Long before World War I, the celebration of a new type of man became
prevalent, finding its adepts in almost all branches of the social sciences
and humanities, from economics to philosophy. Right down the line, an
attack was launched against the hypertrophic rationalization and
technification of life, against the ‘bourgeois’ of the nineteenth century
Negations
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with his petty joys and petty aims, against the shopkeeper and merchant
spirit and the destructive ‘anemia’ of existence. A new image of man
was held up to this paltry predecessor, composed of traits from the age
of the Viking, German mysticism, the Renaissance, and the Prussian
military: the heroic man, bound to the forces of blood and soil – the
man who travels through heaven and hell, who does not reason why,
but goes into action to do and die, sacrificing himself not for any
purpose but in humble obedience to the dark forces that nourish him.
This image expanded to the vision of the charismatic leader4 whose
leadership does not need to be justified on the basis of his aims, but
whose mere appearance is already his ‘proof’, to be accepted as an
undeserved gift of grace. With many modifications, but always in the
forefront of the fight against bourgeois and intellectualistic existence,
this archetype of man can be found among the ideas of the Stefan
George circle, of Moller van den Bruck, Sombart, Scheler, Hielscher,
Jünger, and others. Its philosophical justification has been sought in a
so-called –
Philosophy of life
‘Life’ as such is a ‘primal given’ beyond which the mind cannot
penetrate, which is withdrawn from any rational foundation,
justification, or evaluation. Life, when understood in this way, becomes
an inexhaustible reservoir for all irrational powers. Through it the
‘psychic underworld’ can be conjured up, which is “as little evil as [is]
the cosmic ... , but is rather the womb and refuge for all productive and
generative forces, all forces that, though formless, serve every form as
content, all fateful movements.”