[Juenger-list] Fw: "A Short History of Planet Earth" by J. Douglas Macdougall

[martin krueger" <thingyding@vizzavi.it (martin krueger)]

----- Original Message -----
From: "martin krueger" <thingyding@inwind.it>
To: "John King" <John.King@mondus.com>
Sent: Tuesday, August 14, 2001 4:40 PM
Subject: "A Short History of Planet Earth" by J. Douglas Macdougall


>
> Dear John!
>
> You wrote:"how's the book related to Juenger?"
>
> "Wir wollen den Menschen also zugleich als bewußt schichtbildendes Wesen
und
> als Leitfossil seiner Epoche ansehen." (An der Zeitmauer, Kapitel 119)
could
> have been well the inspiring motto of  Macdougall's book.
>
> It's an excellent and succinct stocktaking of what we know and not know
> about our planet's history (and about its climate's history and eventual
> future).
> Juenger's geocentric - or nonanthropocentric - attitude in front of
"earth's
> will" becomes directly plausible and sensible far from responsability and
> militancy (or before them, or beyond them, what ever...).
> Surprising is the ambiguity of our climatic situation, Macdougall
describes
> a Kontrapunkt of two (if not three) iceages (basso continuo and main theme
> ...and reprise), an interglacial age (second theme) and the glass-house
> effect (cadenza of the second theme in respnse to the reprise) which - in
> spite of the formal rigour of the composition - makes it impossible to
> decide which of the voices is the leading one.
>
>
> But the climate is not the only relation to Juenger, and not the most neat
> and direct at all. The whole book throws a favourable and pleasant light
on
> J's work (especially on An der Zeitmauer, Blaetter und Steine and Zwei mal
> Halley). Beyond specific questions and attitudes the book is a good
example
> of essential description. Reduced to essence, facts appeal by themselves
and
> provoke the kind of reverence which in An der Zeitmauer become sensible
> through "overtones" (to use Nick's pointful expression).
>
> In amicitia,
>
> Martin
>
>