"Nationalism" and Nationalism - Ernst Jünger
"Nationalism" and Nationalism
Das Tagebuch, 21. September 1929
I.
I have been asked to briefly outline my situation and that of my friends in relation to the events of the last weeks and months. Perhaps it is only the magnitude of the antagonism that exists between us that allows me to comply with their request. Therefore I will spare myself the necessary reservations, knowing that attacks from one side and reproaches from the other are inevitable in any case. It is not my intention to evoke sympathy for the concept of nationalism, or as it is usually called in this context, the new nationalism. But a cursory glance at the nature of the concept and the conditions underlying it may help to somewhat streamline the attacks that have so far been made on it in a rather vague and general way. It is not that nationalism wants to avoid such attacks, on the contrary, it wants to be attacked only where it is responsible. In our chaotic times, with few real formations, it does look a bit like socialism, which is easily used as a cheap signboard for very different aspirations. And yet it seems that the chance to encounter true socialism, that irresistible cordiality, is much rarer today than in the heyday of the monastic order, when a strict vow of poverty was the first legitimisation of the struggle to realise a higher kingdom on earth.
The same applies, as I have said, to nationalism – the pure and unqualified desire to devote oneself to the nation, which is perceived and recognised as the main value, by all the powers and means at one's disposal. I assume that the logical and ethical discussion of this value is known, so I turn straight to the political situation. However, I would like to stress that nationalism should not be afraid of such debates. Important historical lines and histories of thought lead to them, and just as it is willing to use the tools of modern technology and the latest steely expressions of conscience in war, it does not want to be represented by stale formulas of patriotic phraseology. When it is attacked for convenience, as with the ideology of one of the Central European transit bureaus, it is common to avoid this by referring to its deep origins – to what is meant by the now fashionable word 'irrational'. Although I think I know these sources with great power, even in my personal life, I find this method ineffective. Appealing to the irrational is free for any phenomenon – liberalism, bourgeoisie, Western civilisation, historical materialism can no more be "explained" than a stone or an atom. The demon dwelling in appearance is able to manifest itself at all levels and in all spheres of life. The battle between gods and men has begun on a stage where only a few scenes conceal chaos, and whatever the spirit desires will set in motion the physical weapons. In other words, those who are truly obsessed with their ideas will not take refuge in a mouse hole when there is a fire in the streets.
Nationalism feels far less restricted in fighting with spiritual weapons than liberalism in all its shades. Because it is a natural rather than a spiritual community, intellect plays only a functional rather than a meaningful role. This is its limitation, for the intellect exists to serve, not to evolve without limitation. But this is also what makes it most dangerous.
II.
It is clear from these allusions that nationalism does not need an ideology in the same sense as, for example, Marxism or any other spiritual community falling under Descartes' fundamental theorem. Life motivates itself according to circumstances, and the flourishing development of being is more important to it than the kind of motivation under which it takes place. I cannot explain here that it has nothing to do with monarchism, conservatism, bourgeois reaction, or Wilhelminian patriotism. This is "nationalism" as it is presented in the newspapers of the right and the left. Nor is it one of the main characteristics of a nationalist that he eats three Jews for breakfast –for him, anti-Semitism is not an important issue. For those who cannot do without wording, we can say that nationalism, insofar as it is a political phenomenon, strives for a national, social, protective, and authoritarian structured state for all Germans.
These are, of course, words to which life itself must give meaning. I am convinced that nationalism has enough energy to dispense with dogma and, on the other hand, to overcome it. For an analogy, let's remember the spread of universal human rights under the flags of the armies of the Republic and the First Empire, the marriage of the national will with modern Western civilization in Italy, and even the increasingly clear alliance with international Marxism. I confess that in this interaction, which is at the same time a huge concentration of forces, I see a philosopher's stone which has to be found by the master of modern politics.
It is of course impossible to foresee how and when a solution will be reached in Germany, whose power is almost entirely neutralised by domestic political ties. Perhaps the last vestiges of resentment inherited from Wilhelminianism, which still fuels most ideologies today, had to burn out; perhaps forces had to develop that had become completely indifferent to traditional contradictions, such as the black-white-red and black-red-gold contradictions. But there were already other possibilities. What if Noske had not just been a petty bourgeois social democrat? Or if there had been a politician of such scale and energy among his generals that no amount of tradition held him back? What if communism had taken on a political role, declaring war on Western capitalism and at the same time calling up militant youth? We have seen a variety of approaches. But all these leaders are still the legacy of an era characterised by generals who were bad oligarchs and politicians who were bad dictators. So it is not just that the philosopher's stone has not yet been found, but that "the wise man has missed the stone."
III.
Chaos is more conducive to emergence than form. Imagine there was a time in Germany and Austria when all governments and parliaments failed! There is no better proof that we only experienced a collapse and not a revolution than the fact that the end of the song has been parliamentary democracy. Our grandfathers may have realised their soured ideals, but that skirt was too cheap, too manufactured to be durable. There is a feeling among young people that the revolution must be caught up with.
In parliamentary democracies, majorities replace each other. The empirical character changes, but the intelligible remains. From the moment supreme power passes to one person, men replace one another. That is why all revolutionary forces within the state are invisible allies, despite the greatest opposition. Whatever victory one of them gains, it creates an environment in which action can breathe, even if it is dangerous air. Order is a common enemy, and it is above all a matter of destroying the empty space of law so that action after action can develop and feed on chaotic reserves. This is why the kind of enmity that persists today between National Socialists and Communists seems to me incomprehensible, if only for tactical reasons. It is proof that behind these two movements there are still far more bourgeois elements interested in the system than they themselves want to admit. And so it is, for one in its present form aims at a national bourgeois state in the sense of Western civilisation, while the other aims at an extreme and boring form of petty-bourgeois rationalist order in the style of the working-class garden, a kind of explanation for the permanent ration-cards. The only question of real interest for communism today is whether the concept of the proletariat can be transformed from a purely economic one into a heroic concept in Germany as well.
The real will to struggle, the real hatred is satisfied by anything that can destroy the enemy. Destruction is the only means which seems suitable for nationalism in the present situation. The first part of its task is anarchic, and he who has realised this will welcome anything that can destroy in this first part of the road. It is not our task to devise measures to make external political pressure more bearable, to reduce internal political tensions, to participate in elections, to influence conferences and votes, to engage in so-called referendums. It is not our job to go on long tirades against the general deterioration of political and social morality, against abortion, against strikes, against lockouts, against cuts in the police and the army. We leave all fanatics with the idea that there is a form of revolution that maintains order at the same time. What has the elemental to do with the moral? Yet we are drifting towards the elemental, which has become visible to us again for the first time in a long time in the hellish throes of war. We will not stand where the flame of the torch has not opened the way for us, where the flamethrower has not accomplished the great purification through nothingness. He who denies the whole cannot draw fruit from the parts. Since we are the true, real, and irreconcilable enemies of the citizen, we entertain his degradation. But we are not citizens, we are sons of war and civil war, and only when all this, this spectacle of circles spinning in the void, is swept away, only then can what is still left in us from nature, from elementality, from true savagery, from original language, from the capacity for true reproduction through blood and seed, blossom. Only then does the possibility of new forms emerge.
IV.
In the meantime it may have become clear that an attitude like the one we have just described cannot be represented by organisations. The so-called revolutionary and national-revolutionary organisations of our time represent nothing more than one of the self-dissolution processes of the bourgeois world. This is already evident from their political sterility and the perpetual division to which they are subjected. Unknowingly, they are by their very nature constructive parts of the system.
In fact, the name nationalism was originally declared obligatory only by a very limited number of people for their actions, which in each case were very different. The word seemed very appropriate at the time, as half of the townspeople used it as a heavy insult, from which the other half sought to distance themselves. Unfortunately, things have changed since then, especially as there was a certain and unusual interest among young people that could not be denied. In all national organisations, up to and including German Nationalists, people now claim to be "nationalist". So far only the rural population of Holstein, with the exception of a few youth movement groups, especially Freischar Schill, have explicitly referred in their ideology to nationalism in the strict sense of the word, and in recent weeks this has attracted more and more attention – to our surprise, as initially we were counting more on support from the cities. In any case, when it comes to true nationalists, these are the only people for whom any organisation is a means rather than an end. This is as it should be, for nationalism in its present phase can only be an invisible nervous system that feeds energy to a variety of bodies here and there, and that without the possibility of control. It may be useful to use the image of birds flying, whose movements depend on instinct, even if they appear to be the result of hard training.
The recent famous series of attacks provided a good opportunity to test the current situation. I am sure you will believe me when I tell you that, as one of the best connoisseurs of modern material combat, I find such nocturnal fireworks in front of treasure buildings tasteless, to say the least. The greater interest is in the symptomatics – in how these knocking signals from invisible figures are perceived.
The position of the police and the Ministry of the Interior is understandable, the newspaper Vossische Zeitung, which, in pleasant contrast to the humanitarian phrase it usually uses, wants to let anyone who could have done so walk straight into prison, even from afar. One can also understand the joy of the newspaper Lokal-Anzeiger, which rejoices that "criminals have finally been arrested", because peace of mind is always the first duty of a citizen. But it seems stranger to hear communists in their newspapers crying for the bailiff. Paradoxically it means there are even fewer nationalists than I suspected. Herr Hitler even offers a reward.
And this proves once again that they all agree, they are united, so united at the bottom. You are all citizens, and no matter how much you twist and turn and polish and chisel your worn and worn-out medals, the same head always peers out, about which I do not want to spend any more on flattery.
But I do know that somewhere, scattered above you, under a filthy, crusty cover that needs to be blown away to get air, there are prouder, bolder, more noble youth, an aristocracy for tomorrow and the day after tomorrow, with whom only blood and spirit are connected. These are today's unknown soldiers who are falling alone, stricken by the poisonous gas of vulgarity, routine and corruption.
They must learn that in times like these it is possible to march without a flag.