Jünger’s most significant work from the Nazi period is the novel On the Marble Cliffs. The book is an allegorical attack on the Hitler regime. It was written in 1939, the same year that Jünger re-entered the German army. The book describes a mysterious villain who threatens a community, a sinister warlord called the “Head Ranger.” This character is never featured in the plot of the novel, but maintains a universally foreboding presence (much like “Big Brother” in George Orwell’s 1984). Another character in the novel, “Braquemart,” is described as having physical characteristics remarkably similar to those of Goebbels. The book sold fourteen thousand copies during its first two weeks in publication. Swiss reviewers immediately recognized the allegorical references to the Nazi state in the novel. The Nazi Party’s organ, the Völkischer Beobachter, stated that Ernst Jünger was inviting a bullet to the head. Goebbels urged Hitler to ban the book, but Hitler refused, probably not wanting to show his hand. Indeed, Hitler gave orders that Jünger not be harmed.[32]
Jünger was stationed in France for most of the Second World War. Once again, he kept diaries of the experience. Once again, he expressed concern that he might not get to see any action before the war was over. While Jünger did not have the opportunity to experience the level of danger and daredevil heroics he had during the Great War, he did receive yet another medal, the Iron Cross, for retrieving the body of a dead lance-corporal while under heavy fire. Jünger also published some of his war diaries during this time. However, the German government took a dim view of these, viewing them as too sympathetic to the occupied French. Jünger’s duties included censorship of the mail coming into France from German civilians. He took a rather liberal approach to this responsibility and simply disposed of incriminating documents rather than turn them over for investigation. In doing so, he probably saved lives. He also encountered members of France’s literary and cultural elite, among them the author Louis-Ferdinand Céline, a raving anti-Semite who suggested Hitler’s harsh measures against the Jews had not been heavy-handed enough. As rumors of the Nazi extermination programs began to spread, Jünger wrote in his diary that the mechanization of the human spirit of the type he had written about in the past had apparently generated a higher level of human depravity. When he saw three young French-Jewish girls wearing the yellow stars required by the Nazis, he wrote that he felt embarrassed to be in the Nazi army. In July of 1942, Jünger observed the mass arrest of French Jews, the beginning of the implementation of the “Final Solution.” He described the scene as follows:
Parents were first separated from their children, so there was wailing to be heard in the streets. At no moment may I forget that I am surrounded by the unfortunate, by those suffering to the very depths, else what sort of person, what sort of officer would I be? The uniform obliges one to grant protection wherever it goes. Of course one has the impression that one must also, like Don Quixote, take on millions.[33]
An entry into Jünger’s diary from October 16, 1943, suggests that an unnamed army officer had told Jünger about the use of crematoria and poison gas to murder Jews en masse. Rumors of plots against Hitler circulated among the officers with whom Jünger maintained contact. His son, Ernstel, was arrested after an informant claimed he had spoken critically of Hitler. Ernstel Jünger was imprisoned for three months and then placed in a penal battalion, where he was killed in action in Italy. On July 20, 1944, an unsuccessful assassination attempt was carried out against Hitler. It is still disputed as to whether or not Jünger knew of the plot or had a role in its planning. Among those arrested for their role in the attempt on Hitler’s life were members of Jünger’s immediate circle of associates and superior officers within the German army. Jünger was dishonorably discharged shortly afterward.[34]
Following the close of the Second World War, Jünger came under suspicion from the Allied occupational authorities because of his far right-wing nationalist and militarist past. He refused to cooperate with the Allied denazification program and was barred from publishing for four years. He would go on to live another half century, producing many more literary works, becoming a close friend of Albert Hofmann, the inventor of the hallucinogen LSD, with which he experimented. In a 1977 novel, Eumeswil, he took his tendency towards viewing the world around him with detachment to a newer, more clearly articulated level with his invention of the concept of the “Anarch.” This idea, heavily influenced by the writings of the early nineteenth-century German philosopher Max Stirner, championed the solitary individual who remains true to himself within the context of whatever external circumstances happen to be present. Some sample quotations from this work illustrate the philosophy and world view of the elderly Jünger quite well:
For the anarch, things are not so simple, especially when he has a background in history. If he remains free of being ruled, whether by sovereigns or by society, this does not mean that he refuses to serve in any way. In general, he serves no worse than anyone else, and sometimes even better, if he likes the game. He only holds back from the pledge, the sacrifice, the ultimate devotion. . . . I serve in the Casbah; if, while so doing, I die for the Condor, it would be an accident, perhaps even an obliging gesture, but nothing more.[35]
The egalitarian mania of demagogues is even more dangerous than the brutality of men in gallooned coats. For the anarch, this remains theoretical, because he avoids both sides. Anyone who has been oppressed can get back on his feet if the oppression has not cost him his life. A man who has been equalized is physically and morally ruined. Anyone who is different is not equal; that is one of the reasons why the Jews are so often targeted.[36]
The anarch, recognizing no government, but not indulging in paradisal dreams as the anarchist does, is, for that very reason, a neutral observer.[37]
Opposition is collaboration.[38]
A basic theme for the anarch is how man, left to his own devices, can defy superior forces—whether state, society, or the elements—by making use of their rules without submitting to them.[39]
. . . malcontents . . . prowl through the institutions, eternally dissatisfied, always disappointed. Connected with this is their love of cellars and rooftops, exile and prisons, and also banishment, on which they actually pride themselves. When the structure finally caves in, they are the first to be killed in the collapse. Why do they not know that the world remains unalterable in change? Because they never find their way down to its real depth, their own. That is the sole place of essence, safety. And so they do themselves in.[40]
The anarch may . . . not be spared prisons—as one fluke of existence among others. He will then find the fault in himself.[41]
We are touching upon a . . . distinction between anarch and anarchist; the relation to authority, to legislative power. The anarchist is their mortal enemy while the anarch refuses to acknowledge them. He seeks neither to gain hold of them, nor to topple them, nor to alter them—their impact bypasses him. He must resign himself only to the whirlwinds they generate.[42]
The anarch is no individualist, either. He wishes to present himself neither as a Great Man nor as a Free Spirit. His own measure is enough for him; freedom is not his goal; it is his property. He does not come on as a foe or reformer: one can get along nicely with him in shacks or in palaces. Life is too short and too beautiful to sacrifice it for ideas, although contamination is not always avoidable. But hats off to the martyrs.[43]
We can expect as little from society as from the state. Salvation lies in the individual.[44]
Part 2 - Critiquing the Global Order of Neoliberal Imperialism
Philosophical Anarchism and the Death of Empire
Note: What follows is an effort, however humble, to apply traditional anarchist theory to the world situation we contemporary radicals currently find ourselves in, particularly the emergence of the New World Order, the ongoing dilemma of the Leviathan state, and the uniquely subtle form of totalitarianism that has caught the fancy of the elites of the First World nations, so-called “political correctness.” What I have tri
ed to develop is a kind of “big picture” anarchism, an anarchism that confronts the aforementioned issues head-on, without the distractions that preoccupy most of those in conventional anarchist circles (anti-racism, ecology, popular left-wing causes, particular economic positions, etc.).
I have developed something of a reputation for myself as a staunch proponent of jettisoning the conventional “left/ right” model of the political spectrum. In this article, I attempt to carry this idea even further. Specifically, I reject the linear, “progressive” view of history implicit in much contemporary political thought in favor of an approach that somewhat approximates the cyclical view suggested by Nietzsche. Additionally, I am increasingly drawn to the view that the most serious intellectual problem of our time, at least with regards to political philosophy and social theory, is the universalist presumption adhered to by virtually all modern political thinkers, whether they be of the liberal, Marxist, conservative, neoconservative, libertarian, or left-anarchist variety. Additionally, the world’s two largest religions, Christianity and Islam, along with the increasing monistic humanism that dominates the intellectual culture of the West, include fairly powerful universalist strands as well.
Lawrence Dennis considered the most negative attribute of the Enlightenment era to be the tendency to interpret the world from the perspective of abstract ideological principles regarded as above and beyond the lived experience of real world human beings. The influence of such thinking on the Jacobins during the period of the French Revolution, the perpetrators of the Napoleonic Wars, and the ideologies of the imperial powers that came to a head in the Second World War (liberalism, fascism, communism) has been previously noted by certain scholars. The French New Right theorist Alain de Benoist goes even further, arguing that the monotheistic orientation of the Judeo-Christian traditions, and the concurrent negating of all other gods and traditions, along with the supplanting by these of the earlier pagan views of divinity, provided the historical foundation for the universalist conceptions of the modern era.[45] Whatever the
case may be, it seems clear enough that the key to mounting an effective resistance to the New World Order is the cultivation of a cross-cultural ethic whereby a taboo is erected against the insistence that a specific world view be universalized. It would seem that philosophical anarchism is the political paradigm most compatible with the establishment of such a taboo.
The history of human civilization can be divided into three primary phases when considering the evolution of political institutions. The first of these involves an idea that might be described as “the divinity of kings.” In the ancient civilizations of Egypt, Babylon, and Rome, the head of state was assigned a godlike status by custom, tradition, law, theology, and popular folklore alike. The early Roman Christians were sent to the lions for the crime of “atheism” which, in the theology of the Roman state religion, meant denial of the divinity of the emperor.[46] When Christianity went on to conquer Greco-Roman civilization, a new political theology evolved in the form of the “divine right of kings,” meaning that the king ruled, not as a god himself, but as an earthly appointee of a Divine Other who had been providentially chosen to rule in the political realm just as the Pope ruled in the religious realm. A principal achievement of the Enlightenment of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was the demolition of the notion of the divine right of kings. Beginning with the American and French Revolutions of the eighteenth century, a third political paradigm has come to dominate human political life.
Against Democratism
This paradigm that is now nearly universal, at least in the advanced countries, is the paradigm of liberal democracy. It might be said that liberal democracy discards the “divine right of kings” for the “democratic right of the state.” Most people in the modern world recognize the illegitimacy of fascist, Nazi, communist, monarchical, theocratic, aristocratic, and military forms of government. It is assumed by persons on all points of the political spectrum that a government is only legitimate if periodic elections are held, opposition parties are allowed to organize, and something resembling a “free press” exists. For example, American political culture includes Christian fundamentalists, economic nationalists, and anti-immigration proponents on the “far right,” and Marxists, radical feminists, and postmodernists on the “far left.” Yet all of these parties claim the banner of “democracy.” Those who wish to censor speech that is deemed “hateful” or “obscene” do so under the guise of seemingly venerable democratic notions like “community standards,” majoritarian preference, or social equality. Likewise, those who champion “free speech” do so under the seemingly democratic principle of free exchange of ideas and beliefs. Those favoring racial quotas or preferences cite the allegedly democratic principle of equal opportunity while those opposed to such preferences claim that individual responsibility and merit are essential to democracy. Both socialists and “free market” economists claim to be advocates of “economic democracy.”
The underlying presumption behind all of these points of view is that virtually any course of action that the state pursues is acceptable so long as the state meets a few bare minimum standards of democracy like “free elections,”“free speech,” and so on.[47] It is said that the state exists on the basis of a “social contract” and is a reflection of the “popular will.” For these reasons, it is widely believed that individuals have an obligation to comply with the decrees of the state, whether in the matter of the payment of taxes, military conscription, weapons confiscation, the prohibition of particular social or cultural practices, or whatever. This common notion is what is meant by the “democratic right of the state.” Behind the shield of “democracy,” the state may do what it wishes to its subjects, who in turn have no one to blame for their predicament but themselves as they comprise the state, an expression of the “general will.” The absurdity and illogic of this view ought to be obvious enough. Clearly, the dominant political paradigm of “democracy” is severely flawed.[48] A new paradigm is surely needed.
Philosophical anarchism holds that the institution of the state is undesirable and unnecessary, and that it should be eliminated in favor of voluntary association and cooperation among groups and individuals. A coherent anarchist would seek to replace the current political paradigm of liberal democracy with a new paradigm in the form of philosophical anarchism or, more specifically, a social order grounded on the principle of voluntary association. The traditional anarchist position regards the state as nothing more than a criminal organization that exists for no genuine purpose beyond the control of territory, the protection of an artificially privileged ruling class, the exploitation of its subjects, and the expansion of its own power. This perspective is consistent with numerous philosophical, ethical, and religious traditions. This was the position of both the classical anarchist theoreticians and modern libertarian-anarchists like Murray Rothbard.[49] The anarchist position on the state is also supported by the sociologist Franz Oppenheimer’s landmark study on the origin of the state and its roots in plunder and conquest.[50] Democratists have attempted to respond to the anarchist critique of the state by claiming that their preferred form of state is somehow different from older expressions of the state, usually rooting their claims in some sort of constitutionalist or majoritarian doctrine. Yet, the constitutionalist theory of the state has been comprehensively refuted by Lysander Spooner and his critique of “social contract” theory.[51] And virtually all reasonable political thinkers from Plato and Aristotle onward have recognized majoritarianism as nothing more than a form of mob rule.
The classical liberal economist William Graham Sumner once remarked that the day would come when men would be divided into only two political camps, anarchists and socialists, or, more descriptively of Sumner’s views, statists and anti-statists.[52] Sumner’s prediction is in the process of being realized as the statist ideology of mass democracy is becoming more and more universalized throughout the modern world. This process has produced some rathe
r silly intellectual offshoots in the form of Francis Fukuyama’s “End of History” theory and the “democratic imperialism” of the neoconservatives.[53] So pervasive is democratist ideology that even some anti-statists cannot separate “democracy” from their own critique of the state. For example, many left-wing anarchists claim “direct” or “consensus-based” democracy as their ideal.[54] So be it. The voluntary associations that would form the basis of an anarchist social order could indeed have democratic internal structures of some type. But anarchist theory no more mandates that an association have a democratic form of organization than it mandates an autocratic one. Similarly, aside from avowed anti-democrats like Hans-Hermann Hoppe, many libertarians speak of “democratic processes” and “democratic ideals,” often going so far as to claim that the current system of electoral democracy is fundamentally legitimate but has only been corrupted by an excess of statism brought on by self-serving public interest groups, crooked politicians, a disproportionate amount of power in the hands of statist intellectuals, etc.[55]
Bob Black has noted that one of the foremost obstacles to the realization of anarchism is the anarchists themselves.[56] Frankly, many professed anarchists could not give a coherent description of anarchist theory or what an anarchist society, realistically speaking, might look like to save their lives.[57] If anarchism is to be defined by the principle of voluntary association, then a system of radical individual autonomy is implied. Individual autonomy of this type should not be confused with either licentiousness or egocentrism. Instead, individual autonomy involves a social order where individual persons choose for themselves the kinds of associations, communities, and institutions they wish to be connected to. Persons with different values, beliefs, interests, or needs will form different kinds of associations. Elitists will form elitist associations. Egalitarians will form egalitarian associations. Socialists will form socialist associations. Racialists will form racialist associations. A continuing theme of traditional anarchism is Kropotkin’s concept of “mutual aid,” whereby people cooperate with one another towards common ends.[58] But mutual aid can occur only among people with common values and objectives. Consequently, the overarching principle of voluntary association implies that individuals and groups with conflicting interests or goals will naturally separate themselves from one another and practice mutual self-segregation. This in turn implies a radically decentralized social system where different kinds of cultural and ideological groups exercise sovereignty within their own communities. Of course, a social order based on perfect voluntarism or sovereignty may never be achieved in the real world, which is why insightful libertarian theorists including Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Bertrand Russell, and Paul Goodman have regarded “anarchy” as an ideal, like “peace” and “justice,” that humanity can only strive for.[59]
Attack the System Page 5
