Re: What exactly is désinvolture?

[John M Stroup <stroup@ruf.rice.edu>]

My great-uncle Henry sold all he had, constructed with his own hands--in
a clearing in a remote wooded area of southern Missouri--a
cabin made from old lumber and flattened oil cans and with an earthen
floor, and lived in it for thirty years until it burned down.
He raised most of his food himself, or caught it; he never admitted to
having any money from the sale of the farm, and certainly did not put it
into a bank account.  After the fire, treated for exposure, he died on
account of the noise from a vacuum cleaner in the rooming house the
relatives put him into.  Earlier, to requests that he give up and move
into a house trailer [?Wohnwagen?]  with relatives, having been told that
he couldn't live
this way and that nobody could, he replied:  "Well, Bert, I guess I can.
The Indians did."

 On Wed, 14 Jan 1998, Gary Kern wrote:

> A RIDDLE FOR ALL MEMBERS OF THE ERNST JÜNGER LIST:
> 
> We have all talked about désinvolture, but are we agreed on what it
> means?  Does the concept, for instance, contain principles for the right
> way to live?  Or is it just an attitude?
> 
> Allow me to set you this problem:  Suppose that you are a devotee of
> Jünger and find in his life and works a model for your own.  Say further
> that you are speaking with a younger man and want to impart J's wisdom
> to him.  What five (5) principles or pieces of advice would you give
> him?  Would you start by saying, "Always maintain your distance."
>  
> I ask not as an academic exercise or a problem in semantics, but out of
> a real desire to know what tactics Jünger or his vaunted désinvolture
> might recommend for dealing with a disagreeable world.
> 
> GK
> 
> PS to Ulrich Oswald:
> 
> What did your native Russian friend say about "neprivyazannost'" as a
> translation for "désinvolture?"
>