Chris Boehm
9/22/04
Ernst Jünger, “Total Mobilization”

In his essay “Total Mobilization”, Ernst Jünger conceives of mobilization as the "conversion of life into energy" (126).  In other words, there is a certain force or power in each individual that if properly focused yields productive results.  Jünger believes that mobilization is already at work in his Post WWI German society, born from the technological progress of modernity and the massive contribution of industrialism to the war effort.  Consequently, he finds in the nature of the modern urban setting and the factory an increasing disintegration of autonomous subjectivity, that is, the subject’s environment is codifying and disciplining him/her into thinking and moving more as a mass than as an individual; the modern subject is more an object/part in a greater whole.  Essentially, Jünger’s conception of mobilization is formally similar to Lang’s view of labor in Metropolis, insofar as every worker is plugged into a machine (to “harvest” his/her life-energy) that is plugged into a machine that is plugged into a machine, which in total serve to operate the Great Machine or the city.   Rather than resist this trend toward mobilization, Jünger calls for a complete integration of its “merciless discipline” in order to martial all possible energy  – even at the sacrifice of personal freedom – for a common Cause, which is a concept we isn’t necessarily immediate in Lang’s film.         

While Jünger claims that total mobilization “is far less consummated than it consummates itself,” we are left to wonder if there is still some agency that is intervening to symbolize and discipline the new labor mass.  Returning to the example of Metropolis, when Freder takes over the strange clock-like machine in labor sector, it is almost as if the machine is running him, insofar as he is disciplined by the lights that are constantly dictating his next movements.  Here we might be inclined to agree with Jünger that in our modern life machines subject or mobilize us.  On the other hand, the disenchantment of the workers in Metropolis also points to a certain inability of mobilization to fully integrate the individual into a totalized mass.  Jünger might argue here that with Metropolis Lang gives us a picture of mobilization without the Cause, without the necessary “direction, awareness, and form” (133).  That is to say, the laborer is lacking the spirit of mobilization that would penetrate to his very “essence”.  Perhaps Lang does give us a “Cause” in the character of Freder, who becomes the “heart” that is mediator between the “head” of Frederson and the “hands” of the laborers.  However, the Cause, or heart, is located particularly in the subject, a concept that Jünger wants to disavow in favor of the mass.  This begs the question, does the Cause announce itself somehow?  Does it organize itself?  This also raises the question of authority in a totally mobilized society.  In his essay, Jünger does not account for an authority that might organize and steer mobilization in direction of the Cause, or correct its course if it happens to stray; he also gives no account of how this authority would be decided upon.  Here, we should consider the figure of Frederson, who is precisely the agency that has designed, structured, and put into motion the great city.  Frederson is in constant oversight of the city’s operations and intervenes in order to insure its perpetual functioning, most notably in his manipulation of the workers’ belief in Maria with her simulacra.  Given Lang’s troubling account of mobilization, from the civil unrest of the “sweatshop” labor to the intervention of the evil “Corporate Father”, it would seem as if mobilization needed a considerable amount of help “consummating” itself.

In the vision of total mobilization that Jünger describes no energy can escape its codification and discipline; all force must be harnessed in support of the “war effort”.  What is crucial to keep in mind regarding total mobilization is the complete integration of an individual in the war effort.  Not only must the subject’s physical and technical capacities be harnessed for the Cause, but the Cause must penetrate to his/her very “essence”; mobilization for the Cause is not what someone does it is who he/she is at the very kernel of his/her identity.  While at some level technological progress might be subjecting the individual to a more mass mentality, Jünger’s statement about he curtailment of “individual liberty” to expedite mobilization suggests that the process is not as efficient as he wishes to portray it; there is something in the individual that resists the attempt of total integration.  In other words, some obstinate individuals might need to be coerced into believing in the Cause.  Jünger does not address this possibility in “Total Mobilization” let alone give us some conception of how the dissident voice will be incorporated into the fold.  This would once again require addressing the issue of authority in governing the social order that he avoids.  We are left to ask, what happens to those individuals who refuse integration into the totalitarian order?  What means can be justified by and for the Cause?  Who decides on these means?