Ernst Jünger and Mechanized War as a Boundary Condition 

Reading/listening to old letters from the 20th century and earlier, I’ve begun to realize how much more perceptive and sophisticated these “farm boys” were, compared to the “educated” people today.

Great analysis, thanks!

Now to think about it, I would describe Ernst Junger's philosophy as "naive junior officer goes off the deep end". I think that in general people who found mechanized warfare dehumanizing were pretty much the ones who had romantic, not practical view of war and who were disillusioned. Like the dehumanizing part of mechanical warfare is the warfare part. Ernst Junger was a dedicated death cultist from the start so he pretty much didn't get the memo. The whole focusing on material warfare as something new misses the point, there was no period in civilised history when war wasn't material and technological. Like we're talking about a guy that says things like "If you repeatedly hit a guy with a rock, all his sentiments become nothing when confronted with hardness and weight of the rock therefore we're living in the age when rock wielding asserts its inevitability and all sentiments have to fade away. The spirit of our time is the spirit of the rock." and treating it as some kind of profound revelations. His writing reminds me of Anais Nin and it probably says something about him.

16:52 "war is not merely a material matter but a spiritual one" Junger was right. Like the various "democratization" attempts.

Your excellent talk came up when I had just been watching a French film about the execution of hostages in retaliation for the killing of a German officer (The Sea at Dawn, 2011, really excellent), in which Junger appears as a memorable if rather unappealing character; I have felt his diaries for the WW2 period to be some of his most interesting writings, they raise so many moral issues (as do all of his works of course in their different ways).

I believe Storm of Steal is on audiobook. I think I saw it on utube

If I recall, Junger and WWI German fighter ace Willi Gabriel developed a long-running feud. I'm curious about its cause and content.

@ 22:46 Hearing this quote, my Physics-heart is crying a little. I do like to think in terms of "cause and effect". And yes, sometimes we see the effect but we have no(t yet a) clue about the cause. For me, that's just evidence of our lack of knowledge. I don't like to call in "higher dimensions" or "supernatural phenomena". That makes me feel like I'm going back in time a few thousand years.