Maxima-Minima - Ernst Jünger
Part One
This is a repost since the other sections will be released in the coming days and it would be nice to keep them together in he catalogue. A complete version will also be added if it is not too long for substack.
Maxima-Minima is the title Ernst Jünger gave to his notes for his great book The Worker. First published in 1964, 32 years after the writing to which they are assigned, the notes act as a supplement to The Worker, providing additions, reflections, explorations, methodical explanations.
Regarding the format, the essay represents a shift in Jünger’s thought towards theological reflections, aphorisms, and additions. Stylistically these writings are closer to his diaries and the sui generis used by authors like Johann Georg Hamann, Johann Gottfried von Herder, and Friedrich Hölderlin.
In his later work Jünger would separate passages and notes using an asterisk, here he relies on spacing. This represents a challenge for online formatting, so the editors have decided to use asterisks for ease of reading, although it is not used in the original text. Any print editions will continue to use the original spacing format.
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On methodology. The necessity of the eye’s search for twilight. The sunset rises elsewhere. Characterologically: one is an optimist or a pessimist. Optimism can also change, through radiation.
What is “world revolution”? The visible changes are preceded by the less visible, and also the invisible. Already, technology is rising from great depths as a modus vivendi. Mental change prevails over technical, technical over political, and political over strategic. A war can be won politically, before it has begun. That is why the “cold” war also brings shifts in power. One plays for positional gain with pawn sacrifices, cosmic flanking. Winning and losing lie in the unexpected moves. For this reason alone, one must not lose faith too soon, not even in matters of power.
A book resembles the century in that it demands a strong entrée. Pillars of offence, grotesque temple guards, trap doors. Part of wandering in the desert is crossing inhuman landscapes.
What Burckhardt wanted with the “Civilisation of the Renaissance in Italy” must also be possible for us going forward – a portrait of modern man without retouching; the more extensive, the better he can align himself. There are many points of view towards the Leviathan. The points do not determine him; they locate him. One must not take his own too seriously either.
The method of looking at the world must be scientific, but with free movement through the systems, and without regard to the scientist’s aversion to the scientific consideration of himself.
A system is already shaken by the evidence that it can be viewed from a different angle – that there are other systems. The new approach shows that the belief, which founds all knowledge, is not yet sufficient and that the search must be continued. The cosmos must not become overpowering; it must deepen to the extent that it grows.
The author who brings news, as with the worker regarding his work, may suffer the same fate as the messenger who brought evil news to the king and was beheaded for it.
The best point of view is that of the outsider. He who depicts must be inside and outside at the same time. This is made possible by differences of origin or race, even of centuries, and creates not only the opposing positions between the figures – according to one direction, usually both. There is also betrayal. He has the misfortune of being a little less afraid than the others; one who has sung in the fire and comes up with things you don’t want to know.
Fate masks itself in what one cannot know. Therefore, the best predictions are those about which the author himself is amazed in retrospect.
*
At some dismal station one had to board the train - as a nationalist or a Bolshevik, a revolutionary or a soldier, in the service of obscure minds or theories - the only question is how far one wants to ride. “He goes farthest who does not know where he is going!” Those who cannot make history try to fake it; a Paris metro station is called “Stalingrad”.
In the bas-fonds, history also has a peristaltic movement – coprophage palaces, one generation after another fattening itself on the refuse of its predecessors. One lives not only from the deeds of one’s fathers, but also from their misdeeds.
Where stupidity reaches degrees that become incomprehensible and exclude conversation, its significance as a phenomenon grows - not only zoologically but also demonologically - it is to be assumed that very strong powers become active.
The same applies to the dwindling of the metaphysical faculty. A loss within the historical landscape remains relative within the larger contexts – the universe is a house that loses nothing. One does not have to hold the place, one has to hold the bench.
The first sentence of Nietzsche’s war practice, “I only attack things that are victorious,” is less powerful than the second, “I only attack things where I would find no allies, where I stand alone.” Again, this only applies to phases where qualities still visibly stand apart. Where things become so dodgy that even war loses its meaning, there is no longer a practice of war. In this respect, freedom grows, and the number of things that can still be taken seriously is reduced.
The question is where one gets stuck in polemics. A spirit is not recognised by the opponents it finds and cannot have enough of, but by those it sets for itself.
Benevolence reaches further; it leads beyond all the trades. “Salut au monde” still to the henchman who brings us judgement.
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One must keep in mind the type of the persecutor, not the type of the parties. The parties change and the persecution remains. Justice follows politics like vultures follow platoons. All are courageous against the one who is down.
*
In the avalanche, either there is only décadence or no décadence. By making this or that thing décadence, even indignant, I betray the nature and extent of my historical dependence. Independence, in turn, is to be distinguished from cynicism, and with benevolence.
The best view is from the outside. The scornful must be inside and outside at the same time. This is possible by a gradient of descent or race, even centuries, and creates not only a position between chairs – in one direction, usually both, there is betrayal. He also has the misfortune of experiencing a little less fear than others. He sings in fever and makes up things you don’t want to know.
*
The rapid turnover, even of thoughts, within the acceleration. Hence the difficulty of terminologies that are already misused before they have been thought through. But don’t be afraid to use them: this is a further probation. In this way one already gets rid of most of the fools. The parties do not want to know what is common to them; they want to be encouraged in their errors.
When words like “total” become fashionable, there is no lack of thinkers who already see an intellectual achievement in their use. Negation remains within the same horizon, if not the same set. Meanwhile, Indians proclaim total mobilisation.
Quick, comprehensive convertibility of means has nothing to do with the use of force, yet avoids it, even prevents it. Their proof, their demonstration, is indispensable as long as power blocs exist. It must not be attempted only at the focal points, and not where things culminate.
The special characters must not condense too much; crystallisations come at the expense of vitality. Violence is bound power. Standing armies must be limited to their optimum; not too much must be invested in arsenals. This also applies to headquarters, especially large cities.
Equality belongs to evolution; so long as this remains incomplete, new specialisations cannot credibly emerge.
Acceleration is compressed, anticipated time. It heralds long states of rest, pauses in creation.
The “Promised Land” is also only a parable, like everything transient.
*
As they enter the district, the radiation becomes stronger. The great victims. Was Kleist already one of them?
How does the musical man come to terms with the worker? This is incomparably more difficult than for the man of science. His great theories in astronomy, physics, biology bear the character of work – dynamics without resistance.
Even the optics become aggressive. The “peaceful” factories are probably more dangerous in the long run.
Leisure is not a quality of work, it has nothing to do with time or rest. Where the specialised characters come in, the musical types are weakened. This is already true of the national poet. Goethe had a good instinct for this.
Within the specialised work-character, the musical takes on functional, technical, finally even mechanical traits – becomes the material of automatic reproduction.
To be sure, the musical man must face up to this, but he must not let himself into its territory. Either perish or enter the central construction. Thus the sufferer becomes the conductor. He does not fit into the plan, but he can change the plan. His optimism reaches beyond all horrors.
*
The final question is whether the great characters, including their technique, can be subsumed into the play. Only in this way can beauty be rediscovered. Time does not want to be negated, it wants to be completed. Art is not anti- but super-historical power, it lives from the timeless.
Tolstoy complements the Napoleonic era – a reconciling light begins to shine; he sets himself above war and peace. This is also where Goethe’s struggle for colour comes from, as one of the adventures of light, which the calculating mind does not have the means to grasp. But light itself is only an adventure of matter.
Nietzsche: “What Goethe wanted was totality: he fought the separation of reason, feeling, will – he disciplined himself to wholeness, he created himself...”
The world of work expects, hopes for its sense of meaning.
*
Not romantic rebellion, but scepticism within technology would be its cancer. In some future the natural sciences begin to unsettle, or set themselves other tasks. A veil of Maya begins its fading.
Already in the sons and grandsons of the functionaries lies one of the dangers to the collective. The potency seeks other directions, and at the same time the strength for periodic purges wears out; Shigalev’s programme barely reaches the third generation.
Metaphysical and musical inclinations awaken; a new dance can become more threatening than any criticism. Hence the preference for conventional music, painting, philistine work in general. This is part of Jacobin probity.
From section to section, the gros overtakes the avant-garde. Suffering begins when the dream is realised. Only that which was superior to time remains, not that which claimed to be ahead of time.
Blindness of will is part of the plan. The tremendous efforts of the ice flows. Would they have been possible if, on the bridge and before the boilers, two or three more sections had already been seen and if one had known that in the end one was strengthening Russian power? Words like “résistance” come back as boomerangs. With the last goals it is like with the last words – they are always only penultimate. The functional curve leads through political space. Ethos illuminates actions as needed; hatred fuels them.
Mercenary mass murderers in the service of ideologies who consume more people than the Aztec sacrificial priests despise the soldier who only raises his arm against the armed.
The distinction between the abstract and the concrete contemplation of pain is extinguished. The general who gives an order that kills thousands is at the same time a father, insofar as his own son is among the victims. At times everyone sees him as a father, at others the son sees him as a murderer. This gives inexhaustible material for representation.
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Blake’s vision: he saw the murderers walking arm in arm with their victims in the afterlife. Horrors and terrors, seen from the other side. Under what circumstances do they appear and depart? It ends infallibly with their own liquidation. The close relationship, the identity of murder and suicide becomes apparent.
There is also kinship between the clown and the dictator, a system of mutual borrowings. Where the ruler separates himself from the fool, even kills him, the latter’s grotesque features penetrate. The tyrant liquidates people and classes, the clown possibly an age. Where the anarchist attack reaches anonymous strata, it evokes a suicidal laughter. “Chaplin bakes with dynamite.”
The peculiar pleasure of intellectual combination. Who or what is outwitted in the process? Every solution stimulates new approaches, as if crystals were spread out on a surface. This is uncanny to the conservative man. Even within armament, progress is suspect to him.
Where the mosaic grows, the distance should also increase, at least at certain points. Then, of course, an immense expansion, large apparatuses can find their equivalent. Here, the laws of leverage apply, a handful of higher types is enough; engineers, on the other hand, one cannot have enough of. Pure spiritualisation means only a change in the state of aggregation.
It’s about points where the miracle can start again.