Category: Series
-
22. Marauders, Nphum Ga
When last we left the Marauders, they had triumphed over the Japanese at Walawbum, albeit after some very hot fighting that left the 2nd Battalion shaken. In the aftermath of that battle, the men were ravaged by disease caused by Chinese contamination of their drinking water and, later, by outbreaks of typhus. Despite these outbreaks,…
-
8. Marauders, Walawbum
As so often happens, I started a series of posts without having a clear idea of where I was going, and, as often happens, I didn’t do a particularly good job taking notes on Ogburn, something I only realized after I lent the book away. So, the second post in this series on the Marauders…
-
The Failure of Technology, pt. 2
I could excuse my recent lack of posting by claiming a lack of time, but that would be a lie. I can only, and even then in the vaguest terms, note that I’m undergoing a crisis of expression and purpose that has sapped my desire to write, at least to write in this form in…
-
Clarification
I got a bit lost in my explorations in the previous post and feel like I didn’t fully explain what Jünger was getting at with his talk of automatons. The point is that in sin, in vice, man illegitimately subordinates the higher to the lower, disrupts the cosmic order. We desire some thing, some good which…
-
Why We Fight
Before continuing my now-continuously delayed exploration of The Failure of Technology, I wanted to take a moment to delve into the quote from Ernst Jünger I cited in the last post: During World War I we confronted the question of whether man was more powerful than machines. In the meantime, things have gotten more complex. We…
-
The Failure of Technology, Pt. 1
The original German title is Die Perfektion der Technik, or The Perfection of Technology. “Perfection” here carries with it the sense of “fulfillment,” without the positive connotations we associate with the perfection in English, hence why the translator substituted failure. And failure is justified because, Jünger argues, it is in its perfection that technology fails, though…
-
Notes from a reading of Charles Ogburn’s The Marauders.
I’ve never been very good about family history, despite my inclination toward history more generally and despite thinking that family, like local, history is something very important in this rootless world of ours. I’d like to blame my failings here on youth. I was relatively young when most of my grandparents passed (though not that…
-
Justin’s Old Man
The final part of a series of posts on Justin Martyr. As the months since I read Justin pass, it’s the enigma of the Old Man that remains most strongly impressed on my memory. I’ve come to think that he is the key point around which both Justin’s biography and bibliography crystallizes. The central pillar…
-
Justin’s Conversion
The much delayed conclusion to my look at Justin Martyr, other posts on Justin can be found here. A planned excursus on the identity of the Old Man has turned out to be more complex than I first thought, so I’m going to make that it’s own and truly final post. The story of Justin’s…
-
The Weltbild of Justin Martyr, pt. 3
Alongside what we’ve already discussed, I wanted to hit a few fragmentary points from Justin before delving into his conversion story. In both the apologies and the Dialogue with Trypho, the argument from prophecy is the primary means by which Justin demonstrates the truth of Christianity. With Trypho, a Jew and thus presumed to already…
Dan Yingst 