Correspondence on the Worker - Ernst Jünger

These letters were published along with Der Arbeiter and Maxima-Minima. We include them here since they help clarify the image of this difficult figure.

Maurice Schneuwly

Geneva, 7. 7.1978

“... Your work accompanies me; we have a conversation with each other like a father with his oldest son. Yet I have never sought a master. The true teacher is like the target that the shooter finds without aiming – he is not looking for the bullseye, it comes to him. ...

Let us speak of the ‘worker’. As you know, the argument about this is purely political. Despite your substantial and etymological justifications of the figure, the book will always be subject to a fleeting and subjective judgement. ...

I have first judged the worker morally; you obviously regard him as a new organism, as the title of the book suggests. You accuse him, as in the Bible, of totalitarianism and violence. In fact, the new society is based on violence, and it did not need your book. You offer a truth that is unbearable; the portrait is too real. The prehistoric man in us resists the Titan who dwells within and who wants to push him out into a world where, perhaps, the final order will crystallise. ...

They say in the ‘world state’ that the figure of the worker will overcome even the oldest of the great oppositions: that between East and West. I would also like to assume that man, as a titan, will seize all historical utopias and merge them into one. The hereafter and the here and now will be reunited, and their synthesis will open up a new perspective through technology. Man, tired of introspection, stops dreaming – he himself becomes a dream. ...

The borders have become meaningless for the worker; he crosses them like an illusory wall.

Mentally, your work resembles that of a biologist who manipulates with the genes. ...”

Wilflingen, September 24, 1978

To Henri Plard. “Following my habit, I took a pack of letters with me to San Pietro to answer them, at least as postcards. It grieves me that I cannot always respond to valuable letters as they deserve.

It occurs to me that intelligent young Frenchmen (and Belgians) are asking more and more impatiently for the translation of ‘The Worker’. I foresee considerable disturbance of my Wilflingen calm.

As you know, I have been trying to prevent this translation for decades. Even before the Second World War, Marcel Decombis published a brochure about it. Now that my complete works are also to be published in France, the translation can probably no longer be stopped.

In Germany the book has enjoyed a pleasant calm. It was published in 1932, shortly before the Third Reich, but neither the National Socialists nor their opponents could do anything with it. At the end of the ‘Worker’ it was said that its form is neither nationally nor socially limited, but has a planetary character. Technology is the uniform of the worker. This was unpopularly noted on the Right as well as on the Left. In the ‘Völkischer Beobachter’ a review appeared in which it said that I was now venturing ‘into the zone of the headshots.’

The translation will simplify the basic ideas. On the one hand this reinforces their logic, on the other hand it gives them an aggressive élan, which already shines through in these letters.

Roughly speaking, this introduces politicisation down on my neck. I never checked the text again. It is unfortunate that criticism of the times, especially with regard to the ‘citizen’, had been incorporated. It has little to do with the matter. Today, when I am dealing with other problems and foresee the fall of the Titans, I lack the desire to revise and even cut back.

At the time, I could not foresee the risk I was taking with the concept. I must reject the anti-Marxist interpretation. Marx fits into the system of the ‘worker’, but he does not complete it. Something similar can be said about his relationship to Hegel.

I may assume that Hegel would agree with the ‘figure’ of the worker rather than with his reduction to the economy, which remains one of his sectors. The ‘Gestalt’ (the word itself is difficult to translate) represents the world spirit for a certain epoch, and it is dominant, among other things, in terms of economy. The basic problem is power; it determines the detail. This is already confirmed today: wherever workers’ parties rule, from China to Russia to the East Germans, questions of power take precedence over economic ones. When these states are accused of deviating from Marx, even by Western communists, the objection is well-founded but antiquated.

Behind the representation of the world spirit is the matter, not the idea. Theory does not determine reality, as Hegel often and decidedly emphasizes, but reality gives birth to ideas and changes out of itself. Even the technical invention follows its compulsion. In the end, it is neither imagined nor accidental.

This corresponds to a conception of matter that leads back before Plato – it is not materialistic, but material. I am going into this in the ‘Time Wall’. The figure is more related to Leibniz’s monad than to the Platonic idea, and Goethe’s primordial plant is closer than Hegel’s synthesis.

The worker is a titan and thus a son of the earth; he follows, as Nietzsche expresses it, its meaning, even where he seems to destroy it. Vulcanism will increase. The earth will bring forth not only new species, but new genera. The Übermensch still belongs to the species.

The work is behind me, although I continue it under the perspective of provocation, as in the end of ‘Eumeswil’. For the time being, the overthrow of the gods is not yet over: the material attack against the paternalistic world with its princes, priests, and heroes. The replica will not fail to appear. Hesiod and the ‘Edda’ will become actual.

Wilflingen, October 28, 1979

To Walter Patt. “... This brings me to the ‘worker’. In this essay, which I would approach differently today, I tried to reintroduce what Marx distilled out of Hegel, and instead of an economic figure, I tried to see a figure, perhaps in the sense of the primordial plant. This was better understood in France, but only in part – and with it the prospect that a figure could become an object of dispute. But it is better, even for one’s own peace of mind, to stick a needle into a balloon than to pull the ripcord.

Incidentally, the figure of the worker is closer to us in Russia and also in the Eastern Zone than it is here. This is expressed in the primacy of power over the economy. Marx is le bon vieux père, the Great Chief, whom they imitate on the front of their Janus heads. That is why they often look a little foolish, but that is part of the business.

I also want to avoid being presented as an anti-Marxist – I certainly do not fit into Marx’s system, but he does fit into mine ...”

Wilflingen, February 6, 1980

From a letter by Walter Patt: “You write that the ‘worker’ is behind you. This is true for you personally and biographically. From a metaphysical-historical point of view, the age of the worker still lies ahead of us; man has become a 'working animal' (Heidegger, 'Vorträge und Aufsätze', 4th edition, p. 68).

Meanwhile, history is being made again. It should also be noted that Russian-style Marxism is the only force of metaphysical-historical significance today ... the Soviet Union is the frozen revolution that will always set itself in motion ... If the Eastern world has materialism as its ideology and heroic idealism as its way of life, the West is dominated by perfect sinfulness and materialism as its way of life.

*

I felt the shyness of political topicality already in 1930, and I notice with horror that fifty years have passed since then. In Paris, too, people are now on the trail of the “worker”; conversations with Palmier, Towarnicki, Hervier confirm this. Concerning this, I have responded to Henri Pfard's extensive letter of January 14:

“... I am also concerned about Bourgois’ urge to publish a French edition of ‘Le Travailleur’ soon. You know that I have long tried to prevent it. I have put the subject aside. Now one is working on it at various points. I cannot contradict the view that today the figure of the worker is represented most purely in the East; on the other hand, the primacy of power over economy is only a part or a consequence of the appearance of the mythical figure. This is latent; the economy, and even the technique, are only the draping that moves with the garment. The basic idea is simple; if I were to revise the essay today, it would stand out even more clearly, but I lack the desire and time to do so. ...

Dear friend, you have an enormous workload not only in front of you, but also behind you. Now that our dear Jean Pierre des Coudres has passed away, you and the little bull are my support and comfort in the midst of the still swelling tide. ...

Now you also want to charge yourself with Magic Realism, starting from the 'Sicilian Letter'. I have to agree with you: this is not only a magical-realistic text, but the key to this optic in general. For me personally, it represents the transition from expressionism ('Combat as Inner Experience') to surrealism. The change is repeated from the first to the second version of 'The Adventurous Heart'.

As you can see, you lure self-observation, which one should actually avoid, out of me. What is that at a time when the world is beginning to shake? But you still plant your tree, as Luther said."

Wilflingen, March 24, 1980

"Dear Mr. Waldner. ... As for the ‘worker’, the problem you touched on has often been considered, not only by me and my friends, but others as well. Publications are forthcoming that will also deal with the seminar that Martin Heidegger gave on the book. Where this will lead, I do not know.

What is important in the conception is only the moment of seeing the ‘figure’ as mythical greatness, first as a titan that enters history – perhaps destroying it. Of course, the twenties had an influence on the execution. However, for historical reasons, I cannot change the text, which is even more extensive in the manuscript.

On the other hand, those years are seen in a different light. Later works also brought exegeses and additions. Furthermore, smaller (Decombis) and extensive (Brock) writings appeared in addition. Letters were written, among which I also count your correspondence.

Finally, I do not want to exclude the possibility that I might turn to the subject another time, perhaps in shorter form. In any case, events since its publication in 1932 confirm the concept.

Wilflingen, August 4, 1980

To Walter Patt. “... You mention ‘total mobilization’ and the 'figure of the worker'. A lot of intuition still plays a role in these conceptions, but it would take me too much time to make them more precise and detailed. For instance, if I had thought the figure of the worker to be an idea at that time, this would have to be corrected, if it were not possible to condense the shadows of the Platonic cave in such a way that they became substantial. Furthermore, if I should have thought the figure of the laborer to be the superhuman, this too would have to be corrected inasmuch as the superhuman has also been overcome, and has even become paleontological. The presumption that something titanic returns in the figure could be taken up; this would correspond to the intermediate realm and would only partially justify your pessimistic expectation.

Wilflingen, October 10, 1980

“Dear Mr. Waldner. In the process of releasing the text of ‘The Worker’ for inclusion in the Second Complete Edition, I have been reviewing the correspondence dealing with the subject – including your letter of July 12.

You feel that the representation of the figure has so far become most visible in some varieties of socialism. I leave this aside if we maintain that the figure is not to be understood either as a class or as an economic or national quantity. It may have a dialectical effect in many ways, but only the phenomena are visible. These, however, have their order of precedence.

Even class in the Marxist sense is supposed to dissolve as such after the dictatorial transitional phase. As current politics in the socialist countries confirm, this does not seem easy. It should also be considered whether our ways of life are not shaped much more by technology than by socialism. Society is trying to adapt to the means – first steam power, then electricity, and now nuclear technology. Primary, however, in terms of the shape of the worker, are neither the technical nor the social structures; their changes are more like the consequences of an eruption.

You quote the ‘antiquity of the human being’ from a work unknown to me. The expression seems important to me insofar as it refers to a state that can no longer be remedied by historical means – that is, not by war or peace, treaties and dictatorships, nor by a philosophical system.

According to Heidegger, metaphysics has reached its end. That which it meant or aimed at cannot disappear, however; an indication of this is the increased significance of physics, which for its part is becoming irrational.

Man might have dared to take a wrong jump, like Nietzsche’s tightrope walker. But it would be wrong to see the worker as the superhuman, or as a Platonic ideal – rather it is a figure always already in the sense of Goethe’s primordial plant. It is, also, not a type, but has type-forming power.

From the form, which itself rests, the world is understood as movement, from the atoms to the galaxies. We see, as far as measure and number are concerned, the details immensely sharp, while the sense and purpose of the whole seems to slip away from us more and more. But just precision and interlocking of details let us assume, that there is something ‘behind’ it, not in the sense of ‘hinterworlds’, but of the ‘interior of nature’.

The figure stands in its titanic beginnings. Whoever deals with it must venture beyond every historical system. The revaluation of values is no longer sufficient for this. The old morality is not able to cope with the facts, but we rightly shrink from a new morality that corresponds to these facts. This leads to a fatal twilight – for example with regard to war and peace, nuclear power, birth control, and a clear conscience in general.

With these notes I want to suggest that there is still a lot of intuition hidden in what I have called the figure. It is therefore difficult to define, not historically and even less politically – where it can be linked to that, I am not sure that I have yet sufficiently detached myself from traditional ideas. The development since 1932 has been programmatic, if not pleasant.

As I have already written, the subject is behind me. Perhaps I would behave less passionately today, because there is a difference between the enjoyment of logic in questions of power and what we personally consider to be right and valuable, or even pleasant. For example, to give an example, in view of the current Polish unrest. The inner sympathy of the liberal spirit is contradicted by the insight that there is a regression within development.