4) Explain the statement, "boredom is nothing other than the dissolution of pain in time", (Jünger p. 13) and its relationship to nihilism
5) How is technology and the technological organization of life a response to nihilism according to Jünger? How is the integration of technology and humanity negatively depicted in Dada art?
5) How is technology and the technological organization of life a response to nihilism according to Jünger? How is the integration of technology and humanity negatively depicted in Dada art?
As we know all know that nihilism is the complete break away from the past values and thought system and create new and improved values and thought system that better suit the new time. The example that the teacher talked about in the class blog, which was mentioned by Nietzsche is on Christianity and other belief systems. As the teacher states “Instead, what Nietzsche says is that nihilism is in Christianity and other traditional belief systems, in that they secretly contain a desire to destroy life. Nietzsche would point to the severe moral standards of Christian belief, what is referred to as asceticism as evidence of this. In his view, these moral beliefs were completely incompatible with our "life-affirming" vital instincts, and to that extent they were nihilistic in that were against "life"” (Murdaco. August 2011). This is an example of what nihilism is and not the actual concept. Having established an understanding of the concept of nihilism is, I will direct my focus on the main part of my essay. I will divide my essay in to four parts. In the first part of my essay I will explain how the meaning of the statement “boredom is nothing other than the dissolution of pain in time” (Junger.p13), which was sad by Ernst Junger in his essay “On Pain”. In the second part of my essay I will talk about how this statement is relates to the concept of nihilism. In the third part of my essay I will explain the relationship between technology and the technological organization to nihilism from the view point of Ernst Junger. In the last part of my essay I will explore how the integration of technology and humanity is negatively depicted in Dada art.
In order to fully understand the meaning of the Quote “boredom is nothing other than the dissolution of pain in time” (Junger.P13), we must understand the meaning of pain with regards to the concept of nihilism. We know that nihilism is the brake away from traditional values to form new values. Now we need to know how pain is considered in terms of new values. This can be best understood for the statement from the professor in the class blog which states “The existence of pain contradicts the dominant values of liberal society which holds out the myth that good will always triumph over evil” (Mudaco, October 2011). What this mean is that the time this essay was written the traditional thought was that good will always prevail, but in reality that is not the case. There are cases where bad things happen and innocent people who end up getting hurt, and these bad things cause pain and suffering to human kind, and no matter what we do we cannot stop thing pain. So now we know that the traditional thought was that we will be protect by bad thing and not feel the suffering and pain, but in reality we will and thing is the new thought or you can consider this values to better relate to nihilism. So going back to the quote, which is basically saying that we cannot break away from pain? Boredom is the state to being bored and dissolution mean break, so the quote is saying that when we are board we are disconnected with pain at that time, but once we come back to reality pain is just waiting right there wait for us. So his is the meaning of the quote to the relationship to pain.
Now I will talk about how this relates to nihilism. In a sense I have already answer that question, but I will sum but main point from the previous paragraph. So recalling back, we know that pain was the new way of thought and not getting in contact with pain was the old way of thought and this is what essential nihilism is. In the introduction I explained that the example by Nietzsche was on Christianity and this example by Ernst Junger is on pain.
Keeping the two things that I mentioned above in mind we can expand on them and answer the next part of my essay. So we know that Nietzsche example on nihilism was based on Christianity and Junger example was based on Pain. Where there ideas change is how the end result would be. In Nietzsche example the end result would be that a super person will come and change our values, however Junger disagrees. He suggests that technology will help us cope with the pain. As Junger states in his essay “The growing objectification of our life appears most distinctly in technology, this great mirror, which is sealed off in a unique way from the grip of pain. Technology is our uniform” (Junger 2008.p31) supports what I said. That with the use of technology we will harden out self’s and be able to better with stand pain.
Now I will talk a little about how integration of technology and humanity is negatively depicted in dada art. To start thing off I wasn’t to give a little explanation of the dada movement was about. Then I will look at a couple of pictures from the dada time period that show the negative depiction in dada art. The dada movement happened in Germany after WW2 and we know that Germany lost the war and had to take full responsibility of the war. Do to his the economic conditions were bad and this lead to the movement of dada. As stated by the professor dada movement was “…an artistic movement that self-consciously styled itself as "anti-art" or art that defies conventional notions of artistic beauty and correctness. (Murdaco. September 2011). So the dada artist made picture that put down all the parties that supported the war. One such picture is this one.
You can see that there are both human and machine feature present in the picture. They are put in a way that the finished work looks awkward, and this was the goal. The dada artist wanted to show that nothing make sense from the current values and in order to create new values the old once had to be destroyed. So in a sense this picture is trying to do this. Here is another picture that shows the same features.
You can see that there are all sort of small tools and part in the picture and one of the tool in holding up the dead of the man. The art is so arbitrary and as the professor explains that they are "anti-art"(Murdaco. September 2011). This is how technology and negatively depicted is the dada art work.
I would like to conclude with giving a little expiation with regards to where everything stands with respect to time. I will start off with Nietzsche. Nietzsche was born in 1844 and died in 1900. At the end of his death the concept of nihilism was developed with the example being the Christian values. Then came along Ernst Junger, he was born in 1895 and died in 1998. He wrote the essay “On Pain” in 1934 at the time when Hitler came to power. So we could see why the two had a different end to the concept of nihilism. At the time of Nietzsche the was not much technology and during Junger’s time there were tanks submarine and a lot more technological advanced and gave a different conclusion. To finalize my essay I want to say that between WW1 to WW2 the concept of nihilism was played out in Germany because the German wanted to break away from the past because they had just lost the war and had to accept all responsibility of the war. This suffering that came in to effect after the first war was the reason to break away for the traditional way of thought. This is how nihilism relates to Germany.
Reference List
Murdaco, Barry. (2011, August 26). Nihilism in Germany http://nihilismlehman.blogspot.com/2011/08/826-introduction.html
Junger, Ernst:translated and introduced by Durst, David C, Preface Berman, Russel A, 2008, On Pain, New York, Telos Press Publishing.
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