Re: Die Schere #15: Notes: Roberto's questions

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

Roberto, I share your uneasiness: we make life too easy for ourselves if we 
totally separate theory and practice; if we say , for instance, that Sorbonne 
professor had quite an intriguing idea when he taught that the evils of modern 
society will be cured by eradicating cities and converting their citizens into 
farmers –– and a student called Pol Pot made notes, went home and we all know 
what happened next. On the other hand it would be foolish to refuse to discuss 
Marx because later Stalin came along and fed his paranoia with theories which had 
appeared to a bearded student in the Reading Room of the British Museum as the 
only solution to the most pressing problems of his time. However, Stalin's deeds 
helped open our eyes for, to my mind, the most significant flaw of Marx's theory, 
namely the insignificant role of human rights in it. Now, post eventum, we can no 
longer be insensitive to the latent appeal to massacre in the metaphor at the 
core of Marx's noble categorical imperative, alle Verhältnisse UMZUWERFEN, in 
denen der Mensch ein erniedrigtes, ein geknechtetes, ein verlasssenes, ein 
verächtliches Wesen ist: to revolutionize means to throw over, to topple over, to 
bulldoze not only the existing relationships between rulers and ruled but also –– 
human lives. There is an undertone in Marx insinuating to that the end justifies 
the means, and I balk at it. 
Similarly with DER ARBEITER. It can be an interesting job to examine the 
prophecies in the book by comparing them to what happened later, but it is 
another matter to tune your inner ear to its peculiar tone. Here I have my 
personal difficulties with this book and its author. Its tone is too schneidig, 
too triumphant whenever the shattering of bourgeois humanitarian goals and values 
in the new empire of the Arbeiter is, well, not only diagnosed but, as I sense 
it, proclaimed and celebrated. I grew up among the rubble and misery that 
remained after those Arbeiter had marched through singing, Wir werden weiter 
marschieren, bis alles in Scherben fällt! This is probably why I find it so 
difficult to get rid of this haunting idea of some ominous kinship. Maybe you, as 
a Spaniard with a very different national history will deem me paranoid, or John 
will prove me wrong when he, with British detachment, examines DER ARBEITER and 
will never find that relish for the apocalypse which I detect there, which 
Mephisto shares with the Führer and of which there are, to my relief and delight, 
hardly any more traces in the books EJ wrote after DER ARBEITER. GR

Roberto Calvo Macias schrieb:
>
>
> -----Mensaje original-----
> De:	Rebing 
> Enviado el:	martes 9 de junio de 1998 12:29
> Para:	ernst-juenger-l@maillist.ox.ac.uk
> Asunto:	Re:  Die Schere #15: Notes
>
> John, 
> thank you for your apt reply to that note on my notes. Since I am the one who 
> triggered that ejaculation of a sexist lady librarian I would like to add
>  some 
> words which the incident triggered in my mind. I take the liberty to confuse
>  the 
> voices of the Oberstudienrat (which I was until I retired four months ago)
>  and of 
> the little boy in me who loves to giggle at quirky grown-ups who don't
>  behave. My 
> first reaction was bewilderment: "She can't mean EJ, means me!", but then I
>  felt 
> sadly misunderstood: I don't wear glasses and my age is 62, and as to HUSTLER 
> magazine only in the meantimeI managed to wipe out my total ignorance with
>  the 
> help of the Internet (www.hustler.com).
> I then recalled that gentleman who, immediately after 17 February, deemed fit
>  to 
> vomit his glee over EJ's death on this List. It is the seamy side of the 
> almost boundless liberty of the Internet we face here. Every society has its 
> lunatic fringe, and the Global Village has the widest. On the spur of the
>  moment 
> and with a few keystrokes any crackpot with a PC can force us to share the 
> garbage in his or her head, and there is no danger any more that during the 
> efforts to find a pen, stationery, a stamp and a snail mail box reason might 
> return. Moreover, we have already the telling case of Mr Larry Froistad of 
> Bowman, N.D., who lied to the police but confessed the murder he had commited
>  to 
> the members of his mailing list (CINCINNATI ENQUIRER, 17 May, 98). 
> Ergo, first lesson to be learned from that: We have to brace ourselves
>  against 
> further incidents of this kind. But what can we actually do? Not much more
>  than 
> what you have already done: appeal to reason, state clearly that the majority
>  of 
> the List and its founder do not want such stuff. If you go further (as I am
>  doing 
> now) you risk attracting and involving people who have nothing else to
>  contribute 
> than their dire need to get the attention of someone. From case to case we
>  will 
> have to decide whether we react with reason, with humour, or with silence. 
> It is the EJ List in particular that might learn another lesson here. With
>  our 
> postings and discussions we expose the figure of EJ and all he stands for to
>  the 
> Internet public. It is not only hormonal malfunctions but also current 
> ideological disorders (in February we encountered, I guess, the leftist, now
>  we 
> seem to have the feminist variety among us) that makes people flock to EJ to 
> grind their axes. We ought to be more aware of the fact that there is a 
> many-faceted dislike of EJ around, particularly in Germany whose greatest 
> historical disaster still makes many minds casting around for causes,
>  culprits, 
> responsibilities, scapegoats and skeletons in the closet. It would be
>  one-sided 
> to take that dislike merely as material on which to base an analysis of the 
> intellectual diseases of our time. The other side is the brute fact that EJ,
>  in 
> the twenties and early thirties, helped to spread an intellectual climate
>  which 
> made the Nazi ideology and practices more acceptable to the minds of many 
> intellectuals. Antisemitism, for instance., was surely rife in Germany at
>  that 
> time, but when EJ published ÜBER NATIONALISMUS UND JUDENFRAGE (Süddeutsche 
> Monatshefte, September 1930) he added, as I see it, respectability to that 
> attitude. Even if its content was not very different from the mainstream
>  thinking 
> of that time our post-Auschwitz sensibility makes that text painful reading 
> today. Or DER ARBEITER (1932), a strident diagnosis of the times and prophecy
>  of 
> the tough times to come: stuff people were used to read in the Spengler era,
>  but 
> to our sharpened ears there is a totalitarian and --at least to me -- even 
> fascist tone in its way of arguing, in its supercilious intolerance and its 
> arrogant claim to explain the world, world history and the world of the
>  future in 
> one fell swoop. 
> For these reasons I agree with you that EJ's writings and role in the
>  twenties 
> and thirties deserve a lot more attention. So I feel some pangs of conscience 
> when I see myself absorbed by the job of understanding the difficulties and 
> obscurities of a Spätwerk like DIE SCHERE. I admit that my main motive to
>  embark 
> on the enterprise to write notes to DIE SCHERE was Selbstverständigung, to
>  come 
> to terms with this book, which, at first reading, had both fascinated and
>  puzzled 
> me to an extraordinary degree. So now, after that ray of light coming from,
>  of 
> all places, Bavaria, I feel like launching a Parallelaktion synchronous to
>  the 
> SCHERE project, a close reading and ideological discussion of DER ARBEITER. 
> Anyone on the List interested?
> [Roberto Calvo Macias]  I am.
> The first EJ book that I read was Der Arbeiter. And I had to recognise that I
>  feel the same thoughts: a totalitarian smell. Only when I came to read his
>  others books I understand the long view of this book. Looking at the
>  distances- in time...- proposed by EJ in Eumeswill, Heliopolis,etc. I
>  changed my way of view and also did the scenario where I applied the
>  situations of Der Arbeiter. The appearance of Internet, Ultimate tecnology,
>  Global Markets,etc. makes me to understand Der Arbeiter in another way. The
>  question is: Did EJ write it with this intention- like Heliopolis,
>  Eumeswill,etc-: a future view to advice? Or did he support the totalitarian
>  system? If the latter is correct, should Marx be condemned by the millions
>  of russian deaths? Could someone be condemned by describe a system, or
>  propose an idea- even an utopic one? Where is Die Linie that separate the
>  intelectuals resposabilities? If a dictator put on reality 1984 ideas, would
>  GO be condemned to put that ideas on paper? Were Marx intentions good? were
>  EJ intentions good? When future historians will acusse us to let die million
>  people in Africa,South America- and all over the world- with our capitalism,
>  what will we answer? That we didn´t know? That markets,  economy theories,
>  capitalism were made with best intentions? What we can do: judge facts,
>  actions, or ideas? Is comunism a good idea- in theory, problably yes? what
>  about capitalism, in theory probably yes? what would we think about Hitler
>  if we would stand as a circus agitator? Just that, a clown. But the problem
>  is he ordered the masacres. To judge a person we should must look at his
>  actions, res non verba. What did EJ do? But the question remains: what are
>  idea´s force? Here, as Aldabarr said, we are all to blame.
>
> Best wishes
> roberto   
> Günter Rebing
>
>
> John King schrieb:
> > On Mon, 8 Jun 1998, Morkel, Nele wrote:
> >
> > > Wahrscheinlich so ein bebrillter Pickelknabe, der heimlich unter der 
> > > Bettdecke den HUSTLER liest.
> >
> > ha, ha, ha. Ich bin von der Witzigkeit dieses Beitrags buchstäblich 
> > überwältigt. Oder ich wäre, wenn ich etwa 13 Jahre alt wäre. 
> >
> > (Jetzt kommt mein Auftritt als Oberlehrer).
> >
> > Solche pubertären Bemerkungen sind hier unerwünscht. Kritische Stimmen 
> > zu Jünger im Gegenteil würden die Liste bereichern. Ich habe keine Lust 
> > einen Flamewar dadurch zu verhindern, daß ich Majordomo mitteile, die 
> > Liste soll ab sofort private sein - ich müßte nämlich alles per Hand 
> > erledigen.  
> >
> > (Ende meines Auftrittes als Oberlehrer).
> >
> > Halten wir also etwas Niveau!
> >
> > Mit freundlichen Grüßen,
> >
> > John King
> >
>
>
>