Something like the worker must have seemed unavoidable destiny for western man in the early 20th century, mass society, mass production, mass war, it must have seemed obvious at the time. I think it even came to be, the kind of states and people that came into being in the interwar and postwar Europe sound close to this ideal. Picture 1950s Sweden. But as we de-industrialized and off shored, I think it has instead become the ignoble and ugly archetype of “the consumer” that represents us. Maybe a pacified corruption of “The worker”? Still collectivist and a total member of the state, but much less virtuous, a walking stomach fed and put to work by the state, with no higher aspirations. Perhaps “the worker” only existed for those few years of mechanical technology and national production, before off shoring began? Or did Junger think the worker still lay a century or more away? I haven’t read the book so it would be interesting to hear what you have to say.
I would recommend Friedrich Georg Jünger's The Failure of Technology. Ernst said that this book and The Worker were like the positive and negative of film.
A good list, here are a few more.
The Technological Society, Jacques Ellul
The Question Concerning Technology, Martin Heidegger
4 Arguments against Television, Jerry Mander
The Gift of Good Land, Wendell Berry
The Arrogance of Humanism. David Ehrenfeld
The Myth of the Machine: Technics, Lewis Mumford
I enjoyed Ellul, Heidegger, and Mumford a lot. I will have to check out the rest. Thanks!
I’d have to add Heidegger the question concerning technology. It is the most philosophical of all of these
It is great! But it is also too short to qualify as a book.
Yeah but it’s so dense it’s probably harder to read haha
Oh come on, srs?
Yes, it is only 14 pages.
I’ve only read one of them, Amusing Oursleves to Desth, and I still think about it often.
Something like the worker must have seemed unavoidable destiny for western man in the early 20th century, mass society, mass production, mass war, it must have seemed obvious at the time. I think it even came to be, the kind of states and people that came into being in the interwar and postwar Europe sound close to this ideal. Picture 1950s Sweden. But as we de-industrialized and off shored, I think it has instead become the ignoble and ugly archetype of “the consumer” that represents us. Maybe a pacified corruption of “The worker”? Still collectivist and a total member of the state, but much less virtuous, a walking stomach fed and put to work by the state, with no higher aspirations. Perhaps “the worker” only existed for those few years of mechanical technology and national production, before off shoring began? Or did Junger think the worker still lay a century or more away? I haven’t read the book so it would be interesting to hear what you have to say.
These are questions that I am currently wrestling with and plan to write on in the future.
I would recommend Friedrich Georg Jünger's The Failure of Technology. Ernst said that this book and The Worker were like the positive and negative of film.
Dammit I’m so far behind on reading and you people keep adding to the list