Pain and history of being: Heidegger and Jünger on the pain in the era of technology

Abstract

At the beginning of the ’30 Heidegger became aware thatthecnology represents anessential characterof the world in the contemporary modern era as he read, and studied carefully, the works of Ernst Jünger “Die totale Mobilmachung” (1930) and “Der Arbeiter” (1932). Technology for Jünger is essentially“how the figure of the worker mobilizes the world”.InHeidegger’sdeep and severe confrontation with Jünger’s writings –which eventually would urge himnot only to profound transformations in his philosophical project,but also to seek new speculative horizons through the “Kehre” –the Jünger’s essay “Über den Schmerz” plays a decisive role.Here pain is conceived as a “key with which we open the door not only of what is most intimate, but also of the world”. To the eternal invariability of pain as measurement and proportion of human’s existence corresponds the historical variability of all theways in which humanity confronts the living pain. But what is, essentially, the pain? And what is “pain” in the eraof the “perfection of technology”? All these questionsconstitute the reference point of this article and the core ofHeidegger’s dispute with Jüngerdepicted in it.