Abstract

ExcerptAlain de Benoist, Ernst Jünger: Between the Gods & the Titans. Edited by Greg Johnson. Translated by Greg Johnson and F. Roger Devlin. Budapest: Middle Europe Books, 2022. Pp. 180. The central figure in Alain de Benoist’s introductory volume on the life and work of Ernst Jünger is the Worker. He is an intelligent anchor for the volume, for he, of all of Jünger’s metaphorical symbols, most extensively occupies his thoughts throughout his long career. He also most fully characterizes modernity: first its glorious promise, later its potential horror. Introduced in Jünger’s book of the same name in 1932, the Worker is the dominant figure of our time. Benoist writes that the Worker subsumes “all creation aimed at giving form to the world, all affirmation of power, all expenditure of energy.” In this sense, the Worker dominates modernity because the productive spirit—the belief that one can will into existence that which one conceives—dominates modernity. Titanic factories, new political systems, an interconnected world state: these ambitious projects of the time are the realization of this figure.