Ernst Junger

[Anonymous No.16953027]

Did he glorify war as a good thing? Why?

[Anonymous No.16953034]

>>16953027
Because he valued the experience.

[Anonymous No.16953062]

>>16953027
because he was a rightoid chud who got BTFO by Walter Benjamin
>This new theory of war... is nothing other than an unrestrained transposition of the theses of l'art pour l'art to war.
although unlike chuds he actually had sex lmao

[Anonymous No.16953069]

Do your own homework
You got all of tomorrow

[Anonymous No.16953091]

>>16953062
They key to fishing is subtlety, my friend.

[Anonymous No.16953104]

He believed that the world had been sorted into tidy compartments and the compartments sorted into even tider compartments and so on and so on until the world was at risk of becoming all tidiness and no remembrance of what was actually in the compartments in the first place, way back when someone had the bright idea to make life a little more efficient by sorting things. He believed that any experience that breaks out of or shows the insufficiency of the compartments was a good thing and came from the realm before the compartments. War is one of the oldest and least categorisable human experiences, and yet even then it was being subjected to the same process. Junger tried to discern the real content of war and its interaction with the increasingly efficient and rational forms it was assuming. There is positivity in real war, in more than just the colloquial sense of "goodness." There is also the melancholy acknowledgement that even war was conquered by efficiency.

[Anonymous No.16953659]

He had the mind of a prussian bureaucrat

[Anonymous No.16953722]

>>16953062
these false flags are unnecessary and growing quite tiresome

[Anonymous No.16953894]

>>16953027
>Did he glorify war as a good thing?
Yes, he did.
>Why?
Because he believed war was a heroic experience, an opportunity grasp life beyond mere life.

[Anonymous No.16953969]

>>16953062
>l'art pour l'art
based

[Anonymous No.16954037]

>>16953062
basedboys like benjamin are not pacifists, they just need journalists and theorists to tell them how the next enemy is the most evil and it would be just to annihilate him.
jünger already btfo'd his type in storm of steel.

[Anonymous No.16954287]

Why is Junger so big now?

[Anonymous No.16954332]

He knew the duties of a warrior are beyond good and evil.
I don't think he thought war was good, but he certainly did think engaging in combat was a way of achieving transcendence. To give the hunt your all, and expect nothing less from your opposition; to parley with death, either as giver or receiver: that is greatness.

[Anonymous No.16954578]

>>16953027
He understood that the modern world is built around safety and comfort as the uniform ultimate Ideal, not danger and bravery like it should be.

He understands that the modern world tries to box itself in and shield itself from the "Elemental" as he called it, aka, the unpredictable insurmountable will of chaotic forces that animate existence itself.

A world of comfort and safety greatly stunts and suffocates the human experience, especially warrior types, (read Evola) those who dislike a state of permanent comfort and prefer having dangers to face and conquer. If self preservation instincts were the existential equivalent of big dick energy which they are but also made active and forward moving.

Heres a TTS of Evola discussing Ernsts Philosophy:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yY5dUHnVNAA

[Anonymous No.16954635]

>>16953027
He thought combat was one of the paths to transcendence and had a marked dislike of the modern lethargy and the modern condition's conformism/aversion to danger but had a somewhat skeptical view of whether such transcendent combat was possible in the age of mechanized mass warfare.

[Anonymous No.16954851]

>>16954578
That's great and all but war was never really "Elemental" (some very rare exceptions like ww II eastern front), that's why i don't like his type. I agree somewhat that safety and comfort is poison to the human experience, but the antidote is a rapidly changing society, a dynamic society where we have a hand in how it works.

Just imagine what you or someone else could be working on if you just didn't have to slave away at some soul crushing job, or study for something you don't really like that much, but you're doing because it's what makes money, etc.

[Anonymous No.16954871]

>>16953062
>l'art pour l'art
is and was based. Sorry idk anything about Benjamin but he's retarded for this shit. I assume he wants Steven Universe characters to lecture children about racism and gender fluidity.

[Anonymous No.16954880]

>>16953027
He glorified war because it made him realise he was an unstoppable, invincible spirit of destruction beyond the control of material factors. Then he grew old and gay, converted to Catholicism and recanted his beliefs. It's okay though, because the work of his youth still exists (though you should avoid the later editions of Storm of Steel for that reason).

[Anonymous No.16954902]

>>16954851
You really like talking out your ass and having a poor frame of reference don't you?

[Anonymous No.16954909]

>>16954902
Fighting isn't transcendent by itself.

[Anonymous No.16954930]

>>16954909
t. Has never fought against any serious threat

[Anonymous No.16955007]

>>16954851
>That's great and all but war was never really "Elemental" (some very rare exceptions like ww II eastern front), that's why i don't like his type.
You know that Junger literally takes this opinion from his lived experience, right? Particularly, from an infantry offensive where he and his fellow soldiers were forced to crawl forward through No Man's Land until they reached an enormous, incessant wall of fire generated by German artillery. The soldiers were expected to stand by patiently and in a disciplined manner, right behind that inferno.
>I agree somewhat that safety and comfort is poison to the human experience, but the antidote is a rapidly changing society, a dynamic society where we have a hand in how it works.
You've already given up on the idea of a functional society if your solution is just "permanent revolution".
>Just imagine what you or someone else could be working on if you just didn't have to slave away at some soul crushing job, or study for something you don't really like that much, but you're doing because it's what makes money, etc.
I want the socialism but without the gay humanism, is that okay?
>>16954909
Fighting in war, however, offers that distinct possibility.

[Anonymous No.16955033]

>>16955007
>I want the socialism but without the gay humanism, is that okay?
Do you know what humanism is? Even fascism was humanist.

[Anonymous No.16955046]

>>16954909
>the literal circumstance in which things are either allowed to persist or ripped out of existence bears no metaphysical significance.

[Anonymous No.16955061]

>>16955033
>Do you know what humanism is? Even fascism was humanist.
Some fascism was humanist. Ironically, fascism is probably the most intellectually diverse of the major ideologies, despite its emphasis on unity or its short political lifespan.

[Anonymous No.16955070]

>>16954287
He's the new meme of /lit/'s 2020
Just like Mainländer and Michelstaedter.

[Anonymous No.16955101]

>>16953027
Early on yes, because he saw technology to be sterile and risk-averse. Storm of Steel is partly him amending this after seeing war itself mechanized, realizing it was not a satisfactory outlet, and developed an interest in the broader field of "pain".

In the interbellum years he became more and more settled and pacifistic, especially after seeing pain inflicted on women and children through starvation etc during wartime trade embargoes. I don't think he ever lost his edge even up to writing The Peace, but embrace of suffering became more & more of a contingency

[Anonymous No.16955180]

>>16955007
Marxism is anti-humanist.

[Anonymous No.16955197]

>>16955180
Yeah, right.

[Anonymous No.16956438]

>>16955197
It is though

[Anonymous No.16956644]

>>16955101
>>16954635
>>16954578
>>16954332
Junger didn't see war in this way. And as pointed out before, the idea of a great shift in his work is mistaken, it comes from people who did not see the essence of his work, especially the later writings, and even misunderstood simple things.

War should be understood in relation to the world plan and law (at minimum the nomos). If it is a matter of spirit it is of values being tested within the shift of time, not the creation of values. The idea of war bringing about a transcendental state, or the cultivation of a strong character is backwards - it is of the reactionary/conservative viewpoint, entirely modern. And in this it is also weakened because it does not see the laws of time, the plan of the age. One may point to the minor flaw in Tocqueville's theory of war given that the colony soldiers proved themselves as equal to the professional Germans. Tested and proven skill was overcome by volunteers who had the instincts of the new form of warfare, and a leadership willing to alter itself and dedicate itself to it. What this points to is elemental strength and something higher than state plans. Germany lost precisely at that moment it lost sight of history and time, the deep law within that allowed for its greatest fighting. With defense in depth, in its early stages, Germany approached the wealth of war, of necessary sacrifice that was of the age but also the enduring myth of the nation. It is no mistake that all of the best fighting took place in this period of 1917, and also that once shifted to a technical, and so limited, plan that no other great victories occurred.

Junger discusses the blind sense of attack that took over in 1918, and the deep nihilism that began to take over the true fighters. He also discusses the immense wealth that was created in the concrete trenches, they were made for living and fighting, but they also served as a means to establish dominion within the battlefield. One can speak of morale here, but what is even more significant is the contest of territory that approaches wealth and sacrifice, much as the ancient battlefields fought over the armour of the fallen. It is within the invisible forces that the utmost tests of war occur.

Goethe said of war that there is nothing greater than to be wounded. Or rather, that there is nothing more accursed than not to be wounded. It is in being wounded that one sees the fortunes of war, without it there is nothing but empty work, and with it the retreat of Ares as the battle lines disappear and one begins to celebrate within the plunder of dominion. All that had been sacrificed begins to form as law, wealth returns to the territory which approached ruin. This is also the highest point in the Iliad, when the heroes are wounded they ascend to the law - each becomes like Nestor, their only concern in raising up the autochthonous forces to their highest.

[Anonymous No.16956655]

>>16956644
Patroclus is not a hero simply because he chooses to engage in a great fight. It is precisely his blindness to the fight which makes him a tragic figure, much like Hector. They are one: heroic as warriors but blinded to the greater laws. Nor does Achilles cease to be a hero because he falls away from the fight. One must be willing to step away from battle, even when one's innermost being is that of a warrior, and watch one's nation burn under the spell of wine. Achilles ceases to fight because of the higher laws, and even as the heroes curse him Nestor sees this passing of time, the turning of the age which can only rise of necessity and through its natural course. War can only be understood in this sense, as sacrifice to the highest laws and wealth.

To make an idol of war does not solve the antiwar character of the age, they are one. War increases in its destructive force and becomes a permanent state where the only law is defense against war. Here one may see the antiwar character of the conservatives and reactionaries, their idea is of a war of negation, of total war in defense of character, the last hold being overrun by a greater form of war. This is what Junger saw, and before him Tocqueville and Goethe. The only opposition to antiwar positions is to see the law of this new territory of war and begin to fight there. This marks an even greater wound, but also the potential for even greater fortunes.

It is in this battle with invisible forces that one finds strength. In the Iliad the battlefield disappears before Diomedes and he fights with the gods. Soldiers of The Great War fought much like the anonymous heroes, appearing in silent humility and disappearing like ghosts. This is where one sees the heroism of the Unknown Soldier: he wells up like the forgotten dead, completes the task and then disappears back into the Urgrund. This is not a war of character, of romantic cultivation of the spirit, but it is fitting within the age of the Grossraum - the simple anonymity to which the world may disappear into. And also the great violence of a pantheistic and idealistic war against history as Heine predicted.

[Anonymous No.16956663]

>>16956655
Revolutionary forces build up and are released, this is the essence of historicised warfare. Great warriors and leaders go to war before such formations, they carve out territories of law - and this is where the leadership must have an overwhelming sense of time and decisiveness within it. One must be able to return immediately to the peaceful state if the becoming of war is absolute, and this is why Junger held peace as high as he did warfare. They are of one law. Even in his earliest, most extreme writings he was quite critical of the blind soldiers, and noticed a deep nihilism taking hold. This is where nationalism holds as a transitional territory, where each is nothing then the value of the nation must also be nothing. In the First World War the most devastating destruction was of the villages, and then the landscape itself - the emptying of nations out into the earth. The dying were themselves nothing within this higher destruction, and it is this that terrifies us most in the memory of the war. In it everyone catches a glimpse of death and the end of the world.

Yet, even in this there is wealth. The laws which gave rise to that terrible war continue, and it was in them that Junger sought truth and the plan of the age. It is this that gives rise to war, to character, and a strong politics. Even if the scale approaches nothingness, the elements lost to time, it is the only possible path. A sacrificial defense amounts to nothing today, and this is all that the historicised, conservative, idea of war can be. Junger's understanding was the subtle difference between a Cadmean and Pyrrhic Victory, and if there is to be return against the devastating civil wars of the West then it can only be in this.

[Anonymous No.16956675]

>>16954871
>I assume he wants Steven Universe characters to lecture children about racism and gender fluidity.
Couldn't be more wrong, Benjamin was a big fan of Baudelaire.

[Anonymous No.16956681]

>>16955070
He's a recurring meme since at least 2018. Michelstaedter I'm afraid was never that big. Mäinlander was semi-recurrent during the Ligotti craze, that must have been four years ago. I'm fuzzy on the timescales.

[Anonymous No.16956726]

>>16956663
Can you expand on the difference between Cadmean and Pyrrhic victory? It seems to me the former allows for the foundation of a city and even shape its heritage (the men born from the teeth of the dragon of Castalia would form the aristocracy of Thebes) while the former is the consequence of a ruinous tactical decision.

[Anonymous No.16957166]

>>16953027
he didn't glorify war. He wrote about it as he experienced it. it was his lived experience. fuck off retard.

[Anonymous No.16957182]

>>16953027
Just read/listen to the first part of the Bhagavad Gita, it's all about accepting mortality and war

[Anonymous No.16957240]

>>16954880

Please, which edition of storm of steel should I read?

[Anonymous No.16958129]

Bump

[Anonymous No.16958845]

>>16956644
>>16956655
Based posts

[Anonymous No.16958846]

>>16957240
Try and get the original 1929 translation, theres a newer translation that was written by a jew so try and avoid that one

[Anonymous No.16958880]

Is it just me or did it seem like he enjoyed the thrill of combat?

[Anonymous No.16959064]

>>16955061
>>16955033
>>16955007
Kek,I want more tolerant/separatist fascism,like diversity is our strenght and we are ''equal'' but everyone stays in their own country long term,I just don't want my people to be exterminated,wether it be by globo-schlomo suicidal neoliberalism or Hitler part 2 electric boogaloo
>>16956655
>>16956663
Very nice anon,checking them digits too.

[Anonymous No.16959443]

>>16953027
Read Copse 125 and find out, faggot. Don't listen to the numales on lit to tell you what to think

[Anonymous No.16960677]

>>16955070
Def not a meme

[Anonymous No.16961170]

>>16956726
Some notes on the myth of Cadmus here
>>/lit/thread/S16845035#p16847436

In short, it is the nation or fiefdom living on within numinous law. In Christianity it is the nation living on in the desert, although it may be better understood in contrast: rather than the nation which is annihilated the Cadmean state creates an invisible dominion which resists all defeat. In Europe this was the long resistance to forced conversion, it holds a forest or mountainous character, territories which are impenetrable and hold a free relation with death. In the myths, man is raised up from the earth, formed of its elements, and in this the Golden Age is perhaps closer to the Iron Age, even the timeless age which comes after, than the Bronze or Heroic.

This is perhaps too old a law for us to fully appreciate. It may also be understood in the opposite situation to what Goethe describes in his poem on fortune in war. In this case, one would come to see absolute wealth in defeat, in the forced retreat. This is contradictory to the modern type of war which will annihilate entire eras of wealth over a few inches of ground. But in another sense it turns the Cadmean victory into the only possibility. These are not warrior instincts, and yet in them one sees the great potential of fighting within another world, a greater dominion - which, as seen in the epics and myths, indicates something even higher than the warrior. Again, this is is what Achilles saw, or was forced to see, that which is greater than his essence and strength, but also absolute becoming.

Junger describes the camouflaged machine gun nests of defense in depth, verteidigung in der tiefe, as a sort of dragon. The fighters are hidden within the devastated territory, the mud craters and hollowed out trees. At the very last moment they rise from the earth, ready their gun, and unleash the dragon. It is the beauty of war where it would otherwise seem impossible, where the sacrifice had become too much. The pure attack structure of 1918 did not hold to these laws, it became a war of technical measures, much like the defense in depth that was reduced to professional planning.

[Anonymous No.16961180]

>>16961170
It may be hard for us to imagine, especially given the increased leveling that has occurred since, but the depth of law in this form of warfare is incredible. It goes back to the oldest myths, of the final humans finding their way in the depths of the forests as the gods die. The endless winter endures the end of the world. It was this character that helped those soldiers fight to the utmost.

In the forced retreat in which the Germans destroyed everything, and poisoned the whole territory they abandoned, one can see the shell of this character but not the essence. A Cadmean victory would poison the territory in unseen ways, lasting centuries if necessary. The destruction of wealth was too great, and only increases the losses. The soldiers were forced to abandon all of their greatest victories, and then returned to the poisoned territory. In this sense, the curse of defense in depth seems like fate, defeated by the Russian use of it in World War II while the German command renounced what they had themselves had participated in. "Gangster methods."

At the same time, this was nearly an impossible victory, and the Germans were likely a few counterattacks away from winning the war, at least twice. And all indications suggest that the West has no idea of the Cadmean victory, we are in the midst of a Pyrrhic victory within the metaphysical and spiritual space. All laws, even of the era, are being renounced, and all that occurs is of a hidden form of warfare. We cannot win the grossraum, but this was never a potential victory for us anyway. And it seems strange that the right is so defeated by this. There is perhaps no greater potential wealth for us than the return of new types of warfare and the small nations and fiefs. We only need to figure out how to toss the dragon's teeth, which does not mean a blind repetition of the successes of Junger and his men.

Hopefully that makes sense, no time to edit.

[Anonymous No.16961193]

>>16953027
If you read The Glass Bees, Eumswil and Marble Cliffs, the answer becomes 'obviously not, but he did love his comrades'

[Anonymous No.16961734]

>>16961180
>>16961170
>>16958880
>>16958846

[Anonymous No.16961745]

>>16961734
Sorry, I was supposed to include a link to this, for those who may be interested.

https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/4437-ernst-junger-on-leon-trotsky-s-my-life

[Anonymous No.16961775]

>war bad peace good
it’s so easy to say all the correct things you could probably find someone’s opinion on anything by personality testing purely for agreeableness

[Anonymous No.16961940]

>>16961180
Explain your points regarding the modern zeitgeist?

[Anonymous No.16963187]

>>16961775
What?

[Anonymous No.16964092]

>>16953027
do your own homework, faggot

[Anonymous No.16964112]

Didn't realize he's some new meme around here but I stumbled on The Glass Bees when searching for something else. Is Glass Bees any good? I've got a bunch of options to break in my first e-reader but don't know where to start.

[Anonymous No.16964136]

>>16954287
Moldbug keeps mentioning him along with Burnham