Mobilization or distraction? Friedrich Kittler's media theoretical reading of Ernst Jnger

Abstract

The experience of soldiers in the trenches of World War I became a paradigm for many of the conservative revolutionaries of the Weimar period. One such figure is Ernst Jnger, war hero and celebrated witness of the front experience, now well known as the inspiration for Walter Benjamin's definition of fascism as the aestheticization of politics. This article examines the re-emergence of several of Jnger's motifs in the work of German media theorist Friedrich Kittler. Polemically opposing the technological naivety of the Frankfurt School, Kittler turns to the anti-Enlightenment rhetoric of Weimar conservatism in order to articulate anxieties about the more oppressive qualities of technological modernity. For Kittler, Jnger's call for total mobilization on a societal and individual basis offers an indispensable tool for understanding modern forms of technological domination. By examining Kittler's reworking of Jnger's ideas, this article is able to consider neglected questions about Kittler's own politics.