Juenger and Politics

["Bertil Häggman" <bertil.haggman@helsingborg.se>]

>Sure, Juenger came from a bourgeois background and after retirement from
>the Reichswehr was able to earn enough to live comfortable but I feel the
>label "bourgeois anti-modernist" isn't quite right. What about "Der
>Arbeiter"? That would seem to be a modernist anti-bourgeois piece to me -
>as would much of the 20s stuff.


Well, I was thinking more in post-1945 terms.

>Even with the later work - I think one would do EJ an injustice to label
>him bourgeois. Even if notions of the "Anarch" can be used to evade what
>one might broadly label ethical responsibilty - and which would thus suit
>those in an adequately leisured/well-off position (bourgeois) not prepared
>to dirty their hands changing the world one way or the other - the
>Anarch's non-committal to the world and refusal of instrumental
>intervention in the world is radically un-bourgeois.


Well, OK, let's go forward to the 1980s and leave
the Anarch behind. Don't think there is much evidence
of Anarch thinking in the late writing. After all age has
something to do with that process.


>What remains exciting about Juenger's work (even coming up towards the end
>of a D.Phil ;-) is its sense of non-conformity. Even if industry and
>elements of the literary establishment feted him, his work on drugs, on
>decentered perspectives and his critique of "Titanism" surely makes him as
>uncomfortable to them as his nationalist background makes him
>uncomfortable to those of a left-liberal persuasion. And in that sense, I
>contend he is beyond the bourgeois....


OK. Non-conformist bourgeois anti-modern. I guess
you are not satisfied?

Best greetings

Bertil Haggman