War as Inner Experience: Part Six

by Ernst Jünger

This is the sixth part of a new translation of Ernst Jünger’s profound treatise War as Inner Experience, which is published here in installments.

Also read parts one, two, three, four, and five.

Pacifism

War is the most powerful encounter of peoples. While only the advanced peaks touch in trade and traffic, in competitions and congresses, in war their entire team knows only one goal: the enemy. Whatever questions and ideas ever moved the world, it was always the bloody conflict that decided over them. Indeed, all freedom, all greatness, and all culture were born in the idea, in silence, but only preserved, spread, or lost through wars. Through war, great religions become the property of the entire earth; the most capable races sprout from dark roots to the light; countless slaves become free men. War is no more a human institution than the sexual drive; it is a law of nature, therefore we will never escape its spell. We must not deny it, or it will devour us.