It is rather like a disturbed wakefulness, where night should bring rest to the machines, villages, and even the earth itself.

>>19249017
And Schmitt refers to Rousseau where the world of work comes to an end. What we have is more like play, although the player is no world-historical figure, he has no potential to wrest power to dominion.
Rousseau's frugality has also been superceded by consumption.
Then there is the partisan, the last man, the solitary walker, and the interested third. One sees in this a new mobilisation of the earth, or perhaps a retreat which only draws other neutralising forces in.
This is all a bit like the Third Man argument, and all these figures meld into another.

One can also look to what FG said of leisure and wealth being beyond the worker. The worker is much more like a species type, the technical man as a leveling force in the creation of the new world. In some sense these are are all really types of the worker, or at least an expression of its power as they can hold no dominion of their own. So it remains to be seen if there are any replacement figures possible.
It is unlikely that the new order can arise from the will, but instead as a waking up lost, even unknown to oneself.

>>19249017
This is for me a profitable response.
>technical world crushes freedom
I think this is too crude a statement. Early on in the Worker Junger points to a meaning of freedom which is important to take into account: I mean the sense of freedom as 'freed up for'; for the worker has a kind of freedom -- he is freed for work, and he is freed up in his duty, obligation, and responsibility. Freedom in this sense means something like 'license'. So I think one has to be careful about taking 'freedom' in to romantic or broad a sense in reference to work.

On the other hand, I think you are on to something with the expression, 'dreaming in technology itself'. There might be said to be something 'slumbering' or 'dreaming'. I know the passage in FG you refer to. Utopia as a blend of fantasy and science -- but also being able to foster ethical norms in humanity. So here is a reference to 'fantasy'. Arts and entertainment of course try to relate themselves to 'dreaming', and, though it is not so common as it was a few decades ago, people are encouraged to 'dream', and so on. But this is altogether different from what I had in mind with the concept of Dream. The Dream world is so starkly distinguished from the world of work that it is almost entirely exotic to average consciousness. It is not 'fantasy' or poetic fancy. Nor do I think of it as an 'unconscious', even though unconsciousness characterizes us for the most part in sleep. All these uses of terms like 'fantasy' and 'dreaming' or 'dreamers' have reference to Work. In Utopia, dreaming and fantasy are connected with the possibility of a working world, or a world at work, which supports humanity and fosters goodness and so on. It is a possibility in contrasts with a dark past, the ideals and traditions from which are gradually abandoned in favor of a reliance of the calculative, substitutive, productive power of a future, functioning world. Dreaming has the character of work here -- and this sort of 'dreaming' is a kind of work itself; once a thing has been dreamed it must be 'worked towards', and so on.

So these uses of 'dream', 'fantasy', and so on are not what I have in mind. I do not mean to imply that in the age of technology, persons and workers are 'asleep', or that they are 'living in a fantasy'. I mean just the opposite -- that they are disconnected from the world of Dream, having hardly any reference to it, or even a consideration that it exists. One has only to consider how stark the difference is between the state of mind 'at work', and the 'state of mind' in dreaming. This latter state of mind has little in common with 'dreaming' up 'utopias', and other such fantastic 'work' of the wakeful mind.

>>19249017
>night should bring rest to the machines, villages, and even the earth itself
This does not occur because things must always be 'on', or rather they must always be 'working'. So in a way, a human being is freed up in the sense that automated and electric machines can be 'working' when he is not. Yet at the same time as you say this working is on-going, and the machines and devices themselves are never 'put to sleep' -- for even when they are in 'sleep mode', they are working. And when I think of how the working world figures sleep, it sometimes seems as though they would think of sleep as a 'mode', and not, rather, as a world.

So for my considerations I would have to in what way Dream could be 'worldly', how it could be something that one is 'in'. And how is it that there could be two such 'worlds'? As Heidgger says, 'worldhood' is one of the things concealed from everyday Dasein. As soon as a thing becomes all pervading, or is put 'at the basis', like how the 'working' of the 'being on' of technology is made a permanent state, then this 'working' becomes concealed in the manner that 'worldhood' is concealed. But imagining the world without work, which is to say, imagining the world so that work is a discrete activity and not a foundation of the world, is one way to begin contextualizing work, or rediscovering the world outside of work.

>play
Initially, before I considered Dream, I was juxtaposing work with play. But what I was missing was a 'world', for I did not think of a 'world of Play' but play as being a part of work, viz., its surface or performance -- e.g., in the sense that the outward play of the child is based upon the 'working' or 'maintaining' of the child's body and brain. Or I thought of play as a sort of branching out from the 'averageness' of everyday workings. So this play is something in the world, but which world?

>>19249338
Another consideration revolving around Dream and Work is that of rejuvenation. The rejuvenating character of sleep and rest and also dream is mysterious. It is something in which 'we' are not 'involved'. Moreover, in our world we have trouble thinking about sleep and dream apart from work terms, which I believe are inappropriate -- I mean again that sleep is a kind of 'recharging'. For this is certainly true in some sense; but just what 'recharges' or 'refreshes' the body? And why only during sleep? And what of the character of work as expenditure? If the world only consisted of work, of things 'working', then we should expect it to be pure deterioration, just as if the world lacked repulsion, then the whole cosmos would collapse in on itself. So we have daily in our experience a mysterious power in nature, the 'workings' of which we do not understand. But why should we try to understanding such things as 'workings', or as some kind of work? This is the sort of question that I think possibly leads to the world of Dream. For here things are so altered from the everyday, from the character of 'involvements', from the usual understanding of 'persons', of 'understanding' itself, that the world of science and technology has so little to say that the interpretation, if there is any, comes from religion or magic; or whatever attempts are made by science, e.g., in psychology or neuroscience, are quickly submerged in the world of myths and symbols. Just how can the Worker understand rejuvenation? Sleep daily acts as a more miraculous curative or corrective than the most effective pill, surgery, or medicine, and yet the worker sets out every morning as though he could not wait to become ill again. For this is to be expected if the human being regards his 'energy' as something to be necessarily 'used up' or 'put to use'; and he even makes up for a supposed lack of it with 'energy' drinks.

What do you think post-Fordism has done/would do to the work-world?

>>19246296
Why would I want to hear your opinion on the worker if you haven’t read the worker?

>>19249721
Third Worldism

>>19249271
Hopefully I can get to this tonight. But in any case, thanks for the thoughtful response.

>>19249721
It was big at one time.

>>19249814
I want you tell me your opinion so i can repeat it later when I pretend to have read The Worker

>>19249271
Yes, it is a bit crude to say that the technical world crushes freedom. But is this not how it is felt by the man of song? Or at that point where the line is crossed and the austerity measures of the technical world cross over into the metaphysical and theological realms? All distinction of the old world becomes lost, no matter what one's will was. This is also like the sharp distinctions in dreaming where completely unexpected metamorphoses take place.
Nietzsche had a violent reaction to the technical world, rejecting it completely and to the point of its losing distinction. And Ernst Jünger came to a point similar to FG, that the technical world can intrude and destroy all sense of dignity. In such a position one has to find the freedom of the forest, criminality, or the apocalyptic songs of the Christians.

Of course, Jünger's idea of freedom is crucial here. It is also completely distinct from Nietzsche, even though he is normally read as a trict Nietzschean. There is even criticism of the will to power in the law of dominion. And in the willess call to service there is also a distinction from the titanic freedom of the worker. Keep in mind that his definition of freedom arrives in hand with the unique German position where the clothing of the third estate and worker cannot even fit him. With the Second World War Germany finds itself in a totally opposite sense of service and enslavement, and there has been no freedom ever since.

One also has to keep in mind that the modern world is not entirely technical either, that technology is only a means. The poetic world also contributes, unlike what Nietzsche and others would have us believe. It is really a matter of law, metaphysical and theological distinction. This lords over the rational and poetic minds, and both contribute their own disasters.
Then too, one must say that the technical man also dreams, and the poetic man has his methods or machini in the annihilation of dreaming.

Tocqueville's point that the worker does not see himself as a worker will always be poignant. That he sees himself contributing to an eruption, and is at peace with a more violent iridescent world suggests his proximity to the dream state. What does the worker dream about? And is his life not connected to the Abbot of Cockaigne in his stuffed slumber? To some degree these worlds must be connected, hold some underground passage through which one man morphs into the other. Wandering too is connected with the mechanical world, and the overstuffed man sees some theological work plan - the guts and organs which become backlogged, an inventory which forces its own systems. The mechanised world is also a waking and recuperation from the dreams of madness, the fever dreams. Such a man repairs himself from sickness and the horrifying. And it is here, in the Abbot of Cockaigne and his distant dreamt of son, that the fat man and the health obsessed are one.

>>19252291
Platonov gives us the image of the pregnant woman as a type of machine. She pushes out an excess, the youngest socialists in their coming into being are the living form of reserve and rearmament. The woman breaks down, rattles and falls apart as the reverse-engineered womb of promised life. A grotesque type of the dreamt realism.

But onto dreaming as a form in itself. Basically I was using things like romanticism drugs, etc. as metaphor or analogy. But with surrealism was there not a close relationship to dreaming? And the same with The Adventurous Heart, the world of iridescence, visualisation of elemental return or metamorphosis, these are very real experiences of the dream. Magical realism is a weak form of this, and the retreat into the superficial and psychological dream world, lucid dreaming and having complete control over the dream, is an inversion. It is much like the drugs of escape, dulling the senses and pain.

I always had difficulty with work because of this intrusion of the work world into the dream state. I started working quite young, and perhaps the worst sort of schedule for a teenager, two days, two nights, two off. Machines would wash blueberry boxes and one man would flip them over in stacks of five while the other would build the pallet. The whole time water flying all over the place so one would get soaked through even with the rain gear we wore. And the poor technical planning meant using a pallet jack to haul the stacks across the entire yard, which required running or jogging most of the 12 hours. The hours dragged relentlessly and the only sense of hope was seeing the sunset or sunrise in the final hour, which would drag even more. The final ten minutes seemed an eternity.
We were doing the work of three men. And of course in my stupidity I had been hired at another position, a groundsman. The clearly overwhelmed men were calling for help so I did what I could. Seeing that I was performing well at this task the foreman assigned me to it rather than ground duty. And after a day or so pulled the third man off.

There is something of the dream world even in this, in the fated intrusion of tasks and a new world. But the natural dream world of sleep became lost to me. I would return every night, or day, to that same twelve-hour shift which seemed like an eternity, soaked through rain gear, and a man standing next to me wearing professional wrestling advertisements, singing out of tune. Unlikely the grounds work would have been much better, perhaps the time would have been slower, and the setting of rat traps and dumping rats for 100 hours each day even more destructive to the mind.

>>19252294
How far are much more positive dreams from this? Some of mine include these magical cities, massive and horrifying and beautiful. Nothing in the real world of machine and construction matches them. But it is at the same time a mechanised world, the separation and freedom from the earth, like a fata morgana which allows for triumph over work.and the enslavement to the machine.

Other dreams are more localised, as if the city were hardly there even in its massive and overwhelming form. All movement is subterranean or magical, with drinking parties, travel and celebrations which last for days.
Or the perfect book, which itself seems like a universe and so cannot be brought out of that world.
Then the hidden and gnome-like passageways, whether in the cities or reaches of nature. There is descending into the depths, caverns which seem to have been cut out and worn away by the sea into polished black stone. A descent into the earth which seems forver, and unending. But even this ends, and only the outer worlds to this transitional or interim location seem vague.

But what does the worker dream of? I can recall a few times others speaking of this 'eternal return' to the line of machinery. And it is comedic to them, they easily laugh it off. In particular the women. So it must be like a Charlie Chaplin film or Lucy to them. It is nothing at all as the man destroyed by the machine dreams - even though the images are one and the same.

One must also imagine that the ancient man saw this. He knew the Cyclopes, whose appearance to is may be worse than any dream. But this entails risk, which may speak to the dream as escape, or technical measure in the perfection of dream worlds, altered states, metaphysical and elemental law.

>>19249271
I didn't even get to your other two posts, but will try.

>>19252291
>Nietzsche had a violent reaction to the technological world
Any 'reaction' must be violent, whether it is a rejection or an absorption -- so this is really saying nothing. But furthermore it is not true to fact that Nietzsche 'rejected it completely'. Friedrich Kittler is relevant here (Discourse Networks 1800/1900; Grammaphone, Film Typewriter). He has extended passages on Nietzsche where he talks about the latter's relationship with typewriters. Above all you will see that in the case of Nietzsche, his 'reaction to technology', though it could certainly be called violent, was hardly some kind of outright rejection. Nietzsche was already wrapped up in violence -- for his eyesight, which the pen and the book commanded, was deteriorated. He thus looked to the 'aid' of a machine which by design could place the 'writer's' characters for him, without demanding of him his eyesight -- the typewriter was originally designed for the blind.

>>19252664
Yes, but this is a problem of contradictions, and partly having to take clear positions in a discussion.
What I mean is in regards to his overall intent, the preference for the poetic and destructive man of song. A violent reaction can be good, but it can also become hardened and lose sight of things. In terms of metaphysics and 'political' positions Nietzsche was about as one-sided as anyone can be. Of course there are contradictions, but this could have been a violent reaction of the failed type, a mechanical reaction. As we see with strange passages on physiognomy or dedicating oneself to the physical sciences for ten years.
It doesn't at all fit with the other side that makes Plato and anything resembling him into a devil. And in the end such positions would have been much stronger if he had dedicated himself to them unconditionally, and as a titan.
All his weaknesses are in the sciences, and wherever he approached them you find the disastrous aspects of his thought.

>>19252664
And this is not the case with reactions. A man of wealthy spirit, one who has being and thus no need of striving for it will have no need for violent reactions.
There is where dominion resides, along with divine calm, whereas the unnecessarily violent is for those outside, the exiled, impoverished and weak.
Again, a bit more irony in such positions.

>>19252948
And I suppose one could liken this to dreamers and workers. Does Nietzsche's position not hold a likeness to that of the worker? It holds little of that dreaming quality, and is much more like shaking someone out of their sleep.
This is where the will approaches devastation, a cursed death, striving from the inescapable. Who confronted fate more than Zeus or Prometheus? Both of them, in their own way, knew that there was nothing like the eternal return, that it would all come to an end.
To exist outside of time is essential for anyone who wishes to give form to power - through justice, truth, beauty, etc. Without this one is just as likely to destroy what he has made.

>>19252936
>destructive man of song
Not what I meant to say, but still useful.
One can think of Pan and the instruments which are hidden, or even ignoble in the eyes of other gods. There is a dream state in the mysterious welling up of his music, and his presence is only hinted at in the deepest parts of the forest. This is where he releases the horrific sounds of nature.
Dionysus really has little at all to do with music, so one confuses the performance and the myths by elevating him to where he does not belong. One is taken by the dream of creation, returned to the primordial, and music is only a carrier, an accompaniment - not the thing itself.

>>19244598
>Have things changed since this was written (in 1932)? Has there been any development which has made possible a different type than the Worker?
Obviously. Unironically I think Larouche probably got close in this sort of a project. I found this obscure none published manuscript that might interest you

https://archive.org/details/smiling-man-from-a-dead-planet-the-mystery-of-lyndon-la-rouche-by-hylozoic-hedge/page/n13/mode/2up

>My involvement was to post two long studies, Smiling Man from a Dead Planet and How It All Began. I also helped with some photos from Columbia in 1968. I have no interest in promoting LaRouche’s ideas. Still, in determining where some of LaRouche’s ideas came from, I was led to examine the late 1940s world of MIT, Norbert Wiener, the Macy Foundation, business management theory, and other ideas that I do find interesting. It all stemmed from the “first information revolution” following in the wake of Turing and Enigma.
>These ideas later echoed in SDS in “new working class” theory, in Marcuse’s One Dimensional Man, in the Triple Revolution theorists, and in Debord’s Society of the Spectacle. There was even a U-tube of a sound recording of James Cannon giving a lecture on Triple Revolution in the mid-1960s that I don’t think still exists today. It led me to appreciate Andy Warhol’s Soup Cans as well. What I further learned is that there were similar things brewing in post-Stalin Russia that led me to Loren Graham, Slava Gerovitch, Dirk Struik, the CIA’s John Ford, the purge of MIT’s math department, Lange, and Norbert Wiener going to Moscow and meeting Kolmogarov.

>>19253457
Marxist proletarian is not the same as the figure of the worker.
Even the instagram 'creative' and twitter NEET are doing a type of work, however worthless it may seem. Printing infinite dollar bills and carrying Bezos to the moon are also processes of the worker, even though they come close to the appearance of final bourgeois dreams.

>>19249721
>post-Fordism
I suppose it depends on what you mean, but in terms of law little has changed. The occupation of foreign lands is necessary for the neutralisation of the world, and for creating a barrier between Europe and its enemies. There isn't much difference between diamond mines in Africa and the Occupation of the Ruhr.

The man of the service economy, or more likely a woman, is another level of defense. It is part of the creation of the democratic man who is completely malleable, even beyond death. There remains an immutable character beneath the surface of all this, which is why we see a deep conservatism even where change appears to be rapidly increasing, to the point of chaos - its meaning is unrecognizable to those who have lost sight of the great law of our time. This law is the tutelary power, and resides somewhere between the Leviathan and the Solitary Walker. Or perhaps it is both, as we see that man often identifies them as one.

As a tutelary power, the greatest test would be the complete elimination of borders, to allow even the barbarian hordes and religious warriors in, as this would be the complete triumph over the state of nature. The perfection of technology is really the unfolding of this, the nomos of the earth. The modern era ends only where it completes the law laid down in the beginning, frees itself from it. And we are now witnessing the great events of this.

>>19254591
To triumph in war is to capture the nomos of the enemy. Industrialism allows this to happen as an earth force - the borders rupture through the necessity of man himself. The constitution of the world is built on distribution, whether of aid or industrial development, which means that in the very process of world order there is an elimination of borders. It is the same law as the earliest treaties and peace agreements of the New World, one is brought into its wealth through colonisation, and then given freedom through decolonisation.

There is also a condition of survival in this redistribution of the earth. Despite the mobilisation of riches one rests on the knife edge of starvation and a final war. This is only avoided because the industrial process has overcome the destruction of war, and suits the theological identity of modern man - who sees himself as beyond fate. The Western World has welcomed this destruction openly, the return of the third world and its anticolonisation movement. It sees itself at the very top as distributor of the very means of survival, its conditions, as a power which can equal the earth whether in creation or death. And for there to be a distributor of the laws of survival, for a nomos which takes on only economic appearances, there must be someone outside of that. The redistribution of world industry was precisely because of this. that man saw himself as beyond nature, beyond necessity, beyond even survival. It is, again, the Abbot of Cockaigne. But the Abbot of Cockaigne is also closest to the self-carving meat, the swan who bears witness to every act of his being cut up, roasted, then eaten.

>>19254599
https://youtu.be/aWlliPwgUok

And for dream poster.
There is a wonderful image of chess in the Carmina Burana in which the player identifies with each of the pieces, almost childlike in its innocence.
This may be contrasted with the technical perfection of the game, the player far removed and treating it mathematically - the game for the game's sake, in which the player identifies equally with the other side of the board. The opponents are as if removed in this situation, and it is at this point that artificial intelligence appears.
In the old great games there were long pauses to consult with students and other masters. The computer is a compression of time, but also a necessity of the private man in the continuation of competition.

There is something like our relation to dreams in this.

>>19253685
>Even the instagram 'creative' and twitter NEET are doing a type of work, however worthless it may seem. Printing infinite dollar bills and carrying Bezos to the moon are also processes of the worker, even though they come close to the appearance of final bourgeois dreams.
This is the argument Stirner makes, and Junger who was influenced by him, makes the same argument. Work, again, is a means of existance. Marxists fetishize a specific type of worker while denying the work of others. That's why Marxists make the differentiation of "unproductive" and "productive" labor.

>>19254691
>something like our relation to dreams
I think you mean that in the world of Dream we are like the child relating to the chess pieces. Hence the 'adult' is the one which artificial intelligence 'imitates' -- or rather the AI takes after the 'adult' rather than the child. Indeed, for the very reason that the 'adult' is engaged in competition and warfare, in 'strategy', and so on. We see the 'leveling down' in the analogy where the pieces of the chessboard lose their individual quality and are put to work under one and the same objective.

>>19254702
In my thinking, work is deterioration; one may put in a great deal of work and profit nothing, because one 'misses' or fails in the moment of opportunity. Similarly, one can do very little and profit a great deal just because one is in the right place at the right time. So work is just using up.

To tie these posts together I think we could look at Stirner's interpretation of early Christianity. There he clearly has in mind, with his concept of 'insurgency', a rising above mere competitiveness. In competition, the opponents become absorbed in the hostility and one can see how the profitability of going against the other diminishes as the conflict extends in time and involves more and more others. One thinks of course of Clausewitz, Junger, Stirner, Girard, and so on. Girard in his book on Clausewitz mentions Heidegger's 'Enframing' concept and seems to have in mind the idea that the scope of technology is wrapped up in the dynamic of the duel. Kittler and Virilio would be other examples of recent writers who give close attention to the relation between warfare and technology. In Stirner, Christ and the early Christians are put forth as a model for 'insurgency', insofar as their persecutors according to Stirner did not understand Christ's business, which was to 'straighten himself up' and follow his 'own' way, which happened to destroy the others by proxy, rather than in defeat by duel. So Stirner has this in mind when he is thinking of 'ownness'.

>>19254920
The critical thing in competitiveness is concealment; for if the other knows our plans and our business as well or better than we, then he has only to apply his own calculative power and we are outrun. So what is it that is concealed? It is our work, the 'inner' workings; e.g., our plans, the schemata of our machines, the supply of our reserves, our talents, and so on. These are hidden, and their concealment creates a front, or a surface. Living things must enclose their inner workings within a membrane; but with man this extends to the fullness of his intelligence as well; it is not enough that his vital organs are protected, but his knowledge, his thinking, calculating, his movements and so on; all this must be wrapped up within a veil also. And why? So that it 'faces' the outside from the appropriate vantage point. It must 'have' something wherewith to outwit its opponents. Man need not conceal his intelligence from animals and forests -- since these could not follow after him; but he needs to conceal his workings from his own likeness, his equals. Hence, to conceal is to be involved in rivalry. Where we have no fear of the other we do not take pains (work) to keep things undisclosed. So what is concealed is the work that takes place. The work takes place 'inside' and is just rearrangement and preparation for facing something on the 'outside'.

But what then can be meant by Stirner's 'insurgency'? Is there here a distinction between say, his model in early Christianity and his own doctrine? For what does Christ, what do the early Christians conceal? But Stirner himself seems to harbor no disfavor for concealment. The image for Christ is the lantern on a hill; unconcealment. But with Stirner we get the idea that deception is not off-limits to the egotist. So does this possibility in Stirner, this kind of deceit, originate from a different principle than that which characterizes warfare?

>>19255034
So the socialist or the 'anointed one' (to use a recent term from Sowell) has in mind the arrangement of the body of society in such a way as to 'face' the 'outside', which is the by now mysterious source of sustenance and real wealth, so that all 'favor' or 'privilege' is erased. In other words, the social arrangement is to 'work' for all, it is to be something which works so that all 'profit' (that which comes in from the outside as what work itself does not 'make' or 'generate' by itself but comes from 'nature', if you like) is distributed equally or favorably for all. So this is a supreme sort of averaging out; the evening out of all distribution, and the great Work which is the socialist's endeavor is also like a barrier which no one on the 'inside' (which is everybody) is allowed to cross -- for no man would be allowed to venture out into 'nature', where he might be exposed to profit which has not first 'entered' into the working system which plans all distribution, hence everyone's exposure to the sustenance and wealth which comes from the 'outside'.

>>19255088
In a way, then, what is ultimately concealed in the 'working world', the world of work, is the workplace as a whole; not the world of work, for this is something that the worker is 'in', and he is a being at work, and he works 'for' the system of planned distribution of wealth; but what is concealed from him, and this by his very occupation as a worker, is the workplace as a whole, which he is now unable to encounter as something opposite to him, as something which is ultimately an extension of the whole business of Understanding, insofar as our understanding is oriented towards dealing with what is undetermined and unfamiliar, and bringing it into our own 'system' or familiarity through the power of cognition. This power of understanding is no longer relevant to the worker, since the system as a whole, already plans out the whole result of the encounter with what the system assimilates. Man no longer 'encounters' things in this capacity as a being which puts its own understanding to work. This seems obvious because we do not yet have a workplace which encompasses all; but this is what would happen if such turned out to be the case.

>>19246274
These are some of the only good threads on /lit/

>>19246296
So what do you think?>>19248162
>>19248349

>>19255034
>Stirner's 'insurgency'
I once had a friend who carried around a copy of The Ego and its Own. Was this based?

>>19254920
These are excellent posts anon. Thank you.
With such things I tend towards Socratic questioning or mythic diversions, but I will try to stay as in between as I can.

Is expenditure and deterioration the entirety of work? Or work specific to the modern era? And what made this happen?
For all the, at times, wastefulness there is a sincere intent to be efficient. This is where the most extreme austerity comes in: one wants to birth a new world and species, but at the lowest cost.

>>19255034
In Christ is there not more focus on the inner light? Only what may be seen may be revealed.
Chiaroscuro is one of the most beautiful technical applications of movement, and it does so by unveiling its perfect harmony in stillness. Christ also draws men to him mysteriously, into a darkness so that they may truly be revealed - may reveal themselves, for there never truly is concealment. His death is more important than any other event, and in this he may only be found at Abel's grave, or wherever he wandered. A resurrection which may never be found, but therein its strength. A flickering candle in the fog.
Darkness is most capable where it reveals a false light, where spiritual dominion may be brought to a final clash.
And it is here that Christ is closest to the the Titans.

We see this too in the law of property. The defense of property is only a speculation measure, a hardening of the very substratum of resources so that war may become an automatic process.
It unites the Katechon and the certain end.

And with the early developments of economic thought it was a unification of the state, the nobility and monarchy, to master the growth of an immeasurable and providential force. This must not be forgotten, as there was always a unifying work.
The great projects are by technicians, the war industrialists who came to master the elements. They concealed their work, but only from others - a readying of the shock.
The economist mostly conceals where there is crisis.

>>19255088
Like the motley mirrored dress the armour of the Leviathan must move independently. This is its strict measure, the vital movement which prevents a monster out of its element from having its skin pierced and exposed.
Man is freed in his hanging above the earth, not carried on the shoulders of giants, but dangling, flying through the destruction. He is more prepared for death than anyone, and only hangs onto life so that the armour may grow.
A slave to the brutal machines of death, but also a master of kings - perhaps even gods.
Cities and continents die, but the individual remains, tosses stones into the abyss like a young boy at a stream.

>>19255146
Probably the most difficult part of what you have written.
Is it that the whole thing is planned, or is there a destructive element in wealth is able to be wasted for some other value? And is the workplace concealed from him or is he not one with it? The worker seems almost freed by the workshop, even the sprawling industrial landscapes, or the company towns and corporate districts. He is at peace with the satanic mills just as Dulle Griet is before the plundering of Hell.

In short order the worker comes to know the territory, he becomes an expert of this domain. It is part of his being interchangeable, and also the neutralisatiom of the entire earth landscape. One may love next to strangers and have his home covered in alien contraptions, a concealment and entanglement of wires. He may never speak of the depths of these things, yet he knows them, senses them, or they crop up along with his own desires and sense of freedom, equality, strength.

I suppose that you are not referring to concealment so literally, at the level of individuals and objects, but in Heidegger's sense of it. Nonetheless, I'm not sure how significant this is. Does it matter if the worker does not employ his cognitive strengths, his understanding? Is anything changed if he understands the processes he undertakes? If anything the cold destructiveness of it is only weakened.
Does it even matter if anything is revealed? Fate, power, truth, dominion, etc. are often more powerful when nothing is revealed, where they remain a mystery wrapped in an emigma. This is how even weak powers may retain their borders. One fears most the underlying, the curse or the blessing.

At the same time the world of work has developed an incredible universality. In automation and the prefabricated we see that the worker has indeed come to know his territory, even mastered and perfected it. He lives beyond need, and seems to be beyond any crisis - of war, family, insurrectioms, and even leadership.
Again, Tocqueville's tutelary power. Each man becomes one of its eyes, and develops a thousand others. This is the cyclopean and hecatoncheirean strength of democracy. Even if it does not know, it is able to overwhelm. It is beyond revealing or knowing. Such things would only weaken its power.

> Or are we still similarly under the influence of ceaseless rapid transformation?

we are indeed but the illusion is fading, as is industrial society of course

>>19256937
>as is industrial society
Is it?

Bump

What books are similar to this?

>>19256911
>inner light
For me this would be part of the world of 'Dream'. For it has nothing to do with worldly work. The revealing done in and with the Gospels -- this is 'work' which man does not follow in; else we might not have needed a divine mediator. Furthermore, part of what is revealed is what man has himself hidden. One would think that if man had hidden it, then he could have revealed it. But man hid it from himself and he did not know that he was doing so. Now just what was hidden? What 'things'? We can try our concepts here: for if concealment is of the nature of work, and work conceals primarily itself, i.e., it covers itself up, and furthermore, work is deterioration, then what was hidden was merely deterioration. But of what sort? The other side of work as concealment is the 'front' or 'face', or its 'performance' -- i.e., what is seen working, what is seen from the outside. The eidos of the thing does not reveal its inner workings, but only its outward appearance. So what was the 'front' or 'performance' of the 'hidden things', i.e., the concealed deterioration? We conjecture of ancient and prehistoric being that it was 'closed'. It is thought that tribes were sealed entities, in contrast with an 'open society' of private entities or free citizens. What, then, could be hid in these 'closed societies'? Is it the society itself, as closed? Or is it some performance within the society, which conceals some deterioration? Moreover, what was this work, which man unknowingly carried out? I will take a leap here borrowing from Girard. This work we are talking about is sacrifice. This is relevant to modern work. It is easy for work to become sacrificial. Take for instance, the uneasiness with which gratitude is bestowed on the worker for his work. It is uncomfortable to 'thank' someone for the 'work' they do at their 'job'. Or it would be uncomfortable for a spouse to 'thank' their partner for 'all the work' they have done to provide for them. Or another example: when we talk about the 'heroic sacrifice' of soldiers abroad -- which only applies when we talk about protecting or maintaining the nation. If soldiers were to go out and conquer new territory, and die in the process, we would not 'thank' them for a 'sacrifice'. With this uneasiness surrounding such 'sacrifices' we are clued in to a concealment. Now either the worker himself will see his work as noble, i.e., as something other than deterioration, or he will think of it as 'just work' (expenditure). In the first case he regards himself, whether he knows or not, as a sacrificial entity. This is because, as we have said, work is no profit by itself; hence to make it into something worthwhile in itself, its true character as work (as loss) must be concealed, covered up, and made up into something which hides itself.

>>19256925
In short, continuing on from the post above, the 'danger' of the dominion of work is perhaps the necessary 'closing off' of society, which danger is brought so close that sacrifice has to arise as the cult of gratitude and devotion to a concealed loss.

>>19256925
But furthermore, think what this entails, for example as it relates to cognition. When I was talking about understanding I simply had in mind the atrophy of the cognitive powers of the worker which Tocqueville talks about, insofar as while he undergoes repetitive and mechanical tasks, he is not free or inclined to exercise the fullness of his mind. It seems possible, then, that a 'closing off' of some kind, will also 'close off' cognitive functions -- for is this not what we see in the worker? It is hard for the worker to see this, just because he is essentially part of a cult, and hence measures everything according to what is accomplished within the workplace, or the 'family' which, e.g., one is told that one is now a part of on one's first day at a job. But it is not hard for the philosophers to see, just because they are engaged in this free and open investigation into what is hidden in concepts. All that Socrates did was to pry into the 'meaning' of concepts, i.e., their inner workings, and in them he found not so much content but the very process of self-delusion by which sophists and rhetors carried around words for which they had no definition. But I am not trying to praise philosophers for their 'opening' or their method of dissection (opening up). For 'philosophy' has by now turned round to searching out what philosophy itself has hidden from us in its very investigation into Being, and by this I am not referring just to Heidegger and Derrida but to 'media studies', McLuhan, Ong, and so forth. But if the philosophers replaced the poet in the uprising of philosophy against myth -- what now replaces the philosopher? Hardly any of the important writers in the 20th century are regarded as philosophers, or at any rate, the term has a strange sound to it when applied to them. In the meantime what is filling the vacuum? What is to come? I think the 'danger' is that what is coming is a 'closing off', and this may lead perhaps to real cults, I mean, more decisive ones, really devoted to loss. But Heidegger for instance also seemed to think that there was an opportunity here disclosing itself the likes of which had not occurred since the birth of philosophy.

Of course, this is to avoid trying to engage with the Christian revelation. For it seems to me to be an open question, whether or not it was really the Christians or really the philosophers that did the 'opening up' of society. One still finds a division on this very issue in modern 'philosophy' departments. And many theologians rushed to Girard as to a desert oasis, which just goes to show how skeptical they had become of their own studies.

>>19256222
Holy. Quality thread.

>>19261250
No it's garbage leftypol spam and bait, fuck off back to your shithole you obnoxious commie.

>>19261273
>leftypol
>junger

>>19261250
Junger threads are one of the few quality threads on /lit/. I'm never disappointed when I see them here. You take the best philosophy, the best lit, and you make best threads out of it

>19246274
>19261599
>19261273
twitter personality disorder.

>>19244598
Alright, im going to go pick up a copy of storm of steel because ive been interested in it for a while, what translation is the best without spending a fortune?

>>19261714
Get Penguin.

>>19261273
>>19254591
>As a tutelary power, the greatest test would be the complete elimination of borders, to allow even the barbarian hordes and religious warriors in, as this would be the complete triumph over the state of nature.

>>19260341
Anon, have you read Visit to Godenholm or Raud and His Sons?
I haven't read your latest posts yet but thought you may be interested in the latter. I had already planned to reread it before your posts came up.

"The King questioned Ulf about many obscure matters, and Ulf had an answer ready in every case. Sometimes the King knew in advance how matters stood, but sometimes he did not, and had no previous information; but everything he could check tallied with Ulf's account, and therefore the King believed all he said. Ulf never went beyond what the King had asked. King Olaf then questioned him on the course of events which had not yet taken place. Ulf gave some information about most of them. The King then exclaimed: " Are you a prophet, Ulf? " "Certainly not, my lord," he replied. "Then how have you foreknowledge of such matters," said the King, "when they have not yet happened? " "Do not believe seriously in my romancing, Sire " said Ulf; " I run on before you because I do not venture to keep silence when you question me, although I have no certain knowledge of such matters.''"

The simplicity of folk tale and legend in the face of reason and cosmic forces.
Here matters of state meet the contest of concealment. The king may test the boundaries, of his own domain and that of his enemies and subjects. One finds in the question of truth the course of worlds lining up, being in conjunction with one another like the celestial spheres.
One could easily imagine the expression of the king, where he finds that discourses do not line up, as that of a collision of planets. At least in theological terms this is what is meant by power, the word of dominion.
In the contest and play of words there must be a similar power of concealment until the eschatological moment occurs. Revealing is either the end of power or its metamorphosis.

>>19261982
""Can you suggest to me," said the King, " any means whereby I can have a prophetic dream on a subject which I particularly desire to known. about ?" "I cannot instruct you, Sire " said Ulf, " for you know everything in advance, and are much better informed than I. But this is what I do from time to time, when I desire fore- knowledge in dream of the issue of important matters: I put on fresh clothes, and lie down on a new bed or couch, standing in a new position, in such a way that no-one has slept just there before, in those clothes, nor in that bed, nor in that building. I pay special attention to what I dream then, and the course of events will in the main fall out according to my interpretation of that dream.""

>>19261982
There is also Platonov. The electric city arrives and calls to the socialist man like the dream-spell. The movement is like that of a train, that there exists nothing in between.
One sees, at first, 'nothing other than the sweetness of their own existence.' The innocence of the animal chasing through the forest seems incompatible with the technical world, yet its call is precisely the same.
Innocence can only be tested there, as in Sodom and Gomorrah. And as in the dream this world must be faced freely and at peace, until the final order is given to flee and to not look back.

Bump

Jünger also wrote quite a bit about dreams.

Bump

>>19248261
I agree with this commentary

>>19247149
then contribute faggot

>>19265238
You must be a retard too.

>>19248261
/thread

The current crisis had the benefit of evicting every idealist, romantic, comedians, cynics, nihillists and other pathological types. The focus is on praxis now.

>>19266627
Lol samefag coping

>Movement and stillness – they seemed to effuse and harmonise in this place. Perhaps they intersected at the point where storms slumber like animals caught in their lair. In the same way, dreams and their rushing flight are preceded by drifting into sleep.

schmarn&ghibberish

>>19247149
Never seen that

>>19246145
>>19246274
https://youtube.com/watch?v=2WOx4U3sCuQ

>>19267897
You've been seething about these threads for years. Just go read your YA novels.

What do twitter fascists dream about? You would think they would have nightmares about all that free work paying for tranny hrt.

>>19260341
Will try to get to your posts today. Was busy.

>>19254591
This explains things really well.

>>19248261
It is as if anon is asking for a roadmap to emancipation. There are already manuals for such things.

>>19271677
This seems to be true. What sort of manuals are there for emancipation?

>>19248261
I agree that I took a further step with the anarch. The latter can turn into a Waldganger, but he can also live tranquilly, sheltered by an obscure job. Despite everything, he's an anarch. Society demands certain forms, certain ruses; but basically, it cannot penetrate a man's innermost core. And if society becomes unbearable, then I become a Waldganger; and of course, I can just as readily be one in a skyscraper. For the symbol of freedom reigns everywhere.

>>19260528
>what now replaces the philosopher?
We see what Jünger calls titanism in much of discourse. There is very little that is sincere, instead someone pushes images, spams lines, manipulates ideas into a meme in order to push some end. We can't even call it ideological,we are really post-ideological and post-consequentialist.
Everything happens negatively, and there is only a testing of what exists in order to propel things forward. Much as Israel uses the technique of moral exhaustion to drag the nation into war, there is repetition and testing of principled ground until the exhaustion allows for a 'victory '.
This is also linked to the automation of technology and science, which increases in trust what is lost in real viability or proven results.

In short, blind forces are taking over. It is basically just nihilist sophistry.

>Yes, there was something eerie about these labyrinths filled with blank mirrors whose doors closed and opened silently. Here the spirit of judgment created its perfect system, a spatial symbol of theology that strictly measured reward and guilt. Here reigned the dreaded demons either-or, whose password is "decision".

>I turned away and felt relieved, as after a nightmare. Yes, Leibniz was right: we live in the best of all worlds, which we can see first and foremost in the imperfections. How good it is that not two but many doors are open before man, and behind each of them there are not only flaws, but also hope. And how blessed it is that the world is not built the way man would like it to be; he would like to make it a star, from which free gift and grace are excluded.

>>19249104
Anyone read Schmitt?

>>19244598
idc

>>19274166
>idc
What's this literature?

Bump

>>19266745
no weirdo. take your meds

>>19275132
Your post was terrible and says nothing about Jünger.

>>19275315
I enjoy Junger but the critique I replied to is correct and you still need to take your meds.

>>19275489
Literally everything in your post is wrong. And as >>19271677
said you want Junger to be some self-help guru. But go ahead and point out where Junger ever discusses praxis as an ideal, that technology throttled poetry, that he did not 'no work', that he was a careerist, a bohemian etc.
No one who has even read one book of his would agree with these things. You supposedly read all of his work but know less than anyone who has read his wikipedia. So you're either retarded or just a manipulative ironybro.
And anyone involved in these discussions already knows the answer. Stupid samefaggot.

Worth noting that Raud and his Sons has never been discussed on /lit/ before.

>>19248261
Habent sua fata libelli et balli

>>19260528
May be time to let this end, but I'm curious as to your distinction between deterioration and expenditure. Are these not opposites?

Bump

>>19277144
There is a loose equivalence between the terms; e.g., it is similar to say 'my men are spent' and 'my men are deteriorated'. But there is justice in the question, since, for example, I might say something like 'Expenditure is required for a structure to maintain itself in the face of constant deterioration from outside forces'. So here expenditure is opposed to the forces of deterioration as what is intended to counteract them. But really expenditure is just deterioration 'for the sake of' maintenance, i.e., whatever costs or expenses we undergo in order to keep the system running or to get somewhere we need to be. There is no confusion if one keeps in mind that the opposition is not logical but real, so the difference is only in point of view. So, for example, if I am fighting someone in hand to hand combat, whenever I throw a punch I must spend energy, by pushing my back foot into the ground. This expense is also a deterioration, insofar as I have used up a part of my energy, and this is more easily seen if my opponent is dodging all my punches, since I will quickly become fatigued (i.e., deteriorated), showing that all my expenditure has just been loss. It is less clear if one thinks of exchanges, e.g., monetary expenses. It does not seem like a deterioration just to pay expenses, since I have gotten rid of debts or acquired resources; yet we might still say something like, 'my funds are rapidly deteriorating' because of a bundle of expenses.

>>19278273
Interesting. Thanks.

>>19248261
>Yep, a nihilist faggot.

>Titans come and go as forces of nature; they are also represented, formatively, by animal and man.

>Hölderlin predicts their arrival in "Bread and Wine". He also limits their rule by declaring them an interim. He says that in meagre times, and so an age far from gods, that it is “better to sleep.” At the same time he does not rule out the possibility that something mighty, albeit violent, happens in the meantime. “Heroes in iron cradles” are growing up, but they only resemble the heavenly ones.

>The poet finds the last refuge - sleep, intoxication, and oblivion - with Dionysus.

>>19261982
Gave Raud and His Sons a read. I can see why you suggested it. Want to read through this thread and some previous ones before I make another post.

>>19281471
It's a nice story isn't it. I was excited when I first found it.

@Jüngeranon

Can you tell me how one would ever approach FG Jünger's "Perfektion der Technik" if one is not versed in the epistemological insight from specifically someone like Heidegger, since his "mechanical time" is the standard notion for time and the other contravention understanding of time is otherwise so alien to people that simple poetry from Goethe or Hölderlin most likely would not have led them to come to this necessary epistemological insight?

>>19274163
I have only read his essay called 'The Buribunks' ('Die Buribunken').

>>19246296
>Why don't you make this thread more accessible to those of us who haven't read The Worker by giving a brief outline of the main points you want the thread to consider?
go back

>>19282380
Well I'd have to first admit that I'm a bit of a Socratic dummy and don't know what the epistemological insight is that can't be reached from reading Goethe or Hölderlin. Everyone in the modern era has seen a clocktower or heard the industrial sirens, so what more is needed to know that our times are meagre?
Then I'd say something to the effect of "How can one approach Heidegger without knowing how clock time carries with it a sense of being that was close to the eschatological will of the Christians?"
And how would anyone ever approach the being in a Goethe or Hölderlin poem if they don't recognise the similarities to clock-time in Heidegger's methodology?

In other words, I don't think the whole of Heidegger's work has anything like the value of a single poem from Goethe or Hölderlin. Or Jünger's comment that Pan shows us that to be without time is the greatest impoverishment. And that's why I don't read him. It's a waste of time.

I was just kidding Heideggerbros.

Bump

>>19283085
Jünger anon, how would you sum up his work in two sentences?

>>19284910
Is this a test?
Why not just clarify what you think Heidegger offers as an idea of time that no one else came close to? And why one can't understand technology without him.
Wouldn't it be better to open up the discussion to being and thinking rather than close it?

>>19282380
So what's the answer?

>>19283085
>It's a waste of time.
Is this just a pun?

>>19287386
Probably.
Although I don't like how the question was presented, there is likely an interesting discussion here. I can't really comment on Heidegger's idea of time, but will gladly discuss Goethe's in relation to it if someone wants to clarify.
Or any other philosophies of time and how they relate to technology.

>>19287784
You remember how Jünger talks about "mechanical time" being the simple succession of Nows as it is typically represented in physics, chemistry, mathematics, etc. ?
It would require engaging with pre-Socratics, Bergson, Heidegger, etc. to no longer perceive this dogma as an apodicitc truth, no?

>>19287815
I don't think so. I am a believer in the Meno's Slave approach.
If there is some truth then it must be able to 'pierce the veil.' One cannot hope to conquer the Library of Babel by reading every book, he must first find beauty in the book in his hands, or perhaps where it leads.
This is one of the problems with humanism, ideas become associated with persons, movements, or schools because they are no longer things in themselves. In the end no one talks about the ideas, they don't even know what an idea is. And to try to hammer it into them is simply to be lowered to their level while pounding oneself into an idol.

Goethe's poems speak to the character of time in our age, as does something simple like a Poe story. Or Beckett's How It Is on the other side. So a question remains as to what extent mechanical time as a succession of nows is really true. As we see in these stories there remains an incredible sense of the eternal, and if anything the clock is a reminder of the great difficulty of return to the now, and the impossible weight set within it.
Theories of decline never work for those inside, only those outside; i.e. those lost to being. No one looks at a clock and thinks of it as the unousia of the timely untiming of undisclosing disclosable nows. They'd just take your punch card and your lunch with it.

And one has to keep in mind that Jünger is not engaging in critique. Even in where he is extremely critical of technology this is only to form a whole, from the simple to the laws behind it. Only the law matters, and it is this that gives beauty to simple things.

>>19288664
What is the clock really? It is a great number of miniscule wheels and levers which perfectly capture the flow of time. It does not prevent one from having a maxima-minima thermometer right next to it, nor a weather house with the little which and princess who come in and out predicting the weather. If anything, the great weight of the past and history become more powerful than anything, and the clock is only a prediction device of these movements. It is still what is in between that is important, and it is the impossible force built up in between that is like a mirror of the eternal. This is why Death carries the clock. The world dies in each moment, and in the ticking of the clock perfection is born - and with each turn renewed.

Perhaps I have departed from Jünger here, I don't know, he also mentions the relation of time in the clock to the Christian willlessness. I will have to read it again.

One may also look to what Herder said of Aristotle, while also being critical of him. Is being not also dependent on the beauty of objects, their own coming to fruition? With Midas it is as if man and his territory are one, complete being in a perfect metamorphosis. Such things are not always possible, but with Aristotle there is a shift in time, something that cannot be returned against, and one must work with these new laws. This is especially true with the laws of time, because there is nothing more pervasive. From the perspective of the infinite each age of man and the world is little more than a ticking of the clock. The functioning was already there in the weaving of the Fates, which very quickly became the image of the wheel for the Romans.

>>19288686
And I apologise if the previous messages came off as rude. There is nothing personal intended here, just different ways of thinking through these things.

>>19287815
The clock has also disappeared. Now man keeps time by the feelings of women and their tiktok schedule.

>>19246145
which Mafia City level are you?

>>19246145
which Mafia City level are you?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgLmEzcF0sQ&t=33s&ab_channel=Memeulous

>>19288664
>'s poems speak to the character of time in our age, as does something simple like a Poe story. Or Beckett's How It Is on the other side. So a question remains as to what extent mechanical time as a succession of nows is really true. As we see in these stories there remains an incredible sense of the eternal, and if anything the clock is a reminder of the great difficulty of return to the now, and the impossible weight set within it.
Well, my issue is with the ability for epistemological expression of time.
Right? Think Back to Augustine's
>If no one asks me what time is, I know what it is. If I wish to explain it to him who asks, I do not know.
To give expression to time is difficult enough for great poets. But mechanical time gives you an expression of time every "second".
The problem is that it is dead time; and one feels this when regarding a c'lock while pondering the infinitude of time in any poetic, non-mechanical expression.
So going of Augustine's quote, most will fail to know what time is and therefore Always fall back unto the mechanical time and forget what time actually is and how they actually experience it.

>Wir müssem nach dem Zwecken fragen, die der Verstand sich selbst in der Natur setzt. Und wir müssen nicht nur das prüfen, was er in sie hineinträgt, sondern auch untersuchen, ob er ein Werkzeug ist, um aus ihr etwas hinauszutragen. Da der Verstand nicht für sich da ist, nicht Selbstzweck ist, sondern Zwecke verfolgt, müssen wir auf die konkrete Verständigkeit achten, welche den Verstand vorschickt, als einen Emissär, der auf Kundschaft, Ermittlung und vielleicht auf Raub und Zerstörung ausgeht. Eine Antwort auf diese Fragen aber wollen wir bei der Technik suchen.

Reason (Verstand) rationalizes time, then man only learns of time from his rationalized product: mechanical time, and has completely forgotten what time used to be.

>>19291091
While I think this is generally true one has to see the other side of it. A clock is also the finest mechanism brought into a wonderful order, like a great lever restored to perfect balance. So no matter the consequence one must keep in mind the intent, and like the railroad part of the mastery of technology is to "leave no trace". There is a sense of being carried with nature, which is part of its titanism. And this is not wholly or even mostly destructive when one looks back to Hölderlin who saw in the titans the powerful forces of nature, and not only their brutal qualities as Jünger most often refers to them.

One can also see the opposite in poetry as well, that a great refinement occurs, and even if it is not directly related to the clock it is part of this new conception of time. This is like the totalitarian regime or communist state which forces the citizen to find freedom and develop his art subtly. Great spaces can be opened up from the destructive, just as the highest creations may be of a rationalized or technical process. One need only remember that the Shield of Achilles, the centerpiece of the Iliad, is created by Hephaestus, in the rough and terrible underworld forges, a god who exists at the periphery of art and is even the counterpart of Aphrodite. In the mechanical world there is something which brutally meets with beauty and rises above it.
One of the great disasters of modern thought is to pin sole blame on the technical and rationalist side of things, on the 'Apollonian' world. The poetic side is no less disastrous, and when we look at the current state we see how it acts recuperatively, hand in hand with the technical world to make it liveable.

Is something like the Wall of Time or Poe's Church Bells possible before mechanical time? I don't think so. The danger in critical questions is separating ideas, sorting them out as if they are separate from the world. As a point of attack, as a saving grace they become like a poorly placed explosive charge - and thus a weakened type of the technical world which can only increase its power.

This is similar to the dangers of the Luddite who ignores the question of power in technology, of the creation of a new man, and thus becomes a destructive implement himself. One of the questions of technology should be what is this new man, and what allows him to be unfazed by the ticking of the clock? What in it even gives him a sense of immeasurable power and immortality? It cannot be that he only sees things as a series of nows, as dead time. There has to be a form to his sense of time, and the clock is a measure rather than strict representation.

>>19291979
One could say that in the clock there is already a sense of the wall of time, that with each tick a new wall begins and ends. There remain portals and not only signs, and like an atropopaic ward the clock already announces the end of the era; from the very beginning the counting up of an infinity, of the signs of the apocalypse and the return to creation.

"What a gush of euphony voluminously wells!
How it swells!
How it dwells
On the Future! how it tells
Of the rapture that impels
To the swinging and the ringing
Of the bells, bells, bells,
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells—
To the rhyming and the chiming of the bells!"

>>19291091
>>19291979
Time gives control over 'appearances' by subordinating presence to punctuality. The worker is made possible by being stripped of his 'appearance' in this way. It becomes possible for him to 'appear' e.g., before a court or at a job. In this way the worker is a being which always stands to be accused or blamed. Moreover, the possibility of 'acquittal' is not profit to him, since he merely regains what was stripped from him, viz., control over his appearance, in the sense that he is 'freed' from the obligation to appear punctually. But he is not emancipated insofar as he continues to belong to time, and to be able to be on or off time. The state of the person whose innocence or guilt has yet to be determined but has been called into question is the basic state of the worker. For work is the maintenance of presence, e.g., the work which a citizen must undergo in order to get to court on time for a trial.

I do not think mechanical (or idealized) time can be really understood without the notion of 'being in question'. To 'question' something is to put it to task, to put it under expectation, whether to be something, or to appear in such and such way alongside such and such. When we think of things like dread of a ticking clock or the sense of some immanent event on the horizon, how can we understand the associated dread and anxiety without thinking of a sense of guilt or poverty felt by the entity 'looking' at time in such a way? ('Looking' at or to the time is always giving in to a temptation.) Wherever there is to be a performance, or an appearing for something, or in carrying out some order, there one sees the worker's 'guilt', his basic state of deficiency, of being called to something. Even things that are not so mechanical, like the opportune time, or the time of youth, or the timing involved in swordplay -- even these are understood in terms of a preceding or preliminary state of deficiency, e.g., a lack of skill, decrepitude, and so on.

So time stands over us as something which perpetually calls us into question, which seems always ready to find us unprepared, sooner or later.

How is any mastery over time possible? How is it possible to 'recover' from falling to the suggestion of time which puts us into the state of the worker? Time demands from us, in this sense, that we perpetually 'look' ahead, so that the 'present' is taken from us and fixed at some future time, so that we are anxiously impoverished in having to work at 'being' ourselves wherever 'we' are expected to be present?

>>19292107
If you do not get the clue the story of Genesis is running through my mind. For there, the serpent (time) gives the suggestion to Eve, who first looks and 'sees' that the fruit is 'good to eat'; so her first temptation is looking, not eating -- thereafter, the pair 'knows that they are naked', i.e., they have been stripped of their appearance as something of their own, and now appear in a deficiency -- not clothed or covered -- and are put into an anxious or uneasy state, and this necessitates the first 'work' which they must perform, which is to cover themselves (what I have been saying about work as a sort of recovery from deficiency, i.e., maintenance). Now man and woman are 'under' the suggestion of time, and henceforth must labor (the man in the field and the woman in childbirth). Moreover, after the temptation they 'hid' from God -- or rather they for the first time felt that at the present they were not before God (another deficiency) -- just as if their very existence (presence) was in question. Now who 'told' them that they were naked? This 'knowledge' was of the possibility of (seeing) deficiency (good and evil, i.e., impoverishment). This all occurred at the suggestion of the serpent, which again required Eve first to 'see' that the fruit was good, whereas before, the first man was evidently a creature of 'insight', being able to name things according to their essence. He did not initially 'look' at things according to suggestion or temptation, i.e. at the behest of time, and hence did not fall into the snare of time. For to what creature does time really belong as his main concern but the worker?

>>19292107
So are you the same guy as >>19282380
?

>>19292554
No I am OP.

>>19292018
And time and dreams in the desires of woman. Or time as the law of Pandora.
(Involved in a few things right now but thought you may get something from this.)

Gar oft schon fühlt ichs tief, des Mädchens Seele
Wird nicht sich selbst, dem Liebsten nur geboren.
Da irrt sie nun verstoßen und verloren,
Schickt heimlich Blicke schön als Boten aus,
Daß sie auf Erden suchen ihr ein Haus.
Sie schlummert in der Schwüle, leicht bedeckt,
Lächelt im Schlafe, atmet warm und leise,
Doch die Gedanken sind fern auf der Reise,
Und auf den Wangen flattert träumrisch Feuer,
Hebt buhlend oft der Wind den zarten Schleier.
Der Mann, der da zum ersten Mal sie weckt,
Zuerst hinunterlangt in diese Stille,
Dem fällt sie um den Hals vor Freude bang
Und läßt ihn nicht mehr all ihr lebelang.

>>19291979
>One of the great disasters of modern thought is to pin sole blame on the technical and rationalist side of things, on the 'Apollonian' world. The poetic side is no less disastrous, and when we look at the current state we see how it acts recuperatively, hand in hand with the technical world to make it liveable.
yes. A luddite-Heidegger stance toward tehcnology really does jsut neglect the appolinian side of the same coin. I like this understanding.
>What in it even gives him a sense of immeasurable power and immortality?
it doesn't though. It fills one with immense dread (as Jünger put it). It is a continuous Vorlaufen bis zum Tod.
>>19292107
>>How is any mastery over time possible? How is it possible to 'recover' from falling to the suggestion of time which puts us into the state of the worker? Ti
Heidegger desu. It is debilitating to only be thinking in rational time. To be able to break away from this aristotelean conception is incredibly liberating.

> See the birds of the sky, that they don’t sow, neither
> do they reap, nor gather into barns. Your heavenly Father
> feeds them. Aren’t you of much more value than they?

>Ihr könnt nicht Gott dienen und dem Rationalismus
>Darum sage ich euch: Sorgt euch nicht um euer leben, was ir essen und trinken werdet; auch nicht um euren leib, was ihr anziehen werdet. Ist nicht das Leben mehr als die Nahrung und der leib mehr als die Kleidung.

>>19293963
Thanks for the quotes from the Matthew. I was initially thinking of extending my desultory 'analysis' of the fall in Genesis to the Gospels but those quotes plainly show how Christ is not subject to the consequences of falling.

>>19293963
>Vorlaufen bis zum Tod
Not in the Doomsday Clock. It is an eternal stasis, last chance, or Katechon at the very precipice of time.
And in conjunction with work itself things can seem like an eternity. In the stakhanovite or scientific movement you see the perfection of movement, the brutality of the eye which goes beyond what should be able to be accomplished in time.
One may also think of the new magical types of technology, video games and social media. The clock disappears and time accelerates, to the point of slipping away.

Keep in mind that I'm basically playing devil's advocate. I'm basically a primitivist at heart and prefer the time of tides and the moon. I wish I had the skill of Raud's son who knows direction and the position of the planets even in the fog and mist. And to some degree I have this as a natural sense, I cannot get lost in foreign cities or the unbeaten paths in the woods.
(And knock on wood since I had a visit from a wolf last night while reading by the fire.)

While we may have this dread before the mechanical world, others do not. I am thinking again of the Song of the Guns.
"The slave to the guns, but a master of kings."
There has to be some deep power in the clock. Leveling is not only a lowering of man, the last man is also a lowering into the muck so that he might be reformed with titanic power. So what is this titanic or gigantic man in the face of the clock? How does a cyclops see time? He would have to see immeasurably in the single moment, and even dead time has the possibility of destroying worlds and beginning anew the primordial forces.
One cannot forget that this man lives in the new world, a revealed paradise, and he does not see the destruction or dread. Like Jünger's worker he is ready for the call of service even in the face of the end of the world. Perhaps even more than this, he is in it eternally and has no need of even expressing it.
One may be reminded of the brutality of the Australian and Canadian soldiers in The Great War. There was no need of heroism or honour in these men. They were trench raiders by nature, and without need of strategy or tactics. Simply a bad meal or reprimand made them want to go searching for blood and heads, the highest price taken in the darkest moments of time.

>>19292107
These are very good comments again.
Just as a bit of preliminary. What is it that is specific in Heidegger's "Thinking"? Why do we need to think time?
I am also thinking here of the opposition of seeing and thinking in his comments on Jünger. If Jünger is capable of seeing the era better than anyone else, what does it matter if there is no thinking?

And regarding time. Does he not confuse it a bit? Muddle it up with the concepts of revealing, presence, and being? Or is it that in being time almost disappears, it is carried with us - as with time and the elements in the elemental clock?

I will also reiterate the Fates and Rota Fortuna. How far away is the clock from these ideas of time really? There has always been some mechanical image in the force of time, so I cannot really get behind the idea of loss or decline. The Fates are in many ways much more horrifying, as it is not only the alotment of time, but also the severing at any moment, and the very type of thread given. Is this not effectively the gestell of one's life, yet completely silent and unrevealed?

>>19293963
And perhaps one of you can explain more clearly what his idea of time really is. How does he break away from Aristotle's Categories? To me there seems to be a continuation.
I am thinking mainly in terms of Zeno's paradoxes. To me Zeno seems obvious, or natural. So if Heidegger's idea of time is similar to this perhaps it is why I am not struck by it.

>>19294955
>Muddle it up with the concepts of revealing, presence, and being?
By this I mean in comparison to the pure form. What is unique to the gods, or the form as a box with invisible sides - the undiminished streams of Hölderlin's centaurs. One can see in the streams which finally reach the lowlands another type of richness, no less than the mountain streams, but completely freed and unique.
Or in the forest passages in springtime, one can still find deep pockets of the winter. The winter ends in the material world but never truly goes away.
Is this not also true of the mechanical clock? Time is not diminished, but rather redirected towards total and ineluctable grace

https://youtu.be/49FWp7WLYKw

One of my favourite images. We push the chariot, yet it is ahead of us in its work, its necessity, the future time where the task is finished. In this way it carries us, drags us on, and we even roll with it, hang on to it. For it also does the work for us.
The clock may be the same, it is dragging us onwards into an immeasurable future. In its excess it also frees and hands one over to the efficacious end - which is certain anyway so one must make the most of creation while he is here.
One must relinquish himself completely to the end, even the finality of the world and the eschaton. One cannot build it.

Of course, something may have gone terribly wrong along the way. But this is not its essence.