The decay of language is not so much a disease as a symptom

 As a grammarian, Thofern sets great store by the verb “to nurture,” and it is here that I, as a historian, concur with him. The historian's task is a tragic one; ultimately it has to do with death and eternity. Hence his burrowing in rubble, his circling around graves, his insatiable thirst for sources, his anxious listening to the heartbeat of time.

What could lie hidden behind such disquiet? – I have often wondered. How understandable the terror of the savage who, upon seeing the sun disappear, fears it will never return. The man who stored the mummy in the rock hoped for the mummy's return, and we rob it of its bindings in order to confirm his – no, our – hope. When granting life to the past, we succeed in conquering time, and a subduing of death becomes apparent. Should the latter work out, then it is conceivable that a god will breathe new life into us.

13

“The decay of language is not so much a disease as a symptom. The water of life is dwindling. Words have meaning still, but not sense. They are being replaced largely by numbers. Words are becoming incapable of producing poetry and ineffective in prayer. The crude enjoyments are supplanting the spiritual ones.”

That was what Thofern said. In the seminar, he went into detail: “People have always delighted, more or less clandestinely, in the argots, the books sold under a coat or read with one hand. Then they are praised as models. The Third Tone dominates.”

By the “Third Tone” he meant the lowest level for naming things and activities. They are addressed in a lofty, a current, or a common manner; each manner is good in its place.

“If the common becomes normal in colloquial speech or even in poetry, then it involves an assault on the lofty. Anyone who likes to gobble and boast about it forestalls any suspicion of viewing bread as a miracle that is celebrated in the Supper.

“Profanation sets off lower forms of merriment. A head can ascend to a crown, a face to a countenance, or it can twist into a mug. Profanation can provoke merriment when it appears in Pandaemonium; the gods, too, laugh at Priapus. The merry-andrew has his place in the intermezzo. But if he rules the boards as a buffo assoluto, then the stage becomes a distorting mirror.

“At the opera comica, I always saw a few spectators departing once the laughter began to roar. This is more than a question of taste. There is such a thing as a collective gusto, also a jubilation, announcing imminent danger. The good spirits leave the house. In the Roman circus, the effigies of the gods were draped before blood flowed.”

*

Now and then, I, as a student of history, was permitted to help Thofern prepare his lectures. Thus, when dealing with the decay of language, he asked me to gather material about the contributions of the Eumenists.

Those things go back quite a way, and it may be said that no one cares two hoots about them anymore. At the luminar, however, the number of titles that I tallied up was enormous, even for the limited area of our city. As in any work on a scholarly apparatus, the main issue was to survey the cardinal points. Whatever has moved the Zeitgeist cascades in a chaotic flood; one has to catch the historical meaning concealed behind opinions and events.

The linguistic decay that the professor was talking about occurred during the final period of the wars between nations, a time that heralded great coalitions. First, the regional gods had to be disempowered worldwide; the fact that the father was also affected indicated a planetary agitation.

The disempowering of the father endangers the heavens and the great forests; when Aphrodite bids farewell, the ocean goes dim; once Ares is no longer in charge of wars, the shacks of flayers multiply, the sword becomes a slaughterer's knife.

In a period of decline, when it was considered glorious to have helped destroy one's own nation, the roots of language were, not surprisingly, likewise pruned, above all in Eumeswil. Loss of history and decay of language are mutual determinants; the Eumenists championed both. They felt called upon to defoliate language on the one hand and to gain prestige for slang on the other hand. Thus, down below they robbed the populace of language and, with it, poetry, on the pretext that they were facilitating speech; while on the heights they presented their “mugs.”

The assault on evolved language and on grammar, on script and signs, is part of the simplification that has gone down in history as a cultural revolution. The first world-state cast its shadow.

*

Well, that lies behind us now. In this area, we have been released from wanting and wishing and can render unbiased judgment to the extent of our abilities. In Eumeswil, this applies, I feel, to Vigo, Bruno, and Thofern. Different as they are, these three are able to have a conversation without promptly serving up the trendy claptrap. One often has the impression in Eumeswil that it is not the person but the swarm that answers. Of course, there are raised platforms, as with my dear father, and also flounders of the deep, which unite in schools.

Eumeswil

Ernest Jünger