Re: Debating EJ

[Gary Kern <gkern@alumni.princeton.edu>]

VanKeuken@aol.com wrote:
> 
> Dear Bertil,
> I've read that book, and Schwarz's essay as well, of course. Schwarz older
> book dealing with Juenger is quite a good one, no doubt about that. His essay
> in Schwilk's birthday book for Juenger on the other hand is not convincing at
> all. To  discuss some of Juenger's prognosises is exactly what I'd like to do
> here in this (serious, as I hope) mailing list. It's not that I'd like to
> prove anything to you, I'd like to dicuss these questions of my own, as I
> have been dealing with Juenger now for long, and I'm trying to evaluate: what
> is his importance as philosopher, are his prognosises relevant, do they give
> any new insight, always compared with analysts like Marx, Schmitt, Kondylis,
> and others.
> I would be very grateful if you could start with discussing this topic. If
> you don't like that, if you prefer to go on with your "school" without being
> disturbed by questions from outside, I'll leave you alone. It's quite
> interesting for me, because I observed the mailing list members' discussion
> concerning the NATO bombing in Yugoslavia, which started with Ernst Juenger
> as reference point, but didn't prove any specific applicability of
> "Juengerian" insights in this concrete case.
> For my sake let's discuss his models of recognition in a more abstract manner
> then.
> Curiously waiting for arguments,
> Yours very truly
> KvK
***********************
Sometime back I called into question a few of the statements EJ made in
the first sections of DIE SCHERE.  In particular, I thought that his
argument that no man dies before his time, that a man's life is properly
completed when he dies, no matter when or how he dies, is a paradoxical
and hence attractive position, but actually a specious one.  People die
prematurely and tragically; the world is unfair.  We debated the matter
on the list at some length.  The debate was on a high philosophical
level, without personal invective.

The more recent series of exchanges about NATO and the new world order
as roughly anticipated by EJ was not quite the same.  I had a problem
with my server at the time and did not receive any of the postings until
after the whole thing was over.  Reading about 50 e-mail messages all at
once, I discovered that after the first two or three exchanges they said
nothing and went nowhere, angrily.