World State

[Gerd Groenewold <venator@win.bright.net>]

Greetings to everyone.

I am very new to this list (I've been here for about one day) so if I am
covering any territory already talked to death, I apologize.  To start
with, though, I would like to say that in the last day I have been very
impressed with the conversation I have seen.  The comments on _The Glass
Bees_ (Zapparoni = Spielberg) were fascinating.  

I noticed the discussion about Juenger in Russian.  I don't know if this
is true, but according to the dust jacket on my copy of the translation
of _Marble Cliffs_, that book was translated into Russian following the
invasion of the Soviet Union.  Of course, that could very well be
incorrect, and even if it is correct, I have a hard time believing it
stayed in print very long, as it could be seen as anti-Stalinist as well
as anti-Nazi.  Again, I hope I'm not going into something already
discussed.

Mr. Calvo asks whether in Juenger's vision of a World Empire people
would have to all speak the same language.  Juenger himself seems to
answer this in the interview with Julien Hervier published in English as
_The Details of Time_ where he says while discussing the concept of the
World State that "In an empire, everyone can speak whatever language he
wishes - Polish or Yiddish - one's mother tongue, whatever it may be. 
But in a nation state, everyone has to speak the same language, etc." 
This gets to part of what I find really fascinating about Juenger's idea
of the World State, which is the idea that while centralized authority
becomes larger, expands over a vaster area, it also becomes much less
important to the individual.  Instead of the culturally homogenizing
influences of the nation state, there is instead a return to a sort of
regionalism.  Instead of feeling some kind of (often false and nebulous)
affinity as "Germans," for example, people instead feel a more real
cultural identity as "Westphalians" or "Franconians" or "Lower Saxons."

GERD GROENEWOLD
-- 
"...once Ares is no longer in charge of wars, the shacks
of flayers multiply, the sword becomes a slaughterer's 
knife." - Ernst Jünger