Nelle trincee della modernità. La figura resistenziale in Ernst Jünger

Abstract

The literary and philosophical production of Ernst Jünger stands out for the constant presence of resistant figures that oppose the social reality of bourgeois modernity. This paper focuses on the analysis of some specific declensions of these figures: “the warrior”, the “Waldgänger”, and the “anarchist”. It highlights how their resistance qualifies as an elitist stance, deeply-rooted in the knowledge of an original, superior wisdom, and aimed at defending their own moral independence rather than changing reality itself. Jünger’s resistant subjectivities seem so simply distant from the fate of the masses, who lack access to the special wisdom that allows for an intellectual exile from the world of modernity. Instead, the masses become sacrificial victims of the war catastrophes of the twentieth century, where the most brutal face of the overpowering might of technology reveals itself. This type of resistance, therefore, appears vain and ineffective in hindering the triumph of bourgeois capitalism.