[Juenger-list] Swift vs. Hobbes (DIE SCHERE #72: Note 2/4)

[Rebing@t-online.de (Rebing@t-online.de)]

Richard, thanks for your most welcome remarks about the Hobbes-Swift
problem! Please do send me the essay you mentioned if you have
it at hand, it would take me some trouble and more time to get hold of it
through the libraries here. G.
----------------------------
Dr. Günter Rebing
Hügel 20
D-53359 Rheinbach
Tel./Fax 02226-3980
Mobil 0177-5961331
E-Mail:
 g.rebing@eplus-online.de

----- Original Message -----
From: "Richard Brem" <e-ensign@thing.net>
To: "juenger.list@juenger.org" <juenger-list@juenger.org>
Sent: Friday, February 08, 2002 12:01 AM
Subject: [Juenger-list] Swift vs. Hobbes (DIE SCHERE #72: Note 2/4)


> Guenter -- first of all, thanks for your extensive remarks on #72 of "Die
> Schere". Having an interest in both Juenger and Hobbes I would like to
> comment on them.
>
> > »Dabei wird Hobbes' LEVIATHAN anschaulich.«
> > GULLIVER'S TRAVELS an illustration of LEVIATHAN?
>
> No offense, Guenter, but I think your criticism of Juenger way too harsh
and
> I'm afraid I completely disagree with it. Here's why: Juenger wasn't the
> first to notice a certain similarity of motives in Swift's "Gulliver's
> Travels" and Hobbes' "Leviathan". The most detailed analysis of this
> similarity was provided by John D. Seelye in his excellent essay "Hobbes'
> 'Leviathan' and the Giantism complex in the first book of 'Gulliver's
> Travels'", published in 1961 in the "Journal of English and Germanic
> Philology" (Vol. LX, pp.228-239).
>
> I quote from pp. 229f.:
>
> "Either because of his sympathy with Hobbes' view of mankind, or through
> admiration for the other man's intricate mind and polished style, or
> possibly because of a desire to know well his enemy, or perhaps for all
> these reasons, Swift was very well versed in Hobbes' writings. In 'The
> Sentiments' ... he was able to quote Hobbes slyly for the purpose of
> demolishing his main tenet ... 'A Tale of a Tub', 'The Battle of the
Books',
> and 'The Mechanical Operation of the Spirit' are likewise seeded with
> references to Hobbes, in particular his 'Leviathan'; it is therefore no
real
> surprise to learn that there were manuscript notes on Hobbes' great work
> among Swift's papers in 1742. And since Swift's views on government were
> consciously, even deliberately antithetical to those of Hobbes, it would
> seem likely that - as in 'The Sentiments' above - the satirist would draw
> upon the philosopher elsewhere for purposes of refutation, particularly in
> the first book of 'Gulliver's Travels', which I have shown above to be
> largely oriented about the matter of the individual and the state. That
this
> is true may be indicated by the device of giantism; basic to the first
book,
> it seems to point steadfastly in the direction of the monster, LEVIATHAN."
>
> On p.231 Seelye juxtaposes the Hobbesian "homo magnus" with the image of
> Gulliver in Lilliput:
>
> "The most curious feature of the emblem is the fact that the visible
portion
> of the giant consists of a vast crowd of tiny people -- a symbolic
reference
> to the human composition of the Leviathan. Swift was well acquainted with
> this title page: he referred to it specifically in 'The Mechanical
Operation
> of the Spirit', noting that 'It is the Opinion of Choice Virtuosi, that
the
> Brain is only a Crowd of little Animals, but with Teeth and Claws
extremely
> sharp, and therefore, cling together in the Contexture we behold, like the
> Picture of Hobbes's Leviathan, or like Bees in perpendicular swarm upon a
> Tree, or like a Carrion corrupted into Vermin, still preserving the Shape
> and Figure of the Mother Animal.' Abstracted from context, this becomes a
> clever satire on Hobbes' statement that the lives of warring mankind are
> 'nasty, brutish, and short' (III, 110-16), on his theory that the purpose
of
> government is to protect these man-beasts from their own animal passions
> (III, 157-58), and on his allusion to the numbering of ants and bees among
> 'political creatures' by Aristotle (III, 156). Furthermore, this allegory
in
> miniature serves to connect the emblem of the Leviathan with the symbolic
> presentation of Gulliver, who, when tied down by the Lilliputians, is
> covered with a swarm of pygmies in much the same manner as Hobbes' giant."
>
> And so on in great detail for eight more pages -- I can send you Seelye's
> essay if you're interested. I'd also like to draw your attention to
> Juenger's clever use of the word "anschaulich". I think "anschaulich
werden"
> means more than just "to illustrate". It's one of those ambiguous words
and
> expressions that Juenger was so fond of and used with such mastery.
> "Anschaulich werden" could among others also mean that a point about the
> meaning of a symbol gets made by playing around with it or turning it on
its
> head -- which is what Swift did with the Hobbesian "homo magnus" in
> "Gulliver's Travels".
>
> Btw, I also see an - albeit remote - connection between Hobbes'
"Leviathan"
> and Juenger's "Der Arbeiter" as both books put forth visions of cybernetic
> organisms (man/machine hybrids). Hobbes in his introduction to
"Leviathan":
>
> "For by Art is created that great LEVIATHAN called a COMMON-WEALTH, or
STATE
> (in Latin CIVITAS) which is but an Artificiall Man ..."
>
> Bests,
> Richard Brem
> - - - - - - - - - - - -
> "We're the poison in the human machine"
>   --  Sex Pistols "God Save the Queen"
>
>
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