Oswald Spengler
Oswald Spengler, 1880-1936, was a
German historian and philosopher. Classically trained, his studies covered
mathematics, science, philosophy, history, and art. His major work, The
Decline of the West (2 vol., 1918-22), generated worldwide, popular
interest -- athough, being somewhat of an "outsider" of the reigning
professional societies of the day, Spengler was never given much scholastic
credence in their circles. The English translation was published in the U.S.
by Knopf in 1922.
Spengler maintained that every human culture passes a natural life cycle from
its birth and youthful stage, passing through maturity and old age, and ending
in ultimate death. Western culture similarly had proceeded through this same
cycle and, he maintained, had entered its inevitable period of decline.
Spengler believed that citizens had an obligation of obedience to the state,
and he supported the notion of German hegemony in Europe. However, his refusal
to support subsequent National Socialist theories of aryan racial superiority
led to his ostracism after the Nazis came to power in 1933.
Some of Spengler's speculations have gotten a bit long in the tooth, but many
of his ideas still seem prescient today. Read this excerpt from
Oswald Spengler:
An Introduction to his Life and Ideas, by Keith Stimely (Journal of
Historical Review, Vol. 17 No. 2):
The high-water
mark of a High Culture is its phase of fulfillment -- called the "culture"
phase. The beginning of decline and decay in a Culture is the transition
point between its "culture" phase and the "civilization" phase that
inevitably follows.
The "civilization" phase witnesses drastic social upheavals, mass movements
of peoples, continual wars and constant crises. All this takes place along
with the growth of the great "megalopolis" -- huge urban and suburban
centers that sap the surrounding countrysides of their vitality, intellect,
strength, and soul. The inhabitants of these urban conglomerations -- now
the bulk of the populace -- are a rootless, soulless, godless, and
materialistic mass, who love nothing more than their panem et circenses
[literally, "bread and circuses", the domestic strategy of later Roman
Emperors]. From these come the subhuman "fellaheen" -- fitting participants
in the dying-out of a culture.
With the civilization phase comes the rule of Money and its twin tools,
Democracy and the Press. Money rules over the chaos, and only Money profits
by it. But the true bearers of the culture -- the men whose souls are still
one with the culture-soul -- are disgusted and repelled by the Money-power
and its fellaheen, and act to break it, as they are compelled to do so --
and as the mass culture-soul compels finally the end of the dictatorship of
Money. Thus the civilization phase concludes with the Age of Caesarism, in
which great power come into the hands of great men, helped in this by the
chaos of late Money-rule. The advent of the Caesars marks the return of
Authority and Duty, of Honor and "Blood," and the end of democracy.
With this arrives the "imperialistic" stage of civilization, in which the
Caesars with their bands of followers battle each other for control of the
earth. The great masses are uncomprehending and uncaring; the megalopoli
slowly depopulate, and the masses gradually "return to the land," to busy
themselves there with the same soil-tasks as their ancestors centuries
before. The turmoil of events goes on above their heads. Now, amidst all the
chaos of the times, there comes a "second religiosity"; a longing return to
the old symbols of the faith of the culture. Fortified thus, the masses in a
kind of resigned contentment bury their souls and their efforts into the
soil from which they and their culture sprang, and against this background
the dying of the Culture and the civilization it created is played out.
To me, this may well be describing the cusp of current events. Spengler
noted that most civilizations seemed to have a lifespan of around 1000 years.
I would submit that our current western civilization, ultimately exemplified
by American culture, started in England, in 1066 A.D. Do the math.
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