[Juenger-list] Re: DIE SCHERE #65: Text and rough translation

[Rebing Rebing@t-online.de]

I am glad that you contribute again, Gary, and I welcome what you wrote the more 
since it expresses more clearly what I wanted to say in my last posting but 
probably veiled by my sarcasm. At the same time I must admit that I am fascinated 
by those developments that EJ's text #65 and your remarks are about. Or to be 
more precise, fascinated not by the sci fi phenomena themselves but by the ways 
homo sapiens copes and will cope with them. "Kultur" will not go down the drain, 
but it will change; humans will not become slaves of their intelligent machines 
but they will--well, what will they do to cope and to remain human? That is the 
fascinating question, and surely there will be more and more fascinating answers. 
Am I too optimistic? Günter
Gary Kern schrieb:
> Rebing wrote:
> > 
> > Ernst Jünger, DIE SCHERE #65: Text
> > 
> > Die Abgrenzung zwischen Kultur und Technik ist, ähnlich wie jene zwischen
>  Glauben
> > und Wissen, eine Voraussetzung der geistigen Sauberkeit. Ohne sie wird das
>  Leben
> > zum Trauerspiel. Es ist merkwürdig, daß uns erst die Bedrohung der Natur auf
> > unsere Irrtümer aufmerksam macht--da es ja eigentlich genügt, sich an jeder
> > Straßenecke und vor jeder Haustür, besonders der eigenen, umzusehen.
> > 
> > DIE SCHERE #65: Rough translation
> > 
> > To see clearly the difference between culture and technology is, much like
>  being
> > aware of the difference between knowledge and belief, a precondition of
> > intellectual cleanliness. If this ability is lacking, life becomes a sad
> > spectacle. It is curious that we become aware of our errors not before
>  nature is
> > in danger--since it should be sufficient to keep one's eyes open at any
>  street
> > corner and before any front door, particularly one's own.
> ***********************
> I am sorry that I have been too preoccupied in the last few months to
> contribute to this thread, while Günter has heroically pushed ahead. 
> Number 65 of THE SHEARS is particularly interesting in that Jünger makes
> such a clear distinction:  culture and belief on one side, technology
> and knowledge on the other.  When a society cannot make the distinction,
> it enters into a Trauerspiel, a play of misery, a tragedy, because, as I
> understand the author, it has fallen prey to forces of which it is
> unconscious.  One must keep one's eyes open to the dimension beyond
> verifiable knowledge, which is the realm of the mysterious, the
> unverifiable, the unconscious; swept along by the scientific method,
> which has produced great wonders of technology, one is blinded to
> effects that appear right in front of one's nose:  pollution, loss of
> autonomy, slavery to products.  Only when science threatens nature, or
> when something threatens one's life, is the necessary good of technology
> questioned.  But Jünger, I think, does not expect a change in the
> situation.  He merely advises, for one's mental health, not to renounce
> culture and religious beliefs in favor of demonstrably successful
> scientific knowledge and technology.
>
> It dawned on me the other day that we are already living in the
> science-fiction age.  The futuristic inventions of Jules Verne, Aldous
> Huxley, Gene Roddenberry are already upon us:  the submarine, the rocket
> ship, genetic engineering, data banks of knowledge. When Capt. Kirk
> needed to know something, he asked the computer, which provided him with
> a visual, spoken and/or printed record of any event from the past. 
> Well, we have voice activation, and e-books that can be accessed and
> searched digitally are right around the corner.  Recently a boy was
> conceived in vitro, implanted in his mother and given birth so that
> blood from his umbilical cord could be injected into his older sister;
> his blood had matching DNA minus the gene for a rare disease--that is
> why he was chosen and not tossed out of the dish, like the other
> fertilized eggs.  It's pure science fiction, isn't it?  A couple of days
> ago I saw a show on a technology channel, transmitted by satellite,
> which discussed a new company that markets computer chips as tracking
> devices:  they can be placed "near to the skin" (as with children) or
> even under the skin (as with livestock) and monitored around the world
> by satellite.  One participant said that he would want these chips for
> his little kids, so he would know where they were at all times, but
> another remarked that when they became teenagers passing through puberty
> "they might not want Dad to know where they were."  And so it goes, but
> the interesting thing is that all of this technology, which raises
> issues of privacy, morality and even sanity, has desirable aspects.  I
> don't think any of it can be resisted, even though the dangers are
> known.  Yet no one, it seems, anticipated that the genetically
> engineered corn would endanger the Monarch butterfly.
>
> What bothers me a little is that there are many people around today who
> were born in the science fiction age, people who have never not known
> television, and kids who have never not known computers; soon we will
> have a generation that has never not known the Internet.  Their
> mentality may be quite different from those of us who could entertain
> ourselves before television, who read hard-copy books and who are slow
> to purchase new gadgets.  Jünger is appealing not only to cultural
> memory and to mental health, but also to the desire of humanity as he
> knows it not to be obliterated.
>
> GK