Welcome to a space for an objective study of the life and works of Ernst Jünger, with a main focus on his figure of the anarch as developed in his 1977 novel Eumeswil.
To avoid wasting anyone’s time, let’s be clear that THIS SPACE IS NOT FOR:
- anarchists who have not grasped the essential gulf between their merely anti-establishment worldview and the more exalted freedom of an anarch. This opposition indeed helps define the anarch and will be developed in future posts (see posts Anarch vs Anarchist)
- the overly politicised of the left or right. I refer to misguided right-wing fanatics or equally uninformed and biased left-wing critics, both of whom, through a superficial reading or second-hand knowledge of some early works believe they have found a figure useful in a positive or negative sense to further their political agendas. We consider both these applications of his work abuses of its real value, particularly regarding the essentially apolitical works of the mature post-WWII Jünger.
Between the World Wars, Jünger definitively abandoned the mud of politics, into which he had briefly dipped his toes, for the higher and freer regions of a personally grounded autonomy and self-responsibility – in short, he became an anarch. The two groups above may find themselves criticised on this site – not by me but by the authentic Ernst Jünger presented here, the anarchic Jünger who soars above the political plane, high and free and all-observing.
THIS SPACE IS FOR sincere seekers of self-development, personal freedom and a deeper meaning in life, individuals looking for orientation in a world that has lost its old meanings and still lacks valid new ones. These will discover that Ernst Jünger’s writings can provide an excellent road map for navigating our superficially arid yet still fascinating and thrilling world, and finding rich rewards and meanings in it. It is for autonomous individuals who stand quietly and bravely on their own two feet within society, without depending on its ‘protection’ nor wanting to overthrow or reform it – this site is for aspiring anarchs.
Clearly, we are most interested in Ernst Jünger’s mature works, though we take all of his work seriously. We do not necessarily agree with all his views; for there would be no point in making the effort to read his works if we did not make an equal effort to digest, understand, verify and integrate these conclusions into our own being – and discard what we cannot use or agree with. Ernst Jünger would have been satisfied with nothing less.
As an aid to aspiring anarchs, I have compiled a collection of all quotes on the anarch from Eumeswil. Here is an appetizer that describes an excellent approach to profiting personally from everyday life and work in society.
“The days in the Casbah are fairly uniform. I can barely distinguish between work and leisure. I like them equally. This is consistent with my principle that there can be no empty time, no minute without intellectual tension and alertness. If a man succeeds in playing life as a game, he will find honey in nettles and hemlock; he will even enjoy adversity and peril.
What causes the feeling of being constantly on vacation? Probably the fact that the mental person liberates the physical one and observes his game. Far from any hierarchy, he enjoys the harmony of rest and motion, of invulnerability and extreme sensitivity
