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- Upon his return to Italy in 1948, Julius Evola attempted to contact authors with whom he had had epistolary relations before the Second World War in order to suggest that some of their works be translated into Italian. René Guénon replied favourably to this proposition, while Mircea Eliade, Carl Schmitt and Gottfried Benn declined. Ernst Jünger did not even reply.
In 1956, in his review of "Der Gordische Knoten" (1953), Evola had warned the reader against "the confused ideas, the unilateral and debatable presentations" which he had judged to be those of the German writer following the end of WWII, reiterating with characteristic frankness the implicit judgement he had passed on Jünger's work in a letter he had sent him in 1952, and to which he never received a reply : I am especially interested in those works of the first period, say, until "Auf den Marmorklippen". It is therefore unsurprising that the book by Jünger that the Italian author proposed to translate was a novel from what he considered to be the German author's first period : "Der Arbeiter" ("The Worker").
"But, while rereading it, I convinced myself, Evola says, that it would not be by a translation that I would achieve the goal I had fixed myself. Effectively, the worthwhile parts are mixed with others which, to an undiscerning reader, would only be a hindrance, since they are influenced by the situation in Germany at that time, and do not take into account the experiences whose problematic nature has become apparent in the meantime... I therefore abandoned the idea of a translation in favour of a vast synthesis largely based on quotes from the book, leaving aside the redundant or false parts, in order to set forth the essential and immutable, by reducing to a minimum the critical and explanatory presentation."
This is also the impression the book left us with when we first read it years ago, an impression that was confirmed fully when we read it again before undertaking its translation into English. Jünger's vacillation between true and false ideas is so constant that we have preferred not to publish at http://elementsdeducationraciale.wordpress.com/ the excerpt of "Le Travailleur" we intended to make available there, since the book is made up of 80 `articles', whose length ranges from fifteen pages or so to a few pages, and all of these, even the short ones, are an intellectual roller-coaster, so to speak.
We propose a translation of the first two sub-sections of the first part. The excerpts from "Der Arbeiter" quoted by J. Evola in "L'"Operaio" nel pensiero di Ernst Jünger" were translated from the German original. The French translation, however, is most faithful, and has been our preferred source for the quotations by Jünger.
They will soon be published at http://thompkins_cariou.tripod.com/. It has been five years since the English section of the site has not been updated with an unpublished text in English. This reflects somehow the extent of the interest currently taken in the work of the Italian author. - --- In evola_as_he_is@yahoogroups.com, "Evola" <evola_as_he_is@...> wrote:
>
Particularly interesting for German members: the relationship between J. Evola and Gottfried Benn is the subject of an article by H.T. Hakl.
> Upon his return to Italy in 1948, Julius Evola attempted to contact authors with whom he had had epistolary relations before the Second World War in order to suggest that some of their works be translated into Italian. René Guénon replied favourably to this proposition, while Mircea Eliade, Carl Schmitt and Gottfried Benn declined. Ernst Jünger did not even reply.
>
> In 1956, in his review of "Der Gordische Knoten" (1953), Evola had warned the reader against "the confused ideas, the unilateral and debatable presentations" which he had judged to be those of the German writer following the end of WWII, reiterating with characteristic frankness the implicit judgement he had passed on Jünger's work in a letter he had sent him in 1952, and to which he never received a reply : I am especially interested in those works of the first period, say, until "Auf den Marmorklippen". It is therefore unsurprising that the book by Jünger that the Italian author proposed to translate was a novel from what he considered to be the German author's first period : "Der Arbeiter" ("The Worker").
>
> "But, while rereading it, I convinced myself, Evola says, that it would not be by a translation that I would achieve the goal I had fixed myself. Effectively, the worthwhile parts are mixed with others which, to an undiscerning reader, would only be a hindrance, since they are influenced by the situation in Germany at that time, and do not take into account the experiences whose problematic nature has become apparent in the meantime... I therefore abandoned the idea of a translation in favour of a vast synthesis largely based on quotes from the book, leaving aside the redundant or false parts, in order to set forth the essential and immutable, by reducing to a minimum the critical and explanatory presentation."
>
> This is also the impression the book left us with when we first read it years ago, an impression that was confirmed fully when we read it again before undertaking its translation into English. Jünger's vacillation between true and false ideas is so constant that we have preferred not to publish at http://elementsdeducationraciale.wordpress.com/ the excerpt of "Le Travailleur" we intended to make available there, since the book is made up of 80 `articles', whose length ranges from fifteen pages or so to a few pages, and all of these, even the short ones, are an intellectual roller-coaster, so to speak.
>
> We propose a translation of the first two sub-sections of the first part. The excerpts from "Der Arbeiter" quoted by J. Evola in "L'"Operaio" nel pensiero di Ernst Jünger" were translated from the German original. The French translation, however, is most faithful, and has been our preferred source for the quotations by Jünger.
>
> They will soon be published at http://thompkins_cariou.tripod.com/. It has been five years since the English section of the site has not been updated with an unpublished text in English. This reflects somehow the extent of the interest currently taken in the work of the Italian author.
>
Unfortunately we don't have access to this publication in order to give an overview ourselves.
In any case it can be mentioned that the German author's worldview had no racialist foundations.
HAKL, HANS T.: "Die Adler Odins fliegen den Adlern der römischen Legion entgegen". Gottfried Benn und Julius Evola. In: Benn-Jahrbuch 1 (2003), S. 100-131. - "Benn, one of the most prominent representatives of German expressionism, publicly supported the Hitler regime as soon as it came to power; unlike many others, however, he very quickly changed his tune. Benn actively supported Nazism for only two years (from 1933 to 1935), but there is a basic overall continuity in his work, and we find the same themes— except for any explicit reference to the Fascist cause—before his adherence. In his earlier work he spills forth his hatred of the modern world in its bourgeois, capitalist, urban, scientific, and also democratic and socialist aspects, and he dreams of a primitive past of instinctual life, above all in Primal Vision (1929). Then during his brief period of adherence to Nazism, Benn wrote some ten prose texts that all express fascist ideology in a very concerted way. But in two of these texts the Romantic aspect of his vision is exceptionally clear.The first, and the less important of the two, is a laudatory review of a book by another Romantic, Julius Evola, called Erhebung wider die moderne Welt (Revolt against the modern world). Benn presents—and espouses— political and social diversity the chief project of this book, which is to define and glorify what Evola calls the Traditionswelt: the world of primitive societies from the period between the Homeric era and that of Greek tragedy, in the Orient and in the Nordic countries as well as in Greece. After this period, there is decadence (Verfall), the advent of the degenerate modern world. According to Evola (and Benn agrees with him), fascism and Nazism make it possible for the first time to reestablish a connection between peoples and the lost Traditionswelt. Let us add, however, that for Benn—and this holds true for fascistic Romanticism in general—it is not a question of a simple return to the Traditionswelt. In another text written during his fascist period, Benn declares that in his eyes ‘‘it is only now that the history of mankind, its danger, its tragedy, begins,’’ thereby suggesting that humanity will shortly reach a higher stage. In reality, the fascist perspective is oriented toward the new as well as toward the old, as we can see from numerous terms such as ‘‘new order,’’ ‘‘new Europe.’’ The past for which Benn is nostalgic is amply fleshed out in a long article titled ‘‘Dorische Welt.’’ The Doric world—that is, the world encompassing the Greek states up to the fifth century b.c.e.—is the Traditionswelt Benn favors. In depicting this world, he portrays war, sport as preparation for war, slavery and antifeminism, racism and xenophobia, elitism, and the unscrupulous powerful state as basic and necessary features. In fact, the image he offers looks remarkably like National Socialist society. But Benn stresses another characteristic of the Doric world: there is no private property in the modern sense, since land is inalienable; and there is not really such a thing as money, only not-very-useful iron coins. As a result, ‘‘desire is not drawn to gold, but to sacred things, to magical weapons.’’Benn’s ideal past is thus specifically noncapitalist. It is interesting to note here that, in the text in which Benn expresses his disappointment with Nazism for the first time (‘‘Art and the Third Reich,’’ written in 1941), he accuses the Nazis of wanting to get rich, thus of not representing a true alternative to bourgeois society. This reveals the essential consistency of Benn’s Romanticism. Unfortunately, like many others, he believed he had found in fascism the realization of his dreams. (Löwy, M., & Sayre, R. (2001). Romanticism against the tide of modernity. Durham: Duke University Press, pages 68-69. http://m.friendfeed-media.com/15594a68c8da5b91bce932b0896edbb8b4169d2c)See furthermore :Benn, Gottfried, Einführung in Evola's Erhebung wider die moderne Welt. http://www.bernhard-schaub.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Benn-Gottfried-Einf%C3%BChrung-in-Evolas-Erhebung-wider-die-moderne-Welt.pdf("It is a book whose ideas and assumptions extend the horizons of almost every European problem to a degree hitherto unknown and unseen. Anyone who has read the book will see Europe differently. It is the first broad-ranging presentation of one of the basic spiritual impulses that is still active in Europe today--meaning by "active" that which is epoch-making, far-reaching in its destruction of feelings about the world, changing, and redirecting: it is the impulse that opposes history. For this very reason, it is an eminently important book for Germany, because history is a specifically German problem, and the philosophy of history a professedly Germanic form of self-understanding" ("Die Literatur," 1935)."What is it, then, this world of Tradition? First, it is a novel and evocative representation; no naturalistic or historical concept, but a vision, an erection, an enchantment. It evokes the world as universal, super-earthly and super-human. But this evocation can only arise and take effect when there are still remnants of this universality present, so that just to approach and grasp it is to be exceptional, elite, elect. This concept allows cultures to be liberated from humanity and from history, and to elevate their differences to a metaphysical plane, where they can be rebuilt in freedom and give birth to a new image of man: the ancient, lofty, transcendent man who is the bearer of Tradition". (http://www.juliusevola.it/risorse/template.asp?cod=325&cat=ART&page=7))Goffin, Roger. Gottfried Benn et le national-socialisme. In: Revue belge de philologie et d'histoire, tome 38, fasc. 3, 1960. Langues et litteratures modernes - Moderne talen en letter kunden. pp. 795-808. http://www.persee.fr/doc/rbph_0035-0818_1960_num_38_3_2325
- (On Benn's essay "Breeding" ("Zuchtüng"). Taken from "L’anthropologie et l’histoire naturelle dans la modernité esthétique (Döblin, Benn, Jünger)", https://rgi.revues.org/334 leaving out the footnotes for readability. Summary for this article : "Around 1930, Alfred Döblin, Gottfried Benn and Ernst Jünger turned towards anthropological issues. With a decidedly anti-Darwinist bent, they combined anthropology with 18th century natural history – which had long been deemed obsolete – in their attempts to present history. Döblin regarded man as the “nerve-and-muscle being”, Benn wanted to breed “brains with canines”, and Jünger locked himself in his herbarium with the most beautiful of all plantains. Thus, seen from an anthropological perspective, the “end of natural history” which Lepenies had proclaimed, had by no means arrived yet.")« De quelle nature est l’homme ? » Cette question préoccupe également Gottfried Benn en 1933, lequel développe comme Döblin ses réflexions anthropologiques sur la base du modèle de l’histoire naturelle et argumente, de même que Döblin, de manière morphologique et antidarwiniste.Ces points communs ne doivent cependant pas dissimuler les différences. D’une part, Benn écrit de véritables essais, faisant preuve, en tant que poète, d’un silence étonnant autour de 1930, quand bien même ses textes regorgent de force poétique, et ne sont pas sans rappeler la verve de Nietzsche. D’autre part, il a bien moins en tête le développement individuel que le développement générique, c’est-à-dire que son intérêt – et c’est bien sûr hautement problématique – est à visée historique, il en va de l’histoire de l’humanité.Dans son essai de 1933, « Züchtung » [Élevage], Benn reprend des réflexions qu’il n’a cessé de développer depuis les années 1920 et dont il a fixé le bilan transitoire dans le texte paru en 1930 : La structure de la personnalité. Esquisse d’une géologie du Moi.La thèse centrale de Benn est qu’« une transformation historique [... sera] toujours une transformation anthropologique ». En ce sens, et se référant en cela aux recherches en neurophysiologie de l’époque, il considère aussi que l’humanité subit un changement biologique et cortical quand elle entre dans une nouvelle époque historique. Inversement, on pourrait donc favoriser ce processus de transformation historique en pratiquant l’élevage biologique [biologische Züchtung].Dans le détail, Benn distingue au sein de l’histoire récente de l’Occident trois phases où le rapport de l’homme à la nature est chaque fois différent : 1. l’époque de Goethe, caractérisée par un regard morphologique porté sur une nature parcourue par une même âme. 2. L’époque de Darwin, caractérisée par une compréhension de la nature matérialiste et mécaniste telle qu’elle a pris forme dans la théorie de l’évolution, que Benn a refusée toute sa vie avec véhémence. 3. L’époque à venir, dans laquelle l’esprit, cette « substance spécifique aux hominidés » obtiendra justice. Pour encourager l’entrée dans cette époque spirituelle, Benn revendique : « Ce sont des cerveaux qu’il faut élever, de grands cerveaux pour défendre l’Allemagne, des cerveaux pourvus de canines, une mâchoire de bélemnite. »Jusqu’ici, les étonnantes idées d’élevage de Benn ont été commentées par les chercheurs presque exclusivement pour leur fonction dans le contexte de l’idéologie raciale fasciste, ce qui est indiscutable. Mais si l’on reconstruit cette pensée à la lumière de l’histoire des sciences, on découvre les implications problématiques de la mise en parallèle, initiée par les représentants de l’Aufklärung tardive, de l’histoire de la nature et de celle de l’humanité. Car Benn comprend lui aussi l’histoire comme « pure histoire naturelle de forces, d’actions et d’instincts humains selon le lieu et le temps », et ce n’est que pour cette raison qu’il peut mettre en contact aussi immédiatement la biologie de l’homme et son développement historique et social, passant ainsi des caractéristiques physiques au dévelop- pement spirituel et culturel. De cette manière seulement lui vient l’idée d’une genèse historique par la sélection ciblée de la substance anthropologique fondamentale, c’est-à-dire par la sélection mentale. En d’autres termes, chez Benn, la conception biologiste de l’histoire se base sur l’idée de l’Aufklärung d’une anthropologie de l’histoire naturelle. Herder se retournerait dans sa tombe.*(Ein Jahrhundert großer Schlachten wird beginnen, Heere und Phalangen von Titanen, die Promethiden reißen sich von den Felsen, und keine der Parzen wird ihr Spinnen unterbrechen, um auf uns herunterzusehen. Ein Jahrhundert voll Vernichtung steht schon da, der Donner wird sich mit dem Meer, das Feuer mit der Erde sich begatten, so unerbittlich werden die Endgeschlechter der weißen Rasse aneinandergehen. Also gibt es nur eins: Gehirne muß man züchten, große Gehirne, die Deutschland verteidigen. Gehirne mit Eckzähnen. Gebiß aus Donnerkeil. Verbrecherisch, wer den neuen Menschen träumerisch sieht, ihn in die Zukunft schwärmt, statt ihn zu hämmern; kämpfen muß er können, das lernt er nicht aus Märchen, Spukgeschichten, Minnesang, das lernt er unter Pfeilen, unter Feinden, aus Gedanken. Frieden in Europa wird es nicht mehr geben, die Angriffe gegen Deutschland werden erst beginnen: vom Westen, vom Osten, vom Liberalismus, von der Demokratie -, also Gehirne mit Hörnern, dessen Hörner sind wie Einhornshörner, mit denselben wird er die Völker stoßen zu Hauf bis an des Landes Enden. Dies Psalmenwort, nicht militaristisch gedacht, aber militant. Eine militante Transzendenz, ein Richtertum aus hohen wehrenden Gesetzen, Züchtung von Rausch und Opfer für das Sein verwandlungsloser Tiefe, Härte aus tragischem Gefühl, Form aus Schatten! Züchtung gegen sein zerstörendes Gesicht: Vergehen der Welten, Musik, der Nornenzug: dies ganz verschlossen, nordisch, darüber Schwerter.Noch einmal die weiße Rasse, ihr tiefster Traum: Entformung und Gestalt, noch einmal, im Norden: der Sieg des Griechen. Dann Asien, der neue Dschingis-Khan. Das ist die Perspektive.Militante Transzendenz -: der neue deutsche Mensch, nie rein irdisch, nie rein formal, solange er jung ist, sehr promethidisch, wenn er altert, am ehesten unter allen Typen einer Reife nah. Nicht intellektualistisch, aber extrem ins Denkerische gespannt, in eine Eigengesetzlichkeit des Geistig-Konstruktiven. (Züchtung [I], 1933)
- Benn's essay "Züchtung" (Breeding) is explored in the following essay (see the second part)L’anthropologie et l’histoire naturelle dans la modernité esthétique (Döblin, Benn, Jünger)
Summary in English accompanying the text : "Around 1930, Alfred Döblin, Gottfried Benn and Ernst Jünger turned towards anthropological issues. With a decidedly anti-Darwinist bent, they combined anthropology with 18th century natural history – which had long been deemed obsolete – in their attempts to present history. Döblin regarded man as the “nerve-and-muscle being”, Benn wanted to breed “brains with canines”, and Jünger locked himself in his herbarium with the most beautiful of all plantains. Thus, seen from an anthropological perspective, the “end of natural history” which Lepenies had proclaimed, had by no means arrived yet."
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