The Gordian Knot

Part One

First Published 1953

Jünger's political essay on the conflict between East and West occupies a special place in his work.

Already in Der Arbeiter or Der Waldgang Jünger distinguished himself as a writer of political essays. But with The Gordian Knot he ventured into uncharted territory.

Unlike his other essays, Jünger's starting point is the ethnic distinction between East and West, which has already been criticised by contemporary critics, just like the contradictions in which Jünger entangles himself in – especially as the author justifies the geographical contradiction morally. This essay is therefore an occasion for a critical examination of the "man of the century".

1

"East and West": this encounter in world politics is not only of the first rank, but claims a rank for itself. It points to the main direction of history, an axis which is determined by the orbit of the sun. Its patterns, shining with the first rays of dawn, continue right up to our own day. People enter the old stage and the old action with renewed tension.

It is due to our optics that, above all, the splendour of arms that lies over the spectacle is captured. All those armies, phalanxes, silver shields, elephants, crusaders, and Saracen traders, naval battles in the Levant, armoured and air squadrons, great shipwrecks and catastrophes in the ice-flows and deserts, ruined cities from the days of Demetrios Poliorcetes, Titus, Tamerlane, to the present day: all these are imprinted in our memory. But it is always followed by centuries of peace, from the swirling edges of the northernmost part of the country to the African borders.

The same is true of the theme: freedom and the compulsion of fate. It is through our perspective that despotism is imposed on it in the first place. We feel the weight of the continent, we hear the clanking of Caucasus chains. Persian kings and their satraps, shahs and khans, leaders of vast squadrons and army columns, over which foreign banners rise: tails, dragons, red suns, stars, sickles and crescents – always the same terror that precedes their arrival, while fires stain the sky red.

At the same time, the threat of defeat by those similar, those equals in the wars of nations, even in brother wars, disappears. Along with the dark, slit-eyed, smiling, and yellow-skinned, horse-haired riders, the broad-cheeked giants there rises another sun. They stand like strange images of gods on the hills, in front of their tents, in their conquered palace. Great fires smoke before them like sacrificial pyres, the blood of mass murderers, the cries of devotees herald the birth, the dawn of their power. The rulers are not like Alexander, who is the model for Western princes and generals. Like Genghis Khan, they see their glory and strength in "never being mild".

2

On the other hand, the defense of rivers and dams becomes a sacred task. It abolishes the specialisations and professions inherited from the West, both within and between nations. Marathon and Thermopylae, Byzantium and Rhodes, the fields of Catalonia, Vienna and Wahlstatt: it is at these points that history turns again and again to its main direction, to its great theme. It is in these places that the West is measured with the most comprehensive measure, and weighed with the heaviest weight. It returns to its meaning, to its unity, and returns to them when it needs them. Every earthly power, even the greatest, has its counterweight. It is through this counterbalance that the course of the world, the fullness of its hours, is maintained, as described in the beautiful passage in Jesus Sirach (43:23-26).

That a free spirit rules the world is not in doubt. This is a test to be passed during the sacrificial journey. It must prove that free leadership is superior to despotism, that free fighters are superior to the weight of the masses, that their weapons are more sophisticated and more long-range. Then come the decisive moments when the spirits take the stage. Monstrous armies are deployed, driven into valleys, cauldrons and ravines, pressed against lakes or straits. Survivors flee, their leaders roam the forests and wastelands, they are killed like Darius at the gates of the Caspian Sea, or rescued by Kismet to be executed in distant residences.

3

Again, the picture includes the fall of the Western armies in the desert, on the steppes and plains. The space becomes hostile, the heat and frost become its accomplices. Order is attacked and threatened with disintegration. The enemy uses the wasteland as a net, a labyrinth. He is often invisible. He may refrain from a decisive battle, preferring to worry about packs of horsemen, rearguard battles and partisans. Heat, cold, hunger, and uncertainty hurt more than any strategy. For the Western commander, taking the plunge into the unknown means a greater risk than for the Eastern commander. This already cost Crassus his head.

Where there are visible triumphs, such as the conquest of cities, it is easy for the victor to turn overnight into the threatened, the attacker into the besieged. This is what happened to Charles XII at Poltava, Napoleon at Moscow, Marshal Paul at Stalingrad.

After catastrophes, only wreckage reaches the sea or the border rivers, and those who escaped brutal slavery return at the last moment. The fervour with which Xenophon's companions greeted the open sea was repeated centuries later in the liberation of Schiltberg and Cervantes, in the grenadiers of the great army, in our compatriots.

Alexander's greatness, the light he sheds on all the Western princely crowns, lies more in the fact that he was equal to the Great Territories than to the Great King. More surprising than the fact that he destroyed Babylon is the fact that he returned from India.

It is difficult to say which progress is more important: from West to East or from East to West. Both depart from the realm with their power, and lead to a different law. This is already indicated in the preparation. One side is interested in widening the scope, the other in measuring and limiting it. Levelling and raising the points of reference meet as forms of struggle, as between the Huns and Henry the Builder. Both are attempted by visible and invisible means, physical and mental. The two forms of freedom meet and feel each other as limitations; width and height are their main measures.

Does the greatness of the enterprise explain the fact that, despite all the swings of the pendulum, it has never been resolved? Or does the fact that they are fundamental forces explain the greatness of the venture? These are two questions that remain unanswered, as does the question of whether great transmissions are dominated by destruction or fertilisation.

4

According to ancient prophecy, he who knew how to untie the Gordian knot was destined to rule the world. How is the stroke of the sword with which Alexander cut the knot to be understood? There is something imperialistic and overbearing in this action. It seems to express something more than a paradoxical response to the oracle and its priesthood. It is the emblem of all the great encounters between Europe and Asia. It contains a spiritual principle that knows how to create a new, shorter order of time and space.

The sword used in this way is spiritual; it is a means to decide freely, to divide, but also to rule. The knot contains the compulsion of fate, the obscure connection of mysteries, the powerlessness of man before the oracle. If we look closely, we can see the snake's rings glow. It is defeated again, and in it the earthly power of Gaia is revealed. We can also see it in the python of the Greeks, in the serpents and dragons, in the Midgardian serpent of the Teutonic world. In the labyrinth into which Theseus descends, the same power is at work. We find it in the head of Medusa, whom Perseus kills, as he is prince of the sun. What the sword is to Alexander, the polished shield is to him, through which he reflects an image of terror. Both are weapons of conscience that destroy the compulsion of the earth. With the killing of the serpent the path to real, i.e. mythical, power begins in the West. Through it Hercules is revealed as a prince still in his cradle.

No Asian king could have thought of Alexander's invasion, no other could have made such a decision. Gordius, who had tied the knot and whose name it bears, was one of the kings of Phrygia, a land which historically lies in twilight, but mythically in dazzling splendour. It was a golden kingdom, surrounded by other golden kingdoms. The names of kings such as Midas and Croesus point in this direction. Alexander is also one of the princes surrounded by golden splendour. But it is a very different glow from that of these early golden kings. It is a sublime, detached light, a radiance emanating from the sun rather than from the depths of Pactolus, the womb of the earth.

On his sword, cutting the knot of fate, a golden glow flashes; it is a symbol of light. In an instant, out of time, it seals a new, more spiritual world. In the light, magical cities like Babylon, Tyre, and Sidon shine with their treasures – temples with their gods and priests, and torches illuminate old royal palaces in their still dreamlike power.

A new consciousness of time and space shines in this sword stroke. It illuminates the event with a bright light, which it mints like a new embossing-stick, and makes history. There is also science, even early enlightenment, the sharpness of doubt that shatters the old world and splits it apart. A free spirit pierces the sleeping world. It opens the old, venerable time, like a chest from which it pulls out treasures. The riches of the temples, the gold of the treasuries of Susa and Babylon, are but a parable of the power that flows to man from exiled things and is transformed into freedom. The new plays show his watchful and authoritarian face. From the puppets of ancient shrines comes the image of the winged form. People emerge who bind the myth, the prophecy to themselves and make it real in their lives. Time is fulfilled; it breaks away from people and their dreams and becomes a form for historical content. Thus begins new suffering and new happiness.

After the light has shone, there may be detours, but there is no going back.