Die Perfektion der Technik

by Friedrich Georg Jünger

Friedrich Georg Jungers grosser Essay Die Perfektion der Technik - 1939 geschrieben, 1946 erstmals veroffentlicht - ist ein Klassiker der Kulturkritik, der die moderne Debatte um Okologie und Nachhaltigkeit jenseits aller Ideologien vorweggenommen hat. Mit Recht wurde Jungers Buch epochalen Werken wie der "Dialektik der Aufklarung" von Horkheimer/Adorno sowie der "Antiquiertheit des Menschen" von Gunther Anders gleichrangig zur Seite gestellt. Nicht zu unterschatzen ist der Einfluss, den Jungers Denken auf die Technikphilosophie des spaten Heidegger ausgeubt hat. Als Okologie und Umweltschutz in den 1970er Jahren zu "linken" Themen avancierten, wirkte Jungers Buch zwar subkutan noch weiter, geriet aber allmahlich aus dem Blickfeld einer breiteren Offentlichkeit. "Die Perfektion der Technik" harrt heute ihrer Wiederentdeckung, die allemal lohnend ware. Junger denkt quer zu vielen Folgerungen und Resultaten, die uns heute selbstverstandlich scheinen. Man muss Friedrich Georg Junger nicht folgen, aber man kann die Tragfahigkeit des eigenen Standpunktes an seinen Entwurfen erproben. Das ausfuhrliche Nachwort des Friedrich Georg Junger-Biographen Andreas Geyer stellt das Buch in seinem historischen und intellektuellen Kontext vor und zeigt seine Originalitat und Aktualitat. Friedrich Georg Junger's ambitious essay "Die Perfektion der Technik" (written in 1939, but first published only after the war in 1946) is a classic of cultural criticism that has anticipated the modern debate on ecology and sustainability beyond all ideologies. Junger's book was rightly granted equal status with other contemporaneous work of considerable influence, such as the "Dialektik der Aufklarung" ("The Dialectics of Enlightenment") by Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno and "Die Antiquiertheit des Menschen" ("The Outdatedness of Human Beings") by Gunther Anders. Incidentally, the influence Junger's thinking exerted on the late Martin Heidegger's philosophy of technology is not to be underestimated. Ecology and environmental protection became "left-wing" topics in the 1970s, and though Junger's book still acted on its readers, it gradually fell out of favor with a broader public. The perfection of technology today awaits its rediscovery, which would always be rewarding. Junger's thoughts on Nietzsche run against the grain of what we take for granted in current Nietzsche studies. The detailed epilogue by Friedrich Georg Junger's biographer Andreas Geyer presents the book in its historical and intellectual context and shows its undiminished originality.

Genres: Philosophy, Technology, Nonfiction, Essays

388 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1946

About the author

Friedrich Georg Jünger was a German poet, author, and cultural critic essayist.

The younger brother of Ernst Jünger, he volunteered for military service in 1916 and was seriously wounded in battle. After World War I, he studied law and cameralism at the universities of Leipzig and Halle-Wittenberg.

Reviews

[Nick John]

What an awesome quick read that really attacks the Technology Question from a number of angles. This is definitely going to be a work I look back to for reference often. I have heard some of these angles on the Industrial Revolution and Modern Technology before but many of them I have never had explained so well or clear. What's even cooler is how old the book is! We almost lost this great work to time. I'm very glad someone found it and translated it for all to learn from.

[noblethumos]

The Failure of Technology is a book written by Friedrich Georg Jünger, a German philosopher and author. The book explores the relationship between technology and society, and argues that technology has the potential to be a force for both good and ill. Jünger argues that technology has the power to transform society, but also has the potential to create new problems and conflicts. He suggests that the key to harnessing the positive potential of technology is to understand its limitations and to use it in a responsible and ethical manner. The Failure of Technology is considered a classic work of philosophy and has had a significant impact on the field of technology studies.

GPT

[Xander]

Fascinerend boek. Friedrich Jünger - broer van Ernst, de schrijver van het wereldberoemde Im Stahlgewittern - publiceerde De perfectie van de techniek al in 1939 en is daarmee de voorloper en grondlegger van de ecologische beweging die decennia later pas zou losbreken. In dit boek beschrijft Jünger hoe de techniek een eigen rationaliteit kent - organisatie en automatisering - die in een voortschrijdend proces de hele wereld, inclusief de mens, aan zich onderwerpt. Dit proces is gestoeld op roofbouw, het op gewelddadige wijze uitputten van de grondstoffen en hulpbronnen waar het op drijft, en is daarmee uiteindelijk zelfvernietigend.

Jünger beschrijft gedetailleerd en aangrijpend hoe de techniek, de technische rationaliteit, inmiddels alle aspecten van het menselijk bestaan aan zich heeft onderworpen. Economie, recht, staat, werk, vrije tijd, werkelijk alles is onderworpen door de techniek, die zijn meest brute gezicht toont in de 'materiaalslag', de totale oorlog die hoort bij de moderniteit, waar soldaat en arbeider slechts dienen als grondstof in een allesverslindend vernietigingsproces.

Het fundamentele punt van Jünger is dat de perfectie van de techniek voortkomt uit een metafysische omwenteling die in de zeventiende eeuw plaatsvindt - de wetenschappelijke revolutie - en die culmineert in de negentiende eeuw - de industriële revolutie. De allesomvattende organisatie en automatisering vindt haar oorsprong in de onderliggende metafysica, in het denken van de mens over het zijn: vanaf de zeventiende eeuw zijn we tijd en ruimte gaan beschouwen als organiseerbaar en automatiseerbaar. Iemand als Descartes beschouwde de mens (net als andere dieren) als een machine en iemand als Newton beschouwde de tijd als onderdeel van een omvattend klokwerk.

Door deze metafysische omwenteling is er een technisch systeem ontstaan dat zuiver functionalistisch kijkt naar de wereld en de mens, alles moet doelmatig worden georganiseerd en geautomatiseerd, hierbij gaandeweg alle aspecten van ons bestaan onderwerpend aan de technische rationaliteit. De mens is inmiddels (we schrijven 1939!) zelf een grondstof van deze planetaire machine geworden en hieraan ontsnappen lijkt voor Jünger geen mogelijkheid te zijn... De enige verlossing lijkt te liggen in de zelfvernietigende kracht van het systeem als geheel, dat onvermijdelijk instort wanneer het zijn eigen fundamenten heeft opgevreten. De vraag is dan wat er nog rest voor de mens, wanneer de planeet is opgebruikt... Jünger is hier niet duidelijk over en dat zorgt ervoor dat het hele boek een nogal deprimerende zwartgalligheid ademt.

Al met al is De perfectie van de techniek een fantastisch filosofisch werk dat tegelijkertijd ook heel praktisch is en waar vele voorbeelden uit het dagelijks leven voorbijkomen om de filosofische lijnen te illustreren. Jünger toont hiermee aan een helder licht te zijn binnen de techniekfilosofie, de meeste van zijn analyses en prognoses lijken te zijn uitgekomen en hoewel hij deze niet expliciet benoemt (hoe kon hij ook?) lijkt de internetrevolutie de kroon op zijn werk te zijn. Beangstigend, omdat er geen oplossing uit zijn werk te distilleren valt...

[Крюкокрест]

Попытка Юнгера младшего понять технику скорее поэтическим, чем техническим образом.

Выросший в деревне, в мире подлинной собственности как он сам замечает в книге, Юнгер отчетливо видел и всей душой чувствовал те катастрофические по своим последствиям процессы, пик которых пришелся на XX век, которые и привели к бедственному положению современного человека.

Торжество техники, технического "прогресса" и разного рода аппаратуры напрямую связывается автором с печальными процессами эпохи Модерна: дегенерации, упрощения, движения к единообразию и автоматизации человеческого сознания и всех сфер человеческой деятельности.

Юнгер методически перебирает все то, чей истинный образ и смысл был исковеркан, обесчещен и извращен эпохой Технического коллектива: экономика, деньги, собственность, вещи и даже время, - автор детально объясняет, как так получилось, что под ними вдруг стали пониматься диаметрально противоположные их изначальному наполнению вещи.

Но более понятными и близкими лично для меня стали многочисленные метафоры и образы, через которые Юнгер поясняет то, что хотел сказать читателю. Тут и образ Часовщика как основополагающей фигуры в техническом мышлении, и Вулкана как воплощения постоянно хранящей в себе катастрофически взрывоопасные силы техники, и метафора планетарно организованной сети заправочных станций...

В общем, несмотря на множество сомнительных моментов в картине мира Фридриха Георга (симпатии к евреям, сведение опыта Третьей Империи к ее технической организации, матриархально-лунарный культ земли-матери), я все же ставлю его труду оценку 5, поскольку спустя полвека он по прежнему превосходно описывает и, самое главное объясняет, наше с вами состояние: рабов техники без своей собственности, семьи и государства, - мир, "где у вас не будет ничего, и вы будете счастливы".

[Matthew]

Jünger takes a hammer to the naïve utopianism surrounding technology, eventually going so far as to call technological organization "demoniacal". His discussion of biological time becoming enslaved by mechanical time, and the resulting destruction of leisure was particularly interesting. As was his discussion of science and its technological subjugation. Completed in 1939 (though it wasn't published until after the war in 1946), this work remains as relevant now as then. Not much has changed other than technology inexorably marching forward and it's alarming detriments becoming ever more apparent.

[Nirab Pudasaini]

Despite being old gives a good outlook into many of the modern problem that we are facing with technology. Interesting read, could give great points for reflections for engineers and technologist.

[Robert]

Covers a lot of material I've read elsewhere, but perhaps a little more "user-friendly."

[Michael Malburg]

Das Werk hat mich auf eine Weise über die Welt, in der ich lebe - denn seine Aktualität ist enorm -, reflektieren lassen, die zeitweise Zustände der Depression, im Endeffekt aber ein gestärktes Gefühl und Verständnis des Mensch Seins in mir geweckt hat. Es ist alles andere als einfach und aus verschiedenen Gründen weiß ich nicht, ob ich es empfehlen kann.

Zwei Zitate:

"[Es] nimmt nach und nach alles den Charakter der Apparatur an, einer Wirklichkeit, die apparatmäßig aufgefasst wird." und "Die Erde bedarf des Menschen als eines Pflegers und Hirten. Wir müssen wieder lernen, sie wie eine Mutter zu behandeln. Dann werden wir auf ihr gedeihen."

[Sam V]

Friedrich Georg Jünger waarschuwt ons in zijn analyse voor de rationalisering van het immateriële: geluk, rijkdom, gezondheid, vrije tijd. Hij zet zich daarmee af tegen zijn op dat moment technofiele broer Ernst. Al in het eerste hoofdstuk laat hij ons met het schema van de rationalisering of technologisering kennismaken via het literaire genre van de utopie: “zij gaat uit naar het in de toekomst mogelijke en buit de kansen uit die in de toekomst besloten liggen”. Denk ook aan de economie, die haar vitaliteit ontleent aan een voorgestelde toekomst: via schuld wordt alvast beslag gelegd op wat nog niet bestaat, en schuift de afrekening eindeloos voor zich uit. Juist daarin ligt voor Jünger iets wezenlijks besloten: rationalisering bestrijdt schaarste, maar produceert tegelijk een nieuwe vorm van schaarste. Wat oorspronkelijk buiten het technische domein lag, wordt technisch organiseerbaar gemaakt en daardoor juist steeds verder van ons verwijderd.

De techniek doet dat door te teren op wat zij zelf niet kan voortbrengen. Zij verbruikt voorraden (grondstoffen, aarde, menselijke substantie) die buiten haar eigen domein liggen en die zij niet aanvult. Dat noemt Jünger Raubbau, roofbouw: de winst van de rationalisering is geen schepping maar onttrekking. En omdat die onttrekking zich niet als verlies mag tonen, hult zij zich in mythologie: het verhaal van vooruitgang en naderende overvloed (aan vrije tijd, welvaart, geluk, je kent het riedeltje wel). Toen ik het las moest ik denken aan Hannah Arendts idee van het banale kwaad omdat ook daar gedachteloosheid het mechanisme is. Bij gebrek aan reflectie voegt de mens zich zonder veel weerstand naar een gerationaliseerd beeld en blijft hij de logica ervan volgen, zonder nog te vragen wat er intussen wordt verteerd.

En onze taal in zijn gebruik doet vrolijk mee met dit verraadt. Jünger merkt op dat "rijk" in de Germaanse talen oorspronkelijk geen bezitswoord is maar een zijnswoord, het klinkt door in "koninkrijk", in macht en volheid, niet in wat je in je handen kunt houden. Echte rijkdom is een toestand van zijn en geen optelsom van hebben. Geld maakt iemand die arm is nog niet rijk. Het rationele schema doet echter alsof het ene het andere kan voortbrengen: een materiële toestand wordt doorgedreven tot een immateriële staat van zijn. Jünger stelt dan ook de fundamentele vraag: "Wanneer is ooit door rationalisering rijkdom gecreëerd?"

Zijn antwoord is geestig: "Elke daad van rationalisering is het gevolg van schaarste”. Met andere woorden: de menselijke toestand die bij techniek en rationalisering hoort, is er een van verpaupering, of in ieder geval van ervaren schaarste, die zich vertaalt in een wanhopige zoektocht buiten zichzelf. Het is een esthetisering, ja zelfs een verafgoding, van een beeld dat ons aanzet tot de steeds verdere organisatie van onze behoefte. En juist daardoor wordt het mechanisme zelfreferentieel: hoe meer wij organiseren, hoe meer er georganiseerd moet worden. De techniek belooft ons van de schaarste te bevrijden, maar maakt van alles wat wij verlangen een nieuw probleem van beheer, productie en optimalisering.

Deze logica blijft bovendien niet beperkt tot onze westerse leefruimte, maar maakt aanspraak op alles: wat siddert van leven, zichtbaar en onzichtbaar, dieren waaronder wij mensen, planten en microben, groot en klein, overal verspreid. Maar ook alles wat we niet verstaan als organisme: bodemschatten, de aarde zelf, en zelfs het licht van de zon. Ik meen me te herinneren dat Jacques Ellul ergens spottend heeft geschreven dat, als we het noorderlicht konden moduleren, ook de nacht voor altijd uitgebannen zou worden. Het beeld is grotesk, maar precies daarom zo scherp: alles wordt uiteindelijk functionalistisch gereduceerd tot zijn nut voor de technische organisatie. En die organisatie maakt de honger alleen maar groter. Wie kent nog echt rust? Is er nog rust wanneer rust zich beperkt tot een in de tijd georganiseerde pauze van het technische proces zelf?

Ik moest denken aan Kierkegaards prachtige meditatie over de herhaling. De herhaling is voor hem niet eenvoudigweg het nogmaals uitvoeren van hetzelfde, maar het opnieuw doorleven van een toestand, waardoor die zich tot nieuwe hoogtes kan verheffen: het beoefenen van een muziekstuk, morele reflectie, geloof. Het zijn zaken die niet simpelweg geproduceerd kunnen worden, maar waarin door herhaling juist iets nieuws kan ontstaan, een ethisch of, door de natuur, soms bijna komisch evenwicht. De technische perfectie daarentegen reduceert de herhaling tot reproductie: het opdelen, versnipperen en verstukken van de tijd in kunstmatig georganiseerde eenheden.

Daarin zit voor mij ook een fundamenteel verschil tussen rationaliteit en rationalisering. Het probleem is niet dat de mens rationeel denkt of handelt, maar dat het rationele schema zich steeds verder uitbreidt naar domeinen die zich niet laten voortbrengen volgens dezelfde logica van beheersing, efficiëntie en herhaalbaarheid. Kierkegaard was zich, zowel in De herhaling als in Of/of, scherp bewust van de morele weerslag daarvan. De mens lijkt, door een technisch georganiseerde cultuur, steeds meer doof te worden voor het eenvoudige principe dat niets zonder slag of stoot komt, dat niet alles maakbaar is en dat juist weerstand, vertraging en onbeschikbaarheid deel uitmaken van een menselijk leven.

Volgens Jünger ligt hieronder een erfenis van het cartesiaanse idee van de res extensa: de materiële wereld als iets doods, dat zich volledig laat beschrijven en bepalen door de res cogitans, de geest als onderzoeker en ingenieur. Wat buiten de geest ligt, verschijnt dan niet meer als iets waarmee wij een verhouding aangaan, maar als iets dat wij kunnen kennen, uit elkaar halen, bewerken en inzetten.

Jünger beschouwt dit alles op poëtische wijze, vanuit een reactionair en holistisch verlangen naar verbanden die door deze rationalisering verloren lijken te gaan. Dat doet hij in analyses van tijd, van het organische tegenover het anorganische, van doelmatigheid en waarheid, en met prachtige metaforen uit de astrologie, de Germaanse mythologie en het dierenrijk. Soms is hij daarbij overtuigender als dichter dan als systematisch denker. Maar misschien is dat juist zijn kracht: hij probeert niet een nieuw technisch schema tegenover het oude te zetten, maar ons gevoelig te maken voor wat in een dergelijk schema verdwijnt.

Daar zit ook de spanning van het boek. Jüngers denken wordt gemakkelijk als pessimistisch gelezen, en dat is begrijpelijk. Toch lijkt mij zijn pessimisme niet zozeer een eindpunt als wel een oefening in het verdragen van armoede: de armoede die ontstaat wanneer wij alles wat betekenis heeft onmiddellijk willen rationaliseren, organiseren en beschikbaar maken. Juist in die armoede kan misschien weer de mogelijkheid ontstaan om naar onszelf te kijken.

Dat maakt het een boek om te lezen en te herlezen, vol diepte en gelaagdheid. Hoewel Jünger uiteindelijk vooral een diagnose stelt, roept hij op bijna Kierkegaardiaanse wijze op tot reflectie. En misschien ligt daar, voorbij het technische domein, ook de eigenlijke verantwoordelijkheid die uit zijn kritiek voortvloeit: niet nog beter leren organiseren wat ons ontbreekt, maar opnieuw leren zien wat zich überhaupt niet laat organiseren.

[Liquidlasagna]

blurb

Friedrich Georg Jünger's The Failure of Technology (Die Perfektion der Technik (1946) was written under the shadow of World War II – the threat of a German sky black with enemy aircraft that splattered fire and death on the burnt-out caves of industrial man.

"Lava, ashes, fumes, smoke, night-clouds lit up by fire" – the landscape of twentieth-century man erupts, in Jünger's pages, like a volcano returning man's boasted artifacts to that first wilderness that stretched back beyond the age of the gods.

This book is the sombre meditation of a poet who has looked into chaos, even into hell, and who has not flinched.

---

wikitus

Junger was a part of the German Conservative Revolution movement.

Many Conservative Revolutionaries cited Friedrich Nietzsche as their mentor.

......

The Conservative Revolution (Konservative Revolution), also known as the German neoconservative movement, or new nationalism, was a German national-conservative movement prominent during the Weimar Republic and Austria, in the years 1918–1933, between World War I and the Nazi seizure of power.

Conservative Revolutionaries were involved in a cultural counter-revolution and showed a wide range of diverging positions concerning the nature of the institutions Germany had to instate, labelled by historian Roger Woods the "conservative dilemma".

Nonetheless, they were generally opposed to traditional Wilhelmine Christian conservatism, egalitarianism, liberalism and parliamentarian democracy as well as the cultural spirit of the bourgeoisie and modernity.

Plunged into what historian Fritz Stern has named a deep "cultural despair", uprooted as they felt within the rationalism and scientism of the modern world, theorists of the Conservative Revolution drew inspiration from various elements of the 19th century, including Friedrich Nietzsche's contempt for Christian ethics, democracy and egalitarianism; the anti-modern and anti-rationalist tendencies of German Romanticism; the vision of an organic and naturally-organized folk community cultivated by the Völkisch movement; the Prussian tradition of militaristic and authoritarian nationalism; and their own experience of comradeship and irrational violence on the front lines of World War I.

The Conservative Revolution held an ambiguous relationship with Nazism from the 1920s to the early 1930s, which has led scholars to describe it as a form of 'German pre-fascism' or 'non-Nazi fascism.

Although they share common roots in 19th-century anti-Enlightenment ideologies, the disparate movement cannot be easily confused with Nazism.

Conservative Revolutionaries were not necessarily racialist as the movement cannot be reduced to its Völkisch component.

Although they participated in preparing the German society to the rule of the Nazi Party with their antidemocratic and organicist theories, and did not really oppose their rise to power, Conservative Revolutionary writings did not have a decisive influence on Nazism, and the movement was brought to heel like the rest of the society when Adolf Hitler seized power in 1933, culminating in the assassination of prominent thinker Edgar Jung by the Nazis during the Night of the Long Knives in the following year.

Many of them eventually rejected the antisemitic or the totalitarian nature of the Nazi regime, with the notable exception of Carl Schmitt and some others.

.......

"Conservative Revolutionnaries are, admittedly, as reactionary in politics as their pre-war predecessors, but they stand out by their optimism, or at least by their voluntarism, in front of the modern world. They do not really fear the masses, nor the technique anymore. Yet this change of Haltung 'attitude' had significant consequences - the backward-looking regret is replaced by a juvenile energy - and led to a wide-ranging political and cultural initiative."
— Louis Dupeux, 1994

Political scientist Tamir Bar-On has defined the Conservative Revolution as a combination of German ultra-nationalism, defence of the organic folk community, technological modernity, and socialist revisionism, which perceived the worker and soldier as models for a reborn authoritarian state superseding the egalitarian 'decadence' of liberalism, socialism, and traditional conservatism.

From the 1960–1970s onwards, the Conservative Revolution has largely influenced the European New Right.

---

Amazone

Triumph of the Technician

Junger would not be shocked that the entire planet has become an enormous junkyard of technological detritus.

Nor would he be shocked that our only solution to the problems he outlines is 'more technology' aka 'renewable energy'.

The technician has replaced the questing, curious scientist. He lacks the the wonder and respect of the latter, at least as he existed in earlier times, and is rather a corporate cyborg, unfeeling and insensitive.

He is equally at home bulldozing ancient forests or dynamiting mountains into polluted pits.

Junger's book is charming, direct, and sad simply because everything he outlines has become so much worse and so much more serious in the 70+ years since he wrote it.

'Technology has not the wherewithal to bring back Eden.'

rangerfield

[Philalethes]

Read properly, this prophetic book from the aftermath of the Second World War should not only enlighten us to the sickness of the mechanised world we are embedded in, but also force one to face that metaphysical root within himself and the endless ways in which it orients our being. What we call 'Technology' is a mode of thinking that can be and must be escaped if man is to maintain his organic and contemplative character.

It is important to note that this essay is not a recourse to naive Luddism or romantic irrationalism, which it considers still trapped within this paradigm. Jünger, in his analysis of technology, works seamlessly up from the metaphysics of space and time to man's being in its everydayness, and so attempts a resolution toward much of the conflict between economic growth and technology. In doing so, he maintains a superlative degree of clarity in his writing.

Much like Heidegger, whose later thinking was influenced by this work, the principal point here is the question of Being, and even the questions of economics and law must be tied to that of Being as such. This, primarily, is where Junger's sweeping critique sees its Marxian contender as falling woefully short of the mark. Below are some noteworthy passages arranged in order of appearance.

On the cycle of mechanisation:

The trend of our exact sciences is not toward purely intellectual knowledge. On the contrary, it has been sharply opposed to the way Parmenides strove after knowledge; it is typically analytical, inductive, dividing. Thus, causality and, in its train, functionalism push to the fore, and all individuality is lost. Thus too, all things mechanical predominate, and with them that brutal optimism and conceit of civilization which characterize the course of the technological age; until eventually the point is reached where a man is broken by his blind lust for power, is punished, and thereby forced to change his way of thinking.

On functionalism as deadness:

A machine is dead although it never lived. It is dead because its motions are subject to functionalism throughout. And there can be deadness of the same kind in a living man, a deadness that never had life and therefore cannot die, but can only disintegrate, vanish, or erode. Such a human being has dead spots, dead parts, dead sections in him. He shows a lifelessness that is manifest even in the midst of activity. His youth is without vigor, his age synthetic; maturity is lacking. No physiognomist can fail to notice such things. As there are mechanical motions, so there are mechanical faces. A man is dead inasmuch as his expressions and movements reveal functionalism of the type which can be observed served in machines.

On holistic thinking:

To see things in their whole context cannot be learned, no more than one can learn rhythm or the periodicity from which all rhythm stems. Correlations and contexts are noticed only by those minds which think in universal and reverent terms, minds which therefore reject all pillage and exploitation.

On the formation of dependent human masses:

Technical progress and the formation of masses are simultaneous; they are most closely coordinated. They are in fact inseparable. Far from resisting the struggle for technical perfection, the masses, on the contrary, further this drive. They welcome it; they fit themselves obediently into the automatism of technical operations. The mass is the most useful, the most pliant material of the technician. Without the mass the technician could not carry out his plans. Masses come nearest to the technician's ideal of human material, the more mechanically mobile they become and the easier they can be organized. ...Characteristic of the formation of masses is that it proceeds artificially, that is, by an influx from without. Another characteristic is that both the rise and the fall of masses are fomented by conditions beyond their control. Masses, in other words, can neither sustain themselves nor can they replace genetic losses by their own vitality; generally speaking their vitality-consumption increases in proportion to their numerical growth.

On the invasion of novel ideologies into modernity:

Man has become mobile, more mobile than he ever was. This mobility is a sign of progressive mass formation, which means the same as technical progress. It is one of technology's characteristics that it releases man from all non-rational bonds, only to subjugate him more closely to the framework of rational relations. The increasing mobility of man is related to the inroads of organization and apparatus into human life; as we get mobile, we also get mobilized. And in the same proportion man becomes mentally mobile – that is wide open to the invasions of ideologies.

On specialised knowledge:

Technical knowledge is no more bound to an individual technician than functional factory operations are bound to an individual workman. Because the technician has no opinions or convictions of his own outside of his specialty, he needs the crutches of some vulgarized faith as peddled by the demagogue. Technical knowledge is accessible to anyone who wants it; it also can be pilfered, stolen, spied out, and it can be shipped to any point on the globe. Nor will it, like wine or tea, deteriorate in transport, for it lacks all quality; it is a knowledge without loftiness.

On the actor/celebrity:

Since this problem belongs in our analysis we must ask, whence comes the growing influence and importance of the actor in our modern world? The actor – of the cinema, for instance – is part and parcel of some huge organization which manufactures lifelike dreams with a highly technical apparatus. Since the technological impoverishment of life creates a popular craving for a dream-world and since these dreams are being mass-produced in dream factories, it follows that the influence of the actor grows in step with the progress of technology. This also becomes manifest in other realms of the make-believe, such as the growing influence of advertising and propaganda. Mass production of photographs is another correlated field. It is no accident that the actor is the most photographed man, the man whose picture meets one everywhere, so that the impression arises that to be photographed is the actor's main occupation, that he must constantly prostitute himself. For we are obviously dealing here with an act of prostitution.

On the death of farming:

It seems that in the formation of a world empire the destruction of the free farmer is an inevitable step. For only after the farmer – earthbound, immobile, and opposed to change – has been eliminated, do the political ideas assume that space-devouring strength that may truly be called imperial. Imperialism and formation of the masses go hand in hand.

On the mechanistic nature of modern sports:

What we call Olympic games in memory of antiquity are highly technical sports to which flock the specialists from all countries. There is a difference between the man for whom hunting or swimming, fishing or rowing are natural pursuits, parts of his life, and the man who practices hunting, swimming, fishing, or rowing as a sport. The latter obviously is a technician who has developed to perfection the mechanical side of his activity. The equipment of the modern sportsman alone indicates this. To get an impression of the growing mechanization, we need only look at the tools used in sports, all those elaborate fishing rods and reels, all those scientific golf balls and clubs, the stop watches, time clocks, measuring devices, starting machines, and so on. In the exact timings of motions and split-second recordings of modern sports we find again that organization and control of the consumption of time that characterize technology. And is not the sportsman's lingo a language of typically mechanical hardness?
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Even in these the individual turns himself into a machine, a fighting or record-breaking machine, whose every motion is controlled and checked by machinery until it becomes mechanical. Consequently sportsmen today are becoming professionals, who make a profitable business of their special talents.
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A man who starts to jump and run for the sheer joy of jumping and running and who stops when the mood has left him is entirely different from the man who enters an athletic event in which, under guidance of technical rules and with the use of time clocks and measuring apparatus, he jumps and runs in an attempt to break a record. The high pleasure that swimming and diving give us is due to the touch of water, its crystal freshness, its coolness, purity, transparency, and gentle yielding. This delight, obviously, is of no significance in contests where professional swimmers perform. For the purpose of such contests is to find out which swimmer has the most perfect technique and consequently reaches the goal faster than the rest. Training for record-breaking is essentially an intensification of will power aimed at complete mastery over the body which has to obey mechanically. Such an effort may be quite useful and effective. But the more the training for, and the breaking of, records become ends in themselves, the more sterile they grow.

On the soulless nature of the modern athlete:

A comparison suggests itself between the sportsman and the ascetic, who is also a professional, though in quite a different sense. The training of the sportsman has an ascetic trait, and through all sports we find a certain puritanism, a strict hygiene of physical habits, which controls sleep, nutrition, and sex life from the viewpoint of efficiency. Sportsmen are not a group of people who exuberantly express their abundance of vital energy, but a tribe of strict professionals who rigidly economize their every ounce of strength, lest they waste a single motion of their money-making, fame-making physique.
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And just as in the field of sports we already noted the lack of free improvisation, so in amusements, too, all free improvisation and spontaneity are lost as they become mechanized. Increasingly our amusements are becoming a business subject to technical organization. It appears that man has lost the faculty of amusing and entertaining himself, that for his enjoyment some apparatus is indispensable – and this means that even our spare time must needs be filled with automatic regulation. The modern idea of recreation is the relaxation that follows the tension of mechanical work.

On mechanistic entertainment:

A stage play in contrast may be performed as often as you wish, yet each performance is different from all others, whereas all showings of a movie are mechanically identical. The stage play is constantly varied by the performance of the actors, while the screen play remains rigid and unchanged. Because the screen play is so rigid, it cannot be endured without music.
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Moreover, we discover the screen drama's comical side, that unintentional comedy which is the stamp of all the melodramas and horror pictures of the early days of the films, and makes them ludicrous. All screen drama seems to become comical as time goes by.

On the demoniac dullness of the mechanised environment:

The effectiveness of mechanical motion as a narcotic can, indeed, be observed everywhere. The wide-awake atmosphere of our cities is permeated with a trancelike quality. That atmosphere is a blend of intense awareness and of dream-life. The consciousness of a chauffeur, a traffic cop, a subway motorman is awake, but only in a small sector that is surrounded by blackouts and dreamlike, visionary ideas. Such a mind has a functional wakefulness that is focused upon the functions of the machine under its control. But the more one-sidedly this consciousness concentrates, the narrower it becomes. It is amazing how little the pedestrians in a large city really observe, particularly in the great traffic centers where all attention has to be centered upon traffic and its rules. The pedestrian is watchful because he is constantly menaced by the automatically moving streams of traffic. But at the same time this flowing stream has a soporific effect, so that we easily become panicky if this functional flow is interrupted in some way.
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In connection with this, we find that sensation of utter unreality, that absent-mindedness produced by the absolute artificiality of the surroundings, which seizes man in the large cities so often and so suddenly. There also is that sensation of being submerged, an impression which to good observers becomes increasingly manifest. Life moves deep in the chasms of our city streets as if seen through a diver's helmet, and looking through the big panes of offices and restaurants, we seem to be looking into an aquarium. This queer and not at all pleasant impression is caused by the automatism of motion, by the vision of mechanically sliding reflexes reminiscent of the reflexes of amphibians. Even to us who are their builders, our modern cities are as uncanny and as foreign as those great cities of past ages of which only a memory has come down to us. Supposing a man of some such bygone era, a man who has no idea of our technology, would come into our cities; supposing we should ask him: "What powers do you think have built all this?" Chances are that his answer would be: "Very mighty, very evil demons."

On signs of collapse and stagnation:

For the idea of unending progress is absurd and inane, because the infinite motion that it presupposes is contradictory. It is exactly the rapidity and forcefulness of technical rationalization which indicate that we are approaching a finale, an ultimate stage of technology where everything technical attains the same degree of perfection long since achieved in the tools of handicrafts. Perhaps the moment when this will come about is not far off, but it would be idle to speculate on this.
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This sapping and mining is bound to produce losses which must become increasingly unbearable. The devastations of this pillage are not limited to the exhaustion of mines, of oil wells and other resources. Neither this nor the reckless exhaustion of the topsoil which spreads erosion and the sinking of water tables will be decisive in themselves, although –in America, for instance – these warning signals are already looming big.

On total war as the logical endpoint of mechanisation:

The situation of the worker is signalized by his dependence on machinery and organization. It is signalized by the absence of reserves on which he could fall back. He is reduced to the sale of his bare working capacity, and he must sell it unceasingly and unstintingly if he wants to live. He has no funds to guarantee him peace of mind, leisure, or even an extended vacation. This already existing pattern of so-called normal civilian life simply gets incorporated into the pattern of total war. In it all human and material resources are drafted, mobilized, and brought into action. Plainly, there is a reverse side to this process, namely, the total consumption caused by total war. Such a war is by no means a spontaneous, voluntary mass uprising where enthusiasm makes up for primitive technical equipment. It is a struggle between technically highly developed organizations which show all the mechanical, automatic features characteristic of an advanced stage of technology. That is why the most important goal of modern war is to smash the technical potential of the opponent.
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This equation forces all modern states, with relentlessly increasing mechanical compulsion, to support, speed up, and push to the utmost the drive for technical perfection. For its own self-preservation, the modern state has to promote, and subject everything possible to, technical automatism. Since the technical potential is decisive in war, it is actually a form of armament. Technical progress now drops the economic mask it had been wearing in the early days of technical organization.

On the propagandistic nature of modern warfare:

But it is inconceivable that, in the event of war, the state would refrain from using to the full its technical potential. The incessant pointing to this potential, the propagandist efforts to make it look formidable and terrifying, are parts of modern political tactics even in so-called peace. It also becomes clear why states depart more and more from the old law of nations which requested a formal declaration of war. The stigma of being termed "aggressor" is too far outweighed by the advantage of high preparedness coupled with surprise attack made possible by the technical potential.

On the futility of labour activism:

The worker fails to see that he himself is equally guilty of exploitation since he works hand in hand with technological progress and advocates it.
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As a result, he remains captive to the technical apparatus and its organization; his situation remains unchanged. He is bound to be subject to exploitation as long as he himself advocates and supports exploitation.

On the end of leisure:

In theory, dead time appeared to be an infinite, immeasurable quantity. But when it entered into conflict with the biological time of human life, when our life time became enslaved by mechanical time, that spelled the end of all leisure, the end of all human time. In this way, too, the whole globe was shrinking; all of a sudden there seemed to be no living space where once it seemed to be without limit.

On the alchemical symbolism of mechanised technology:

Our modern engines are not powered directly by solar heat. Perhaps it is significant that the many attempts made to harness the sun's energy directly for the production of steam, for instance, have so far failed. What our technology robs and exploits is the stores where solar energy slumbers in transmuted forms, like coal and oil which are saturated with solar fire. The fire of the smithy, the first fire of technology thus stems from the earth. Alchemy later symbolized the spirit of that fire in the "salamander." It is earth-fire from which and with which technology starts out.

[Tomás Tumino Alvarez]

A brilliant essay of great artistic quality.

[Lotus Semiotics]

"The automatism in which man is trained and drilled day in and day out not only inures him to perform without a will of his own his mechanical operations; it also breaks down certain resistances in his personality by depriving him, under guise of a new order, of that self-reliance which alone can halt the inroads of chaos. The mechanization of life is the mill which grinds the individual down into atomized masses. Where human beings are concerned, the whole organization of technology achieves nothing but the acceleration of this grinding down of the individual into the mass" (111).

Friedrich Jünger’s The Failure of Technology reads like an autopsy of a civilization synchronized to "lifeless time." The translator’s introduction already delineates the trajectory: "the elimination of sense qualities… the mechanization of time… the suppression of the richness and idiosyncrasy of personal existence" (3). On the shop floor, Jünger shows how "all functions of work are lined up within the sequence of lifeless time, and the workmen are stationed along the line as functionaries," so that "the worker loses his identity… as a human figure he fades out" (62). Far from freeing us, "manual labor does not at all decrease with the advance of the machine; rather it increases," while progress seeks to regiment "man’s sleep, his work, his rest, and his pleasures" into "clocklike precision" (47, 37). Within this world, "there exist solely technical purposes" (53): work becomes "purely functional" and "autonomous," detached from the person (50–51). The result is a culture of velocity in which "lifeless time mocks" us - the faster it runs, the emptier it becomes (124), until "life becomes subservient to a ubiquitous automatism that regulates it" (138).

Jünger insists this order expands with invasive force. "Technology… has created a new rational organization of work. It expands this organization by means of… mechanical automatism," not to found a higher harmony but as "the most efficient instrument for scrapping the order of things," leveling differences toward "arithmetical… mechanical, equality" (136). The expansion is infrastructural and societal. "Motorization" and "technical organization" close "like the jaws of [a] pair of tongs," as "all technical organization extends the technical apparatus," and mechanization tightens the rationalization of the whole social order (56); "the technician rejects everything that does not correspond to his ideas of efficiency and purpose" (55), and "the specialist… is in the service of technical organizations" (57). What we call production is in fact "consumption" (22), culminating in "the progressive pillage of the earth" and, at 'perfection,' "the most intensive exploitation on a planetary scale" (127). Jünger’s memory of Flanders, "a certain moonscape covered with craters," makes the linkage stark: "together with technological progress, the violent and destructive forces of disorder also progress apace" (94), as a "war technology" continually "invent[s] a remedy for the human emergency of its own making" (130–131) and breeds a security fetish whose "mushrooming organizations… produce a decline of actual security" (133). In Jünger’s verdict, the technical organization grows by invading, leveling, and exhausting - of workers, of time, of earth - until only the rule of lifeless time remains (138).

[Gil Blas]

Un complemento a su famoso hermano Ernesto, y con reminiscencias de Spengler. Todos ellos pertenecieron a la “Konservative Revolution”.
Es un ejemplo de que el “ecologismo” no es de origen exclusivamente “progre”. Aunque la tesis del libro es que el progreso técnico va unido a la explotación del planeta.