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Rating: Writing about Ernst Jünger and his book is a daunting task.
First, because Jünger continues to be regarded, despite his passing, as an exponent of traditionalism and conservative thought.
Second, because he, unfortunately, adhered to one of the most monstrous regimes of the twentieth century: the Nazi regime.
And yet Jünger, despite his youthful and enthusiastic embrace of National Socialism, soon distanced himself from it.
Jünger dreamed, even during the Great War, of the birth of a "New Man". A man capable of leaving behind the cowardly legacy of bourgeois and "democratic" society, a man well represented by the heroic and combative figure of the so-called "Worker" (nothing to do with left-wing workerism), a man able to use technology and science for noble purposes, without becoming their slave or subject.
Nazism, however, betrayed these ideas and intentions. After years of ambitious rhetoric, in fact, the Hitlerian regime became a disgustingly bourgeois, putridly bureaucratic, petty, bloodthirsty dictatorship that was disrespectful towards the memory of those who went to die in the trenches from 1915-18. A regime against which Jünger, as far as possible, tried to oppose. First through the publication of enigmatic but politically significant books (in which the figure of a not well-defined dictator, identifiable as the Fhürer, caused turmoil), and finally attempting, along with some members of the German military elite, to eliminate "the mustache".
The assassination did not go through, but Jünger, mysteriously, managed to escape the grim fate that befell his comrades.
After World War II, however, Jünger continued to be regarded as a nostalgic of the Hitlerian regime. With his friend Martin Heidegger, with whom he shared many philosophical analyses, Jünger was literally marginalized from German intellectual life.
It was during this period, despite the growing disinterest, that Jünger published one of his most important, representative, and current works: "The Treatise of the Rebel".
Within a "peaceful", "democratic" and "free" world, insurmountable and annihilating problems arose. Problems adorned with new outfits but always close to modern man. Technique, once extolled by Jünger himself, lost any creative purpose to become a mere tool in the hands of a bourgeoisified world animated by dry utilitarian and calculating demands.
From the bourgeois man, in short, it had shifted to the "mass" man who, in many ways, embodied the vices and cowardice of his predecessor.
In the face of this dismal picture, the subject discovered himself to be a) alone b) impotent c) oppressed. The freedom acclaimed by the Euro-American West and the equality professed by the communist East, in reality, had not led the human being towards his full, or partial, realization.
The post-war world, essentially, was concerned only with "material" demands (sometimes, as you well know, not even those! Think of the millions of slaves exploited in the USA, the third world, or in our regions!) and continued, albeit differently than totalitarian regimes, to keep the masses subjugated. How? With the aid of media fear, through the most insidious and pervasive control, by the flattening of cultural differences, and through processes of atomization and depersonalization imposed on individuals. A picture that, in many ways, brings us back to the current political, economic, and cultural situation: globalization.
The person who, in this nihilistic frame, does not want to follow the disastrous trajectory of the modern Titanic (a metaphor often cited in the book), is faced with an extremely difficult choice: retreat to the forest!
Retreating to the forest, beyond some romantic and idealistic rhetoric, means ending the dis-values of the modern world, but more importantly, it means discovering the hidden and concealed side of our nature. It essentially means claiming a new freedom, a freedom rooted in myth and overcoming death.
The myth, in this case, is a timeless and meta-historical figure. A figure that represents an eternal struggle between man and the Titans, oppressive forces that long to crush him. By stepping out of historically "defined" time, man can break the chains and discover a contact with a very profound reality. A reality that many may define, with a grimace, as "spiritual." Cheap mysticism? Probably. In any case, the attempt, whether you agree or not, by the author to overcome the existential crisis of those who were (and still are today) forced to live in a desert such as the one described above, is noteworthy.
Overcoming death, on the other hand, should not be understood as a macabre quest for "cupio dissolvi". Instead, this overcoming should be interpreted as a sincere dialogue initiated with it. Death, in fact, is an inescapable part of our destiny, and modern society continues, precisely to make us believe we live in the "best of all possible worlds," to bury any reflection concerning this crucial event. Enjoying oneself, dancing, working, screwing, drugging, and consuming... as if we were immortal or, in any case, immune to the decay of the physical body.
There is also a mention of art and its creative value. Art makes one free, and perhaps the Artist is destined to take the helm handed to him by the previous archetype of the Worker. But on this point, many doubts swell in my mind. It brings to mind, though I could be wrong, the considerations of the later Heidegger regarding poetry.
Unfortunately, in the book, Jünger does not undertake an economic and strictly political analysis of the post-war and "global" society. First, because expressing himself beyond a certain limit on these topics was never his habit. Second, because he intended this booklet as a "manual" for those who, in order to find constructive freedom, intend to embark on a solitary path that brushes "existential" territories instead of merely socio-political ones.
Apart from this not negligible "omission" (which is understandable if we consider the angle that the author wanted to imprint on the work), I consider "The Treatise of the Rebel" an extremely relevant work capable of raising several and very current questions. The solutions? Those cannot be offered by books!
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