David Pan’s essay “The Sovereignty of the Individual in Ernst Jünger’s The Worker“ appeared in Telos 144 in the fall of 2008. Elke Van der Steen asks him some questions.
Elke Van der Steen: The form of subjectivity Jünger proposed, one that is free of the relativism of culture and the assumption of universal reason, and which is embedded in a human relationship to violence, can be relevantly applied to current situations of terrorism. Two particular ideas discussed in greater length in your essay seem particularly applicable. The first has to do with the preservation of the individual’s sovereignty by linking private experiences with violence to group affirmation, and the second involves the paradoxical disdain for the dissemination of a universal reason and culture, while embarking on a national mobilization of violence.
