Notes on the Anarch
I was asked to comment on the anarch, so here are a few notes which might also serve as an outline for the figure who comes next.
“The forest rebel has been expelled from society, while the anarch has expelled society from himself.” ~ Jünger
The anarch is, in one sense, a stepping away from vitality-consumption.
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The anarch struggles with titanic and elemental forces, much as the anarchist struggles with the state.
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Arming oneself against the intoxication of ideology, and its master: purely technical knowledge.
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The soldier, worker, and forest rebel are figures whereas the anarch appears as the end of these figures, much in the same way that history comes to an end.
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Titanism is the ruination of the figures.
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It is significant that the anarch appears in a work of fiction, this speaks to its quality as a final and perhaps uncertain exploration of the interim.
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The archetypal man confines history within himself, this is his answer to humankind; the anarch awaits the return of time.
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In this sense, titanism is the eternal struggle of the archetypes against the figures.
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Not only the archetypal man, but the quintessential man, the ultimate man, the Übermensch, and the original man are a part of him. But then the inevitable question, is man alone not enough?
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If the anarch appears apart from history what then is time to this man? And what is to be made of the classical forms, society and community?
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Hierarchy and its abandonment replace historical form. Otherwise, we might say that the hierarchies become superfluous. In his journals Jünger's exploration begins with his travels in Turkey (or Morocco?), in farming land with its clear and, to us, antiquated hierarchy.
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What was an economic rule of the bourgeois, of foreign enterprise, is now entirely elemental. The humanist character no longer has need of expression, we are dealing with a type of power without classical form – thus our egoism is confronted by the elimination of what had given us security.
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One finds himself at the time-wall, what Goethe called the cul-de-sac, where history and man pile up. It is impossible to speak of destruction, let alone annihilation – this is part of the form.
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The subtle difference between nationalism and national egoism is the substance of the new conflicts. In a way, this precedes the world civil war.