At 13:07 13-4-02 +0200, Bertil Haggman wrote: >Ren=E9, > >Starting to provide a few notes on my reading of _The Worker_. >Before that, it is, I think, important to note that in 1930 the essay >_Total Mobilization_ was a forerunner of _The Worker_. Here we >can note several terms that will later emerge in Ernst Juenger's >book. > >When Juenger wrote about mobilization, this was probably >intended as a military term, which is still in use. Mobilization >can however be of forces also in the civilian field. There is >also an important link to energy: > >"We can now pursue the process by which the growing conversion >of life into energy, the increasingly fleeting content of all binding ties >in deference to mobility, gives an ever-more radical character to the >act of mobilization -" (from section 3 of the essay). > >"In this unlimited marshaling of potential energies, which transforms >the warring industrial countries into volcanic forges, we perhaps >find the most striking sign of the dawn of the age of work (Arbeits- >zeitalter). It makes the World War a historical event superior in >significance to the French Revolution. In order to deploy energies >of such proportion, fitting one's sword-arm no longer suffices; for this is= =20 >a mobilization that requires extension - to the deepest marrow, life's >finest nerve. Its realization is the task of total mobilization: an act which, >as if through a single grasp of the control panel, conveys the extensively >branched and densely veined power of modern life towards the great >current of martial energy." (also from section 3). > >One does not have to limit the view to "martial energy". Juenger's words >above could well describe energy of a whole society. > >It is a sad sign of the domination of the leftist agenda that this essay has earlier >only been discussed in the light of some 1930s nationalistic fervor. During the 72 >years since the essay was written, there has certainly been a technical >mobilization and it is at present more intense than ever. Bertil=20 I certainly agree so far. I remember J=FCnger admitting later that the martial aspect, and esp. the bourgeois critics, has done damage to the diagnosis. And that he had understimated the 19th century bourgois professors, who appear now, as pathfinders so to say of total mobilization, everything but bourgeois. >Before ending these preliminary musings before moving on to the book >I noted not so long ago Jan Popma's _The Worker_ Brussels, 1991. >Would you by any chance know if this is in Flemish or English?=20 No copy of it here, but the catalogue says it is in English. Here's the full title: The worker: on nihilism and technology in Ernst J=FCnger / by Jan Popma Brussel : Economische Hogeschool Sint-Aloysius 100 p Series: Eclectica ; nr. 83 regards, Ren=E9 ----------------------------------- drs. Ren=E9 de Bakker Universiteitsbibliotheek Amsterdam Afdeling Catalogisering=20 tel. 020-5252309 =20
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