Re: The future is past

[Wahe@aol.com]

Gary wrote:


> 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.
>


I see it very much a question of viewpoint, whether a scene is important,
tragic  irrelevant or meaningless. And viewpoint is a matter of state of mind.
And humans cannot choose their state of mind, they are _human_, ones who mind
their dead.
An animal does not know about its own finite existence and does not care.
Humans do not know what comes after death, but they know death has to come. So
they have developed philosophy to discuss what comes before and after and what
is around this period of lifetime. By this, a viewpoint is achieved where
various viewpoints far beyond the period of individual lifetime can be
imagined - not known.
(To acquire certanity is only possible by the means of belief, individually,
and can only be verified, individually, after one's own death.)
So from the viewpoint of a historian mind a battle in a war looks different
from what it is to the recruit or his mother, the geologist sees climatic
changes with different attitudes than a peasant in Bangla Desh, an astronomer
dealing with the  rise and decline of stars does not even notice the storm
watched by the meteorologist with great concern.

To concede "all that happens is well" must not mean that all is thus
necessarily agreeable, it might also come from the insight that "all is well"
because everything is a result of the inner mechanisms of the world, which are
regarded "good". Take the analogy of the computer, input results in output, in
between are steady rules at work.
Personal tragedies (harsh reality) still have to be avoided by individuals and
cause sorrow if they do happen, but they do not prove against the system,
rather in its favour. As a matter of fact, tragedy in the sense of classical
drama is exactly a description of this system, to which even gods have to
submit.

"all future is always already the past" is only a nice phrase, future is
future and past is past; it is the presence we deal with as we live. As far as
Kohl and the 98- election is concerned, future historians will probably judge
his canditacy as a last service to his party, taking the foreseen defeat on
himself, preserving the other candidates for elections to come.

If one were of the definite opinion, individual existence does exclusively
take place within the active lifespan, a book like Die Schere would not rise
any interest.



Greetings

Walter