ARTICOLI / 2 / Caterina Resta /
The 1755 Lisbon earthquake was widely discussed by the most famous Enlightenment philosophers, from Voltaire to Rousseau to Kant; this dreadful event not only spelt the end of theodicy, but it also gave rise to a new trust in the scientific knowledge. This trust and the “myth” of progress, though, have beendefinitively shattered by the destructive power of technology emerged in the First World War. Ernst Jünger, “seismograph” of this catastrophe, interprets it as a “total mobilization” and as a telluric tremorthat is still rocking our planet in its foundations. Only if we recognize that we are children and guests of the Earth, we will be able to ward off the final catastrophe of our history.
