“It is well known that my father and my brother sympathized with the tribunes, albeit moderately and also not without discreet criticism. That was the rule in Eumeswil; there was virtually no exception. And why should there be? After all, a baker, a composer, or a professor has more important concerns than making political waves; above all, he wants to ply his trade, practice his art, do his job without losing the best years of his life; he simply wants to survive by hook or by crook. Moreover, he is easy to replace; others are already lurking in the wings.
Aside from that, such types are also more useful to the successor than the "upright souls who remained true to the idea, holding the banner aloft," and generally merit the praise that has passed from military lingo into the jargon of civil war. They cut their finest figure in their obituaries. As survivors, they soon become unpleasant again.
The examiners know that; enthusiasm is suspect. Hence, I earned points by expressing myself objectively, as a historian, in regard to the Condor. I believe that under the influence of a hard drug, I said: "He is not a leader of the people; he is a tyrant."
They know that unconditional devotion is dangerous. A politician, an author, an actor are venerated from a distance. At last you get to meet your idol—and as a person he cannot live up to expectations. Your mood then easily swings. You have had an incredible stroke of luck, you have succeeded in gaining admission to the diva's bedroom, and disappointment is not long in coming. With clothes, divinity also drops away. Eros is strongest in the unexpected, the unforeseen.
They found no mischief in me. I remained normal, however deeply they probed. And also straight as an arrow. To be sure, normality seldom coincides with straightness. Normalcy is the human constitution; straightness is logical reasoning. With its help, I could answer satisfactorily. In contrast, the human element is at once so general and so intricately encoded that they fail to perceive it, like the air they breathe. Thus they were unable to penetrate my fundamental structure, which is anarchic.
That sounds complicated, but is simple, for everyone is anarchic; this is precisely what is normal about us. Of course, the anarchic is hemmed in from the very first day by father and mother, by state and society. Those are prunings, tappings of the primordial strength, and nobody escapes them. One has to resign oneself. But the anarchic remains, at the very bottom, as a mystery, usually unknown even to its bearer. It can erupt from him as lava, can destroy him, liberate him.
Distinctions must be drawn here: love is anarchic, marriage is not. The warrior is anarchic, the soldier is not. Manslaughter is anarchic, murder is not. Christ is anarchic, Saint Paul is not. Since, of course, the anarchic is normal, it is also present in Saint Paul, and sometimes it erupts mightily from him. Those are not antitheses but degrees. The history of the world is moved by anarchy. In sum: the free human being is anarchic, the anarchist is not.
If I were an anarchist and nothing further, they would have easily exposed me. They are particularly geared toward detecting anyone who tries to approach the powerful with mischievous intent, "with a dagger in his cloak." The anarch can lead a lonesome existence; the anarchist is sociable and must get together with peers.
Like any other place, Eumeswil has its share of anarchists. They are divided into two sects: the good-natured and the ill-natured. The good-natured are not dangerous: they dream of Golden Ages; Rousseau is their patron saint. The others have pledged their allegiance to Brutus: they convene in basements and garrets, and also in a back room of the Calamaretto. They huddle together like philistines drinking their beer while nurturing an indecent secrecy that is revealed by a giggle. They are listed in the police registers; when cells have to start forming and chemists get to work, they are watched more sharply. "The boil will soon burst." Those words are by the majordomo major, nicknamed "Domo" by the Condor; I retain the abbreviation. Before an assassination can take place, either arrests are made or the conspiracy is steered. Against an opposition that is gaining a foothold no weapon is more potent than blaming the group for an assassination attempt.
The anarchist's hazy idealism, his goodness without sympathy or else his sympathy without goodness, makes him serviceable in many ways and also useful for the police. He does sense a secret, but he can do no more than sense it: the tremendous strength of the individual. It intoxicates him; he spends himself like a moth burning up in a flame. The absurdity of the assassination attempt lies not in the doer and his self-assurance, but in the deed and its link with the fleeting situation. The doer has sold himself too cheaply. That is why he usually achieves the opposite of what he intends.
The anarchist is dependent both on his unclear desires and on the powers that be. He trails the powerful man as his shadow: the ruler is always on his guard against him. As Charles V stood on a tower with his retinue, a captain began to laugh; when interrogated, he admitted to thinking that if he embraced the emperor and plunged down with him, his name would be forever recorded in history.
The anarchist is the antagonist of the monarch, whom he dreams of wiping out. He gets the man and consolidates the succession. The -ism suffix has a restrictive meaning; it emphasizes the will at the expense of the substance. I owe this note to Thofern, the grammarian, a hairsplitter par excellence.
The positive counterpart of the anarchist is the anarch. The latter is not the adversary of the monarch but his antipode, untouched by him, though also dangerous. He is not the opponent of the monarch, but his pendant.
After all, the monarch wants to rule many, nay, all people; the anarch, only himself. This gives him an attitude both objective and skeptical toward the powers that be; he has their figures go past him—and he is untouched, no doubt, yet inwardly not unmoved, not without historical passion. Every born historian is more or less an anarch; if he has greatness, then on this basis he rises without partisanship to the judge's bench.
This concerns my profession, which I take seriously. I am also the night steward in the Casbah; now, I am not saying that I take this job less seriously. Here I am directly involved in the events, I deal with the living. My anarchic principle is not detrimental to my work. Rather, it substantiates it as something I have in common with everyone else, except that I am conscious of this. I serve the Condor, who is a tyrant—that is his function, just as mine is to be his steward; both of us can retreat to substance: to human nature in its nameless condition.” - Ernst Jünger, ‘Eumeswil’ (1977) [p. 40 - 43]
