[Juenger-list] DIE SCHERE #69: Text & rough translation: corrected version

[thing yding" <thingyding@mail.omnitel.it (thing yding)]

Dear Günther and dear list members,

I would like to show you another quote, comparable to the Mars canal quote.


> Ernst Jünger, DIE SCHERE #69: Text
> Daß die »Marskanäle« auf einer Fehldeutung beruhen, erfuhren wir nicht
erst
> seit den Raumsonden. Der Irrtum hielt sich nur kurze Zeit. Ein üblicher
> Fall: ein Apparat wird verbessert, und damit fällt eine Stufe der
> Wahrnehmung dahin.


> Ernst Jünger, DIE SCHERE #69: Rough translation
> That the canals of Mars are a misinterpretation is a fact that was
> established before the space probes went up. The error was shortlived. A
> common case: an instrument is improved, and a level of human perception is
> made invalid.

EJ Subtile Jagden, Der Moosgruene, Seite 198 (we are in Sardinia in the
50ies where J describes situations in relation to a pastoral civilisation
which - if we can believe the sardinian historians - did not change for 2700
years until in the 50ies the post war modernism of the economic miracle
overwhelmed the traditional way of life. Who is interested in this argument
can read  Bachisio Bandinu "Il re è un feticcio", Antonio Pigliaru "Il
banditismo in Sardegna" or, in english, "Bandits" by Eric Hobsbawm. Also
Gavino Ledda´s "Mein Vater, mein Herr" is a good book, but one has to be
aware that he describes already a situation in which deterioration preveals,
as in his father´s behaviour there is no trace of the "balenzia" which
distingushed the ethics of the perished social tissue).

Nur einmal hat Valentino dort einen goldenen Ring gefunden, ein Kleinod, auf
dem sich zwei Palmzweige kreuzen und das seiner Meinung nach einem Giganten
gehoert haben muss. Er laesst es sich auch heute nicht nehmen, Dom Puddu mit
der Hand den Umfang zu zeigen, der den "anello del gigante" auszeichnet. Die
Frage, ob es denn wirklich ein Fingerring und nicht ein Armreif gewesen sei,
liegt nahe; ich behalte sie fuer mich. Valentino sieht mehr als die
Archaeologen; er hat noch die mythenbildende Kraft, von der sie ihre Rente
ziehen.

Very rough translation
Only once Valentino has found a ring there, a little treasure on which you
see two palm branches cross each other and which in his opinion must have
belonged to a giant. Today again he will not miss to show Dom Puddu with his
hand the circumference that distinghuishes the "anello del gigante". The
question whether it is really a ring, and not a bangle is quite obvious; but
I keep this question to me. Valentino sees more than the archeologists see;
he
still owns the mythogenic strength from which they retrieve their pension.

I always have considered this passage a masterpiece of adequateness (in more
than one sense).

But I wonder whether the Mars canal quote really concernes an enlighting
example of disenchantment. "A common case..."... but also an emblematic
case?
I understand the poetic need and the desire to concentrate the antagonism
between myth and machine in one eloquent image. But I am afraid, the result
this time is quite scarce, even if one considers that a poet at a certain
point does not
need any more to show bravura and splendor (when old Goethe rhymes Herz and
Schmerz we see charming little flowers instantly blossom on a ground of
grandeur) and is
allowed to short step from time to time.

May be I should read "Die Schere", may be the context will provide the good
reasons for which the canal question has been chosen as an enlighting
example.
However, the question is not of the same substance he is treating when
speaking
about the man in the moon.
J himself at the beginning of "An der Zeitmauer" suggests to admit in front
of all those professionals of
disenchantment that "they are right". And he adds:
Wir können daher auch Gottfried Benn nicht in der Meinung beistimmen, daß
der terminus technicus
sogar in das Gedicht gehört. Sie entspricht einer nicht zu haltenden
Grenzlage, fast einer Kapitulation.
To consider the question whether there are or not "canals" on Mars important
or even decisive seems one step to much to me, doesn't it equal capitulation
in front of the obsessive spirit of specialists whose only aim can be to
impoverish evidence?

What have we lost since we know that there are no canals? Nothing. A
childish leftover of the capacity to dream is nothing. And it is less than
nothing
in front of what J has called "mythenbildende Kraft".
What kind of evidence would we have won if there were canals? Major
evidence,
but impoverished evidence. The flux of spiritual abundance doesn't have its
source upstream
of the Mars canals and the discovery of ET evidence would be only a
superfluous triumph of those showmen whose speciality is to reclaim
dreamlands.
The question of the Mars canals therefore doesn't seem crucial or emblematic
to me, but
pointless.
Evidence is anyway there. Only who is skilled in dreamless blindness can't
see it. The universe is anyway our home and anyway our "empirical world".
If there was extraterrestial life, our attention to life would shift to a
new dimension and widen.
There would be two levels of a "we-feeling" we could refer on. "We" - as
living beings - would feel the universe more
concretly as our home, "we" - as human beings - would have a stronger sense
of earth as our genuine home (any science fiction movie is good enough to
show this).
The question of our origins would puzzle us more vividly for some time I
suppose, and the evidence of an extraterrestial "presence" might add some
"unfriendly" nervous tic to the Earthians' mood.


Regards,

Martin
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