Ernst Jünger, DIE SCHERE #54: Text Ich entsinne mich, vor einigen Jahren gelesen zu haben, daß es gelungen sei, einem Hunde einen neuen Kopf aufzusetzen; die Nachricht kam aus Rußland, das Experiment wurde als Pioniertat begrüßt. In der Tat gehen Versuche an Tieren dem menschlichen Wagnis voraus; auch der erste Kosmonaut war ein mit Instrumenten bestückter Hund. Hinsichtlich der Transplantationen gleicht der menschliche Körper einer Festung, die Stück für Stück erobert wird. Daß auch das Gehirn in Angriff genommen wird, steht außer Zweifel-falls mit Erfolg, wäre die Zitadelle besetzt. Schon der Gedanke erweckt Probleme allgemeiner Art. Kann hier noch von einem Transplantat die Rede sein? In diesem Falle wäre eher der Körper die Nebensache; er wäre ein Anhängsel. Und dann zur Person. Ein chirurgisches Meisterstück bringt die Standesämter in Verlegenheit. Einerseits müßte der Spender ins Sterberegister eingetragen werden-andererseits ist er eigentlich jener, der überlebt. Er verwahrt auch die Erinnerungen, die nicht durchaus angenehm sind. So werden die Schmerzen eines Gliedes, das amputiert wurde, noch bei jedem Wetterwechsel im Gehirn empfunden--doch was hat der Empfänger mit dem abgeschossenen Bein des Spenders zu tun? Man wagt nicht, das Verhältnis aufs Moralische auszudehnen, etwa auf eine Untat, die der Vorgänger verschwiegen hat. Auch könnte dessen Gattin noch am Leben sein. Als Roman überböte das noch Stevensons "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" (1886). Schon im Altertum wurde beklagt, daß man den Hinterbliebenen zwar materielle Güter, doch nicht das erworbene Wissen zuwenden kann. Das würde sich ändern, könnten auch Gehirne vererbt werden. Der Fortschritt würde in den Rahmen des Wassermann-Zeitalters passen, von dem eine Anhebung des geistigen Standards zu erwarten ist. Man darf darüber spekulieren in einem Klima, in dem Utopien nicht nur erfüllt, sondern auch überholt werden. Ernst Jünger, DIE SCHERE #54: Rough translation I recall having read some years ago that a dog had successfully been given a new head; the news came from Russia, the experiment was hailed as a pioneering achievement. Tests with animals indeed precede the human venture; also the first cosmonaut was a dog bristling with instruments. As to transplantation the human body is like a fortress that is conquered piece by piece. That also the brain will come under attack is beyond doubt-success would mean that the citadel has been taken. Merely thinking of such possibilities raises problems of a general kind. Is ist still possible to speak of a transplant here? In such a case the body is of secondary importance; it would merely be an appendage. And then the identity problem. A masterpiece of surgery would be a predicament for the registrar. One the one hand the donor would have to be entered as deceased in the parish register; on the other hand its, strictly speaking, he who survives. In addition, he preserves the memories, which are not altogether agreeable. So the pains of limb that was amputated are still felt in the brain at every change of weather-but what has the recipient to do with the donor's shot-off leg? One does not dare to extend this relation into the moral realm, e.g. a crime never confessed by the predecessor. Also the latter's spouse might still be alive.[1] As a novel this would even surpass Stevenson's "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" (1886). [2] Even in antiquity it was regretted that you can bequeath material goods but no acquired knowledge to your survivors. That would change if even brains could be passed on. The progress would fit into the context of the Age of Aquarius from which a rise of the level of spiritual standards is to expected. [3] Speculations about such matters are permissible in a climate in which utopias do not only become real but are even surpassed. DIE SCHERE #54: Notes [1] A sentence deliberately introduced to boggle the mind even further: Does the transplant brain carry over the donor's one-time feelings for his spouse into the recipient's body? And what about the conjugal rights--are they passed on or not? [2] In Stevenson's novel one part of Dr. Jekyll's personality is embodied in another man, Mr. Hyde, being alive and his contemporary. In EJ's scenario one part of my personality would be located in my body, the other in my brain--but is it MY body or MY brain? Who is this I speaking? With Stevenson the names Jekyll and Hyde still serve as helpful crutches to keep the two parts of the personality apart. But a man with the brain of another in his head would have only one name--but who is he? If you are confused that is exactly what EJ wants his reader to be... [3] In this passage EJ looks at La Mettrie's idea of man as a machine realized by modern medicine: man as an assembly of replaceable spare parts. He incorporates the actual and the potential feats of advanced surgery into the general line of thought he has pursued so far, the question of what remains and comes after death. Unflinchingly he diagnoses even the more gruesome triumphs of transplant surgery as signs of the times, not just as mere perversions. His view encompasses a wider range than recorded human history. Being no astrologer he nevertheless puts the larger time categories of astrology to his use [as he does more extensively and brilliantly in the opening chapters of AN DER ZEITMAUER]. So he sees the entire planet entering a new phase of its development, labeled conveniently with the astrological term, Age of Aquarius. However, for him the implications of this new age are far different from the naïve hopes expressed in the musical, HAIR. He regards as the main characteristic of the New Age the growing spiritualization [Vergeistigung] of earth. Indicators are for him the web of telecommunication waves shrouding the earth more and more densely; or the phenomenon that less and less material substrate is used for storing and transmitting more and more products of the mind: signals, symbols, information; or, as in our present context, the decreasing role of the physical body, an assembly of exchangeable modules, in proportion to the mind, preserved in a blob of grey matter that will be even transferable in the near future. I think all this philosophizing and mythmaking, however, does not prevent EJ from talking with tongue in cheek at the same time. Isn't it a grim joke that this scientific cutting-off and putting-on of heads with its mind-boggling implications should be a step onwards and upwards, towards a "higher level of mind"? Or is it again EJ's notorious cold-hearted aloofness that guides his pen?
Markup © John King, 2009. Web archive generated Tue, 21st August 2007.