Interview Ernst Juenger in Flash Art, vol. 27, no. 176 (June 1994), p. 66 The interviewer is Giacinto Di Pietrantonio and the text is translated from the Italian. GDP: The first thing I'd like to ask you about is your evaluation of mankind - on a human level, not just philosophically - seeing as you have lived through this entire century. EJ: When I was young I wasn't afraid of dying. because death was part of a soldier's fate. In fact, I never thought I'd live this long. that I'd get past 80. For me this protracted old-age is like a new adventure. Throughout this century I have had many adventures, but despite my firsthand experience it's not easy to answer your question precisely, bcause experience is made up of contrasts. For example, for fifteen years I thought that for my country to keep colonies was perfectly normal, then when I turned 50 I completely changed my opinion and felt that colonialism was absolutely unacceptable. Now that I'm 98 years old I've realized that the African nations which achieved independence were incapable of handling it, given the series of civil wars which have erupted and the massacre of entire peoples. This led me once again to rethink my position toward colonialism, and I have today reached the conclusion that, in light of what has happened, maybe colonialism wasn't so bad. GDP: Your "adventure", as you've called it, was constantly dotted with episodes of great tension, such as the East/West cold war and the "hot" World Wars. Still today it continues in a world fraught with major conflicts, in a moment of what I would call survival. EJ: Yes, but survival touches every one of us and is not a personal issue. For example, I agree with Schopenhauer and Goethe in their conviction that survival is not important on an individual level, but collectively speaking. GDP: What do you think of the current uprisings of Nazism in Germany and the general climate of racial intolerance which challenges this very sense of a collectivity and of peace? EJ: This is a very complex situation to which I can't respond with an immediate answer. My fear is that if this eruption of violence is to continue it will become extremely difficult to find an appropriate path for democracy to take, and that scares me. GDP: This fear doesn't just regard Germany; the whole world is falling to pieces. Civil wars undermine the peacefull coexistence among different ethnic groups. The planet is now in a permanent state of emergency... EJ: The first possibility is that of hope, an existential hope like that which existed during the First and Second World Wars. We are currently in a full-blown period of revolution. and the immediate future, the twenty-first century, as Nietzsche has said, will be very tough and ugly. But the situation will improve in the twenty-second century, when the gods wil return. The current wars are the outcome of a completely unexpected turn of events; the end of the East/West block has radically altered the overall situation, describing a situation similar to that when Antonio left the Triumvirate. In other words, the spiritual state we live in is extremely trying and I cannot offer any definite answers. Nevertheless, we are heading toward a universal state and the unification of Germany is indicative of this direction. The same thing happened in ancient times, first with Alexander the Great and then with the Roman Empire. Thus, the truth changes; spiritual progress now moves in a direction akin to that of the Roman Triumvirate, like what Hegel had stated in his theory of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. GDP: You mentioned Hegel, who theorized the death of art. Is art dead? EJ: I feel closer in spirit ro Hoelderlin than to Hegel, because he stated that if we are closer to the times of the Titans, who will predominate over man even in a creative sense. Like Hoelderlin, I think that the next century will be the century of the Titans, and so for all those working in creative fields - poets, writers, artists, musicians - it would be best for them to just sleep through it, or to take a Dionysian approach. But the hope is that even if poets sleep, poetry can reawaken in any moment. Hoelderlin said that after the century of the Titans, once again the century of the gods will return. Nietzsche always said that his home would be in the twenty-first century, the century of the Titans. Perhaps it will be a dangerous century, a century for which I harbor both fear and admiration. Nevertheless, the hope is for the following century, when the gods return. GDP: What exactly do you mean by the idea that during the age of the Titans, the poets can sleep, or they can take a Dionysian approach? EJ: Dionysianism is not a spriritual drunkenness. During this century we can expect for power to be in the hands of the masses. And so on one hand we need a small, extremely powerful elite who can understand the extremely advanced technology. Technology is the language of the world, the spirit of a work; in this context we approach a totalitarian state which partially already exists without our being aware of it. There will be no more wars, but this doesn't mean that violence will end; wars will be replaced by the intervention of government forces. The image is like what we see in the Balkans; the people are incapable of responding on a par, of fostering an initiative as strong as that by the state. GDP: What do you mean by the power of the masses? EJ: In terms of the increase in population, which will be enormous. GDP: But this isn't a question of power, it's just a problem... EJ: I don't see power in a spiritual sense; I see it as a physical quality. GDP: Who, then, will be saved from power in the century of the Titans? EJ: There will be new, unimaginable discoveries in genetic manipulation and in atomic research, changes which surpass even Verne's wildest imagination. This is the universal State created by technology: the conquest of space, of the atom, of the sciences... GDP: But technology isn't neutral, it poses ethical questions which currently hve prompted fierce debate... EJ: Yes, but I don't apply a strict technological meaning to technology; I see it as a sign for something else. For this reason I don't consider the laborer as possessing social, economic, or national qualities, but within a mythical dimension as a great Titan. Certainly, we don't know much about science; we don't understand many of its workings, for example in genetics, which affects society far more than any political revolution. GDP: You wrote a text for the last Venice Biennale catalogue and you saw the Biennale as well. What do you think of the current situation of art? EJ: I'd never written a text on art, but I thought that this Biennale was an occasion which might indicate a direction for the future. The text I wrote was called "Prognosis" and it develops my theory and belief in a return to myth, and its underlying foundation is to be sought in the figure of the Laborer. We must return to the gods. This means that art must be theological, it must have a relationship with divinity, otherwise there's nothing. ----------------------------------- drs R. de Bakker Universiteitsbibliotheek Amsterdam Afdeling Catalogisering Faculteiten tel. 020-5252368
Markup © John King, 2008. Web archive generated Tue, 21st August 2007.