Covid-19 demonstrated our titanic nature reveals itself as scientism, not modern science but faith in the process of destroying truth by upholding the fake. In place of the “great concepts” that stood at the beginning of science we have technique and politics and pathology combining like so many serpents on the torso of the emerging planetary civilization of Laocoon and sons. “When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men in a society, over the course of time they create for themselves a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it” said Frédéric Bastiat.
Here again we find the traces of the ancient myths, for while Prometheus’ gift of fire allowed humanity to create civilization, it also gave us the means of waging war with one another, thus hastening the decline from the golden age to the present age of iron. In this sense, Jünger suggests that our era of “increasingly perfect technology” may be likened to the myth of Saturn, for just as Saturn devoured his own children, modern civilization devours its own security through its dependence on the very technology that unmoors its foundations.
Why, Jünger asks, does the “craving for security” that pervades the modern consciousness grow in step with technological progress? The answer must be that technology’s advocates have become cognizant of the inherent dangers of the forces they have set in motion. In Jünger’s words, “Modern man wakes up to the fact that the elemental forces he has enslaved in his machinery are turning against him with ever growing, viciously destructive force.”
One of the principal themes of Jünger, a poet with a strong sense for metaphor, is that modern man’s veneration of technology reveals his distant kinship to the Titans of myth. In the Western tradition, the Titans rebelled against the Olympian Gods and sought to usurp their power for themselves. Most famous of all was Prometheus, who stole the primordial flame and thereby came to symbolize the dangers of human striving and overreach. “All technology is of titanic mold,” Jünger writes, “and man the maker is always of the race of the titans. From his titanic kinship stems his love for the enormous, the gigantic, the colossal; his delight in towering works that impress by their quantity and mass, the vastness of their piled up matter.”
For Jünger, this ‘titanic’ impulse expresses itself through our technology-driven industrial economy, which has grown from its humble origins in western Europe to cover the whole earth, determining every aspect of life from the air we breathe to the food we eat. Whereas a healthy, humane economy would take care to preserve the underlying substance with which it works, whether in terms of manpower or natural resources, the modern “global economy” seeks to maximize production and consumption above all else. Although couched in the language of freedom—of free enterprise and free markets—it often seems that persons exist to serve the economy and keep it functioning rather than the other way around.
I'm not sure about all technology. The technology that does actual things, like motors, pumps, lights etc is helpful. It's the men that take those things and misuse it for more power. We're approaching the time at which people will start questioning those who misuse the technology. Maybe if it happened earlier, slavery etc wouldn't have happened. But we are still too stupid in that we support the deranged bullies who bring us more crap technology that gives them more power.
Writing for example, was a technology that started off with control of people- even before the printing press. It's only around now that we can start questioning the written word- history- science- etc. Before it was difficult to find alternative sources.
https://robnitro.substack.com/p/alphabet-vs-the-goddess?s=w
Technics is important. How technology develops in a given culture is too. Questioning the speed of technology adaption is important. Questioning types of technology is important. A civilization can do as China did and become prey-China forbade sailing due to a land based dynasty turning away from the sea. A civilization can do as the American and embrace it all to include cloning.