The future is past

[Gary Kern <gkern@alumni.Princeton.EDU>]

Dear Jüngerites:

"Der Riss in der Zeitmauer," an article by Thomas Assheuer in DIE ZEIT,
kindly provided on this list by Olaf Schröter, passed without comment.
It is mostly a witty attack on Helmut Kohl and his penchant for making
history, but by bringing Jünger into the picture as Kohl's supposed
advisor, it makes an observation quite pertinent to the sections of DIE
SCHERE presently under scrutiny.  Particularly the last paragraph:

"Sechzehn verweht, Abschied am Jaegerzaun. Fuer den Fall, dass er sich
selbst zum Schicksal werden sollte, hat Juenger dem Kanzler noch das
Geheimnis der Heiterkeit verraten. Kohl kannte es schon, denn es war
sein eigenes. Wenn alle Zukunft immer schon Vergangenheit ist, dann gibt
es keine Niederlage. Auch eine verlorene Wahl ist Geschichte, und Kohl
kann sagen, er sei dabeigewesen. Gerichtet. Und gerettet."

As Assheuer sees it, Jünger gave the Chancellor "the secret of
serenity," which in fact he had already discovered.  Which is:  "If all
the future is already the past, then there is no defeat."  Should Kohl
lose the election, it would still be history, and he would be part of
it, so all would be well.

I think Jünger is trying to pull this same trick in sections #19-21 of
DIE SCHERE.  From an Olympian point of view, all is already completed
and all is well.  A life is cut off, another spent in drudgery, a third
completes its task.  All are the same--all meaningful, all complete. 
There is no loss, there is no victory, there is only serene
understanding.

Perhaps we can allow such a meditation, but not as a higher truth.
Rather, as a desperate tactic for dealing with harsh reality, which is
that one human life can be tragic, another--humdrum and
another--triumphant, and we have the appropriate emotion response for
each.  To remove the tragic, Jünger would make everything humdrum.  It
might have worked for Kohl, but it doesn't work for me.

Günter Rebing properly casts the problem as a choice between being an
agnostic and raging against chance, chaos and the arbitrary will of the
gods, or taking the leap of faith and attributing everything "to the
inscrutable will and intent of God," which presupposes something good.
For me, to take the latter choice closes off all discussion.  When
everything is already done, all is complete and God's will is good,
nothing more can be said.

If we agree with #19-21 of DIE SCHERE, we might as well stop reading it
right now, for 10 of its words are as meaningful as 1000, and a book not
completed is as complete as when it is completed.  EJ lived 102 years,
but he could have died in WWI, DIE SCHERE would not have been written
and all would have been well.  If we want to keep reading DIE SCHERE,
the best thing to do is to disagree at this point.

GK