Date: Wed, 24 Dec 2003 13:05:00 +0100
From: artefact-AT-t-online.de (Michael Eldred)
Subject: Re: spectacle vs. truth E. Juenger


Cologne 24-Dec-2003

"Bakker, R.B.M. de" schrieb  Tue, 23 Dec 2003 16:20:21 +0100:

> -----Oorspronkelijk bericht-----
> Van: owner-heidegger-AT-lists.village.Virginia.EDU
> [mailto:owner-heidegger-AT-lists.village.Virginia.EDU]Namens Malcolm
> Riddoch
> Verzonden: dinsdag 23 december 2003 15:43
> Aan: heidegger-AT-lists.village.Virginia.EDU
> Onderwerp: Re: spectacle v truth
>
> On Tuesday, December 23, 2003, at 02:07  PM, bob scheetz wrote:
>
> > the "fascist" thing is perennial on the left; but imho misconceives
> > the US pol-econ
> MR:
> Well I was just going along with a certain proposition, the dreadful
> yet still tenuous possibility that the neocons aided and abetted the
> 911 massacres. And I'm only mentioning it now because amazingly it's
> entered the mainstream US election cycle but I don't want to dwell on
> it too much more and prefer to leave it up to others to ponder and do
> their own research.
>
> However, if true I think this 'fascism' could possibly become real
> fascism in the historical sense of a military backed suspension of
> constitutional rule, the total mobilization of all national resources
> in a 'total war' of expansion and the violent suppression of dissent
> all dressed up in the patriotic guise of homeland defense.
> RdB:
>     Juenger, after the Cambodians had adopted (via Paris) his 'total
>     mobilization": when things get acute, total mobilization will be
>     called on. After ww1 he had concluded that the capacity of the western
>     coalition, to perform total mobilization, was greater than in the
>     more traditional middle and Eastern Europe. All luxury in a way,
>     also the luxury of not having to do the genocides oneself, but
>     leaving them, by total machination, to the others. (Turks, Russians
>     and Germans).
>
>     WE are the bad guys, as long as we keep on pointing to the others.
>     Of course, Hitler can, then, no longer be the highest exemplum of evil,
>     and consequently his star is momentarily rising. But keep awake all,
>     stranger and stranger things will happen, the fundament that still
>     is believed in, is no longer there...
>
>     cheers, we're doing not bad here, all of us, i think
>     rene

Whom should we be pointing to? Perhaps to those who had nothing but contempt
for "liberal bourgeois democracy" and also the will to abolish it, as
exemplified by Juenger's phallically fore-seeing, 'metaphysical' book that made
such a deep impression on Heidegger. E.g.:

"Viele Anzeichen lassen erkennen, dass wir vor den Pforten eines Zeitalters
stehen, in dem wieder von wirklicher Herrschaft, von Ordnung und Unterordnung,
von Befehl und Gehorsam die Rede sein kann. Keines dieser Anzeichen spricht
deutlicher als die freiwillige Zucht, der die Jugend sich zu unterwerfen
beginnt, ihre Verachtung der Genuesse, ihr kriegerischer Sinn, ihr erwachendes
Gefühl für maennliche und unbedingte Wertungen." (Der Arbeiter, 1932 p. 246)

"There are many signs indicating that we stand at the gateway of an age in
which one can again speak of genuine rule, of order and subordination, of
command and obedience. None of these signs speaks more plainly than the
voluntary discipline to which the youth is beginning to subject itself, its
contempt for enjoyment, its warlike intent, its growing sense for manly and
absolute values."

I sure see that the Middle East is full of "manly and absolute values" these
days, but they did not have to be imported from an advocate of them like
Juenger. What the Islamic world can never achieve under powers like Al Qaeda is
the "organic construction" of the state under total mobilization, but only
oriental despotism. The infinitely offended and resentful masculinity of the
Middle East dreams still of a revival of the seventh century -- an aggressive,
conquering, caliphate power.

The West's most precious historical achievement is the bourgeois individual and
the associated democratic form of government, for only with bourgeois
individualism is there the soil for those exceptional individuals who develop
their capabilities, potentials, _dynameis_, Seinkoennen to the fullest tension
through self-discipline. Every now and again, this ungovernable (an-archic)
individualism of excellence (_aretae_) brings forth a rare, singular and
inevitably misunderstood co-caster of Western history. And Western history is
no longer just Western history.


Michael
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>
>
> Hitler's
> democratic constitutional totalitarian dictatorship sets a horrifying
> standard for fascist will to will that is going to be rather difficult
> to equal or surpass, especially if you think that the holocaust defines
> the modern principle of evil. This is what I understand by the term
> 'fascism'. Vietnam and Nixon's attempt at a police state don't even
> come close, although you might descriptively refer to various elements
> as 'fascist' and the toll in human lives was atrocious. But if the
> neocon ideologues allowed Al Qaeda to attack in order to embark on war,
> all previous left leaning criticisms of US imperialism would surely
> fall far short of the gigantic crimes that would be 911, Afghanistan
> and Iraq.
>
> Yet nothing is certain here and I see you're on high 'orange' alert for
> xmas with your government functionaries warning of a terror attack that
> could 'equal or exceed' 911, so I don't want to add any more to the
> hysteria than I probably already have (
> http://www.geekandproud.net/terror/ ).
>
> Have a good and safe xmas/Christmas break in whatever denominational
> form you choose.
>
> Malcolm
>








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