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Der Arbeiter: Herrschaft und Gestalt
Der Plan dieses Buches besteht darin, die Gestalt des Arbeiters sichtbar zu machen jenseits der Theorien, jenseits der Parteiungen, jenseits der Vorurteile als eine wirkende Größe, die bereits mächtig in die Geschichte eingegriffen hat und die Formen einer veränderten Welt gebieterisch bestimmt.
322 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1932
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846 people want to read
About the author
Ernst Jünger
251 books908 followersErnst Jünger was a decorated German soldier and author who became famous for his World War I memoir Storm of Steel. The son of a successful businessman and chemist, Jünger rebelled against an affluent upbringing and sought adventure in the Wandervogel, before running away to briefly serve in the French Foreign Legion, an illegal act. Because he escaped prosecution in Germany due to his father's efforts, Junger was able to enlist on the outbreak of war. A fearless leader who admired bravery above all else, he enthusiastically participated in actions in which his units were sometimes virtually annihilated. During an ill-fated German offensive in 1918 Junger's WW1 career ended with the last and most serious of his many woundings, and he was awarded the Pour le Mérite, a rare decoration for one of his rank.
Junger served in World War II as captain in the German Army. Assigned to an administrative position in Paris, he socialized with prominent artists of the day such as Picasso and Jean Cocteau. His early time in France is described in his diary Gärten und Straßen (1942, Gardens and Streets). He was also in charge of executing younger German soldiers who had deserted. In his book Un Allemand à Paris , the writer Gerhard Heller states that he had been interested in learning how a person reacts to death under such circumstances and had a morbid fascination for the subject.
Jünger appears on the fringes of the Stauffenberg bomb plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler (July 20, 1944). He was clearly an inspiration to anti-Nazi conservatives in the German Army, and while in Paris he was close to the old, mostly Prussian, officers who carried out the assassination attempt against Hitler. He was only peripherally involved in the events however, and in the aftermath suffered only dismissal from the army in the summer of 1944, rather than execution.
In the aftermath of WW2 he was treated with some suspicion as a closet Nazi. By the latter stages of the Cold War his unorthodox writings about the impact of materialism in modern society were widely seen as conservative rather than radical nationalist, and his philosophical works came to be highly regarded in mainstream German circles. Junger ended his extremely long life as a honoured establishment figure, although critics continued to charge him with the glorification of war as a transcending experience.
Junger served in World War II as captain in the German Army. Assigned to an administrative position in Paris, he socialized with prominent artists of the day such as Picasso and Jean Cocteau. His early time in France is described in his diary Gärten und Straßen (1942, Gardens and Streets). He was also in charge of executing younger German soldiers who had deserted. In his book Un Allemand à Paris , the writer Gerhard Heller states that he had been interested in learning how a person reacts to death under such circumstances and had a morbid fascination for the subject.
Jünger appears on the fringes of the Stauffenberg bomb plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler (July 20, 1944). He was clearly an inspiration to anti-Nazi conservatives in the German Army, and while in Paris he was close to the old, mostly Prussian, officers who carried out the assassination attempt against Hitler. He was only peripherally involved in the events however, and in the aftermath suffered only dismissal from the army in the summer of 1944, rather than execution.
In the aftermath of WW2 he was treated with some suspicion as a closet Nazi. By the latter stages of the Cold War his unorthodox writings about the impact of materialism in modern society were widely seen as conservative rather than radical nationalist, and his philosophical works came to be highly regarded in mainstream German circles. Junger ended his extremely long life as a honoured establishment figure, although critics continued to charge him with the glorification of war as a transcending experience.
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March 17, 2021
If you ever wondered why people like playing Euro Truck Simulator 2, here's the book for you
September 6, 2021
I used to think I was clever, telling leftists how much they had to learn from reactionary sources. I don’t think I was wrong, really, but there’s definitely diminishing returns. I guess I just like sampling many kinds of ideas and writing and wanted a rationale to get friends on board. Maybe a better rationale is that if you expand your knowledge-base you get a broader and more flexible idea of how thought works. You see patterns you might otherwise miss. Dump a bunch of shit into the hopper and see what materializes.
Ernst Jünger typically yields fewer excuses for reading than other right-wing figures, because he’s been assimilated as a “literary” figure, largely on the strength of his First World War memoir/novel “Storm of Steel” and because his politics were pretty heterodox. But he was definitely “in the mix” of fractious ideological politics in the interwar period, hovering around the Conservative Revolutionary faction- antidemocratic German nationalists who were a bit too aristocratic and intellectual for the Nazis (who wound up stealing most of their thunder). Jünger wasn’t much of a joiner, it seems, though good biographical material on him isn’t easy to find in English. Not being a joiner is one of those things that might make it hard to get into print, but sometimes adds staying power to the works that do make it- and avoiding joining the Nazis, as Jünger did, was a pretty good move. They liked him (mostly), he didn’t like them, though was perfectly willing to cooperate with them when they were in power.
On the eve of the Nazi takeover, Jünger published an ideological/philosophical polemic, “The Worker.” Jünger studied entomology and practiced photography at high levels, along with writing and war. His eye attuned to arresting images and subtle categorization schemes combines with his immersion in German philosophy to produce a strange, unsettling, fascinating work.
The basic thrust of “The Worker” appears to be this: far from workers being defined by their relationship to the means of production, what makes a worker is a sort of existential status, conferred not by power-relations but by what could be called task-relations. Roughly, if your life is organized around tasks, you are a worker, in Jünger’s conception. The worker stands in contrast to the bourgeoisie, whose life is organized around self-image, more or less, and security. The bourgeoisie is individualist and thinks in terms of his rights and obligations, even when trying to organize collectively- this is how Jünger dismisses Marxism. The worker thinks collectively even when expressing himself, always thinking in terms of getting the job done.
Technology and politics make the eclipse of the bourgeoisie by the worker inevitable, Jünger argues, and cites rapid industrialization and the First World War as proof. As technology and social organization grows in complexity, the politics that governed past orders become obsolete, and so too do the people that populated them. There’s a lot of philosophical back-and-forth here about forms, types, and dominion, in the way that continental philosophy has with its terminologies. The situation is too dynamic to be specific — Jünger is often maddeningly unspecific and probably often elliptically refers to figures in German life at the time that I don’t know about — but he confidently proclaims that the dominion of the worker — meaning the imposition of the form of the worker, a social order defined around him — is at hand. Moreover, this is tied in (again, largely elliptically) with Germany’s rising from the ashes of its defeat in the war and ending the Weimar/Versailles order.
There’s a lot more to it than that, and there are interesting nuggets and graceful turns of phrase all over this dense book, but that’s the basic gist. He applies his ideas to art and to politics towards the end, all the time coming to the conclusion that man, as conceived of by the bourgeoisie nineteenth century, is all over, that something determined by “the work character” will replace him. Well… is he wrong? I do sometimes make a game of thinking about how I would interact with people from the past. The more I learn, the harder it seems like it would be to communicate with people from even relatively recent history. People, especially bourgeois, educated people, were supposed to have so many accoutrements to their personhood that contemporary people (even people with similar class backgrounds) lack…
But in other respects, of course, Jünger really whiffed the predictive aspect (though he was sufficiently vague that he could’ve raised an eyebrow and say- “did I??” On top of everything else, he lived to be 102!). You can argue that American power (and a lot of Soviet power too) devoted itself in the post-WWII period to suppressing the unholy “dominion” of obsessive, death-and-discomfort-disregarding task-completion-ends-before-means ubermenschen Jünger foresaw. The consumer, not the worker, became the central figure in America’s world-building project, and the Soviet Union, dedicated (in Jünger’s telling) to a fake socially-conscious Marxist idea of work, tagged along. To the extent anyone today on the right reads Jünger and gets past “Storm of Steel” to this work, they mostly see “The Worker” as something (something nicely, technically non-Nazi) to which to aspire, something that has yet to happen.
Jünger lived the life of the scary early twentieth century cultured, amoral ubermensch, from war hero to literary star to guy who scared the Nazis while not deviating from his own eccentric but right-wing politics to extraordinarily long-lived and productive literary institution. Arguably, he lived it longer and more categorically than anybody. I don’t generally think people in the past were better or smarter than people in the present (or vice versa), but I do think that shifts in context change what people look and act like. They really don’t make people simultaneously that educated and, for lack of a better word, crazy anymore. Our contemporary meritocratic bourgeoisie likes to pay itself in the back for its SAT scores but they couldn’t touch Jünger or millions of others like him across the global bourgeoisie in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Unlike a lot of the crazy, absurdly well-educated people who made life so interesting, Jünger was also actually smart- perceptive, adaptable. That didn’t mean he was right about things, but he was smart.
So I’m not trying to dunk on the guy, or any rate bag on his brains, when I say that in a lot of parts of “The Worker” I found myself thinking about two contemporary figures: Elon Musk and Mike Rowe. In terms of intelligence, sensitivity, culture, capacity for expression, there is no meaningful comparison between those two utter dullards and Jünger. But Jünger himself makes clear that the task is what matters, and capitalism harnessed task-centric thinking to its own machine for producing legitimacy. Given his denunciation of the fineness of bourgeois distinctions and the “museal” quality of culture the dying bourgeoisie produced, how could Jünger complain if something rather a lot like his “total work character” or “typus of the worker” gets dumbed down (that is, rendered into an effective tool for a task) into the sentimental, emotive American idiom and sold to schmucks by the bourgeoisie to get them to work harder, disregard safety regulations, absolutely refuse to unionize? Jünger rather pointedly ignores America in “The Worker.” But the idea that the “real” class distinction is between those who do the work and those who don’t, and that management and labor are on the same side against whoever… well, Jünger would no doubt quibble, or else fuck off on a hike to take acid (he was friends with Albert Hoffman!) and collect bug samples. Being a continental ubermensch of Jünger’s vintage means never having to say you’re sorry.
Like I said, none of this is to draw a straight line between “The Worker” and Musk’s bro-Pinochetery or Rowe’s abject “dirty job” cosplaying. It’s highly unlikely either have read Jünger or would understand this book meaningfully. Rather, and here we get back to the beginning of this review, I think it’s useful, or anyway poignant and interesting, to look at how ideas and tropes migrate, appear and reappear, in varying contexts according to disparate but often related logics. Broadly speaking, Jünger and Musk face some of the same problems — legitimizing hierarchy — in radically different but genetically/temporally related contexts. The differences in context are many and don’t need explication beyond pointing to the vast decline in literary standards between the thirties and now. The similarities include a widespread disbelief in established authorities on the part of classes that are supposed to support them and a prevailing sense of emergency. What do you need in an emergency? Jünger makes nods to Carl Schmitt’s “state of exception” towards the end of “The Worker,” Musk just tweets about coups. Tragedy, farce, etc.
I suppose, to subcategorize like “The Worker” with Jünger would a bug, we could say that both Jünger and Musk attempt to make effort — putting in the hours, as CEOs are indeed wont to do, sometimes — the marker of a worker’s legitimacy whilst avoiding much of, if not all, of the sentimental baggage previous iterations of the same concept carried. Neither Musk nor Jünger are/were your father’s management hack. No gold watch at retirement, no cuckoo clock, no country songs. What you get are appeals to youth, force, power, the future (which in turn validate the “cooler” aspects of the past). Of course, with Musk, things are just stripped down to their lowest common denominator appeal, whereas in “The Worker” you have a product of high-end (if occasionally fatuously) European thought… I know which I prefer, but I also know what does “the work” it was intended to do at this moment in time. Ah, well. *****
Ernst Jünger typically yields fewer excuses for reading than other right-wing figures, because he’s been assimilated as a “literary” figure, largely on the strength of his First World War memoir/novel “Storm of Steel” and because his politics were pretty heterodox. But he was definitely “in the mix” of fractious ideological politics in the interwar period, hovering around the Conservative Revolutionary faction- antidemocratic German nationalists who were a bit too aristocratic and intellectual for the Nazis (who wound up stealing most of their thunder). Jünger wasn’t much of a joiner, it seems, though good biographical material on him isn’t easy to find in English. Not being a joiner is one of those things that might make it hard to get into print, but sometimes adds staying power to the works that do make it- and avoiding joining the Nazis, as Jünger did, was a pretty good move. They liked him (mostly), he didn’t like them, though was perfectly willing to cooperate with them when they were in power.
On the eve of the Nazi takeover, Jünger published an ideological/philosophical polemic, “The Worker.” Jünger studied entomology and practiced photography at high levels, along with writing and war. His eye attuned to arresting images and subtle categorization schemes combines with his immersion in German philosophy to produce a strange, unsettling, fascinating work.
The basic thrust of “The Worker” appears to be this: far from workers being defined by their relationship to the means of production, what makes a worker is a sort of existential status, conferred not by power-relations but by what could be called task-relations. Roughly, if your life is organized around tasks, you are a worker, in Jünger’s conception. The worker stands in contrast to the bourgeoisie, whose life is organized around self-image, more or less, and security. The bourgeoisie is individualist and thinks in terms of his rights and obligations, even when trying to organize collectively- this is how Jünger dismisses Marxism. The worker thinks collectively even when expressing himself, always thinking in terms of getting the job done.
Technology and politics make the eclipse of the bourgeoisie by the worker inevitable, Jünger argues, and cites rapid industrialization and the First World War as proof. As technology and social organization grows in complexity, the politics that governed past orders become obsolete, and so too do the people that populated them. There’s a lot of philosophical back-and-forth here about forms, types, and dominion, in the way that continental philosophy has with its terminologies. The situation is too dynamic to be specific — Jünger is often maddeningly unspecific and probably often elliptically refers to figures in German life at the time that I don’t know about — but he confidently proclaims that the dominion of the worker — meaning the imposition of the form of the worker, a social order defined around him — is at hand. Moreover, this is tied in (again, largely elliptically) with Germany’s rising from the ashes of its defeat in the war and ending the Weimar/Versailles order.
There’s a lot more to it than that, and there are interesting nuggets and graceful turns of phrase all over this dense book, but that’s the basic gist. He applies his ideas to art and to politics towards the end, all the time coming to the conclusion that man, as conceived of by the bourgeoisie nineteenth century, is all over, that something determined by “the work character” will replace him. Well… is he wrong? I do sometimes make a game of thinking about how I would interact with people from the past. The more I learn, the harder it seems like it would be to communicate with people from even relatively recent history. People, especially bourgeois, educated people, were supposed to have so many accoutrements to their personhood that contemporary people (even people with similar class backgrounds) lack…
But in other respects, of course, Jünger really whiffed the predictive aspect (though he was sufficiently vague that he could’ve raised an eyebrow and say- “did I??” On top of everything else, he lived to be 102!). You can argue that American power (and a lot of Soviet power too) devoted itself in the post-WWII period to suppressing the unholy “dominion” of obsessive, death-and-discomfort-disregarding task-completion-ends-before-means ubermenschen Jünger foresaw. The consumer, not the worker, became the central figure in America’s world-building project, and the Soviet Union, dedicated (in Jünger’s telling) to a fake socially-conscious Marxist idea of work, tagged along. To the extent anyone today on the right reads Jünger and gets past “Storm of Steel” to this work, they mostly see “The Worker” as something (something nicely, technically non-Nazi) to which to aspire, something that has yet to happen.
Jünger lived the life of the scary early twentieth century cultured, amoral ubermensch, from war hero to literary star to guy who scared the Nazis while not deviating from his own eccentric but right-wing politics to extraordinarily long-lived and productive literary institution. Arguably, he lived it longer and more categorically than anybody. I don’t generally think people in the past were better or smarter than people in the present (or vice versa), but I do think that shifts in context change what people look and act like. They really don’t make people simultaneously that educated and, for lack of a better word, crazy anymore. Our contemporary meritocratic bourgeoisie likes to pay itself in the back for its SAT scores but they couldn’t touch Jünger or millions of others like him across the global bourgeoisie in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Unlike a lot of the crazy, absurdly well-educated people who made life so interesting, Jünger was also actually smart- perceptive, adaptable. That didn’t mean he was right about things, but he was smart.
So I’m not trying to dunk on the guy, or any rate bag on his brains, when I say that in a lot of parts of “The Worker” I found myself thinking about two contemporary figures: Elon Musk and Mike Rowe. In terms of intelligence, sensitivity, culture, capacity for expression, there is no meaningful comparison between those two utter dullards and Jünger. But Jünger himself makes clear that the task is what matters, and capitalism harnessed task-centric thinking to its own machine for producing legitimacy. Given his denunciation of the fineness of bourgeois distinctions and the “museal” quality of culture the dying bourgeoisie produced, how could Jünger complain if something rather a lot like his “total work character” or “typus of the worker” gets dumbed down (that is, rendered into an effective tool for a task) into the sentimental, emotive American idiom and sold to schmucks by the bourgeoisie to get them to work harder, disregard safety regulations, absolutely refuse to unionize? Jünger rather pointedly ignores America in “The Worker.” But the idea that the “real” class distinction is between those who do the work and those who don’t, and that management and labor are on the same side against whoever… well, Jünger would no doubt quibble, or else fuck off on a hike to take acid (he was friends with Albert Hoffman!) and collect bug samples. Being a continental ubermensch of Jünger’s vintage means never having to say you’re sorry.
Like I said, none of this is to draw a straight line between “The Worker” and Musk’s bro-Pinochetery or Rowe’s abject “dirty job” cosplaying. It’s highly unlikely either have read Jünger or would understand this book meaningfully. Rather, and here we get back to the beginning of this review, I think it’s useful, or anyway poignant and interesting, to look at how ideas and tropes migrate, appear and reappear, in varying contexts according to disparate but often related logics. Broadly speaking, Jünger and Musk face some of the same problems — legitimizing hierarchy — in radically different but genetically/temporally related contexts. The differences in context are many and don’t need explication beyond pointing to the vast decline in literary standards between the thirties and now. The similarities include a widespread disbelief in established authorities on the part of classes that are supposed to support them and a prevailing sense of emergency. What do you need in an emergency? Jünger makes nods to Carl Schmitt’s “state of exception” towards the end of “The Worker,” Musk just tweets about coups. Tragedy, farce, etc.
I suppose, to subcategorize like “The Worker” with Jünger would a bug, we could say that both Jünger and Musk attempt to make effort — putting in the hours, as CEOs are indeed wont to do, sometimes — the marker of a worker’s legitimacy whilst avoiding much of, if not all, of the sentimental baggage previous iterations of the same concept carried. Neither Musk nor Jünger are/were your father’s management hack. No gold watch at retirement, no cuckoo clock, no country songs. What you get are appeals to youth, force, power, the future (which in turn validate the “cooler” aspects of the past). Of course, with Musk, things are just stripped down to their lowest common denominator appeal, whereas in “The Worker” you have a product of high-end (if occasionally fatuously) European thought… I know which I prefer, but I also know what does “the work” it was intended to do at this moment in time. Ah, well. *****
February 4, 2014
a masterpiece, if read as a prescient work of dystopian science fiction
May 22, 2020
Ernst Jünger ist der einzige deutsche italienische Futurist
November 20, 2023
This book is mostly a childish screed on making the worker foundational to the coming political chaos (1933 – 1945) and justifying the social revolution enabling the NAZIs to act like they care about the workers by making them the ground of the “national socialist German’s worker party.”
This is one of the few books that gave a foundation to the NAZIs while not dwelling on the NAZIs racial superiority platform. Hitler said ‘national socialism’ is racism, there was also a component for the common German worker, the Folk, and the NAZIs pretended that was who they were beyond just the racism.
Heidegger hid behind the special nature of the German Folk and made it fundamental for most of his thought after “Being and Time,” Hubert Dreyfus never understood that Heidegger’s appeal of “The Folk” was code for Nazism. Junger and Spengler both were his acknowledged contemporaries who helped him make the turn to full blown NAZI. Oddly, both Junger and Spengler weren’t NAZIs but supported fascism without racism. All one really needs to do is read their books and wonder how did they not realize that they were enabling Hitler and his racial policies through their ideas.
This book is truly a masterpiece in stupidity and would be easily manipulated by NAZIs in support of the indefensible or by philosophers like Martin Heidegger. At least for Rosenberg’s book ‘The Myth of the 20th Century” it was intended to be a handbook for racism. For Spengler’s “Decline of the West” and Junger’s book, they could just as easily be embraced by NAZIs and their authors never meant for them to be used as foolishly as they would be, but the authors should have known better, and for this book his philosophy concerning the German Folk worker will easily lead to the monstrosity of NAZI Germany and their sublimation to the ‘workers party’ acting as if they cared about the German worker. The NAZIs leaders cared as much about the German Worker, as Trump cares about the economical anxious in this country, that is he only wants to scare them while otherwise ignoring them.
This is one of the few books that gave a foundation to the NAZIs while not dwelling on the NAZIs racial superiority platform. Hitler said ‘national socialism’ is racism, there was also a component for the common German worker, the Folk, and the NAZIs pretended that was who they were beyond just the racism.
Heidegger hid behind the special nature of the German Folk and made it fundamental for most of his thought after “Being and Time,” Hubert Dreyfus never understood that Heidegger’s appeal of “The Folk” was code for Nazism. Junger and Spengler both were his acknowledged contemporaries who helped him make the turn to full blown NAZI. Oddly, both Junger and Spengler weren’t NAZIs but supported fascism without racism. All one really needs to do is read their books and wonder how did they not realize that they were enabling Hitler and his racial policies through their ideas.
This book is truly a masterpiece in stupidity and would be easily manipulated by NAZIs in support of the indefensible or by philosophers like Martin Heidegger. At least for Rosenberg’s book ‘The Myth of the 20th Century” it was intended to be a handbook for racism. For Spengler’s “Decline of the West” and Junger’s book, they could just as easily be embraced by NAZIs and their authors never meant for them to be used as foolishly as they would be, but the authors should have known better, and for this book his philosophy concerning the German Folk worker will easily lead to the monstrosity of NAZI Germany and their sublimation to the ‘workers party’ acting as if they cared about the German worker. The NAZIs leaders cared as much about the German Worker, as Trump cares about the economical anxious in this country, that is he only wants to scare them while otherwise ignoring them.
April 25, 2022
As a portrait of its own time, the essay is insuperable. But the philosophy of history and eschatological impressions it conveys were proven wrong by the passage of the years.
The bourgeois world is yet to be overcome by the Form of the Worker or by anything else. Liberal society emancipated elemental energies whose total mobilization could have led to its destruction or final surpassing. But those energies have already faded away. We are witnessing more and more the consolidation of a tendency to put to waste ample pockets of the population and a great portion of resources and products. That is why one can speak today of universal basic income, lumpenization of middle classes, and population decrease.
Classical liberal education is finished, as Jünger predicted. But contemporary education does not express the Form of the Worker, its values, and sacrificial spirit.
Technology is not how the Form of the Worker mobilizes the world. We live under a technocracy that mobilizes scientific esotericism and the old liberal prerogatives to implement and sustain free-market anarchy.
The utopias of Reason, Scientific Optimism, and Progress, typical of the bourgeois world, have long lost their legitimacy. They can't withstand a serious inquiry but survive as delayed cadavers and indestructible zombies. Nothing has come to replace them.
We are witnessing, on the contrary, the general defection of all radicals. They have given up the dream of overcoming the model of liberal bourgeois society with scientific progress and technological domination (which would express a new lifestyle).
The death of social utopias explains the transfer of energies to ecology and issues of bare survival of the human species and the planet. Jünger himself returned to the forest passage.
The bourgeois world is yet to be overcome by the Form of the Worker or by anything else. Liberal society emancipated elemental energies whose total mobilization could have led to its destruction or final surpassing. But those energies have already faded away. We are witnessing more and more the consolidation of a tendency to put to waste ample pockets of the population and a great portion of resources and products. That is why one can speak today of universal basic income, lumpenization of middle classes, and population decrease.
Classical liberal education is finished, as Jünger predicted. But contemporary education does not express the Form of the Worker, its values, and sacrificial spirit.
Technology is not how the Form of the Worker mobilizes the world. We live under a technocracy that mobilizes scientific esotericism and the old liberal prerogatives to implement and sustain free-market anarchy.
The utopias of Reason, Scientific Optimism, and Progress, typical of the bourgeois world, have long lost their legitimacy. They can't withstand a serious inquiry but survive as delayed cadavers and indestructible zombies. Nothing has come to replace them.
We are witnessing, on the contrary, the general defection of all radicals. They have given up the dream of overcoming the model of liberal bourgeois society with scientific progress and technological domination (which would express a new lifestyle).
The death of social utopias explains the transfer of energies to ecology and issues of bare survival of the human species and the planet. Jünger himself returned to the forest passage.
Read
January 3, 2021Toda opinión que me formulé para escribir mis impresiones quedan soslayadas por la propia nota de Jünger años después a su trabajo. A sabiendas de los rumbos políticos que tomó su exposición Jünger retoma su ensayo lo sintetiza aún más y le brinda mayor claridad y profundidad sin cerrar las puertas a una impresión ya no en tono político sino espiritual, sin que esto conlleve a un misticismo sino a desenvolvimiento puramente intelectual sin intención pública alguna.
“El ideal del pensador es que los pensamientos se transformen directamente en actos, como por una fórmula mágica. Eso es lo que distingue al pensador del sabio, el cual sabe que los pensamientos tienen tiempo y que no se pierden tampoco aquellos que no encuentran eco”
⁃ Ernst Jünger
Lo poco que rescato es:
La explicación del Trabajador que da Jünger es un tratamiento político del desenvolvimiento Schumpeteriano. Más humano, más complejo.
Jünger se da cuenta que Nietzsche no es ningún charlatan, pero toda su visión adolece frente al torrente.
La contraposición que hace entre el Titán y el trabajador aún no la tengo clara. No da por hecho una figura nueva sino un diluido, una herencia de los valores. Por que lo compara con un titán y no con otra figura. ¿En verdad no regresan?
Por último, es pésimo no poder hablar del Tema sin tocar la figura burguesa. Me siento tan marxista usando esa palabra, desvirtúa el discurso. Que explotación tan vana del término.
Bueno y que Jünger es un monstruo, que hasta a Hegel le toca jejeje.
“El ideal del pensador es que los pensamientos se transformen directamente en actos, como por una fórmula mágica. Eso es lo que distingue al pensador del sabio, el cual sabe que los pensamientos tienen tiempo y que no se pierden tampoco aquellos que no encuentran eco”
⁃ Ernst Jünger
Lo poco que rescato es:
La explicación del Trabajador que da Jünger es un tratamiento político del desenvolvimiento Schumpeteriano. Más humano, más complejo.
Jünger se da cuenta que Nietzsche no es ningún charlatan, pero toda su visión adolece frente al torrente.
La contraposición que hace entre el Titán y el trabajador aún no la tengo clara. No da por hecho una figura nueva sino un diluido, una herencia de los valores. Por que lo compara con un titán y no con otra figura. ¿En verdad no regresan?
Por último, es pésimo no poder hablar del Tema sin tocar la figura burguesa. Me siento tan marxista usando esa palabra, desvirtúa el discurso. Que explotación tan vana del término.
Bueno y que Jünger es un monstruo, que hasta a Hegel le toca jejeje.
April 2, 2022
The Worker shines most clearly in Jünger's descriptions of the bourgeoise. In many cases, it it surprising how prescient this book was. Many of the dynamics he identifies in Weimar society can be seen in the West today. I found the translators' footnotes and index to be very useful, particularly for understanding Jünger's numerous historical references.
December 16, 2021
One of the best criticisms on Liberalism i have ever read.
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August 3, 2021Daher besitzt dort, wo er das Reich der Technik mit dem Reiche Satans identifiziert, der Priesterstand noch tieferen Instinkt als dort, wo er das Mikrophon neben den Leib Christi stellt.
May 25, 2022
The invective against liberals Ernst unleashes throughout this book makes it a sort of "Chicken Soup for the Soul" for anyone with a shred of decency or morality. That alone makes it worth the price of admission. Important points:
1) The Liberal/bourgeois system of government is completely separate from any greater human project. It is meaningless form of stasis and a historical aberration, inexplicable to anyone who has or will exist outside of it. The complexity of the system (in the structure of its government, its legal systems, its tax code, etc.) is propagandized to represent the "genius" of its creators. In reality, it is an attempt to build disenfranchisement directly into the structure. This is a necessity when the systems primary tool of legitimation is the election. A democratic society filled with engaged and active political participants (who understand the structure of the society they are apart of) would not tolerate a fundamentally unpopular project like Liberalism for any amount of time. Importantly, Jünger emphasizes that since democracy is the basis of Liberal society, the idea that you can defeat Liberalism at the ballot box is delusional.
2) The rapid rate of technological change has produced a heightened level of instability. Even the most basic facts of the future cannot be predicted (despite Jünger's best efforts). However, this era will eventually come to an end, reaching a general stability (in terms of means) reflective of the preceding millennia.
3) This system of government attempts to suppress what Jünger calls "the elemental". I take the concept of the elemental to mean a base attraction to the forms that are endemic to the human condition (warrior, lover, scholar, etc.). What is important here is that each of these forms are individual participants in some larger "project" (for lack of a better word) that extends beyond their interests as an individual (See Storm of Steel for this idea as applied to warfare at length). The worker, as described by Jünger, is one of these forms.
4) Technology is the attempt to subject the natural world to total mobilization. This technological process will create (or, in terms of form, reveal) the "race" of human that Jünger calls "the worker". As mentioned previously, the worker is an elemental figure, with the total mobilization of the natural world through technology being the project in which he is participating.
5) Liberal society, being interested in security alone, will attempt to subjugate this process (i.e., redirect the technological process not towards a new equilibrium, but towards the propagation of the Liberal state).
6) The ensuing confrontation between "the worker" and the liberal state will be won by the worker due to stronger position (i.e., connection to the elemental).
Safe to say that most of Jünger's predictions in this book have not come true. Liberalism reigns supreme. Fortunately, we can take solace knowing hell is real, and that the triumph of good over evil is inevitable on a cosmic time frame. For the freedom fighter and lover of mankind, the militancy on display in this book is a breath of fresh air. Jünger's comments on the primacy of the attack over the defense are a must read. His comments on the death of the individual and the mass are also enlightening. Most importantly, his emphasis on the futility of the ballot box as an exclusive means of defeating liberalism is vital. There is no USA without the American Revolution, no USSR without the October Revolution, no Sinn Fein without the IRA, etc. You simply cannot achieve a paradigm shift through the structures and institutions of the existing paradigm. The American people made more progress towards emancipation from the American Occupation Government by breaking a few store-front windows following the murder of George Floyd then they made in decades of voting. We would all do well to remember this.
Five thumbs up, zero thumbs down.
1) The Liberal/bourgeois system of government is completely separate from any greater human project. It is meaningless form of stasis and a historical aberration, inexplicable to anyone who has or will exist outside of it. The complexity of the system (in the structure of its government, its legal systems, its tax code, etc.) is propagandized to represent the "genius" of its creators. In reality, it is an attempt to build disenfranchisement directly into the structure. This is a necessity when the systems primary tool of legitimation is the election. A democratic society filled with engaged and active political participants (who understand the structure of the society they are apart of) would not tolerate a fundamentally unpopular project like Liberalism for any amount of time. Importantly, Jünger emphasizes that since democracy is the basis of Liberal society, the idea that you can defeat Liberalism at the ballot box is delusional.
2) The rapid rate of technological change has produced a heightened level of instability. Even the most basic facts of the future cannot be predicted (despite Jünger's best efforts). However, this era will eventually come to an end, reaching a general stability (in terms of means) reflective of the preceding millennia.
3) This system of government attempts to suppress what Jünger calls "the elemental". I take the concept of the elemental to mean a base attraction to the forms that are endemic to the human condition (warrior, lover, scholar, etc.). What is important here is that each of these forms are individual participants in some larger "project" (for lack of a better word) that extends beyond their interests as an individual (See Storm of Steel for this idea as applied to warfare at length). The worker, as described by Jünger, is one of these forms.
4) Technology is the attempt to subject the natural world to total mobilization. This technological process will create (or, in terms of form, reveal) the "race" of human that Jünger calls "the worker". As mentioned previously, the worker is an elemental figure, with the total mobilization of the natural world through technology being the project in which he is participating.
5) Liberal society, being interested in security alone, will attempt to subjugate this process (i.e., redirect the technological process not towards a new equilibrium, but towards the propagation of the Liberal state).
6) The ensuing confrontation between "the worker" and the liberal state will be won by the worker due to stronger position (i.e., connection to the elemental).
Safe to say that most of Jünger's predictions in this book have not come true. Liberalism reigns supreme. Fortunately, we can take solace knowing hell is real, and that the triumph of good over evil is inevitable on a cosmic time frame. For the freedom fighter and lover of mankind, the militancy on display in this book is a breath of fresh air. Jünger's comments on the primacy of the attack over the defense are a must read. His comments on the death of the individual and the mass are also enlightening. Most importantly, his emphasis on the futility of the ballot box as an exclusive means of defeating liberalism is vital. There is no USA without the American Revolution, no USSR without the October Revolution, no Sinn Fein without the IRA, etc. You simply cannot achieve a paradigm shift through the structures and institutions of the existing paradigm. The American people made more progress towards emancipation from the American Occupation Government by breaking a few store-front windows following the murder of George Floyd then they made in decades of voting. We would all do well to remember this.
Five thumbs up, zero thumbs down.
September 4, 2019
Wie de voorkaft van “De arbeider” bekijkt, denkt aan een essay over de rol van de arbeider in de 19e eeuwse maatschappij en dit hoogstwaarschijnlijk vanuit een marxistische insteek. Het boek leest niet vlot weg. Dat heeft het wel gemeen met communistisch-geïnspireerd werk, maar voor het overige blijkt de eerste indruk verkeerd.
De ondertitel van het boek luidt “Heerschappij en gestalte”. Jünger gebruikt het begrip ‘gestalte’ in min of meer dezelfde zin als Plato’s idee (cf. de schaduwen in de grot). Het is dus een begrip en de auteur gebruikt de term ook uiterst wijd. Sinds 1789 heeft de derde stand, met name de burgerij het politieke heft in handen genomen. Daarbij heeft het geprobeerd om de stand van de arbeiders naar haar eigen profiel te vormen. De arbeider vormt echter een bijzondere klasse en verwerpt daarom haar burgerlijk sjabloon, aldus Jünger. De burger kiest immers voor profijt, onderhandeling en verdediging; de arbeider voor aanval, vrijheid dankzij een zinvol leven en ziet voorbij de economie. De arbeider zoekt vrijheid en verantwoordelijkheid in arbeid, is bereid zelfs te sterven en mag om die reden meer ambiëren: heerschappij. De schrijver ziet de arbeider als erfgenaam van het Pruisisch plichtsbesef.
Als ‘kind’ van de Eerste Wereldoorlog plaatst Jünger ook de arbeider in dit perspectief. Een oorlog die zowel militaire als ‘technische’ aspecten kende. Vrij van burgerlijke vrees, verenigt de arbeider zoals een frontsoldaat leven en gevaar. Hij is ook aangepast aan de nieuwe methodes die zich tijdens ‘14-‘18 aandienden: mitrailleurs, nieuwe strategieën, initiatief (bvb. het gebruik van stormtroepen in het Duitse leger). Maar ook techniek die in deze ‘Materialschlacht’ bijna even belangrijk werd als het slagveld zelf. Niet in Eton, maar in de staalfabrieken werden de oorlogen gewonnen. En zo werd de totale inzet van arbeid van belang, niet enkel via wapengekletter, maar ook via de wapenproductie. Techniek moet niet enkel gezien worden als vooruitgang (zoals de burger het bekijkt), maar in zijn volle perspectief. Dus ook door de gevolgen voor oorlogsvoering in ogenschouw nemen. Eraan ontsnappen, daarin gelooft Jünger niet. Het is accepteren of tenonder gaan. Maar wat techniek laat bouwen, is niet bezield. Het is de arbeider die moet zorgen voor de metafysica. Hij kan in de anarchie orde brengen. Hij kan heersen door het mechanische en organische te versmelten.
De auteur pleit ook voor staatssoevereiniteit in eenheid. Hij wijst op de nefaste invloed van private milities en politieke partijen die het land versplinteren, maar waarschuwt ook voor kosmopolitische ondermijning. In een gesprek met de Duitse nationaal-bolsjewieke leider Ernst Niekisch betreurt hij dat de nationale ontvoogding van Duitsland zonder de politieke linkerzijde is gebeurd en zo die laatste van Duitsland heeft vervreemd. Inzake traditie onderschrijft Jünger min of meer wat Gustav Mahler eerder poneerde: “traditie is niet het aanbidden van het as, maar he doorgeven van het vuur.”
De ondertitel van het boek luidt “Heerschappij en gestalte”. Jünger gebruikt het begrip ‘gestalte’ in min of meer dezelfde zin als Plato’s idee (cf. de schaduwen in de grot). Het is dus een begrip en de auteur gebruikt de term ook uiterst wijd. Sinds 1789 heeft de derde stand, met name de burgerij het politieke heft in handen genomen. Daarbij heeft het geprobeerd om de stand van de arbeiders naar haar eigen profiel te vormen. De arbeider vormt echter een bijzondere klasse en verwerpt daarom haar burgerlijk sjabloon, aldus Jünger. De burger kiest immers voor profijt, onderhandeling en verdediging; de arbeider voor aanval, vrijheid dankzij een zinvol leven en ziet voorbij de economie. De arbeider zoekt vrijheid en verantwoordelijkheid in arbeid, is bereid zelfs te sterven en mag om die reden meer ambiëren: heerschappij. De schrijver ziet de arbeider als erfgenaam van het Pruisisch plichtsbesef.
Als ‘kind’ van de Eerste Wereldoorlog plaatst Jünger ook de arbeider in dit perspectief. Een oorlog die zowel militaire als ‘technische’ aspecten kende. Vrij van burgerlijke vrees, verenigt de arbeider zoals een frontsoldaat leven en gevaar. Hij is ook aangepast aan de nieuwe methodes die zich tijdens ‘14-‘18 aandienden: mitrailleurs, nieuwe strategieën, initiatief (bvb. het gebruik van stormtroepen in het Duitse leger). Maar ook techniek die in deze ‘Materialschlacht’ bijna even belangrijk werd als het slagveld zelf. Niet in Eton, maar in de staalfabrieken werden de oorlogen gewonnen. En zo werd de totale inzet van arbeid van belang, niet enkel via wapengekletter, maar ook via de wapenproductie. Techniek moet niet enkel gezien worden als vooruitgang (zoals de burger het bekijkt), maar in zijn volle perspectief. Dus ook door de gevolgen voor oorlogsvoering in ogenschouw nemen. Eraan ontsnappen, daarin gelooft Jünger niet. Het is accepteren of tenonder gaan. Maar wat techniek laat bouwen, is niet bezield. Het is de arbeider die moet zorgen voor de metafysica. Hij kan in de anarchie orde brengen. Hij kan heersen door het mechanische en organische te versmelten.
De auteur pleit ook voor staatssoevereiniteit in eenheid. Hij wijst op de nefaste invloed van private milities en politieke partijen die het land versplinteren, maar waarschuwt ook voor kosmopolitische ondermijning. In een gesprek met de Duitse nationaal-bolsjewieke leider Ernst Niekisch betreurt hij dat de nationale ontvoogding van Duitsland zonder de politieke linkerzijde is gebeurd en zo die laatste van Duitsland heeft vervreemd. Inzake traditie onderschrijft Jünger min of meer wat Gustav Mahler eerder poneerde: “traditie is niet het aanbidden van het as, maar he doorgeven van het vuur.”
December 25, 2023
Jünger's text is the most prescient and powerful in the determination of the faults of Liberalism, which have only been exacerbated and accelerated with the metamorphosis into Neo-Liberalism. Of course, Jünger's response is certainly far from being "Conservative," as it departs entirely from the political horizon or perspectives stamped by the classical typos. The entire point of this work is to sketch out the forecoming of a radical change not only in politics, but in life itself.
In this sense, one can clearly see the massive impact that Jünger's thought had upon Heidegger from the 1930s onward. The considerations of techné, the figural installation and control of people by way of this very figural or typic con-figuration (beyond the limits of faulty form-matter distinctions), as well as the Promethean figure of the worker (though this figure is masked, and thus variously dispersed in its appearance, throughout Heidegger's thought). But Jünger also remains equally susceptible to the critical questioning which Lacoue-Labarthe engages Heidegger in - that is, the critique of a political aestheticism by way of ontotypological thinking. The latter emerges in Heidegger precisely by way of the influence of Jünger - for the Gestalt is the formative and motivating force of all Herrschaft, but not only in the subjective genitive. For the mastery or dominion is not only the active force effectuated through the figural inscription or installation of the Gestalt (in Heidegger, by way of the Ge-stell), but it also exposes how the formative force entails a mastery or dominion over all which is figured or formed, all that is set forth to stand, by way of this figuration or formation. That is to say, the Gestalt, the typos, stamps all beings, as well as the granting of being, by way of its power or force, subjecting all to its stamp, its typos, its figure. Power and force thus amasses around a figure which can be variously or multiply instantiated (given that this typos itself determines the horizon or field of appearance as such) - it becomes a transcendental figure, a transcendental signified, which carries the potential (as do all political figures and figurations) for fascistic effectuation. Further critical exploration of the effectuations and determinations of such figural installations needs to be done, and in this manner Jünger's work remains a valuable resource for critical examination.
In this sense, one can clearly see the massive impact that Jünger's thought had upon Heidegger from the 1930s onward. The considerations of techné, the figural installation and control of people by way of this very figural or typic con-figuration (beyond the limits of faulty form-matter distinctions), as well as the Promethean figure of the worker (though this figure is masked, and thus variously dispersed in its appearance, throughout Heidegger's thought). But Jünger also remains equally susceptible to the critical questioning which Lacoue-Labarthe engages Heidegger in - that is, the critique of a political aestheticism by way of ontotypological thinking. The latter emerges in Heidegger precisely by way of the influence of Jünger - for the Gestalt is the formative and motivating force of all Herrschaft, but not only in the subjective genitive. For the mastery or dominion is not only the active force effectuated through the figural inscription or installation of the Gestalt (in Heidegger, by way of the Ge-stell), but it also exposes how the formative force entails a mastery or dominion over all which is figured or formed, all that is set forth to stand, by way of this figuration or formation. That is to say, the Gestalt, the typos, stamps all beings, as well as the granting of being, by way of its power or force, subjecting all to its stamp, its typos, its figure. Power and force thus amasses around a figure which can be variously or multiply instantiated (given that this typos itself determines the horizon or field of appearance as such) - it becomes a transcendental figure, a transcendental signified, which carries the potential (as do all political figures and figurations) for fascistic effectuation. Further critical exploration of the effectuations and determinations of such figural installations needs to be done, and in this manner Jünger's work remains a valuable resource for critical examination.
July 22, 2019
Absolutely essential in understanding the pre WW2 condition.
November 22, 2022
There is a debate about how to read Jünger in this period. Was he a seismograph for the times, or an advocate for a new political order? I think the answer has always been “both”.
Jünger predicts that work will take on an an ever more “total” character that will define and connect life in unprecedented and inescapable ways. The existence of the internet and smart phones alone make this observation relevant. It also seems noteworthy to reflect on the breakdown of home/work distinctions during the pandemic as a move towards a more “total” work experience. Even contemporary social interactions, which are in theory about leisure, require people to put “work” into social media.
So much of this book has arrived, so to speak, that its somewhat incredible to read Jünger’s cavalier dismissal of liberalism. Although it makes sense from the perspective of 1932, in the depths of the Great Depression when all the liberal-capitalist societies looked increasingly ridiculous and bankrupt (morally, culturally, and literally), one can only be amused at how badly Jünger underestimated things.
Its also interesting to think that Jünger responded to this persistence in his later novel, The Glass Bees. Awash in a hi-tech capitalist society after World War II, the protagonist has no use for the triviality and purposeless bad taste of contemporary life. He describes his future employer, a tech mogul, as “a super-philistine more terrifying than Ghengis Khan”. When Jünger wrote the worker he was excited by the possibilities technology. Witnessing its subsequent uses exhausted him.
Jünger predicts that work will take on an an ever more “total” character that will define and connect life in unprecedented and inescapable ways. The existence of the internet and smart phones alone make this observation relevant. It also seems noteworthy to reflect on the breakdown of home/work distinctions during the pandemic as a move towards a more “total” work experience. Even contemporary social interactions, which are in theory about leisure, require people to put “work” into social media.
So much of this book has arrived, so to speak, that its somewhat incredible to read Jünger’s cavalier dismissal of liberalism. Although it makes sense from the perspective of 1932, in the depths of the Great Depression when all the liberal-capitalist societies looked increasingly ridiculous and bankrupt (morally, culturally, and literally), one can only be amused at how badly Jünger underestimated things.
Its also interesting to think that Jünger responded to this persistence in his later novel, The Glass Bees. Awash in a hi-tech capitalist society after World War II, the protagonist has no use for the triviality and purposeless bad taste of contemporary life. He describes his future employer, a tech mogul, as “a super-philistine more terrifying than Ghengis Khan”. When Jünger wrote the worker he was excited by the possibilities technology. Witnessing its subsequent uses exhausted him.
April 7, 2024
Un libro con alma futurista. Jünger se preocupa y conoce más al trabajador que cualquier marxista.
June 20, 2023
Ernst Jünger's "The Worker: Dominion and Form" stands as a seminal work that delves into the intricate relationship between power and form within the context of labor and technological advancements. Jünger's exploration of the worker's role in modern society, and the interplay between domination and the shaping of societal structures, offers a thought-provoking analysis. This review aims to provide an academic evaluation of Jünger's arguments, highlighting the book's strengths, weaknesses, and its significance within the field of social theory.
"The Worker: Dominion and Form" by Ernst Jünger offers a comprehensive analysis of the worker's influence on power dynamics and the structuring of society. Jünger delves into the dominion of the worker, examining the intricate connections between labor, technology, and societal order. Through a philosophical lens, he explores the transformative potential of the worker's role in shaping modernity and the implications of the worker's dominion for both individuals and society at large.
Jünger's work stands out for its emphasis on the relationship between form and power. He contends that the worker's dominion arises from his mastery of form, as demonstrated through technological innovations and the efficient organization of labor. Jünger argues that this dominion extends beyond the realm of production and influences broader societal structures, including politics, culture, and human identity.
One of the notable strengths of "The Worker: Dominion and Form" lies in Jünger's ability to weave together diverse intellectual strands into a cohesive framework. He draws upon philosophy, sociology, and technological theory to illuminate the complex relationship between the worker, power, and form. Jünger's interdisciplinary approach enriches the analysis and provides readers with a multifaceted understanding of the subject matter.
Moreover, Jünger's profound insights into the transformative potential of labor and technological advancements offer readers a fresh perspective on the dynamics of modern society. His exploration of the worker's dominion challenges conventional notions of power and highlights the worker's capacity to shape societal structures. Jünger's philosophical reflections invite readers to reconsider established frameworks and engage in critical discussions on the evolving nature of power relations in the contemporary world.
While "The Worker: Dominion and Form" presents a compelling analysis, it is not without limitations. Jünger's conceptual exploration may be overly abstract and philosophical, potentially distancing readers seeking concrete examples and practical applications. The book's dense theoretical nature may pose challenges for readers without a strong background in social theory or intellectual history.
Additionally, Jünger's work has been subject to criticism due to his association with National Socialism. Readers should approach his arguments with caution and critically assess the potential influence of his political affiliations on his analysis. Engaging with the book's ideas necessitates a nuanced understanding of Jünger's ideological context.
"The Worker: Dominion and Form" holds significant importance within the field of social theory as a groundbreaking work that elucidates the intricate connections between power, labor, and societal structures. Jünger's exploration of the worker's dominion and the interplay between form and power offers an original perspective on the dynamics of modernity. The book's contribution lies in its ability to provoke intellectual discourse surrounding the transformative potential of labor and the influence of the worker on the shaping of social and political structures.
Ernst Jünger's "The Worker: Dominion and Form" presents a thought-provoking analysis of the worker's dominion and its implications for power dynamics and societal structures. Despite its limitations, the book's interdisciplinary approach and Jünger's profound insights make it a significant contribution to
GPT
"The Worker: Dominion and Form" by Ernst Jünger offers a comprehensive analysis of the worker's influence on power dynamics and the structuring of society. Jünger delves into the dominion of the worker, examining the intricate connections between labor, technology, and societal order. Through a philosophical lens, he explores the transformative potential of the worker's role in shaping modernity and the implications of the worker's dominion for both individuals and society at large.
Jünger's work stands out for its emphasis on the relationship between form and power. He contends that the worker's dominion arises from his mastery of form, as demonstrated through technological innovations and the efficient organization of labor. Jünger argues that this dominion extends beyond the realm of production and influences broader societal structures, including politics, culture, and human identity.
One of the notable strengths of "The Worker: Dominion and Form" lies in Jünger's ability to weave together diverse intellectual strands into a cohesive framework. He draws upon philosophy, sociology, and technological theory to illuminate the complex relationship between the worker, power, and form. Jünger's interdisciplinary approach enriches the analysis and provides readers with a multifaceted understanding of the subject matter.
Moreover, Jünger's profound insights into the transformative potential of labor and technological advancements offer readers a fresh perspective on the dynamics of modern society. His exploration of the worker's dominion challenges conventional notions of power and highlights the worker's capacity to shape societal structures. Jünger's philosophical reflections invite readers to reconsider established frameworks and engage in critical discussions on the evolving nature of power relations in the contemporary world.
While "The Worker: Dominion and Form" presents a compelling analysis, it is not without limitations. Jünger's conceptual exploration may be overly abstract and philosophical, potentially distancing readers seeking concrete examples and practical applications. The book's dense theoretical nature may pose challenges for readers without a strong background in social theory or intellectual history.
Additionally, Jünger's work has been subject to criticism due to his association with National Socialism. Readers should approach his arguments with caution and critically assess the potential influence of his political affiliations on his analysis. Engaging with the book's ideas necessitates a nuanced understanding of Jünger's ideological context.
"The Worker: Dominion and Form" holds significant importance within the field of social theory as a groundbreaking work that elucidates the intricate connections between power, labor, and societal structures. Jünger's exploration of the worker's dominion and the interplay between form and power offers an original perspective on the dynamics of modernity. The book's contribution lies in its ability to provoke intellectual discourse surrounding the transformative potential of labor and the influence of the worker on the shaping of social and political structures.
Ernst Jünger's "The Worker: Dominion and Form" presents a thought-provoking analysis of the worker's dominion and its implications for power dynamics and societal structures. Despite its limitations, the book's interdisciplinary approach and Jünger's profound insights make it a significant contribution to
GPT
July 19, 2025
I think this one is going back on the shelves largely unread from sheer tedium. This is not because it is not worthy of consideration but almost certainly it is now interesting only to scholars of the ferment of political thought that took place in interwar Germany.
This ferment is not entirely irrelevant today because, despite the crushing defeat of Rightist ideology at the hands of the 'democracies' and Red Army in 1945, some of these ideas never died but lurked in the undergrowth of Europe to re-emerge in the twentieth century as a new traditionalist revolution.
However, in this case, Junger, in 1932, just before the Nazi 'gleichshaltung' which focused all published thought on official Nazi ideology, was offering a very distinctive view of ideology that tried to account for 'new' political and technological forms.
junger is interesting precisely because he was not a Nazi but a radical thinker with a view of the heroic worker-warrior-thinker closer to the romantic idealism of what would later emerge in the mind and work of Yukio Mishima. This was, of course, long before the bureaucratic extermination camp.
Nothing could be more different from, say, Fritz Stangl, ambitious camp commandant of Treblinka, than Junger but there were aspects that both shared - a certain Germanic belief in the virtue of a system in which a role might be played to its ultimate fulfilment.
The book is notable because it triggered a dialogue with Heidegger who praised it as rescuing Nietzsche from some of the nonsense being presented by Nazi appropriators of the philosopher, not that we can assume that Heidegger fully understood Nietzsche either.
The book was, it seems, very important to Heidegger. He returned to it repeatedly in his private notes and lectures in a critical manner. His critique was that Junger had merely extended Nietzsche's nihilism and not actually done what was necessary - engage with Being.
Nietzsche is critical here because his dynamic and mostly warranted attack on the tradition of Western philosophy was subjected to systematic strategies of appropriation by almost anyone who wanted something radical to change in the human condition that was not derived from Marx.
'Jewish' thinking to many of these thinkers (recalling that Nietzsche was not antisemitic) was really the whole Judaeo-Christian tradition in Western philosophy which Nietzsche had indeed eviscerated even in its deist and apparently atheist versions. Marxism was the final variant of that tradition.
The Radical Right was not entirely wrong in this assessment of Marxism as Christianity 'detourned' or of a strong element of 'ressentiment' within it but its anarcho-romantic paradoxical search for some kind of heroic totality might equally be a throw-back to Robespierre the mad Deist.
Heidegger has a point here. Junger's invented heroic worker is still a form in the Platonic sense as if Junger is still trying to rescue us from nihilism by inventing a substitute for the lost God in a human type. This really is not what Nietzsche was getting at and Heidegger understood this.
Or rather Nietzsche left the door open for a newly invented 'God' and there is no reason why it should not be an invented form of man but we should be under no illusions that such an invention would be as fraudulent as the God-thing. Inventing heroism in place of ressentiment is not good enough.
Junger is not pandering to national socialism here but he is trying to apply Nietzschean critique to social and political reality as it applied to German culture in the wake of the Depression and in competition with liberal democracy and Marxism-Leninism (which is not dismissed too lightly).
The common denominator with Marxism-Leninism is the negation of 'bourgeois' culture but here in favour of individual action in the service of the collective. The will to serve, create and 'be' the collective is very different from being an agent of historical inevitability and social forces.
The new type of the worker overcomes nihilism (the overcoming of which was Neizsche's primary concern) through collective mobilisation where participation in the collective is cast as 'heroic'. Doing is what matters. This is uncannily like the emergent Stalinist variant of Bolshevism.
The technological is fundamental to Junger's analysis although he sees technology as a positive shaping of man, transforming the Marxist critique well away from any theory of alienation. Heidegger may have respected Junger's approach to Nietzsche and nihilism but not accepted this analysis.
It may be too much of a stretch but Junger might appear closer to Russian Cosmism, Transhumanism, Robert Heinlein and Peter Thiel than to Heidegger's emerging ideas about technology being a danger to Being, eventually making the latter closer to the organicists, greens and mystics.
This seems to have become one of the great splits in thinking against the world as it is and against Marxism in our century. Transhumanism, militarism, libertarianism in the national good against planetary survival, tradition and being-in-the-world but we may be going too far here.
Junger is thus of his period in centring attention on the 'typus' of the 'worker', a category plausible under high industrialism but almost defunct today as individuals 'choose' (they think) to move between social roles and exploited states in a totally atomised way.
As we write even Communist China is getting ready to eliminate the collective working class with huge automated factories in favour of a far more controllable and exploitable mass of individuals for whom we do not yet have a clear term.
To be fair, the writing was so dense and obscure that I cannot in good faith critique Junger's argument well in this particular book. I can merely explore the framing of whatever ideas he may have had. I accept I may have misinterpreted from what I could plough through.
Certainly the interest in technology indicates a Rightist seeking to contest imaginatively one of the strengths of Marxist thinking - the relationship between politics and production and the importance of technology in shaping social forms.
Nevertheless Junger's attempt to be taken seriously as a Heideggerian-type obscure German philosopher has simply created something almost unreadable to anyone not emotionally engaged in his arguments or committed to the academic study of the man, his period and his associations.
Hence I can neither recommend or not recommend because I simply gave up after a while on the fundamental principle that 'life is too short' while reserving the right to return to the text when my passion for obscure interwar German ideology had returned.
January 10, 2018
In the beginning of the book the authors put a footnote about how "much can be said" about some of the clever references and analogies Juenger is using to elucidate his point. After reading the book, I can say confidently there is not much to be said about Juenger's "The Worker". It gets 2 Stars for having some very nice poetic lines and some interesting points about the aesthetics of technological society, but as "right wing theory" Adorno's description of Guenon as "metaphysics for dunces" applies just as easily and fittingly to Juenger.
March 28, 2023
From the author of Storm of Steel, Ernst Junger is deeply influenced by his experience in the Great War to produce The Worker. The Worker is the soldier of the national economy where supervisors are likened to non-commissioned officers. The Worker is the mechanism to drive the economy to realize the democratic nationalism born of the Great War. Written before Hitler took power in Germany it can be interpreted as a counter argument to the militarization of Germany proposed by the Nazis.
November 8, 2019
Stilistisch sperrig, inhaltlich epochal, historisch mangelhaft. Eine wertvolle Ergänzung für jedes dialektische Weltbild.
September 7, 2025
Work will set you free. The motto infamously adorning the gate at Auschwitz is the credo of Junger's archetype of 'Die Arbeiter', or the Worker, a type of man set to be the successor of the liberal bourgeois individual. However, one should not draw a connection between Junger and the Nazis, for the former rejected the latter, not believing in biological race but rather the race of the spirit. It is this conception of race which defines the Worker in comparison to his predecessors.
Written in 1932, the interwar world order as fallout from the Great War features prominently in Junger's worldview. It seems that at the time there was considerable uncertainty among thinkers of the German Conservative Revolution as to handle the emergence of industrial technology, the world of Fritz Lang's 'Metropolis' providing a substrate for the Marxist revolutions racking the continent at the time. While men such as Spengler took a purely pessimistic approach, Junger attempts to transfigure technology into a weapon of strength for the Right, staying true to his militaristic belief that it is better to be on the offense rather than the defense.
However, in attempting to give form to the type of the Worker, Junger struggles to reconcile its reason to exist. Nietzsche's 'Will to Power' is the foundation of this type, especially in the conception of the elemental in relation to man, but where Nietzsche largely failed to provide a solution to nihilism through the overman, Junger gets stuck in a purgatory between him and the Marxists, the latter having similarly granted a religious quality to labor. In total, Junger's work-democracy, with its corresponding work-world, comes off as dystopian and manages to alienate both Rightists and anarchists in its crypto-Marxist totalitarianism.
With that said, despite being a product of its time, one may see the Worker in today's tech magnates, especially those among the Right in the camp of the Dark Enlightenment. While Junger was wrong in predicting the downfall of the liberal world order, perhaps another round of economic uncertainty surrounding the emergence of AI and mass migration as we see in our world today will cause a similar type of elemental irruption as was seen in Nazism, but instead of taking on an explicitly naturalist and racial aspect, it will embrace the technological, thereby opening the door to the emergence of a new type.
Written in 1932, the interwar world order as fallout from the Great War features prominently in Junger's worldview. It seems that at the time there was considerable uncertainty among thinkers of the German Conservative Revolution as to handle the emergence of industrial technology, the world of Fritz Lang's 'Metropolis' providing a substrate for the Marxist revolutions racking the continent at the time. While men such as Spengler took a purely pessimistic approach, Junger attempts to transfigure technology into a weapon of strength for the Right, staying true to his militaristic belief that it is better to be on the offense rather than the defense.
However, in attempting to give form to the type of the Worker, Junger struggles to reconcile its reason to exist. Nietzsche's 'Will to Power' is the foundation of this type, especially in the conception of the elemental in relation to man, but where Nietzsche largely failed to provide a solution to nihilism through the overman, Junger gets stuck in a purgatory between him and the Marxists, the latter having similarly granted a religious quality to labor. In total, Junger's work-democracy, with its corresponding work-world, comes off as dystopian and manages to alienate both Rightists and anarchists in its crypto-Marxist totalitarianism.
With that said, despite being a product of its time, one may see the Worker in today's tech magnates, especially those among the Right in the camp of the Dark Enlightenment. While Junger was wrong in predicting the downfall of the liberal world order, perhaps another round of economic uncertainty surrounding the emergence of AI and mass migration as we see in our world today will cause a similar type of elemental irruption as was seen in Nazism, but instead of taking on an explicitly naturalist and racial aspect, it will embrace the technological, thereby opening the door to the emergence of a new type.
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January 15, 2023Cannot really judge it since I did not understand it.
September 4, 2023
“We have reached an inflation of free opinion, in which opinion is cancelled faster than it can be printed.”
March 18, 2025
... ob du meine Arbeit ... für richtig hältst ... Millionen müssen arbeiten...
Yeah, I think we're beating Marx (and the bourgeois*10^6 with this one).
Yeah, I think we're beating Marx (and the bourgeois*10^6 with this one).
March 25, 2024
Ernst Junger, a purposely detached warrior, became one of Germany's most controversial twentieth century writers. Answering the call to duty in 1914, Junger resided in the trenches of the Western Front until the armistice of 1918. While serving in Lorraine in 1915, he was twice wounded. Subsequently, Junger was wounded 12 more times. In 1917, he was awarded the Knight's Cross of the House of Hohenzollern, and eight months later, noting his ''ruthless bravery,'' he secured Imperial Germany's highest medal, the Pour le Merite.
His memoir, “Storm of Steel” differed from most recollections of the Great War, insofar as it eschewed the pronounced pacifism ingrained in much of the literature of the period. After being discharged from the army in 1923, Junger studied zoology and botany at the Universities of Leipzig and Naples, and then published several more reflections about his war experiences. Only in 1932, did he seek to address pertinent and timely political and philosophical questions.
His politics in the interwar period tended to support Conservative Revolutionaries and German Nationalists. Although he was not inclined to support Weimar, he was also unmoved by National Socialist rhetoric. It was on the eve of the Nazi takeover that Junger published his philosophical treatise, “The Worker.”
Sometimes lucid, often obscure, “The Worker” commented on the social, economic, and technological challenges of the thirties. In a language shorn of Progressive, Utopianism, Junger sought to examine what was happening in the world of time,space and events. For Junger, technology represented a titanic and nihilistic force: “the Mobilization of the World through the Form of the Worker.” Technology, along with its accompanying synergism, was bound to eclipse the bourgeois world, Junger argued. His catalog of the consequences of total mobilization embraced by all nations during the Great War, served to buttress this claim.
In the post-war world, technology; and obliquely, the Second Law of Thermodynamics, were driving a transformation in social organization; thus, Junger argued, the politics of the present were already obsolete. An iconoclast, the author recorded his scorn for liberal societies who attempt to assuage the more uncomfortable aspects of modernity. The sometime Stoic, Junger embraced the reality of pain and suffering. He wrote.” Even the individual is not fully free from pain in [the] joyful state of security” promised by liberal societies. After all, what is boredom “other than the dissolution of pain in time”?
Heady stuff. The paradox for readers though is clear. Junger was a scientist and an Anarch, yet he embraced authoritarianism, along with the idea of the inexorability of History. Maligned by the Left for his putative Nazi sympathies, Junger was involved in the 20 July anti-Hitler plot. His work “The Peace,” is still cited today, although he is mostly remembered for his nearly clinical dissection and celebration of war. Junger persevered until his death at 102; and, he averred, “A happy century does not exist; "but there are moments of happiness, and there is freedom in the moment.”
His memoir, “Storm of Steel” differed from most recollections of the Great War, insofar as it eschewed the pronounced pacifism ingrained in much of the literature of the period. After being discharged from the army in 1923, Junger studied zoology and botany at the Universities of Leipzig and Naples, and then published several more reflections about his war experiences. Only in 1932, did he seek to address pertinent and timely political and philosophical questions.
His politics in the interwar period tended to support Conservative Revolutionaries and German Nationalists. Although he was not inclined to support Weimar, he was also unmoved by National Socialist rhetoric. It was on the eve of the Nazi takeover that Junger published his philosophical treatise, “The Worker.”
Sometimes lucid, often obscure, “The Worker” commented on the social, economic, and technological challenges of the thirties. In a language shorn of Progressive, Utopianism, Junger sought to examine what was happening in the world of time,space and events. For Junger, technology represented a titanic and nihilistic force: “the Mobilization of the World through the Form of the Worker.” Technology, along with its accompanying synergism, was bound to eclipse the bourgeois world, Junger argued. His catalog of the consequences of total mobilization embraced by all nations during the Great War, served to buttress this claim.
In the post-war world, technology; and obliquely, the Second Law of Thermodynamics, were driving a transformation in social organization; thus, Junger argued, the politics of the present were already obsolete. An iconoclast, the author recorded his scorn for liberal societies who attempt to assuage the more uncomfortable aspects of modernity. The sometime Stoic, Junger embraced the reality of pain and suffering. He wrote.” Even the individual is not fully free from pain in [the] joyful state of security” promised by liberal societies. After all, what is boredom “other than the dissolution of pain in time”?
Heady stuff. The paradox for readers though is clear. Junger was a scientist and an Anarch, yet he embraced authoritarianism, along with the idea of the inexorability of History. Maligned by the Left for his putative Nazi sympathies, Junger was involved in the 20 July anti-Hitler plot. His work “The Peace,” is still cited today, although he is mostly remembered for his nearly clinical dissection and celebration of war. Junger persevered until his death at 102; and, he averred, “A happy century does not exist; "but there are moments of happiness, and there is freedom in the moment.”
December 5, 2021
«Wir müssen einsehen, daß wir in eine Landschaft aus Eis und Feuer geboren sind. Das Vergangene ist so beschaffen, daß man an ihm nicht haften, und das Werdende so, daß man sich in ihm nicht einrichten kann. Diese Landschaft setzt als Haltung ein Höchstmaß an kriegerischem Skeptizismus voraus. [...] Ist es möglich, einen Glauben ohne Dogma zu besitzen, eine Welt ohne Götter, ein Wissen ohne Maximen und ein Vaterland, das durch keine Macht der Welt besetzt werden kann? Das sind Fragen, an denen der Einzelne den Grad seiner Rüstung zu prüfen hat.»
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