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And the rational mind which stands behind the machine and keeps watch over its automatic, mechanical motion–it too is hungry, and hunger follows it e… - Friedrich Georg Jünger
" "And the rational mind which stands behind the machine and keeps watch over its automatic, mechanical motion–it too is hungry, and hunger follows it everywhere. It cannot shake off hunger; it cannot free itself from it; it cannot be stilled, however hard it may try. And how, indeed, could that be possible! This mind itself is consuming, gluttonous, and it has no access to riches; it cannot conjure up abundance. No effort of ingenuity, not all the inventive power that is brought to bear here can do it. For rationalization only sharpens hunger and actually increases consumption. This growing consumption is a sign not of abundance but of poverty; it is bound up with worry, want, and toil.
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About Friedrich Georg Jünger
Friedrich Georg Jünger (1 September 1898 – 20 July 1977) was a German writer and lawyer. He wrote poetry, cultural criticism and novels. He was the younger brother of Ernst Jünger. TOC
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Additional quotes by Friedrich Georg Jünger
The exploitation of the factory worker (about which socialism is indignant only so long as it is in the opposition) is an inevitable symptom of the universal exploitation to which technology subjects the whole earth from end to end. Man no less than ore deposits belongs to the resources subject to consumption by technology. The ways in which the worker tries to evade this exploitation – associations, labor unions, political parties – are the very methods which tie him forever closer to the progress of technology, mechanical work, and technical organization.
When we study the apparatus and the human organization that have been created by our technology in step with its evolution, it becomes clear that they too depend on the mechanical concept of time, the only concept which can guarantee technical progress. How clockwork-like is not the whole order of modern civilization, how relentlessly does not technical progress strive to subject everything to this clocklike precision: man's sleep, his work, his rest, and his pleasures!
It is not difficult to understand the shortcomings of such methods—but it is exceedingly difficult to evade them. We can reasonably assume, for example, that an apple contains a number of substances tha so far have eluded the chemist and the biologist. It is likewise quite certain that even if all these substances could be synthetically reproduced in a pill they could not replace the apple. For the apple embodies a principle that is higher than the sum of its parts. It is not a lifeless preparation, like substances that have been, or could be, extracted from it, but an expression of life that grows and smells and ripens and has fragrance. No doubt the wise thing to do is to eat the apple itself rather than swallow the vitamins which may be extracted from it. And I shall also show wisdom by eating the apple not for the sake of all the vitamins it contains, but because it is an apple. The difference is fundamental, for in the first instance I am acting like a sick person, in the second like a healthy one. In matters of food we act wisely if we avoid the technician wherever we can.
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