A1 Refereed original research article in a scientific journal
Another Language: The Relationship Between War and Politics in Ernst Jünger’s Early Political Writings
Authors: Pankakoski, Timo
Publisher: Duke University Press
Publishing place: New York
Publication year: 2024
Journal: New German Critique
Journal name in source: NEW GERMAN CRITIQUE
Journal acronym: NGC
Volume: 51
Issue: 2
First page : 135
Last page: 165
ISSN: 0094-033X
eISSN: 1558-1462
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1215/0094033X-11165823
Web address : https://doi.org/10.1215/0094033X-11165823
This article analyzes the linguistic means Ernst Jünger employed to construct the relationship between war and politics in his early political writings. These include military metaphors, the topos of transferring elements from war to politics, depicting politics as the continuation of war by other means, the pen/sword opposition, and the topos of “another language.” Jünger relied on expressions from Clausewitz, yet inversed Clausewitz’s arguments, considering war the primary category even in peace. He “temporalized” the quasi-Clausewitzian continuity thesis, arguing that nationalistic politics should be merely an extension of WWI violence. His interrelated arguments downplayed the differences between war and politics, indirectly justifying political violence. Given his explicit rejection of any characteristically political means, we should read Jünger as a military thinker calling for the continuation of war by the same means, rather than a theorist of autonomous politics. This is a rhetorically constructed and self-imposed problem, resulting from his chosen argumentative framework.