Ernst Jünger - Prognoses for the 21st Century

Part Two

After all, we are no strangers to timelessness. We come from it and we go to it: it accompanies us on the journey as the only luggage that cannot be lost. It casts its shadow on us when we suffer, and gives us life when its light touches us.

I owe the word "Gestaltwandel" (transformation) to Leopold Ziegler – as well as a conversation about The Worker, shortly after it was published. We were near the refuge above the Goldbach Chapel, where I now turn to these notes with a good view of the lake. Transformation of the gods means the changing manifestation of their worship. There are places that have been considered sacred through time, although the religions changed. Perhaps an angel had appeared there once, a miracle had happened. New temples were built from the ruins of the old. They remained as the destination of pilgrimages, festivals, sacrifices, and devotions. Prayers are always significant; but it is said that they are most likely to be answered here.

The war of the titans and the twilight of the gods are metahistorical – out of nature and the cosmos they intervene in history. From a chronological point of view, it is to be assumed that the Titans preceded the gods and managed the chaos. This complies with the myth of the gods having been begotten and taught by the Titans. Their uprising shakes Mount Olympus – they are subdued by Zeus and banished to the underworld. But they return – like Prometheus unleashed in the form of the Worker. The gods create out of timelessness; the Titans act and invent inside of time. They are related to technology rather than the arts. Therefore, Hölderlin advises the poet to dream and to take solace in Dionysus while the "iron ones" rule – but he knows that the gods will return.

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On arithmetic. The exponent is the digit placed over the base that indicates how many times it can be multiplied by itself. In the equation: 2 ^3 = 8, "2" represents the base, "3" represents the exponent, and "8" represents the result. The base is also called "the root", the exponent "the index". The equals sign represents "the middle". The middle mediates; it separates and connects at the same time.

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On botany. If we transfer the equation into a parable, let the base be understood as the root, the combining character as the trunk, and the exponent as the crown of a tree. The result is the fruit. It is to be considered as pure product first, that is, separate from the economic, aesthetic, and moral valuations which constitute it.

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On spelling. "To expose" is "to remove" as well as "to read“ and "to construe". I focus on a work, a piece of writing, in detail, consider its character and interpret it.

"To expose oneself“ is "to dislodge oneself“, into the unknown, especially to a danger. It is, seen neutrally, a carrying-oneself-out. This gift (the expositional) is purely potential at first, but it creates facts. (Accidentals in the sense of Thomas Aquinas.) Qualities such as good and evil, beautiful and ugly, are attached to them as tags depending on the place and people. After all, removing oneself also affects the perspective, and thus the style – for example, not "I am being executed“, but "I am taking part in my execution“. This already touches transcendence.