Prognoses for the Twenty-first Century - Ernst Jünger

Part Four

Everything that comes into being

is worthy of perishing.

Darwin answered the question of why, despite the blindness of will, splendid formations emerge. "Then perhaps also the Taj Mahal, created by a large number of random stone-throwers?" he was asked as a counter-question.

Schopenhauer, who incidentally rejected Darwin's theory, searches for the true meaning of humanity in contemplation, that is, in non-action. Timeless insight produces cults and ideas, and especially works of art. He believes that 'refined Buddhism' may one day form within Europe: 'Thus the Volkmetaphysik, religion, it must be'.

Ruskin: 'The ultimate task of art is the representation of divine works'. Therefore, approaches.

While Hölderlin waits with trepidation for the coming of the interim, and Schopenhauer is sceptical and pessimistic about titanism, Nietzsche feels at home in it. In the fateful year 1888 he notes his recognition of the twenty-first century as his spiritual home. This growing importance of the will is accompanied by a volatile development of energy in the technical world.

Peculiar to Nietzsche's affirmation of the will is his relation to time. Whereas Kant considered time to be among the forms of intuition, to Nietzsche it is of unconditional reality. This position reaches its most extreme point in the doctrine of Eternal Return.

This doctrine is usually misunderstood in that it is not a fruit of knowledge, but a confession.

Oswald Spengler emphasizes the special value that the Westerner assigns to time. This is followed by specific forms of timekeeping. Since the Gothic period clocks exist as part of the church towers' equipment, alongside the crosses. They resound, and cast a shadow over the land.

This development began around the First Millennium with the invention of the wheel clock, which replaced the Elementaruhren. Our century can also be characterized as an age of clocks: their precision and runtime approach perfection. Furthermore, their rhythm does not only measure the smallest and largest things, from the atom to the universe, but also determines everyday movement – for example, in the engine.

The quartz clock is the return of the Elementaruhr on a spiritual level. The earth sheds its skin.

The sinking of the »Titanic«, its defeat before the iceberg, is a prophetic sign of a kind that otherwise only exists in myth. Among other things, one may conclude from this that progress is indeed an interim – a phenomenon that has a beginning and end. Of course, it has always been known that trees do not grow to the heavens.

Now the question arises what the earth will look like then – or »what it wants«. Apocalyptic visions seem to repeat themselves at the end of every millennium – today, in keeping with the world mood, they are predominantly technical in nature.

On the other hand, astrologers are predicting an immense spiritualisation. This harmonizes with the Christian anticipation of the age of the Holy Spirit, which comes third, after the Father and the Son. And with it the Third Testament, the word of which is left to the poets.