The Balkanization of the System: Ernst Jünger and the Endtimes, Part 1

Ernst Jünger (1895 –1998)

It seems that the prognoses about the imminent death of the West were not just a favorite topic of the German philosopher of history Oswald Spengler, the author of the much acclaimed The Decline of the West. In times of great geopolitical disruptions and social polarizations, such as those sweeping now over Europe and the USA, predictions about a pending catastrophe seem to be a cherished subject among countless intellectuals, especially those who portray themselves as traditionalists or nationalists, or even worse, those who are portrayed by their detractors as  White racists or radical right-wingers. In a flurry of philosophical prose dealing with the purported balkanization of the West, and announcing the apocalyptic endtimes, one could single out the name of Ernst Jünger, a late German essayist and novelist, whose name was once associated with the so-called conservative intellectual revolution in Weimar Germany, and who is today eulogized by all sorts of White nationalists and traditionalists as a leading figure in understanding the endtimes of the West.

A subject that also needs some clarification is the word “balkanization,” a word whose lexical and conceptual connotations over the last decades has come to be associated not just with state fragmentation, but also with ethnic and racial turmoil. How could Ernst Jünger and some of his types of “dissenting sovereign individuals” be relevant in understanding and combating unparalleled racial changes that have occurred in Europe and America over the last three decades? As a man of considerable foresight, but also of insight, Jünger contemplated different types of nonconformist individuals—people that stood up to the System at different historical times and in different political environments. However, nowhere in his voluminous work did Jünger envision the racial turmoil which is soon likely to bring Europe and America into a real cycle of chaos.

Hopefully, some of Jünger’s works and some of his types—his “Gestalt” of “sovereign individuals”—can be useful in understanding postmodern times and what role that individual should play in the System. The ongoing multiracial balkanization of the liberal experiment in Western Europe and America may soon yield far more catastrophic results than the former communist endtimes in Eastern Europe in the aftermath of WWII.

The notion of endtimes is not new. It is reminiscent of the biblical prophecies of the Apocalypse and the descent of the new Heaven upon Earth. Thus, in the Book of Revelation there are warnings, but also upbeat signs:

Then I saw ‘a new heaven and a new earth,’ for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea.  I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.

In its secular version, however, this biblical notion of endtimes can be observed among many modern intellectuals who display a strong monotheist and Judeo-Christian mindset. Such a do-good divinatory and eschatological mindset surfaces quite often among secular scribes of the modern System, particularly in their advocacy of Communism, Liberalism, multiculturalism, and their latest avatar, the so–called ideology of human rights. Such utopian, optimistic systems of beliefs offer, as a rule, the formula for the glorious unfolding of the future.

However, in the process of the voyage to the final destination of multiracial embrace, real, but more often surreally evil creatures need to be doctored up to make their entrance onto the world scene — if for no other reason than to give further legitimacy to the prevailing founding myths of the System. Accordingly, the System must squash those wicked figures, usually viewed as symbols of absolute evil. Thus, on the one hand, System world-improvers must ceaselessly dispense flowery formulas about the birth of the paradise on earth; yet, on the other, they must never tire from raising the specter of the absolute evil lurking in the guise of a “neo-Nazi,” a looming “Islamo-fascist, an “anti-Semite,” “a  religious fundamentalist,” “a Holocaust denier,” a “right- wing extremist,” “or a “White supremacist” – all of whom dwell on the invisible horizon, all of whom are geared up to bring about the Undemocratic Judgment Day. Should a freedom-loving free spirit — a nonconformist individual—ever question such interim scenarios of the System, he is condemned to silence; or worse, he will be tracked down by the System Thought Police. In the realm of combatting absolute, existential evil, facts and empirical data are quite irrelevant.

One encounters the notion of endtimes in the old European sagas and myths as well, although ancient Europeans had a cyclical view of the flow of time. Well, after all, after each storm, clear weather must show up on the horizon.  Ernst Jünger must be credited for making a sharp distinction between the traditional European times of destiny, i.e. the cyclical times and the modern liberal, linear and measurable times of today’s System.

Destiny can be anticipated, it may be felt, it can be dreaded, but it must never be known. Should that occur, man would live a life of a prisoner who knows the hour of his execution (An der Zeitmauer,1959, p.25)

One may tentatively surmise that in order to set up a rock solid future, the System must demand that its constituents behave like docile inmates on the death row.

In its desire to arrest the flow of time and bestow upon the mankind ready-made salvation formulas, the System cannot allow any criticism of its founding myths. The scenario of a possible undemocratic endtimes makes the System nervous and therefore irrational; it prompts its servants to be constantly on the alert and to consider it their sacred duty to resort to the criminalization of those viewed as icons of the absolute evil. Thus, a nonconformist man designated as an evil man is no longer considered a human, but a dangerous animal. Hence, like a dangerous animal, he has no right to enjoy the protection of the law. He must be killed and removed for good.

The Nonconformist in the Balkanized Endtimes

Once upon a time for many people in Europe, especially those in Eastern Europe, Communism was the symbol of the endtimes. The course of the communist era following the end of the World War II seemed to have been set in stone.  Indeed, after the disaster of 1945, there were many intelligent Europeans who seriously thought that Communism was not only the end of their world, it was the end of the world altogether. Today, for postmodern White Europeans and Americans, the same question is resurfacing. Is the balkanized West, or whatever the word West may mean today, moving to even more dreadful endtimes? Or are the current times of the System only a passing cosmic yawn that will soon go away?  Perhaps, future historians will give the appropriate name for the current System only when, as is so intensely desired by their many enemies, there are no majority-White nations or, better yet, when White people physically disappear.

The problem for many White Europeans and Americans is how to come to terms with the time flow of the System. Can the current times they now live in be any worse than they already are? Where is the end of the endtimes? In a larger historical framework, the time flow of the System represents just a fraction of a second and should, therefore, be of little concern for the survival of the White man. However, for a single lifetime of a racially and culturally conscious White dissenter and nonconformist, the System seems to drag on with no end in sight.

Thinking of time as cyclical, especially in the case of war and social chaos, has historically been well appreciated by all White peoples. Today the notion of the recurrence of upheavals is much weaker, which is largely due to the forceful imposition of the multiracial and ecumenical mindset, promising that each tomorrow will be better than today. However, with the significant shifts in the racial profiles of Europe and America, followed by terrifying global financial turmoils, the possibility of the endtimes of the West is no longer a working hypothesis.

The concept of balkanization does not only imply geopolitical dislocations or ethnic and racial disruptions — a process traditionally and often pejoratively ascribed to the peoples of the Balkan Peninsula. Balkanization also means a poor sense of self-worth, a sensation of fleeting or passing identities that are continually replaced by new contradictory identities. This is today visible in the ongoing changes in the racial profile of the multiracial System whereby a host of divergent racial identities collide with each other, each trying to portray itself as the victim of the other identity.

Today, however, the increasingly balkanized Europe and America may require from Whites a different type of self-perception, one which has less to do with their own ethnic identity but more with their adherence to the common European gene pool. And of course, it also requires new types of dissent and news forms of non-conformist action. Arguably, Jünger could be of help in furnishing some didactic tools for the right choice of non-conformism; or he may provide archetypes of free spirits, which he so well describes in his novels and essays:  the rebel, the partisan, the soldier, and the anarchist. Despite the fact that Whites, especially in Europe, still continue to be immersed in their outdated tribal animosities and infightings, they cannot deny the fact that they are witnessing a unique low-intensity conflict with non-Europeans—this time not on foreign turf, but on their own territory in the heart of Europe and America. In light of mass migrations from Third World countries, even Europeans and Americans with scant explicit racial and cultural awareness, are forced to chose sides. The forthcoming conflict will not necessarily pit Whites against non-Whites; nor does it need to be a military battle for a historical territory. The conflict may only require choosing the right type of dissent in confronting the process of multiracial balkanization, such as different forms of “cognitive wars” waged via different electronic devices. For instance, a nonconformist who decides to live in the woods amidst wild animals, like Jünger’s forest dweller the Waldgänger, has to behave like a wild animal.

Conversely, the individual who decides to live among bandits can hardly have success in preaching the Gospel. Even tentative guerilla warfare will radically change its nature. During his military campaign in Spain Napoleon was reported to have said that fighting irregular troops or partisans required that the regulars become partisans or guerilleros themselves. The same goes for the modern figure of the sovereign nonconformist who will need to asses the situation first and then act accordingly. No political system has ever declared itself criminal; it is always the opponent who does so. As Carl Schmitt noted, “the modern partisan expects neither justice nor mercy from his enemy. He has turned away from the conventional enmity of the contained war and given himself up to another—the real—enmity that rises through terror and counter-terror, up to annihilation.”

Go to Part 2 of 3.

Dr. Tom Sunic (tom.sunic@gmail.com) is author, translator, former US professor in political science and a member of the Board of Directors of the American Third Position. He is the author of Homo americanus: Child of the Postmodern Age, prefaced by Kevin MacDonald (2007). The third edition of his book Against Democracy and Equality; the European New Right, prefaced by Alain de Benoist, has just been released.