The Glass Bees
The Glass Bees, by Ernst Junger,
was originally written in 1957 but was dismissed for lacking any particularly
deep insight into its time. Five decades later, it appears the novel was much
more prophetic than it originally seemed. The plot takes place primarily in the
mind of its protagonist, Captain Richard, as he agonizes over the possibility
taking a job as a security officer for an infamous tech company. Zapparoni, the
company’s head, has made a fortune in the creation of automatons. Most
eminently are his glass bees which function as a prototype of drone swarm technology. What is perhaps
most outstanding, however, is Junger’s ability not only to foresee what was to
come, but look even beyond that:
My query is this: why are those who
have endangered and changed our lives in such terrible and unpredictable ways
not content with unleashing and controlling enormous forces and with enjoying
their consequent fame, power, and wealth? Why must they want to be saints as
well?
This question had especially bothered me when I was employed as a tank
inspector. Among the few books I carried with me at that time (along with
Flavius Josephus) was the Conquest of Mexico by Prescott. The
fascination of this book lies in its evocation of man’s rigid taboos and
obsessions during the late stone age civilizations where priesthoods and sun
temples and human sacrifices abounded. We see, as through a narrow chink,
impassive faces seemingly carved of stone, and the streams of blood which flow
down through the grooves and drains of the altar in the Great Teocalli. No
wonder the Spanish believed the vast abodes of Satan had opened before their
eyes.
But isn’t is possible that, when once again the curtain of the great
world stage has fallen, no less horrified eyes be directed upon us and our
saints? We do not know how we shall appear in the history books of future
centuries or at the great judgment of the dead on civilizations. Perhaps such a
wizened old blood-priest will be preferred to any of our saints.
…
At a certain point in time we can begin to speak of a dynamite
civilization (it is no accident that the highest prize for cultural achievement
is provided from a dynamite fund*): the world is filled with the noise of
explosions—from the rapid, diminutive explosions which set in motion myriads of
machines, to the explosions which threaten continents. We walk through a panorama
of pictures, which, if we have not fallen under its spell, reminds us of a
large lunatic asylum—here we see an automobile race, in the course of which the
car drives amongst the spectators like a missile, mowing some dozens of them
down; and there, a “pattern bombing,” by which a squadron of bombers rolls up a
city like a carpet, in a few minutes dissolving in smoke a work of art which
took a thousand years to complete.
And on Zapparoni himself,
Zapparoni had as many faces as his
work had meanings. Where was the minotaur in this labyrinth? Was he the kind of
grandfather who made children, housewives, and small gardeners happy? Was he
the contractor who moralized about the army and, at the same time, equipped it
with ingenious weapons?
Again, originally written in 1957.
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