Personal happiness and the anarch

"It is no coincidence that precisely when things started going downhill with the gods, politics gained its bliss-making character. There would be no reason for objecting to this, since the gods, too were not exactly fair. But at least people saw temples instead of termite architecture. Bliss is drawing closer; it is no longer in the afterlife, it will come, though not momentarily, sooner or later in the here and now - in time.

The anarch thinks more primitively; he refuses to give up any of his happiness. "Make thyself happy" is his basic law. It is his response to the "Know thyself" at the temple of Apollo in Delphi. These two maxims complement each other; we must know our happiness and our measure.” Eumeswil, page 192.

COMMENTARY

In this next quote, Jünger discusses one of the anarch’s primary goals in life, personal happiness. He begins with an observation that illustrates where, in contrast to the anarch, most people look for happiness. When religions still breathed real life, when gods were still credible, man looked for his final happiness through their means and methods. As belief in the gods declined, so man began to look for happiness in the here and now, through the non-transcendent means of politics. Politics, with the aid of technological progress, began promising personal happiness in the material here and now. (Although Jünger does not say it here, physical comfort and security, those highest values of the Last Man, are part of this material happiness.) In a similar manner to his ineradicable illusion that social progress is about to outlaw war forever, so, despite continous disappointments, is man reassured and continues to believe that his personal happiness is also around the next corner. Politics thus capitalizes on one of man’s chronic and universal ailments, the all-pervasive disease of “tomorrow”.

But on this point, we should not conclude that the anarch is necessarily on the side of the gods, for as Jünger says, they, or at least their cultic representatives in the world religions, also promised man happiness in a future here-after, while treating him unfairly in the present. The anarch is not per force on anyone’s side, but decides for himself when and to whom he gives his allegiance. “No god above me”, as Manuel states elsewhere in Eumeswil.

(Touching on the anarch’s relationship to art, Jünger comments here that at least the gods brought more attractive forms along with them, temples instead termites mounds. But this is apparently a secondary consideration and is not pursued here.)

The anarch, in contrast, keeps thing simple – he looks to no external providers or guarantors of happiness but makes himself responsible for his happiness. He is thus untouched by the promises and failures of religions and political regimes; he neither hopes in nor is disappointed by what worldly powers or gods offer him. “Make thyself happy” is his fundamental law, and, by knowing himself, understanding his measure as Jünger puts it, he knows how to make himself happy.

Again, the self-reliance of the anarch stands out clearly. He does not look outside himself to religions, regimes, or insurance companies for his happiness and security but finds them within or creates them for himself without.

Personal happiness and the anarch