On Methodology. A necessity for perceiving the ambiguous. Sunset is a sunrise elsewhere. Character-wise: one is either an optimist or a pessimist. Optimism can change too, through radiation.
What is "world revolution"? Visible changes are preceded by less visible ones, and those by invisible ones. Technology already rises as a modus vivendi from great depths. The precedence of spiritual change over technical, technical over political, political over strategic. A war can be politically won before it has begun. Thus, the "cold" war also brings shifts in power. One plays for positional gain with sacrifices, cosmic flanking. Gain and loss lie in the unexpected. For this reason alone, one must not lose faith too early, even in matters of power.
The book resembles the century, demanding a strong entry. Stumbling blocks, grotesque temple guardians, trapdoors. Desert wandering involves traversing inhuman landscapes.
What Burckhardt aimed for with the "Culture of the Renaissance in Italy" must also be possible looking forward – a portrait of modern man without retouching; the more extensive, the better he can orient himself. There are many perspectives towards the Leviathan. They do not define it; they locate it. One should not take one's own perspective too seriously either.
The method of viewing the world must be scientific, yet with free movement through the systems and without regard for the scientist's aversion to the scientific examination of himself.
A system is already shaken by the demonstration that it can be viewed from another angle – that there are other systems. The new approach shows that what is believed, which grounds all knowledge, is still insufficient and that the search must continue. The cosmos must not become overpowering; it must deepen in proportion as it grows.
The author, who brings news, especially to the worker about the worker, may fare like the messenger who brought bad news to the king and was beheaded for it.
The best perspective is that of the outsider. The narrator must be both inside and outside simultaneously. This is possible through differences in origin or race, even centuries, and creates not only a position between the chairs – in one direction, often in both, there is also betrayal involved. Additionally, the misfortune of having slightly less fear than others. Having sung in the fire and coming with things that people do not want to know.
Fate disguises itself in what cannot be known. Hence, the best predictions are those that surprise the author himself in retrospect.
At some dreary station, one had to board the train – as a nationalist or as a Bolshevik, as a revolutionary or as a soldier, in the service of obscure spirits or theories – the question is only how far one wants to ride. "He who does not know where he is going will get the farthest!" Those who cannot make history try to falsify it; a Paris Metro station is named "Stalingrad."
History also has a peristaltic movement in the lower depths – in palaces of coprophages, one generation after another fattens on the filth of its predecessors. One lives not only by the deeds of the fathers but also by 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 suspected that very strong forces are at work.
The decline of metaphysical capacity follows a similar pattern. A loss within the historical landscape remains relative within the larger context – the universe is a house that loses nothing. One must not hold the place, but the bench.
Nietzsche's first sentence of war practice: "I only attack victorious things" is less strong than the second: "I only attack things where I would find no allies, where I stand alone." This also only applies to phases where qualities are still visibly distinct from each other. Where things become so ambiguous that even war loses its meaning, there is no war practice anymore. In this respect, freedom grows and the number of things that can still be taken seriously decreases.
The question is where one gets stuck in the polemic. A spirit is not recognized by the opponents it finds and cannot get enough of, but by the ones it sets for itself.
Goodwill extends further; it leads beyond all disputes. "Salut au monde" even to the executioner who brings us the verdict.
One must keep an eye on the type of persecutor, not the nature of the parties. Parties change, but persecution remains. Justice follows politics like vultures follow armies. Everyone is brave against those who are down.
In an avalanche, there is either only or no decadence. By labeling something as decadence, even becoming indignant, I reveal the nature and extent of my historical dependence. Independence, in turn, must be distinguished from cynicism, and that with goodwill.
The hummingbird that kisses the hibiscus flower and the one being gnawed by worms in the gray dust are both equally distant from hidden beauty; they are subjects of the painter, not his goal. In his picture, we sense the golden explosions of the worms.
The rapid turnover, even of thoughts, within acceleration. Hence the difficulty with terminologies, which are already misused before being fully understood. Yet, do not shy away from their use: that is one more test. This way, most fools will already be eliminated. Parties do not want to know what they have in common; they want to be affirmed in their errors.
When words like "total" become fashionable, there is no shortage of thinkers who see an intellectual achievement in their usage. Negation remains within the same horizon, if not within the same set. Meanwhile, the Indians proclaim total mobilization.
The quick, comprehensive convertibility of means has nothing to do with the use of force, even avoids and prevents it. Its proof, its demonstration, is indispensable as long as power blocs exist. It must not be attempted only at focal points and not where things culminate.
Specific characters must not condense too strongly; crystallizations come at the expense of vitality. Force is bound power. Standing armies must be kept to their optimum; too much must not be invested in arsenals. This also applies to central offices, particularly large cities.
Equality is part of evolution; as long as this is not complete, new distinctions cannot credibly emerge.
Acceleration is compressed, anticipated time. It heralds long periods of calm, creative pauses.
The "Promised Land" is also just a metaphor, like all things transient.
With entry into the domain, the radiation intensifies. The great sacrifices. Was Kleist already part of this?
How does the artistic person reconcile with the worker? Incomparably more difficult than the man of science. The great theories in astronomy, physics, and biology carry a working character, dynamize without resistance. Even optics become aggressive. The "peaceful" facilities are probably more dangerous in the long run.
Leisure is not a work quality; it has nothing to do with time or free time. Where specific characters come into play, the artistic ones are weakened. This already applies to the national poet. Goethe also had a good instinct for this.
Within the specific working characters, the artistic takes on functional, technical, and finally mechanical features, becoming the material of automatic reproduction.
However, the artistic person must confront, but he must not get involved. Either perish or enter the central structure. Thus, the sufferer becomes the conductor. He doesn't fit into the plan, but he can alter the plan. His optimism extends beyond all horrors.
The final question is whether the great characters, including technology, can be subsumed into play. Only then can beauty be rediscovered. Time does not want to be negated; it wants to be complemented. Art is not anti-, it is an overhistorical power; it lives out of the timeless.
Tolstoy complements the Napoleonic era – a conciliatory light begins to shine; he transcends war and peace. Here too is Goethe's struggle for color as one of the adventures of light, for which calculating reason is not sufficient. But light itself is only an adventure of matter.
Nietzsche: "What Goethe wanted was totality: he fought against the separation of reason, feeling, will – he disciplined himself to wholeness, he created himself..."
The working world awaits, hopes for its meaning.
Not romantic rebellion, but skepticism within technology would be its cancer. At some point in the future, the natural sciences will begin to bore or take on other tasks. The veil of Maya fades.
Already in the sons and grandsons of the functionaries lies one of the dangers for the collective. Potential seeks other directions, and simultaneously, the energy for periodic purges diminishes; Shigalev's program barely extends to the third generation.
Metaphysical and artistic inclinations awaken; a new dance can become more threatening than any criticism. Hence the preference for conventional music, painting, and banal work overall. This belongs to Jacobin honesty.
From section to section, the masses overtake the avant-garde. Suffering begins when the dream is realized. Only what was superior to time remains, not what claimed temporal advantage.
Blindness of will is part of the plan. The enormous efforts of the Arctic convoys. Would they have been possible if on the bridge and before the boilers, people had already foreseen two or three further sections and known that ultimately they were strengthening Russian power? Words like "resistance" come back as boomerangs. The ultimate goals are like the last words – they are always only penultimate. The functional curve leads through the political space. Ethos illuminates actions as needed; hatred fuels them.
Mercenaries of mass murderers in the service of ideologies that consume more people than Aztec sacrificial priests, despise the soldier who raises his arm only against the armed.
The distinction between the abstract and concrete view of pain vanishes. The general who gives an order that kills thousands is simultaneously a father, insofar as his own son is among the victims. At times, everyone sees him as a father, at other times, his son sees him as a murderer. This provides inexhaustible material for portrayal.
Blake's vision: he saw murderers and their victims walking arm in arm in the afterlife. Terror and men of terror, seen from the other side. Under what circumstances do they appear and disappear? It inevitably ends with one's own liquidation. The close relationship, the identity of murder and suicide becomes evident.
There is also a kinship between the clown and the dictator, a system of mutual borrowings. Where the ruler separates himself from the fool, even kills him, his grotesque features infiltrate him. The tyrant liquidates people and classes, the clown, under certain circumstances, an era. Where the anarchistic attack reaches anonymous layers, it provokes suicidal laughter. "Chaplin bakes with dynamite."
The peculiar pleasure in intellectual combination. Who or what is being outwitted in the process? Every solution provokes new approaches, as if crystals spread on a surface. This is uncanny to the conservative person. 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, a tremendous expansion, large apparatuses can find their equivalent. Here, lever laws apply, a handful of higher types suffices; engineers, on the other hand, can never be enough. Pure spiritualization only means a change in the state of aggregation.
It's about points where the miracle can reattach.
If one wants to hold on to the word "race," one must understand it as the expression of form. It shapes the type through the ethnic layers.
If the worker perceived himself as a race in the old sense, a stable empire could be the result. However, the struggle ignites within the highest representations of the worker's form. Progress and its speed are based on this.
Transformation is preceded by the removal of old layers. The Black man with the wristwatch. His barbarism now becomes visible, as if small talismans were attached to him.
The semi-education, the half-knowledge. Disadvantages and advantages. It creates the "leading layer" for the great intellectual action. This includes the approaches to the formation of a third gender. The deception of nature is to be revised.
The accumulation and consolidation of wealth are not in the worker's interest, but rather a large, fluctuating income. Appropriate is a tax that derives from rotation, thus participating in the overall circulation. This is preceded by forms of reduction. Similarly, with the strike; where the worker rules, it becomes self-damaging.
War is a promoter of technology and science, a destroyer of the artistic world. It has long been unsettling for the warrior caste. Their disempowerment is a special case of the general conscription of class orders. They are allowed to maintain their style only in peripheral areas. "Les centurions."
The worker fights and dies in apparatuses, not only without "higher ideas" but also with their conscious rejection. His ethos lies in the clean operation of the apparatus. He does not need to think; he does not oversee the plan. The national ethos is occasionally referred to, but only as a prelude, a concession to passion.
The destruction of individual authorities by the technical plan. The diplomat becomes a recipient of orders through the telegraph, the ship through the radio a floating outpost. The combat pilot with headphones. Even watches become less necessary.
Are cities already being built with total loss in mind? A troglodyte world threatens to emerge. In terms of excavation and its automation, technical ingenuity still seems to lag behind.
The atomic bomb as the non plus ultra of philistinism. For the infantryman, just another detour. The Greeks did not let these types rise.
Calculating intelligence can be partly supported, partly replaced by machines. There is hardly any field, including bank robbery and literature, where teamwork does not dominate, hardly any person who works, acts, thinks, does good and evil unauthorized.
Characteristics of philistine work include a lack of metaphysical sense, quantifiability, group formation, and taking orders. New means, such as the hydrogen bomb, can be ordered to size and time. Not everyone can tolerate this.
But behind this lies the unpredictable, an order that the lackeys do not see. That must be shown.
On monotony. It challenges the drug. But intoxication is punished. Where are permissible relaxations found?
Monotony and monochromy. The gray camouflage. No colors are shown. Then they want to see blood.
Leveling of landscapes. In the Middle Ages, houses still had names; today, entire provinces are determined by numbers. Disguising cities with light and light arrangements. One hardly knows where one is anymore. "But tell me once: where are we in the real world now? In London, right?" Klinger, "Storm and Stress," 1775.
In the world cities, something is added to the big city mood: a sense of power, poetically felt by the masses, as if the ancient metropolises were celebrating a resurrection. Along with this, forms of melancholy. In France, the clocks run slower. Richelieu's reforms can be seen as a kind of vaccination.
The standardization of traditional human activities. Walking becomes a technical problem. The pedestrian resists. "Walking is a human right" – thus legally fixed. Simultaneously, a return to the simplest symbols, pictographic writing, modern illiteracy, street discipline, traffic signs.
Drilling is already learned in preschool. Violations are punished with warnings, arrest, even death. Traffic accidents are sacrifices – albeit.
One of the rational consequences is the pure presentation. Here, the natural trappings – covering, customs, taboos, and the like – are omitted. This accelerates consumption. But chewing coca leaves is not as devastating as, even if only sniffed, crystallized cocaine.
Among the youthful transgressions of the worker is the overestimation of anatomy. A key feature of the workshop style is quantifiability, the reduction to a numerical framework. However, a plucked chicken no more represents the bird itself than a feathered one does. One can only dispense with metaphysics where universalia in re illuminate.
The prince belongs to the people, not to the nation. He is founded more deeply, thus he sometimes remains the last link when national questions become virulent within disintegrating empires.
The forms of liquidation. Faster may be better than in nature reserves. The castles of kings, indeed even they themselves, are shown for an entrance fee, which they may personally receive if necessary.
"Better to fall like the Eastern Caesar than like those of the West."
The Tsar, even as a prisoner, did not cease his fight against the Germans; Louis XVI made it to Varennes.
The cold liquidation of the English aristocracy through taxes as a power tool. They become their own porters, also showpieces.
That the moral should be self-evident – a good word. "Self-evident" is the noble title of a person who refers to their own property, their being. From there, the moral becomes visible in their actions, but it appears even stronger in their repose. Leonardo's self-portrait.
The growing spread of moral valuation and devaluation indicates that the species is lost. The being is now referred to pure being (e.g., the differentiated person to the person in itself) – in which encounter it is either destroyed or changed. This includes pietistic experiences.
The cause of the catastrophe is to be found in the fact that the species has become untenable. This is true under all circumstances and in every dimension – even if the Earth were hit by a bolide: the catastrophe is confined to the being. Leonardo's drawing in Windsor: the end of the world in great order and beauty, like a cosmogenic blossom, viewed from a foreign star.
Leonardo's capacity is strong; it could accommodate the serpent again. From here, mutations are possible that lead beyond humans.
The rapid acceleration, with which not only society and states change but also the living and non-living nature, suggests causes that cannot be satisfactorily explained by either historical or human development. Not only the relations change, but also the common ground from which they have grown. New land emerges. Under historical disguises, powers of being come forth. Man is captured not only as a historical but also as a natural being, and with him plants and animals, the surface and depth of the earth and the seas, their atmospheric embedding. Time itself begins to change; the historical world with its cultures fills a valley that stretches between the mythical dawn and the severity of the godless world, like between Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon.
A great day has been completed, filled with names, dates, and works; we look back from the opposite slope at its bright, conscious light. What was law there no longer binds us. It is not history that begins to change its meaning, but the event is no longer history. We take knowledge with us like ghosts; however, the dream is deeper, and knowledge is not enough to interpret the signs in the night. Has it ever sufficed? Always beneath it, like the massive layers beneath the topsoil, was the self-evident.
Where gods were, spirit must enter.
Whoever adheres to the figure of the worker as the great appointee and relates to it the change of the world as the transforming, yet unassailable principle through the transformation, will find a measure that does not deceive. He will perceive that there is a power that strides through catastrophes as through fiery curtains. The sequence and acceleration of the transformation itself is the promise of a being for whom technology means realization, but not reality. The goal is the spiritualization of the earth.
The "world state" addresses the problem of the transition of the figure of the worker from planetary power to planetary order – a consolidation that can be predicted with certainty. It will conclude the age of warring states.
The word "state" should not be measured against the historical model; here it means status, condition, order in the broadest sense. The essence of the historical state is defined by the existence of other states. Protecting its borders is its foremost task. The historical state presupposes divided land; the political map differs from the physical and also from the ethnographic. Attempts to reconcile these differences are Sisyphean efforts; they never succeed completely and always only for a time.
The worker, on the other hand, is like Antaeus, the immediate son of the earth; his emergence is accompanied by shocks that can be understood as tectonic. The night before his dawn is glowing with forge fires. Divided land is as repulsive to him as an artificial garment that constricts the body.
Anyone who still disputes over the colors of flags today does not see that the time of flags has passed. The disputes at the borders become unsolvable because the borders themselves lose their meaning; they become unbelievable as the earth gains a new skin.
With the shedding of Gaia's skin, Antaeus regains his footing against Hercules, and new signs arise. The earth transforms from fatherlands back into a homeland. Matriarchal signs gain power.
Hercules is the primal prince, as Hölderlin recognized him, guardian of borders and conqueror of earth powers. That the great disputes of our century began with the assassination of a prince and were generally unfavorable to the crowns has its symbolic meaning behind the political-social constellations. It has the same meaning that the border demarcations to which these disputes led are not seen as solutions but become increasingly unsatisfactory. Growth outpaces recognition; it can no longer be restrained by classical methods.
"Type, name, form" once again returns to the core of the theme. To perceive forms or, as Goethe called them, "experiences," requires more thorough equipment than excellent optics, because seeing and describing or even painting is always only the signature of the forms, not their essence. Once the eye has taken in the signs in their vast abundance, it must rather close to get an inkling of the unity, which can only ever be approximate: a veiled and resting counter-image of the restlessly circling world. Hence Goethe's aversion to glasses, microscopes, telescopes.
If only the treetops wither, or the roots shrink, does the organ assigned to metaphysical perception rest or atrophy? Does the spirit become flatter or the ground deeper and only reachable in dreams or by atavistic, hypertrophic, drugged types? Some see without acting, others act without seeing. The splendor and misery of decadence.
Perhaps for the last time, a clear view of the historical world is allowed. Metaphysics is a luxury and has always been a luxury, especially within acceleration.
With Heraclitus, a great spring begins; the spirit dons decorative colors. This is simultaneously a robbery from the mythical world. It has continuously and up to our days rebelled against the Logos. In our disputes, mythical return has only dialectical significance; one invokes myth to compare: to show what was possible. In contrast, the form proves itself. Man cedes his freedom to unknown powers. Naming them is the true challenge of our time.
In the cosmic economy, nothing is lost; only perspectives become unimportant. The best freedom is the one least talked about. Great transformations are likely being prepared—such as from freedom into beauty or into the spiritualization of the earth. Here, too, technology changes or fulfills its meaning.
Acceleration is a final, thus also an announcing symptom. Between downfall and rise, there is only a perspectival difference. If doctors hold a consultation at midnight, it bodes ill for the father—but what about the sons? When governments change ever more rapidly, a new ruler already opens the door. Acceleration includes short-wave rhythms, tight cycles, the rapid wear of furnishings, not only in the political world but also in the world of ideas and artworks. One sees the old departing without regret and the new entering with reluctance:
Yet it is not
The time. Nor are they
Unbound.
(Hölderlin, "The Titans")
Consider, in contrast, the acceleration within the actual working world. The movement becomes ever faster, more precise, the form ever more thoughtful, unified. A flame that grows through destruction.
Here the other side emerges; technology is part of the new skin. It is merely a garment, a mutable shell of form. In contrast, the poverty of systems: during molting, the serpent is blind.
The brain as a transformer; it possesses logical, but not spermatic power. Things change—not because new thoughts enter the world; rather, because things change, the transforming capacity must grow or it will be destroyed. Then development takes a different course, and the world, like Sardinia filled with Nuragic ruins, is filled with burnt-out laboratories.
Exempt from acceleration is only that which comes from dreams. Here resides the autochthonous power with its beauty and terrors, here are the oracles at home. From here comes also the unpredictable component of the technical world, the protean power of its creation and at the same time the dissatisfaction with it. The creations solidify under the hand and no longer satisfy. The Philosopher's Stone, the perpetual motion machine cannot be achieved; it remains a collection of models.
Politics can only shape where it has form itself—thus, in the service of existential powers. These are connections that the politician does not fully understand in their depth, or that he often even misunderstands, without it affecting his work. He is penetrated by the necessary in a way that eludes his insight and that he cannot represent in his formulations or programs.
This explains the steadfastness, but also the unapproachability of the great politician, his preference for platitudes. The necessary unfolds in a sequence of stages. Accordingly, the relative value of programs, their dependence on time and circumstances. Thus, even the best politician surpasses his usefulness; his art rarely extends beyond a human lifetime.
Political action culminates in strategy. The general loses in hours what might never be recovered.
The present is the field of the politician. Even where he hesitates, he anticipates the moment. This is both his strength and limitation, which is already evident in the fact that only success determines his work, the state.
This does not apply to the works of philosophers or to those of poetic and artistic minds, nor even to state theory. Here, success is an addition. It may occur or it may not; neither says anything about the work itself. The statesman wields greater real power than the poet, whose work, in turn, surpasses his own in intellectual power and durability. The encounter between them is based on chance and often on misunderstandings. It belongs more to the realm of embellishments than to the structure of historical reality.
The prophet is of no account in his homeland; he is also of no account in his time. The dead prophet is the best; for the living one, contemporaneity is, if not dangerous, then at least untimely. This is the theme of Dostoevsky's "Grand Inquisitor"; Plato in Syracuse, Machiavelli in Florence are examples. One might also imagine an encounter between Rousseau and Robespierre, or a visit from Marx to the Kremlin. Nietzsche could have had a similar experience if he had lived to a very old age: initially, the passionate adoption of his ideas by types who were fundamentally repugnant to him, followed by the backlash from those injured under such auspices.
Nihilistic critique, the instinctive certainty in the rejection of models, combined with the naive poverty of one’s own prescriptions—these are symptoms for which value judgments based on historical comparison are inadequate.
Physical concepts are more fitting—such as the idea of superconductivity at low temperatures: molecules, genes, thoughts, behaviors associate almost without resistance. Everything must be considered possible—nil admirari, not out of affectation, but because admiration might cloud the experiment’s character, suggesting that it is nearing completion. Asceticism in valuation is worthwhile; what one saves in meaning can be invested with interest.
In practical terms, consider the example of a postal invitation from a northern German teacher for a class trip to Sicily. The accompanying color photos show him with his students, either lightly dressed or naked by southern coastal cliffs. Apparently, both parents and school authorities view this with approval, though with outdated notions such as "new morality" or "return to nature." However, the new development does not pertain to the mythical or ethical world but rather to the worker as part of one of many sociological experiments, some of which are peculiar or dangerous, with uncertain future directions. This also includes what might be termed "applied Darwinism."
Regarding egomancy: the jumping of a goat does not confer potency; further demonstration is needed.
According to Nietzsche, "the criminal and what is related to him" is the type of strong person under unfavorable conditions, lacking wilderness. If such individuals and their admirers are provided with wilderness, they will not digest it any better than others. When figures like the Schinderhannes or the Schwarze Mann appear, no one is left to see.
The criminal contains less of a forest dweller than a policeman. This becomes evident when he attains power. He is not an anarchic but a social type, even more dependent on society than ordinary people, and thus a hero of the ill-fated.
What Nietzsche also notes is true: nearly every genius undergoes a catilinarian phase in their development. There is a distinction between crime and anarchy.
In this respect, quality should be maintained, and one should not settle for mere substitutes for the middle class. If one must engage with rogues, then one should seek out Maître Villon himself; if dealing with filth, sex, and crime, then one should look to the Marquis; if toxic polemics are involved, then Léon Bloy.
It should be noted that Léon Bloy’s polemics against his fellow countrymen are nuanced. The extent to which he detests the French is far surpassed by the extent to which he respects them—and that is significant. In this sense, everyone, especially the Germans, should be thankful for being born in their homeland.
Proven types like the "hero" or the "white man" can no longer assert themselves credibly. The general decline affects paternity, and more broadly, authority, while violence increases and elemental powers advance. This includes the drive for means of ever greater power, speed, and range, as well as for determining numerical relationships. Only what can be quantified is valid.
Figures made of gold, ivory, and marble in temples, markets, and acropolises—gods who were normative as unreachable ideals. In contrast, "man" loses his outline and definiteness; he assimilates distinctions within himself. Forms blur in the melting pot.
Attempts to establish definitions and hold or create ideals in this context are always risky. They either stem from excessive self-confidence or from a misjudgment of the global situation. This explains why "fascist" approaches do not prevail. This is not a matter of value; while ideals may suffice for grand efforts, they fall short for enduring endeavors, as breath becomes insufficient within the undifferentiated flood of the world.
It is questionable whether even the mass type the Chinese could introduce would be consumed. Ultimately, anything founded on tradition and race will not suffice.
This would have applied to the "Nordic man" even if he had been accepted as a type over a broad area. The greater the claim, the lesser the programmatic value of a specific construction. Here, the differentiated must give way to the undifferentiated; this applies even more to the esoteric.
One could discuss "The Empire" as a form, though without geographical limitation. Even the old Empire had great power but not global power, hence Bismarck’s restraint regarding colonies, the navy, and worldwide engagements. In the end, the "Pomeranian grenadier" pays with his bones; this has been seen again.
The statesman must not adhere to the ideals of the poet or the ideas of the thinker, especially when events are pressing. Both are more relevant for a future world than for the current one. Courts of the muses are the courts of princes with time to spare. On the other hand, the creative spirit has not lesser authority than the active one. It is largely independent of facts and not bound to the state, the people, or any specific reality if its freedom is sufficient. It does not measure its work by events but measures events by its work.
Intellectual freedom cannot be normed; thus, where attempts are made, such as with press freedom, the limits remain contested and shadowy. Just as any freedom becomes visible only when protection ceases, so intellectual freedom begins where press freedom ends—though immediately, the glory and misery of freedom are revealed in the flash.
It is forgivable and even understandable that contemporary judgments, especially among Germans, are determined by empirical experience, which is almost universally murky. Through sooty windows, they see not only the historical but also the intellectual world.
Other distinctions, such as between specific and general situational assessments, can no longer be assumed. This distinction between practical experience and fate interpretation is intertwined. Only under this condition does the conversation begin. What are political nuances when the world is in labor?
The view of the worker must penetrate the empirical appearance. There is more at work here than historical greatness; while there may be analogies in the world of gods and heroes, there is no exact equivalent.
Old names attach themselves to the lord of the new house, which awaits and is endowed by him. As he realizes himself, he sheds polemics and theories. The sight of his enormous works and campaigns recalls the deeds of Heracles. Yet, even here, one would follow only a mere analogy. Hölderlin, an unerring judge of great measures, says, "Like princes is Heracles"—but the worker is the born enemy not only of princes but also of gods and demigods, a son of the earth and much closer to the great Titans like Antaeus, Prometheus, and Atlas than to Heracles.
The economic-social valuation of events is even less satisfying. The oppressed are always present where needed. They are rooted in the sense that the rolling wheel touches the ground. Individuals change, but the fact remains; and every victor finds his master.
Where the movement increases, it becomes difficult to distinguish between oppressors and the oppressed; theories lag behind development. They often barely conceal their shame.
Where economic dealings still prevail, one may infer provincial scope. The same applies to the uprising of colored peoples; both tendencies are not only tolerated but also promoted on a global scale, which today is the scale of the worker. These are organizational movements within the world's capacity. Here, both cooperation and opposition are accounted for. Theories are lagging behind the prevailing practices and are used as needed.
Similarly, the discussion about military armament is contradictory and unclear, being so tightly bound to fear. Viewed from the perspective of the worker, it has more functional than definitive tasks. Expansion to the total must be as possible as it is to be avoided, similar to a chemical process going through explosive stages, which are risks but not effects.
The cancerous damage of war is not in its consumptive nature but in the way it consumes victory. "The crown burns with victory." With leveling comes the loss of distinctiveness; it becomes not only harder to distinguish partners but also to differentiate programs—one fights merely to "liberate" the opponent. In the end, one is defeated by one’s own theory. Wars become equalizing and cease to differentiate.
With disgrace comes gold, as Léon Bloy observed well. The entry of a lord is evident from the increasingly stringent service—evident from the planetary workday encompassing twenty-four hours, from the extreme demands placed on body and intellect, which are highly consuming, from the rapid increase in workers, but also from the extravagant tendencies that surpass any feudal or even sacred era. Technology and science at the highest levels are the utmost luxury, more expensive than the palaces of all dynasties and more dangerous than the wars of kings. What is demanded can be measured by visiting the centers and observing people not only where they work but also where they indulge.
When describing a reality, intention must take a backseat, as it would distort the topography. The reality’s appeal or discomfort to the observer is irrelevant. This requires discipline and asceticism in relation to desired images.
In this regard, the 19th century developed an ethos that allowed for detailed descriptions of subjects like no other. Diligence, skepticism, indifference to transcendent realms, and a focus on critical and perceptive methods secured the richest harvest ever gained through thought.
Epistemological limitation had to precede this. Blinders were necessary for preparation for the great race. Kant never went beyond the precinct of Königsberg. Schopenhauer thought to complete Kantian philosophy by positing the will as the thing-in-itself, which is why he had a significant influence on classical yet atypical spirits like Burckhardt, Huysmans, Nietzsche, Wagner, and countless others now forgotten. Quoting him today is considered bad form in our intellectual mezzanine. His aphorisms, such as the notion that all fools unite when a person of superior intelligence appears, often confirm this.
One might object, but one should at least bring a modest system if one wishes to engage with a spirit that has something to offer logically and metaphysically, aside from its ethics, which might be the only one on European soil to contend with Christianity. However, it required extending far beyond our peninsula. Where does one today find a word that transcends all temporal dealings, such as:
"The torturer and the tortured are one. The former errs by thinking himself unaffected by suffering, the latter by believing he is not part of the guilt."
It is often lamented that seeing the whole has become increasingly difficult. Metaphysics must become a luxury where thought is work. To what extent this is part of the inevitable relief before a leap will be shown by the results. The secret then lies in the movement, and action speaks for itself. This also makes moral evaluation more difficult.
Overall, there is no decline, but only a network of pulsating movements. To refill the cup, it must first be emptied.
The bourgeois century has given us excellent tools, particularly a refinement of measurement techniques that even baroque minds, including Leibniz and Newton, would have marveled at. Never before have nets been set with such patience and finesse. To capture the nameless, the bow must be drawn beyond the visible. There, unexpected things also rest. Now, the possibility of being drawn into unknown constructions emerges. This is evidenced by the phantasmagoric shimmer of the workshops. They are models of a mathematically-illusionary world.
The tools are portable; they are not tied to races or landscapes. This is an advantage, as seen from the fact that untouched grounds are more favorable for the education of the new world. Thus, offshoots often grow stronger than the trunk.
Development cannot be localized but can be centered. The question remains whether the empirical characters also signify the expansion of the intelligible world behind them. Is it a prelude to genuine culture, promising great gains, or its depletion? This will be answered not only by old Europe but also by the mutations in the coming decades.
After every great defeat, the sons believe that the father was sacrificed in vain. The discontent of German youth after World War I with the "bourgeois" is not only explained by the situation. It was more or less clearly perceived that not new configurations but new principles were needed. That they were neither realized by the right nor the left is part of the German fate and confirms the experience that the great questions have always remained suspended here, as Nietzsche vehemently accused us.
Given the failure that has so obviously repeated since the Staufer period, one might question whether it is less about the properties of character than about those of the situation. Thus, the laws of the balance act differently in the center than at the edges, and more hidden. Much of what was planned, designed, discovered, and invented here was seen executed elsewhere. The great household benefits from this here as well as there.
In reality, the German has not transcended the principles of the bourgeois world, i.e., the Revolution of 1789, neither on the right nor the left; rather, despite tremendous efforts and excesses, he has achieved that he is not taken seriously within this framework. He will not catch up, especially since what happens within this framework—i.e., the practice—contradicts him ever more clearly around the world.
The "worker" was intended to surpass this, and to do so more thoroughly than had been achieved in Russia. In this sense, it is both a political and a historically significant book. But it is even more than that, as it depicts a magnitude that has emerged not only intact but more powerful than ever from the catastrophe, and whose study now seems more compelling than before. This already visible growth also gives the restoration a new meaning and altered tasks. Its museal, delaying forces now act in a shadowy, island-forming manner within the dynamic inundations. Thus, the polemic against the bourgeois has also become historical; it would distract from the topic. One does not break down open doors. However, to illuminate and preserve a turning point, an important decision missed in 1918, the passages containing them cannot be omitted.
Practically, this means that a historical outline must precede the depiction of the new world unless the existing text is to be understood and used as such.
The violence of a storm can be anticipated like a foehn or an earthquake. The phenomena—avalanches, uncovered houses, tidal floods—are surprising. This does not preclude that their underlying meaning is more clearly perceived in the overture. It provides the preliminary forms of images, whose abundance becomes confusing in the acts.
Nietzsche’s "Ecce homo" from 1888 offers more than a grand situational assessment. A fate is grasped, suffered, not only through insight but in the atoms, in an atmospheric manner. The air becomes thinner, harder to breathe, but the mountains become clearer. Grandiose misjudgments persist in style. In between, reminiscences of newspaper criticisms, a missed rendezvous. This is an earthly remnant, a human trait.
The bitterness towards contemporaries, especially Germans, is understandable for one who has something immense to say without an echo. There, the next one is considered most harshly, aside from the fact that this is customary among Germans in the higher echelons.
Regarding the horoscope, it should be noted: the strongest moments may be those in which there has been no encounter with people or things. Acting is weaving; realization is also unraveling—the constellation cannot be exhausted. Every encounter interrupts a great conversation. Hence, memory continually brings back the magic of indeterminate hours during which we were alone and pondered their significance. We then sense that we are called to more than just actions and works. Even the highest of these are parables.
The ideal of the thinker is that thoughts should directly transform into actions as if by a spell. This distinguishes the thinker from the sage, who knows that thoughts have time and that even those which find no resonance are not lost.
It has been sufficiently demonstrated that the worker, in his political manifestation, does not represent a class, a nation, or a stand. Nonetheless, during the major upheavals, nations carry out and transform the events. Whether they move more or less in accordance with the currents of the world may not change the weight of fate, but it may affect the success. The sacrifices of one are pleasing, those of the other are disreputable. For the individual, this leads to painful passages during which he must choose between his natural affiliation and the intellectual. Perhaps this is a selection in favor of more robust natures, where commonplaces lose their questionable nature and have a firmer impact. Here, too, the conscience is stronger.
Revolutions also have a mechanical side: work is achieved through leveling. This partly explains their subsequent expansion. The advance of subordinate types is accepted; almost all revolutionary figures are ephemeral.
Their evaluation remains perspective, for one cannot abstract from the pain they brought into the world, nor look into the internal workings of their time. Distance obscures and mitigates; on the other hand, it profiles the characters in a way to which poets also contribute. See Schiller's view of the French events of the 16th century and of his own time.
"Seeing blood" distinguishes the butchers. This is their magical advantage, by which they can paralyze even a thousandfold majority when they come into play, as if they were showing the head of Medusa.
Here lies one of the secrets of the death penalty: the just one shows that he will not recoil. This is a message that reaches even the darkest corners. It is not a matter of "an eye for an eye," but rather homeopathic laws: the blood of a murderer can prophylactically outweigh that of a hundred thousand innocents. When the ancients said, "The blood must not stay on the land," it was out of fear that murder might spread like a plague.
The relationship is also visible in the fact that explicitly Cainite regimes abolish the death penalty. It is opposed to murder not merely within the framework of cause and effect, but at its innermost principle. The murderer, when he comes to power, wants to kill arbitrarily; the law should not constrain him. The distinction between guilt and innocence is unimportant to him.
Assassination, on the other hand, remains unlawful; it has the opposite effect. It exacerbates suffering like a vaccine administered during a crisis.
In such annotations, pedagogical intentions should be suppressed; they can only contribute to confusion. What are viewpoints when the avalanche descends? Ultimately, one refrains, at least to the extent that prognostic considerations come into play, even from barometric readings. The readings from an electroscope or the maxima and minima of a thermometer are sufficient. One sees the one who dares not lay a finger on the thousandfold murderer as a contemporary of the other whose conscience is not troubled by the thousandfold murder—and then knows what time it is.
Here is the Salvation Army style of generals, the old-maid style of philosophers, the collection-glove style of educators in a world of violence, malice, and merciless trials—as an exact correspondence of non-action and action or of fear and terror in general. However, this without anger or bias, ultimately with goodwill and without falling into Nietzsche’s error of moralizing three times as much as everyone else as an amoralist. Before this flood, in this turning point, no one acts entirely right and no one entirely wrong. Much more important than auditing is recalculating—just as research precedes valuation, so does topographical effort precede legal order.
One must either expand a position or reach a new one in the jump; one can gain time by stretching it or by compressing it. According to Clausewitz, defense is the stronger form. However, this thesis only holds from section to section, as absolute time continues, and sooner or later, everyone must set their watch by it.
In this sense, the German has remained in the interim field; he has neither succeeded in anchoring himself in the principles of 1789 nor credibly rid himself of them and the forms shaped by them. Just as he had taken inadequate advances on them in 1803 and 1813 and failed to implement them in 1848, so in 1918, he failed to free himself from them. The last opportunity was missed in 1933. Meanwhile, it went the way of any decision delayed too long: it became irrelevant. What the landslides could not achieve happens through erosion.
This also shows that the conflict between nations no longer has a definitive but rather a functional character. The form of the worker, fundamentally changing, goes through not only individuals but also nations.
“It is another who commands; and what is to be done, is done” (Gotthelf).
That theories are not sufficient is increasingly evident in how they pale compared to the facts. Their inadequacy leads to a directionless back-and-forth of large masses in unclear fronts and directions. Although intellectual abilities are rapidly growing, they are increasingly insufficient for a satisfactory assessment of the situation.
The author must, therefore, strive for a position where he agrees with the grand course of events, even if it is contrary to him, or even threatens to surpass him. Fate is better understood the more thoroughly one disregards one's own well-being and woe. Then it becomes fascinating even in its threat: “Everything that happens is admirable.
Every political theory has a stronger relationship with activity than with reality. It is, therefore, primarily a matter of parties and their distinctions between above and below, should and have, right and left. These are movements within the state; different measures apply to the state itself, where being is concentrated. Therefore, the art of statecraft will not rely on the theorist but rather on the philosopher, who grounds more deeply, and the poet, as the presenter and creator of higher models.
The fact that today things are quite different, insofar as powers primarily rely on theories and lack credible artworks, can be seen as a confirmation in the negative—an indication that here, less genuine states appear than dynamic forces: active parties in the world citizen war. This, by the way, is one of the favorable signs.
If the theorist, in the face of an unexpected turn or even a volte, which are inevitable, opposes the course by referring to the beginnings, development will pass him by or clear him from the way. This confirms the primacy of facts. The best theorists are those on the monuments.
The real value of theory lies in guidance, in the rational leading towards an object. This means performance and limitation at the same time. Once the object is reached, the theory becomes superfluous, gains historical significance, or changes.
If we compare the acquisition of the object, such as the state, with the creation of a statue, theories are among what falls away; they remain as fragments and shards, perhaps also as relics, on the ground. But they have freed an image from the material. At the unveiling, in great jubilation, this is symbolically repeated.
This would be one possible view. The other is that the form begins to move of its own accord in the material and at the appropriate time emerges from it; it leaves the development thoughts as historical garments, as puppet shells.
It depends on the individual’s standpoint which of the two views seems more credible to him. Whether a person leads or is led, whether he changes the world from within himself or on behalf—this dispute leads to the old and eternally new question of free will.
That free will is passionately affirmed today at focal points may be necessary. The actor needs a certain naivety, which can increase through all stages of naivety up to the consciousness of godlikeness.
In hindsight, the disparity between the meagerness of individuals and the enormous changes associated with names, whose mere mention embarrasses the historian, is indeed an indication among many that his means are insufficient.
The fact that the visual arts become alien to the minds is not only due to the artist but also to the model. In the past, tailors and hairdressers could make adjustments. Rank and status symbols can hardly be displayed under museum-like aspects anymore; their appearance evokes a mood of Ash Wednesday. A camouflage net has been thrown over the world, an anonymous curtain behind which a new performance is emerging.
This also applies to the destruction of form by color on the battlefield, in painting, in architecture under flooding, swirling light. But form itself cannot be maintained; an imprecise, increasingly precise will dissolves it into a series of models. Slag remains behind it.
The old saying "Mountains are giving birth – – –" can almost be turned into its opposite – a little mouse seems to give birth to mountains. The secret lies in the suspended masses; the echo of a shot, the foot of a hare can trigger an avalanche. This does not speak against human greatness – on the contrary. The dimensions on the vast stage change, and with them, what can be considered great. The observer must come to a different judgment about freedom than the actor.
When the tide rises, the one who breaks the dikes has a greater effect than the one who preserves them. The sailor has no concern with either; he remains in his element.
The true conservative does not want to preserve this or that order but to restore the image of the human being who is the measure of all things. For this reason, every conservative approach today is questionable.
With increasing depth, conservatives and revolutionaries will become very similar because they necessarily approach the same ground. Among the great transformers, those who not only topple but also establish orders, both qualities are always evident.
Before the grand performances, there are preparations, delicate, yet foreboding overtures with slowly seeping light. The hall brightens until the new society recognizes itself brotherly in its splendor. Everything has changed – the decorations, the faces, the garments – and everything confirms the great discovery and rediscovery: to be a human being. This may last for a hundred years or longer. How everything harmonized – the rational and the irrational sounds, the actors and those who played along without commitment or reward, the images, thoughts, and events, inventions and discoveries of distant worlds – is felt solemnly in the moment, but only revealed in memory.
Whatever happens, the earth responds. It is always and for everything ready. However, it becomes eerie when the old Gaia begins to stir of its own accord. There it moves deep below the layers on which state and society thrive, deep below the crypts and cellars. The event cannot be directed or explained by humans. However, if the historian lowers his arms, if he loses his words, it does not mean he is confronted with the meaningless, but that his means are insufficient.
The fact that great plans turn into their opposite does not mean they are meaningless; rather, they follow a different plan. Then the means of the statesman fail no less than those of the historian. The art of statecraft becomes a system of makeshift solutions. If it aimed to achieve more, such as establishing something, it would soon be driven to absurdity. If one does not want to live purely as a nomad, then in an earthquake-prone landscape, the workshop style is the only reasonable, if not sustainable, yet viable approach.
With the figure of the worker, a brother of Antaeus, Atlas, and Prometheus appears rather than Heracles – a new Titan and son of the Great Serpent, whom the demigod merely depicted. Now not only the historical structures are shattered, but also their mythical and cultic prerequisites, if not the human ones that underlie everything.
The figure of the worker corresponds to no class, no rank, no nation, no culture, no belief, except perhaps belief in matter, which is more a knowledge or a secure trust. It answers like the gods of old, but stronger, even more visibly. That only the phenomena are initially recognized should not be alarming.
The light on the new stage is stronger than any light ever cast on a transformation of form, as far back as memory reaches. Not historical experience, but only inner experience conforms to it. Where thought retreats into history and myth as into a milder medium or into half-dark niches, it has not yet sufficiently emancipated itself. In crises, heroes are invoked, relics are shown, but no answer comes from there anymore.
The question of the mission is only likely to confuse the actor. “The one who goes furthest is the one who does not know where he is going.” In the Promethean workshop with its countless fires, rather telluric-plutonic than Apollonian light prevails. Divine mission, heroic ethos, paternal right will be sought in vain where a world is born in enormous convulsions. Between two contractions, fear and blindness reign – he who wishes to endure must exchange transcendental optimism for fundamental optimism. Then he will also gain the necessary forces in the real world.
Nothing can happen without the earth. Zeus must consult the Moirae, the ancient old women. He weighs the scales; and what is weighed there is heavier than will and spirit. The old and eternally young mother has survived gods and the heavens of gods, fathers, and sons. The Great Serpent: mountains and seas, volcanoes and glaciers, plants and animals are shed at every molt. In ever-new youth, she rises from the fiery bath.
From the mouth of the Pythia speaks the ascending earth spirit; Apollonian interpretation must be added. The interpretation necessarily fits all eventualities – whether this or that realm is destroyed, whether this or that of her sons falls or triumphs: the sense of the earth is fulfilled. The father sacrifices the son with pain, while the mother receives him with joy. One of the great qualities of the earth is that of the grave: everywhere a person dies, it is sacred land. Without the earth, there is no sanctuary.
Everywhere the earth burns – but where the fire becomes visible, in volcanoes, blooming spring meadows, arson, love festivals, hearth and sacrificial flames, it has already gained quality. The eye sees protuberances – the sight of the central fire, where death and life unite, is denied to the mortal. Moses saw the bush burning before he heard the voice and received the mission. The prophet is the advance guard at the furthest frontier; he has no knowledge like the priest but is in the matter. “I am certainly flame.”
Moses at Horeb, John on the shore of Patmos: there begins the undifferentiated. There, as there is only one human being, there can also be only one element. “That is you.”
This extreme simplification, the confrontation with the Absolute in the Timeless, leads to endless exegeses, processes, and expansions. The serpent moves for the span of a lightning flash and gives millennia the form by which phenomena align. Now the world becomes a mill; a new calendar begins.
“Woe, the cry of the one giving birth.” Endless calamity is announced within it. Long before the plans, long before the battles, it is heard: “Fateful disaster unfolds”; the spinner continues. The thread is still gray; the dawn will bring the colors. Everything is still a premonition. The whistle of the first siren in *Wilhelm Meister* – it touches the heart of the solitary wanderer with more and heavier than the advent of a new century. Time and again, this shadow falls across his path. Suffering is deeper than its interpretations.
The study of fate has become an obsolete field. And language lives off the remnants. What value can a higher assessment of the situation have under such circumstances?
Should we be content with the answer that here an innate noble impulse of the species seeks satisfaction? The human condition has been endangered since the beginning; in this regard, the reading of Isaiah remains always contemporary.
For the Occidental, specific curiosity is added. A fine example is the demise of the elder Pliny: scientific ethos combined with that of a magistrate.
It may seem a loss that intellectual sovereignty has become isolated and that, if one still wants to say that thought governs the world, it has become very specific thinking. The explication of Hegelian philosophy and the dominant, even fateful, significance that the exact natural sciences have gained are examples.
Thinking undoubtedly creates facts; but then these are facts that demand further thought and come closer until thinking gives way to them. It follows the events, ultimately the course of the day. Thus, philosophers accept the atom as it is provided by physicists. Nietzsche even considered, in a rather late section, whether he should study natural sciences for another ten years – undoubtedly a weak moment. One does not harness a horse by its tail.
When Overbeck said, “Nietzsche is not to be taken seriously as a scholar, but very much so as a thinker,” it was meant critically. But it is the best that can be said about a mind that feeds not on texts but from the source. Either the philosopher remains on the fundamental line of thought, of which even the strongest developments in science are only side branches, or he degrades himself to a mere tool of philistines, and eventually even political pirates. Mere knowledge cannot stand.
Intellectual freedom is not granted; it is either present or absent. Intellectual freedom is also not demanded but proven, and the world lives from that. Nothing is simpler than this proof, yet nothing is more difficult. What everyone could do, who can?
Everyone rushes to sit with Socrates on the bench of scoffers, but the ranks thin out when it comes to accompanying him like Xenophon with shield and sword, and when the cup is offered, the hall empties.
The direct and uncontrolled intervention of individual disciplines is a sign that the center of action has shifted. It can no longer be captured with classical means.
Regarding form, it is secondary work characteristics that inscribe themselves into the world. Hence, it appears as a colossal construction site filled with restless activity. Observing the processes and partial sections, even the grand state plans, does not provide a meaningful picture. Aside from the fact that they are often contradictory (and must be), the results extend far beyond the planned and intended. While this brings significant dangers and even disasters, it also allows for the conclusion or at least the suspicion that there is a comprehensive coordination and that the visible plans are to be regarded as emerging parts of an still invisible overall plan. This, in turn, suggests a goal.
This suspicion is reinforced by a series of additional observations. For instance, the fact that a global style is already spreading across the workshop landscape, transcending all the oppositions of races, peoples, and world powers. These oppositions still exist and may even intensify, but they acquire a different meaning. The eruption of global sympathy observed at Kennedy's death was the first instance of this.
Even more surprising than the mutual allocation of subfields is their sudden and unexpected blossoming, which corresponds to the desolation or loss of other disciplines. It resembles the rise from the larval stage, the unfolding of liberated wings from the pupal form. An example is the transformation of astronomy from a theological to a theoretical and finally to an applied science. It was recently considered a model for how the state also maintains chairs that bring it little or no benefit.
Only in retrospect does the plan of the embryonic formation reveal itself. The umbilical cord withers, the natal tooth is rejected, yet the lungs fill with air. All this can only be interpreted if one assumes and acknowledges a center. It should not be sought within human plans and human intelligence, which do not possess legislative power but only a, albeit significant, share in the executive.
This share in the whole must be satisfactorily excluded if the harmony between man and his fate, between freedom and fate, state and world plan, real, intellectual, and metaphysical power is to be restored. This depends on the depth to which a new, immediate, and not tradition-bound approach to being is achieved.
This is also how commonly accepted truths, such as the idea that technology changes the world, should be assessed. An extraordinary sharpness of intellect, combined with evident blindness, suggests that the influence of the unconscious is even greater than that of consciousness. The playing field is sharply illuminated amid impenetrable, eerie darkness. The ship is in order, but who knows the current that carries it? This becomes apparent when encountering the figures driving the process forward. They recall a remark by Clemenceau: that no one knew less about the "affair" than Dreyfus himself. Newton's triumph over Goethe is complete. The conversation bogs down in measures and numerical relationships, banalities of ethics and politics. "The lowest gate of hell opened" remains among the best things heard there—assuming one has thoughts about that place.
The end of the world is imminent every minute, for when a person dies, the world ends with all other people as well.
In the past, the terrors of this immense entry were better understood. Without a value gradient, without an order that features higher types, credible spirits and ideas, poets and artworks, such judgments may not change the grand course but can contribute to preventing humanity from capitulating too cheaply to it. They can confirm a dissatisfaction inherent in the technical world and dictate the mechanical progress.
In this way, they complement nihilism and its unfailing instinct. Applied knowledge inevitably gains power, for the same reason that insight into the connections between things is lost or becomes a luxury. As the snake sheds its skin, its horn becomes opaque.
Nevertheless, there remain points where even specialized characters grasp the immeasurable. Otherwise, every measurement technique would soon become absurd. Where technical capability gains a foothold, where it closely aligns with the immeasurable, the elements of will recede in favor of pure knowledge. Here, it becomes play, sublime contemplation, the perception of the subtlest vibrations of the universe and their harmony. In contrast, the consciousness of power that grants great preparations retreats into the background, easily entangled in disputes that divert from the path. Archimedes, after defending his hometown with ingenious machines, is killed while dreaming about his circles in the garden.
The leitmotif of technology is of a mathematical nature, and its historia in nuce is essentially the history of the great mathematicians. From there, the threads spin into the sciences and into practice. Where a foothold was gained, the determination or conception of numerical relationships preceded as keys that lead not only into the infinitely small and infinitely large but also upwards to the transcendent. In every great mathematician, a metaphysician is concealed.
The conquest of numbers as such is to be regarded as a prehistory, an adventure of the human mind whose trace is completely lost in darkness. Numbers are powerful abstractions from existence. We should not attribute these triumphs solely to the power of abstraction. An immediacy, a form of initiation, comes into play—not as a one-time act but continuing over millennia. It is as if, seeing himself in a bright mirror, the mind marvels at its own power. The inspiration lies beyond study and effort, just as grace lies beyond prayer. Pythagoras saw his figure in the bath, Bohr his atomic model in a bus. In his autobiography, Max von Laue notes in a section about optics that even the sharpest intelligence is insufficient for grasping fine structures; an innate ability, a kind of genuine attunement, must be added.
This is the context of sharpness and blindness in the workshop. The path is brightly illuminated but limited. These hints might shed some light on the question of technocracy. The dominance of technical thinking, particularly over economic thinking, has become increasingly apparent; this does not, of course, mean that savings are made. Nor does exploitation decrease; it becomes more anonymous and consuming—especially as the technician not only concerns himself with work but also with leisure and, through various means and ways, intrudes into the private sphere. When he gains political or even dictatorial power, the greatest danger looms.
Freedom in the classical sense—both as personal inviolability and as undisturbed enjoyment of leisure—can be spoken of less and less, even under normal conditions. Both are restricted by the growing automatism. Friedrich Georg Jünger vividly illustrated this shadow side in his "Perfection of Technology."
However, it seems that restrictions on freedom are increasingly felt less as such. This is partly because there are equivalents to these restrictions. Among them is the reduction of working hours. Those who, just a few years ago, thought that this promise of the technocrats had utopian traits have since been corrected.
This relief, of course, concerns only the specific, not the total working character and its all-encompassing presence. What individuals are subjected to daily through traffic, standardization, hygiene, and pedagogy would likely have been unacceptable in any other era. It requires not only internal consent but also a new concept of freedom, which is still awaiting formulation.
In such details, it becomes apparent how facts advance without yet being integrated into a system, and that discussions about them occur not only within the framework of obsolete concepts but also within an outdated ethics.
With the rise of the worker from the beginnings of the industrial age to the dominant type, the term "work" has also transformed, to the extent that it can no longer be contrasted with "non-work" or "leisure." This transformation is not without sacrifices and losses, but it is substantial and accomplished through a series of selections. To illustrate, consider the hunter. The hunter and his dog are always hunting, even when they rest, even when they dream; indeed, precisely then. Even in their paradise, they remain hunters: in the Eternal Hunting Grounds.
The same applies today: our daily routine is incomprehensible without a great passion or a comprehensive sense of life. Participation in a whole, in a world-dream, makes the spectacle not only bearable but also fascinating, especially where it culminates. Viewed from other times and other worlds, it might seem alarming, excessive, and absurd.
The workday counts twenty-four hours; in contrast, the distinction between work and leisure remains secondary. A person who leaves their workplace does not remove themselves from the system. They enter another function, becoming, for example, a consumer, a traffic participant, or a recipient of news. Whether they move in the network of land, sea, and air routes or within the sphere of automatic games—they remain within the system. Enjoyment and service weave into a shifting fabric. This is particularly observable where dynamics increase, such as in flying or mastering fast vehicles.
That performance within the same system can increase and individual working hours can shorten does not change its rhythm and growing speed. It even promotes it. The production of automatically generated and automatically consumed goods depends on a corresponding consumption, which requires not only time but also a significant portion of "free" time.
Similar observations can be made, though on a smaller scale, in earlier systems where elevated classes with discretionary time distinguished themselves through a consumption extending beyond mere subsistence. Manufactories and tribes of skilled craftsmen worked for them. The equivalent of this leisure was the representation of a higher and freer way of life and management, what can be considered true culture. Economically speaking, expenditure was not only deemed permissible but beneficial. In the mercantile system, the prince could spend as he pleased, provided that "wealth stayed in the land."
This "land" has since become the world, and the producing class is becoming predominantly consuming—not only of essential goods but also of those once considered surplus. A personal car, theater outings, spa vacations, pocket watches, and leisure time to enjoy all of these are no longer privileges. Previously, only a few had the luxury of a four-horse carriage, whereas now owning a significant number of horsepower is not yet considered a luxury.
Leisure is not simply a form of idleness in the old sense, as is evident. It does not belong to work in the traditional sense but rather to the world of work. Its value lies not in the sublimation of either the individual or their creations, but in the production and presentation of symbols of immense dynamic power. No cost or sacrifice is spared in this pursuit.
Economic measures are insufficient to grasp such a spectacle. The shifting fabric in which war and peace, city and country, day and night, enjoyment and work, coercion and freedom intertwine so intricately that often mere words lose their meaning, is woven from different threads.
The acquisition, distribution, and use of resources presuppose natural wealth and its exploitation. The Physiocrats were on the right track when they sought this wealth in the land's net yield. However, the exploitation of this land has not only intensified but has also been refined from the ground up. For instance, wood is no longer seen solely as a fuel and construction material but is made useful in various and unexpected ways through access to its finest structures. The earth is assumed to be more than just farmland and a treasure trove; it serves and expresses itself primarily as a source of dynamic power. This applies equally to deserts, oceans, and polar caps. Wealth is being accessed and defined in a new way.
Such changes should not be viewed merely as development unless one wishes to extend the meaning of the term. Just as streams include rapids and waterfalls, and the earth includes magma and volcanoes, upheavals and protrusions in historical development have their counterparts in both the organic and inorganic worlds.
Signs that life is entering a new house, a different order, include the fact that organs long in service are assuming a central position. For example, the mill has gained precedence in our world.
The mill, whether hand or tread-powered, driven by human and animal muscle power or the forces of nature, is the oldest mechanical device. It begins its grinding wherever the land is not only used as hunting and grazing grounds but is also cultivated as arable land; mill wheels turned long before the wheel was conceived. They are closely linked with the founding of states, particularly through water management in river valleys. For details, especially regarding the significance of the mill's schema for timekeeping and machinery, reference should be made to the discussions related to the hourglass.
The mill has been mythically anticipated as more than just a specific tool. It was seen as a symbol and mediator of cosmic abundance. One of Zeus’s epithets was "the miller"; in the Edda, the universe is viewed as a mill. The magical mill Grotta not only grinds pure gold but also war and peace, weapons and armies, everything that the insatiable guest wishes for. The early, restless toil associated with mills is also intertwined with its world. In addition to the miner, the mill slave had the darkest fate.
In the mill, human technology mimics cosmic patterns. It is a long ascent, where the principle operating here, with its rotating movement alien to the organic world, has risen above the plow. There can be no doubt about its triumph. Among the tragic consequences are the destruction of the peasant class or the transformation of peasants into workers, as can be seen in the fate of peoples and individuals around the world. Where new lands are still being opened up today, it is not the mill that follows the plow, turning the soil furrow by furrow, but settlement occurs according to technical plans, starting with the construction of cyclical facilities.
The Earth is increasingly covered with turbines and power plants, not just in river valleys. What emerges from these rotating and spiral processes becomes ever more varied, peculiar, and abstract. Materials are divided and transformed beyond the limits of imagination, titan-like powers are developed, and previously unimagined wealth is extracted from the universe. It often seems that human inventiveness is approaching the mythical mill Grotta. Yet, invention alone is not enough.
The organic world is a mere thin layer of the Earth, and apparently, organic and supra-organic forces are entering a new relationship. Telluric forces are stirring, and not only they. Human inventiveness is a higher instinct, rooted deeply in matter. Mills are focal points where this becomes visible. There is still more to come.
Unintended, unexpected, and even more than hoped-for outcomes are part of the fate’s course. In our era, this is particularly noticeable in the sudden shifts between light and darkness in the world of Prometheus. However, humans adapt to everything, and once they have done their utmost, they may content themselves with Vincent de Gournay’s motto: "Laissez-faire, laissez-passer, le monde va de lui-même."
The clock is also a mill, a time-grinding machine. It early made visible that the workday consists of twenty-four hours. The distinction between work and leisure remains secondary to this. The working style gives both their rhythm, determined by a peculiar sense of time. This awareness perceives the recognized units, from the largest to the smallest, as being in restless movement: from cosmic systems to atoms. This is also true physiologically; trees and flowers are perceived through glances that see them as workshops of incessantly circulating juices, where light and earth forces are transformed. The great and small clocks run day and night, in action as well as in dreams, and in work as well as in play.
The overlap of play and work, similar to the life of hunters or fishermen in the past, might just be the beginning, a blurring at the edges of the new world. This fact is not fully appreciated when attempting to grasp it with ethical terms, such as adherence to the categorical imperative. Rather, it seems to be layered, from which dance and music also emerge.
Work is becoming more compelling in every field, though often lighter and more enjoyable, conforming to the mood. On the one hand, even within the narrower framework of technology, there are functions that provide pleasure, and on the other hand, games that seem like hard work. At times, a world of amateurs is hinted at.
The passion for mechanical problems and relationships at all ages reveals an individualizing basic feeling in which not only the boundaries between play and profession blur but also those between play and danger.
That work and leisure, production and consumption are increasingly carried out by the same type of person is a fact to which the use of time and resources will gradually but fundamentally adapt.
Such adaptation goes through phases where it becomes ambiguous. Whether it should aim at personal comfort, power struggles, or technical precision regarding the distribution of work and leisure, production and consumption, wages and purchasing power, comfort and armament depends on the perspective of the participants.
Sentences and oppositions orbit around a center from which not only realities change, but also the words that previously described these realities become blurred. Terms like "cold war" or "free peoples" are unclear and provisional because a new status has not yet been captured by language. Both things and words, which once had an unambiguous sound, suffer from this. The common hearth from which the disturbance radiates lies deep, like that of a tectonic quake affecting not only the boundaries of the state but also its foundations.
Within the feudal order, work could be set as an ethical value, such as a moral obligation. The fact that this no longer holds, especially where ethical and economic demands intersect, is explained by the fact that the worker's role now demands substantive, not moral, claims. These demands are deeper and do not require justification; they involve the individual in a layer from which functions separate. This also casts new light on terms like "wage."
What is due to an individual depends on the overall accounting, that is, the evaluation of undifferentiated labor capacity. Wages are increasingly transforming into shares, and wage struggles into the determination of these shares. This changes the arguments; they refer to a broader budget than that of a single factory, industry, or even a state and rely on statistical calculations.
It is clear that such accounting places limits on discretion, such as shifting burdens. An employee in a department store will find both early store closing times and weekly schedules significant. This is true for him in his role as a seller, dealing with sales and distribution. As a consumer, however, he faces restrictions on access to goods during the time saved.
This is a banal example, but it seems that the distinction between sales time and the seller's leisure is not yet sharp enough. It is not contradictory for both to expand.
The fact that the workday consists of twenty-four hours extends beyond the division into work and leisure. It corresponds to a system where services, naturally with changing personnel, run continuously. This will be unnecessary in many areas but has long been customary in others, especially in transportation. The wheels turn at all hours, and a large train station is illuminated day and night.
Probably, such caravanserais are forming models for complex systems. These include increasingly rich and numerous automaton facilities. They save a significant portion of personal service and transform another part into mere controls or acts of presence.
Perfect models include network-, ring-, and stream-shaped systems that not only supply and distribute at all hours and in any quantity but also handle measurement and calculation of performance in the same operational cycle. An example of this is the automatic telephone service.
Compared to such systems, the complexity that still prevails in other areas, such as taxation, which is marked by a multitude of complicated regulations, calculations, and assessments, can be assessed. It is likely that with the ever-increasing abstraction of money and its circulation, it would only take a few good minds to fulfill the classical demand of the physiocrats: that the collection of a single tax would suffice.
The expectation that the revision will relegate the term "citizen" to a brief historical period, aside from the fact that otherwise doors would be opened, has several motivations.
First, it should be emphasized more strongly that the transition from the class state to new orders can occur both evolutionarily and revolutionarily. It should also be added that this transformation affects not only class states but also feudal states and even primitive tribes. The common denominator is not to be found in the political forms of transition but in the irresistible new style of thinking and its application. It has been sufficiently demonstrated that, for example, in the deployment of machines, symbolic values often outweigh practical, particularly economic, ones.
The citizen is the intellectual predecessor of the worker, who inherits not only the legacy of extensive scientific groundwork but also the progressive character of this work. Points where this work changes its meaning and loses its progressive nature are clearly recognizable. The individual is led to the launching pad. He not only changes the style but the nature of the endeavor, stepping out of one millennium and out of history, having to manage the unpredictable.
Whether the heir simply follows in the footsteps of his predecessors or becomes an Oedipus or Aeneas to his father are questions within the realm of appearances and their ramifications. Here, things change almost imperceptibly and naturally, as a revolution without phrase, while there, under convulsions, in tragic downfalls and hells of murder.
The question of the most favorable starting point is not easily answered. Sociologically, it is advantageous if the Third Estate unfolds in a broad and influential layer, as in Switzerland or Scandinavian countries. For technical planning, however, it is more beneficial if it encounters untouched lands and underdeveloped conditions. There, work can be done with compass and ruler.
This ambivalence must be considered if one intends to evaluate historical figures and decisions in retrospect. Catherine II, by limiting the Enlightenment to a very narrow layer, contributed to the preparation of a catastrophe that cost millions of lives. On the other hand, this very action accumulated the potential energy for a world hour.
The description of a natural phenomenon can be presented either with affection or in a scientific manner. Both are not mutually exclusive; there is a spectrum between Kleist and Clausewitz. The more a viewer is able to disregard their own national, social, and moral situation, the less their assessment of the situation will be clouded. However, only approximations can be achieved. There is a limit, which Jomini exceeds when he, during a battle, expresses the desire to be operational on the enemy’s side as well. This would be like playing chess with oneself—l'art pour l'art. Every conflict has a boundary between natural and intellectual demands that must be observed and respected.
Germany’s situation after World War I was favorable; despite the losses in people, goods, and territories, the potential energy was preserved. This is evidenced negatively by the enormous expenditure wasted during World War II. The advantageous aspect was the liberation from the medieval inheritance that had been carried over into the constitution at the founding of the Reich. Now, great things seemed possible, and there was no lack of plans and ideas to realize them. This sense explains the peculiar optimism that remained as an undercurrent despite the oppressive political and economic turmoil of the 1920s.
How did it happen that the game was led in the wrong direction from the very beginning? It seems difficult to avoid partisan considerations when reflecting on such questions, but it remains to be noted that terms like “right” and “left” branch off from a common axis of symmetry and only make sense when viewed from this axis. The right and the left, whether acting with or against each other, or alongside one another, depend on a body whose unity must become visible when a party moves from the realm of movement into that of the state. Where the party leader becomes the head of state, they must shed parts of the doctrine.
It has been part of the German fate since the Reformation that all major questions, which were resolved in neighboring countries one way or another, have remained in suspense. Particularly, the left has been unable to establish itself convincingly; this judgment can already include the Peasants' War. This is a great loss for which not only the opponents are to blame. The reasons are manifold; addressing them individually would be too extensive. In my correspondence with Ernst Niekisch, one of the few before whom I could maintain respect amid our disputes, I find the following passage touching on the subject:
“You ask why there has never been an effective left in Germany? In France, there came a moment when the fate and existence of the whole nation rested on the power of the left, the Jacobins. This has never faded from the memory of the French. German unification did not come from the action of the people but was the work of Bismarck and the military. This too imprinted itself on the memory of the people. Never has a German left been identical with the whole existence and future of the German people. In this lies the cause of its constant weakness.”
Das ist korrekt, obwohl historische Erklärungen allein nicht ausreichen. In der deutschen Geschichte gab es Momente, an denen eine grundlegende Neudatierung möglich gewesen wäre und die dem Fiasko der französischen Monarchie von 1789 in nichts nachstanden. Doch, wie es heißt: "Die eigene Art ist des Menschen Dämon" – auch dies gilt für diesen Aspekt unseres Nationalcharakters, der nicht erst seit dem von Valeriu Marcu bezeichneten Datum „Die Geburt der Nationen“ hervortritt. Dieser Zug ist eng mit der Mittellage des Reiches verknüpft. Hier wird die Entscheidung besonders schwierig: Je kürzer der Waagbalken, desto unbestimmter die Ausschläge.
Das erklärt, warum die deutschen Händel oft endlos hinausgeführt werden und schwächere Lösungen bieten als in anderen Ländern erreicht wurden. Cavour war kein größerer Staatsmann als Bismarck, fand aber leichteren Boden und günstigere Bedingungen.
Heinrich der Löwe und Barbarossa, Luther und Erasmus, Ritter und Bauern, Kaiser und Landesfürsten, Union und Liga, Paulskirche und Krone, Ost und West – alte und neue Fragen, immer zu spät oder ungenügend beantwortet und nie ohne Einbußen. Jedes Jahrhundert stellt sie auf seine Weise neu und überraschend, und die Frage unserer Zeit lautet, ob die Gestalt des Arbeiters überzeugend vertreten wird oder nicht. Auch diese Frage wurde weder 1918, noch 1933, noch 1945 hinreichend beantwortet.
Zunächst muss das Wort „Arbeiter“ neu konzipiert werden, um die Mutation zu erkennen, die viele Begriffe und Einrichtungen des 19. Jahrhunderts erleiden – eine Verwandlung, die der Entfaltung der Imago aus der Puppe ähnelt.
Es ist viel leichter, einem denkenden Menschen einen neuen Gedanken mitzuteilen als die Ansicht eines Bildes, das überraschend erscheint. Er sieht dasselbe, aber nicht auf die gleiche Art. Das gilt auch für Köpfe wie Oswald Spengler, wie ich aus einem Brief vom 25. September 1932 erfahren habe, der inzwischen veröffentlicht wurde. Spengler beurteilte den „Arbeiter“ aus einer antimarxistischen, also überholten Perspektive und berief sich speziell auf den Bauern und dessen Zukunft. Das war wohl mehr als eine Frage der Generation. Es ist ein grundlegender Unterschied, ob man Ideen oder Gestalten sieht, wie mich die dreißig Jahre seit dem Erscheinen des Buches hinreichend belehrt haben.
Der Hinweis auf den Bauern ließ mich nachdenken, da er Spenglers System und dessen Grundzüge widersprach. Jedes imperialistische Wollen muss sich zwangsläufig mit der Aufopferung des Bauernstandes abfinden. Weltmacht verwirklicht sich auf dessen Kosten, wie man es in Rom und England erfahren hat und heute nicht nur in Russland, sondern auch in den entferntesten Winkeln der Erde, in jedem Hof und jeder Eingeborenenhütte, an jedem Pflug und Pferd erfährt.
The question of who could bear the heavy labor in a world state is complex and fundamentally challenging. In a world state, there can naturally be neither colonies nor the exploitation of conquered territories in the classical sense, as was the case in advanced states of antiquity or during the colonial era. These states benefited from the yields and labor of the conquered regions due to their technical, military, and political superiority. The question, therefore, is how such a world state would organize its necessary labor without resorting to these forms of exploitation.
The model that develops from this question can be illuminated through the analysis of the American Civil War. This war demonstrates how deeply economic and social questions can influence political and military developments. Just as the Dreyfus Affair is instructive for understanding modern democracy, the American Civil War offers insights into the dynamics of society and its conflicts.
A possible solution to the problem of offloading slave labor might lie in technological development. The increasing use of robots and automation to perform tasks previously done by humans represents both a quantitative and qualitative change. This technological advancement could help reduce the need for unfree labor and increase the efficiency of labor processes. The refinement and transformation of raw materials through advanced technologies could also be a means to meet the demands of the new world.
The reduction of the peasantry and the general displacement of traditional forms of labor are expressions of a profound change in how labor is organized and utilized. This change is evident not only in mechanics but also in chemistry, which contributes to further reduction and transformation of labor practices.
Historical losses and the dilution caused by expansion and the influx of foreign elements also play a role. The conquered bring their distinctiveness, customs, cultures, and luxuries, leading to a mixing and sometimes dilution of the original society. The conquerors themselves are influenced and changed, as history shows, such as in the case of Alexander's marriage to Roxane, which symbolized the merging of Europe with Asia.
Spengler predicted severe conflicts between Whites and people of color for the second half of the century. These conflicts could arise if class struggle and racial struggle were to merge. The possibility that racial unrest could open the way for white leaders of the class struggle underscores the complexity of the social and political dynamics that could play a role in such a world state.
Today, after thirty years, it is undeniable that concrete features have emerged in these visions. What has happened and is happening in Africa, from the northern edge to the southern tip, in East and South Asia, in North and South America— in China, Algeria, India, Egypt, the Congo, Cuba, to name a few hotspots— goes far beyond a series of uprisings and liberation struggles. The fire, which can no longer be extinguished, and above all not with blood, extends beyond the dichotomy of whites and people of color. It bears all the signs of a world conflagration. It is not this or that race, or species, that is in question. The true scope of this phenomenon, from which alone correct conclusions and decisions can be drawn, was not seen by Spengler. He could not see it and, if he were still alive, he would be even less capable of seeing it today. He saw symptoms, and as these symptoms have intensified crisis-like, they would confirm his diagnosis.
When such a perceptive mind misunderstands the extent of a phenomenon, it cannot be due to intelligence; it must be due to their position. It is akin to a hunter on their stand who sees the monsters earlier than most and recognizes them with passionate sharpness. But they move in an unforeseen direction and get lost in unexplored thickets.
Nonetheless, a section of the great hunt was captured in an unusual style of thought. This is also true for Spengler's system. Cultures are viewed in succession and alongside one another, but not, as with Herder, Goethe, and Hegel, in an architectural and symphonic manner, or, as with Nietzsche, as an overture to a new world age. Decision, struggle for supremacy, age of warring states—none of this is the meaning; it is the labor pains in which the Earth closes one of its great metahistorical phases and begins another. Then the boundaries will fall, and spatially "Orient and Occident... no longer separable."
For the figure of the worker, the most powerful son of the Earth, the uprising of the colored races is an antaiosian act among others; it is akin to the conscription of a reserve army. It will only be duly appreciated in the outcome, within the overall account. It is understandable that initially, the negative entries stand out: losses and setbacks, the regression to primitive thought forms that become virulent.
This also applies to other closely related phenomena, such as the rapid growth of the Earth's population. There are reasons why China, in particular, escapes the schema of late culture outlined in "The Decline of the West." All of this can be cautiously interpreted, perhaps even influenced, but not mastered, let alone impeded.
The greater the contribution, the stronger the potential. A significant hit presupposes a multitude of attempts. This applies also to racial mixing and racial differentiation. The former is determined by blood, the latter by spirit. In this sense, the worker type transcends natural races, just as his technology initially employs and then transforms the traditional tools and weapons. His domain is the Earth, and his credential is the mastery of specific means through intellectual power.
The elimination of differences, the uniformity through the character of work, also applies to inland and port cities; one arrives here as well as there. The Neptunian signs are complemented by the lighter and stricter signs of the air and fire worlds.
Land battles take on amphibious characteristics, while naval battles have become inconceivable without air power. World power presupposes a balanced mastery of the four ancient elements. Thus, the classical sea powers are under favorable auspices.
The more restricted the layout, the more uncertain the high buildings become. National approaches have their specific measure and, where they exceed it, are not only corrected but also reduced. The storms pass over the conquered, who bow and rise again. However, the original tribe remains, as Sweden did after the campaigns of Charles XII, weakened for centuries.
Whether the Mongol storms belong to history—the question is of greater significance within classical historical prognosis than for the elemental landscape of the worker. "The path of the mill-screw, whether straight or transverse, is the same" (Heraclitus).
To give conquest durability, receptive virtues must accompany the expansive ones: transformative power through reception. This is stronger, closer to the Earth; less visible but more enduring than military might. Powerful conquerors, such as the Manchus in China or the Hyksos in Egypt, are absorbed within a few generations, adopting the language, customs, and cults of the conquered. Yang triumphs with the sword and Yin with the spindle; this is the eternal play. The left hand distributes, while the right hand cuts.
The full development of Earth's forces requires sufficient territory. This is not just a question of surface area, but also of depth and quality. The vast space cannot be created ad hoc or standardized. This has been confirmed once again in recent history by the examples of Germany, Italy, and Japan; on the other hand, the stable bases of China, Russia, and North America have proven effective.
The correspondence between spatial expansion and the loss of the law (Nomos) is particularly evident to the conservative, much to his chagrin. Theory and practice come into conflict, as seen in the curious twilight surrounding the figure of the older Cato. Even the Romans puzzled over how to reconcile the censorial discipline and dignity with land speculation and maritime insurance business.
This conflict runs through history as a red thread; without understanding it, one cannot assess the differences of the 1880s that led to Bismarck's downfall. These differences were evident both in individuals and in matters; they are confrontations between the indigenous and the emerging abstract forces that press in various forms. Even today, it is difficult to decide what would have been right, despite the libraries written on the subject. The outcome suggests that the resources were insufficient. They were adequate for great power politics but not for world power politics. This made visible what was missed in 1848 and could not be reclaimed. At the Marne, not only did the army corps that were on the railway lack, but also that part of the military power bound in the colonies and on the fleet.
Expansion needs to be considered; setbacks follow not only from the enlargement of states but also from private ventures, as both coincide in "founding years"; with prosperity comes insecurity. Ancient authors, like modern ones in Balzac and Fontane’s novels, provide ample material on this. There is a difference between dealing with inherited, saved, borrowed, or fictitious money and whether one perceives the businesses from which one profits as being distant or hanging in the air.
A constantly growing acumen is engaged in detecting the financial value of relations that nobody suspected or in incorporating steps into the flow of business that yield rent. Preventing this seems simple, but it almost always brings losses not only in enjoyment but also in freedom. Where money changers and merchants disappear, swarms of functionaries and policemen appear. A journey through the countries of our planet, even a short trip from Beirut to Damascus or Cairo, will confirm this.
Intelligent minds tend to overestimate the influence of opinion, especially the tool of irony. This is a mistake from which they are rarely or never cured—often only when they, like Chamfort, fall with the branch they sawed off.
Ultimately, the ironic process repeatedly leads back to the foundation where things are stronger than criticism. Enthusiasm, destruction, and even tabooing of commonplaces follow. Through opinion, not truths are created but realities established. Authoritarian figures often emerge from epochs of unrestricted freedom of opinion. They navigate through the changes of criticism as if through good and bad weather towards their goal. They would never reach it if truth-finding were the rule. "Exposure" does not affect anyone who has a face behind the mask or a heart under the vest. These are constitutional questions. Someone built like Clemenceau will survive even a Panama scandal.
Press freedom is dangerous for powers that are on the retreat. And there is no power that does not eventually come under attack. The coming powers use opinion and then control it. At every time and under every constitution, there is a catalog of things one must not touch.
In dictatorships, as well as where authority weakens, intelligent condottieri emerge—sometimes serving the rulers and their narrative, other times serving competing committees and private individuals. The concept of public relations originates from the First World War; it not only describes an expansion but also a transformation in the formation of opinion and its techniques. Villiers de l'Isle-Adam illustrated the "machine of fame" eighty years ago and proposed dividing the sky into rentable advertising spaces. Since then, propaganda has evolved into a science with established rules and its own techniques. Over time, substance cannot be replaced by opinion, even where the means of reproduction are controlled. Where there are no collapses, erosion works more slowly but thoroughly.
These issues are of lesser importance concerning the figure of the worker, for more significant than the diversity and spiral path of development is its unity, evidenced by the fact that no power can forgo the use of specific means even in opinion formation. From there emanates more convincing power than through statements—still undifferentiated, rhythmically surging, and illuminating potential. This outweighs the formulated opinion and its conflicts, for technology is the language of the worker; it is the universal language. What is negotiated and fought over in it does not determine the direction; victory belongs from the outset to those negotiating in this language, even if they are difficult to grasp and recognize. In this lies their power.
Whether a person, a people, a movement has a future can be discerned today by those who understand how to listen—not so much to the words and their content as to the tone and music. "Having a future" should not be understood as mere survival; the obsession with personal opportunity and the anxious pursuit of security are negative signs. After the first three sentences, one can recognize the free spirit. This holds true within any tyranny, even that of commonplaces.
Where threatening signs multiply, optimism rooted in freedom reveals inner health and power deeply rooted in nature and the universe. Such spirits affirm the world and the times. They know they were born in the right place and at the right time, and, like Ulrich von Hutten, in the right fatherland.
The conservative, if there are still forces worthy of that name, is like someone trying to impose order in an ever-accelerating vehicle, trying to keep things in their accustomed places. This very effort amplifies the catastrophe's force. Artificially secured objects become an increasing danger, especially where the nation-state's ethos and institutions are to be preserved, and in a broader sense, for the ideas of 1789. What lies before this is museum-like. This is the basis for the growing sympathy for princes, even where they still rule, and for social and historical preservation in general.
The conservative spirit's concerns about the prospect of a world state are justified; he finds the image of a three- or multi-part world more appealing. He has historical experience on his side and general considerations based on the relationship between quantity and quality. He misses the counterbalance.
To this, it can be replied that no era will lack unrest, and no power will lack a counterforce. This counterforce always emerges from the unforeseen. This applies to the global order as well; it belongs to the fundamental principles that operate before, within, and after the historical world—or, as the ancients said, to the plan of creation (Sirach 33:16).
Among the errors of utopians is their hope that the state can grant a happiness that, by its nature, it cannot provide—such as eternal peace or the renunciation of violence. Even the world state cannot achieve this. However, within the natural instinct of the state-building human lies a deeper knowledge, and thus his constructions are more than mere perfect dwellings. He sheds cities, states, and cultures like adornments that are not sufficient. The unshakeable unity is testified to but not found—perhaps hinted at through transcendent archaeology.
The leveling effect of the nation-state, compared to the pre-revolutionary order, impacts not only society and its diversity but also the arts, including military art, architecture, crafts, and every organically grown structure. This includes the homogenization of landscapes at the expense of their uniqueness, their growing dependence on central authorities, and their division by railways, canals, and highways.
This image, whose development occupied the entire 19th century, did not arise suddenly—it was preceded by the establishment of the absolute monarchy, which had excellent administrators like Colbert and Fouquet. They, as Rivarol said, installed the revolutionaries. The nation-state was pre-formed, both intellectually and institutionally. Its century, in turn, pre-forms the working world with its volcanism and titans—especially through science. Here, too, there can be no final goal; the provisional nature attests to this sufficiently. Often, as with setting up tent camps, the construction already anticipates demolition.
The suspicion that there will be great destructions still to come is based less on the violence of the means than on the stock of outdated ideas and institutions. The danger lies not in the flame but in the tinder. Both historical and primitive powers that emancipate themselves go through not only fiery zones but also phases of increased flammability. Spiritualization, which constantly accompanies the process and seeks to judge it in its entirety, is thus one of the main factors of selection.
With increasing acceleration, centralization must also increase. Both are interdependent. At the same time, individuality must diminish, regardless of where it appears—in landscapes, cities, artworks, peoples, genders, professions, or individuals. Formal characteristics diminish in favor of dynamic power. Of course, this does not imply anything regarding the undifferentiated; being passes through every phase unchanged. There is also hope that vantage points will always remain from which the scope of events can be assessed. Otherwise, it would immediately transform into a pure natural spectacle.
In the midst of a movement with no historical precedent and in the face of unexpectedly emerging phenomena, one must be particularly cautious with predictions. Above all, one should avoid drawing definitive conclusions from comparative historical research.
If recurring cycles play a role, their circulation certainly lasts significantly longer than any historically measurable period, even if we include prehistory. We must call upon myth, then geological, zoological, astronomical knowledge, and astrology as an emerging science.
The evidence and every new day teach us that acceleration will continue to increase. An insatiable hunger for space and time is a hallmark of the worker. One could only believe in a turning point if images and thoughts of a completely new kind announced it.
It is equally undeniable that the movement will eventually come to an end. Various signs indicate a final acceleration. However, reserves are being both discovered and generated to a degree that can still meet a high level of consumption. More noteworthy is that the system seems to be approaching its conclusion.
Of course, we only know the human part of the movement and do not know the extent to which other forces are involved. It could be that the effort we understand today as work ascends to another power. It would then gain a new meaning, perhaps that of a release, a door-opening, a rhythmic initiation, or even an invocation, whose result would justify the enormous effort with which it was accomplished; the technical ability would then become a higher instinct.
The best in a statesman, as in a strategist, is instinct: the extent to which he represents his office with undifferentiated humanity. Only in this way will he encounter fate at a depth to which no system and no thought can lead. What the intellect creates and organizes is transient, but "the root of wisdom does not decay" (Wisdom 3:15).
In being alone resides unshakable essence; time flows over it like through a riverbed. The substantial order shimmers fleetingly through the waves and their reflections and is conceived by the spirit as an ideal order. The one realizes itself in the existence of peoples, plant-like and dreamily; the other, at best, is approached by the will. No concept has existed that the resistance of people and things has not changed; often enough, a program is turned into its opposite.
That a considerable portion of blindness belongs to the endowment of a statesman, as to that of every active person, necessarily escapes the understanding of those acting. In times of great actions like ours, blindness must also increase.
The goal wants to be reached, be it from the right or the left, from above or below, alone or with many, by direct route or by maneuvering—it requires choice and decision, and thus exclusion. That something was missing, not included, only becomes apparent in retrospect. Soon the goal itself becomes questionable, as time continues to affect, change, or even destroy it. The great festivals, the jubilation, and victory celebrations are only a brief, joyful sigh of relief.
Here the wise and the artistic person perhaps see not more sharply, but more comprehensively; hence their aversion to political affairs or their willingness to leave them to inferior types if only they are not disturbed in their own circles.
Among aging statesmen, the skeptic is not uncommon, especially if, like Diocletian, he sees his work endangered during his lifetime. There is always something that he had overlooked, an influence that was unpredictable, a seed of resistance that now sprouts, an incompetent or malevolent successor.
All of this belongs to the nature and fate of a changing world. It cannot be avoided, least of all through violence. Seneca was therefore right when he said to Nero: "However many you kill, your successor will not be among them."
The skepticism of the aging prince, even when fortune holds, has its precedent in the Preacher Solomon, an astonishing work especially within the framework of a holy book.
Skepticism is one of the possible perspectives on any unification. "For everything that comes into being is worthy of perishing." Nevertheless, the political world is filled with the pursuit of ever larger unions, ever stronger developments. Their systems resemble rivers, which, arising from various sources and nourished by ever richer inflows, gain in power and load-bearing capacity until finally the eye can hardly discern the banks. Indeed, as every formation returns to the undifferentiated, they too will eventually flow into the sea. Sometimes this is preceded by a division, a delta formation on the alluvial ground. The Roman Empire provides a model of all this.
The world state should not be understood merely as an enlargement resulting from amalgamation, but as an organic formation in whose embryonic development we participate. The practical advantage is secondary in comparison, as is any management.
Fears of further flattening are unfounded insofar as they relate to the world state. The loss of Nomos, which we observe everywhere on the planet, is not purely a matter of losses. The new chapter demands a blank page.
In any case, the world state does not bring an expansion or even an intensification of the principles of the nation-state. The opposite is foreseeable. The territory of the world state is not just a large national territory, but the Earth itself. Its sovereign is not this or that people, but humanity as such in a unity that has been lost since the earliest appearance of the species. For the first time since the time of the wandering hunter, borders become obsolete or lose the significance of guarded markers. Thus, the Earth gains a new skin.
The state is the fatherland, the homeland the motherland. When the Earth becomes a unity, the paternal principles must retreat, along with their symbols: the border, the crown, the sword, the war.
The decline of the ethos of the nation-state, its means losing sharpness and persuasive power, is not solely explained by exhaustion. Wherever in the 20th century wars were fought with these ideas, they were lost from the outset, regardless of whether they ended with gain, loss, or a draw. The real significance of these conflicts lies in the immense work efforts. Thus, the elemental character outweighs the historical.
While the historical powers exhaust themselves, even where they formed empires, the dynamic potential grows on a global scale—not only in a raw plutonic way but also through unprecedented refinement of raw materials and interlocking of the technical apparatus.
On the vast stage, losses are still more visible than gains. At the time-wall, law and border blur; pain and hope take their place: the world of the worker will also be the homeland of humanity.
God, Junger is so amazing - he floors me, his mind and his fluency in writing...thank you