Oswald Spengler – an intellectual life
engelsbergideas.com
engelsbergideas.com
Spengler also seemed to believe it was impossible to "truly" understand how people from earlier times thought. But then he made some very strong claims, like stating that the ancients didn't have a sense of time. Once again, there is some truth here, but he over-generalizes.
Table of Contents
I. Introduction
II. The Meaning of Numbers
III. The Problem of World-History (1) Physiognomic and Systematic
IV. The Problem of World-History (2) the Destiny-idea and the Causality-Principle
V. Makrokosmos (1) The Symbolism of the World-picture and the Problem of Space
VI. Makrokosmos (2) Appolonian, Faustian, and Magian
VII. Music and Plastic (1) the Arts of form
VIII. Music and Plastic (2) Act and Portrait
IX. Soul-image and Life-feeling (1) On the Form of the Soul
X. Soul-image and Life-feeling (2) Buddhism, Stoicism, and Socialism
XI. Faustian and Appolonian Nature-knowledge[2]
[2] Caveat: the translator may have exoticised perfectly normal words, for instance if Nature-knowledge were Naturwissenschaft, "Faustian and Appolonian science" would have been smoother.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24710096
Kaka ere apapish, kaka ere perepish.
Not just 'his criticism' -> he himself actively worked against the Weimarer Republik and he promoted a dictatorship (similar to the Fascism in Italy). Spengler was one of the most influential conservative thinkers supporting the destruction of the democracy and thus helped the rise of the Nazi movement. He also promoted anti-semitism.
As Von Klemperer argues in his classical history of ideas of the Conservative Revolution, the Nazi movement was ideologically fueled by these conservative intelligentsia:
>It mattered in these days that both movements were counter- revolutionary agents in the Republic and appealed to the worst instincts of the population. The vicious charges of the neo-conservatives against the political parties, the Weimar "system," or the Western powers, their mere use (with whatever mental reservations) of the new glittering vocabulary words like "myth," "totality," and "race" were but grist for the Nazi propaganda mill. That is why the initial alienation of the neo-conservative forces from the Republic was so fatal an event. It paved the way for the Rightist intelligentsia to serve the aims of the Nazi revolution. [1]
I do not consider that disqualifying by itself. Plato and Socrates viewed democracy critically, too. I do agree, howeve, that the author paints an awfully one-sided picture of Spengler.
Yeah he never pretended otherwise. I'm not sure what your point is here - that there shouldn't be any antidemocratic thinkers? There should only exist people who like democracy?
Not sure that promoting the work of an anti-modern, anti-semetic, pro-facist, who's eschatology directly assaults democracy is useful or necessary.
Polybius take on this is a permanent anacyclosis: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anacyclosis
Looking back on that century with a couple of decades' distance, I'd say oligarchy.
I like how we (a vibrant multiparty democracy) do referenda: the referendum text gets put on the ballot, the current government makes a counterproposal "yes, we agree X is a problem but we believe Y is a better solution", and we get to vote either (a) for the referendum proposal, (b) for the government proposal, or (c), the most common option, to leave well enough alone.
Sili im mebi na ta bek, mogut fo na du im gut.
While remaining powerful, they are much less so than 1 to 4 of centuries ago.
Nowadays a tax raise or police blunder triggers very politically determinant reactions from fickle crowds (France, USA...).
IMHO during the past century the power went to the richest people (oligarchy) in way less zones than to mobs installing an "absence or impairment of a procedurally civil and democratic process". Think China, USSR, many countries in South-America, even many "democratic" Western nations...
I'd say Polybius was right on this one.
I don't know enough about china to say (but do know they have billionaires and hedge funds, à la the Quantum Fund), USSR had its nomenklatura (several of whom went on to literally be called oligarchs in the FSU), many countries in South America had juntas, etc.
Even somalia seems to be less an anarchy and more tribally organised.
Bonus clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTU2He2BIc0
Same for China: Mao and his followers weren't rich, and AFAIK rich Chinese are indigent compared to Emperors and their family/suit, and not very politically powerful.
Juntas were composed of high-ranking military, who AFAIK weren't rich (most came from the middle-class) nor became so.
Tribalism isn't oligarchic.
The recent pertinent exception are banksters, however their power (albeit non-neglectable) seems rather limited and focused on some Western nations (the 'Old Core').
> "Oligarchy (from Greek ὀλιγαρχία (oligarkhía); from ὀλίγος (olígos) 'few', and ἄρχω (arkho) 'to rule or to command'"
which agrees with my head-canon terms of "how large is the selectorate?"
- monarchy : "L'état, c'est moi."
- oligarchy : to do something, convince the inner circle
- democracy : to do something, convince an entire electorateAs you wrote: > china to say (but do know they have billionaires and hedge funds, à la the Quantum Fund), USSR had its nomenklatura (several of whom went on to literally be called oligarchs in the FSU),
I believed that your thoughts were on this "rule by the rich" track.
Your definitions may not always enable to distinguish oligarchy from democracy, because the "entire electorate", without any other specification, may be an "inner circle". This, indeed, is about "how large is the selectorate?", and "democracy", here (when it comes to distinguish it from "oligarchy"), implies a pure democracy ("universal suffrage" coupled to a "direct democracy").
As no such pure democracy exists nor existed, our debate seems moot. In more than one way delegation, more precisely the "Consent of the governed" concept ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consent_of_the_governed ), may be our central concept.
Moreover one may always argue that a pure democracy isn't sufficient to escape from oligarchy, because I can't see why 'Manufacturing Consent' ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent ) wouldn't work.
One might hope to break a chain[3] of oligarchic transmission via transparency, democratisation, and restructuring, but Gorbachev's recent experience suggests any current oligarchies would be very wary.
As far as consent manufacturing goes, I'd claim Orwell's crimestop is exactly congruent to the "internalized assumptions, and self-censorship" of Chomsky et.al. (compare Girard's https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mimetic_theory or https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23847087 or https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23858477 . The FT and Le Monde often betray strikingly different assumptions as to the immediate viability of the EU, for example.)
[1] Compare the "cynical" circumlocution in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24689867 for the english word "revolt". (a geeky circumlocution: du tu tawu, "2 tau" as a verb, assuming that by that time π has been dethroned.)
[2] to what degree is the G7 Barnett's "Old Core" and the E7 his "New Core"?
[3] 1984 is subtler than popular culture gives it credit for. In principle, Oceania is a pure meritocracy, with inner party admission by examination. (I take Goldstein's "in principle" to mean that on the whole selective school students make it to the inner pary while comprehensive school students wind up in the outer.)
PS. Ellul I will have to explore. Mogut fo to pensa ere da belek amash to bang kapawu ong? (better to think of the cosmos yet steer one's own ship)
The most recent papal encyclical https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24684152 seems to echo Ellul in places...
From what I know so far[2] I am prejudiced against it, in that ascribing seasons to civilisations (Spring/Summer/Fall/Winter) strikes me as being parallel to "technical analysis" for stocks: possibly useful for historians in description, but anyone who attempts to apply the model for prediction should hope to be lucky.
[1] I agree with the characterisation of the Washington Consensus as Faustian, and the title of this book might help explain why the Nazis were so obsessed with Saving The West (even if it didn't wish to be saved) from Jewish Communism.
Goebbels, apud https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24141227
> "Die europäischen Mächte stehen hier vor ihrer entscheidenden Lebensfrage. Das Abendland ist in Gefahr. Ob ihre Regierungen und ihre Intelligenzschichten das einsehen wollen oder nicht, ist dabei gänzlich unerheblich."
European powers are faced with an existential crisis. The West is in danger. Whether their governments and their intellectuals will admit it or not is irrelevant.
> "Die Welt hat also nicht die Wahl zwischen einem in seine alte Zersplitterung zurückfallenden und einem unter der Achsenführung sich neu ordnenden Europa, sondern nur die zwischen einem unter dem militärischen Schutz der Achse stehenden und einem bolschewistischen Europa."
Therefore the world doesn't face the choice between falling back into its old divisions or joining a New Axis Order, but only the choice between accepting the military protection of the Axis or becoming Communist.
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Decline_of_the_West
The propaganda importance of a Faustian West in decline to be replaced by a Caesarian successor was noted by Linebarger, http://www.gutenberg.org/files/48612/48612-h/48612-h.htm#Pag...
> "... in the political warfare field, [the Germans] succeeded in making large sections of world opinion believe that the world's future was a choice between Communism and Fascism. Since they and the Communists agreed on this the point seemed well taken. Actually, there is no historical or economic justification for supposing that those two forms of dictatorship constitute a real choice in the first place, or that the civilized and truly free countries need ever depart from their ancient freedoms in the second place."
I believe this report of a false dichotomy because it (enforced by armed private militiamen!) was also noted by Weil.
> New civilizations emerging at the periphery...
Well, they're unlikely to emerge within another's sphere, aren't they? Unless they're exceedingly civilised, civilisations behave like cuckoos to their neighbours.
> A rise in strongmen or dictators
Good point. I'll keep this in mind when reading Spengler, but as for two famous strongmen, I believe more parsimonious explanations are:
(a) Putin : neo-feudalism is what one gets when russians spend the 1980's deciding the capitalists had valid criticisms of communism, then the 1990's deciding the communists had valid criticisms of capitalism.
(b) Xi : his decisions are backed because they are popular in china, not the other way around.
and as for the third, I'm willing to wait until 2021 to collect more data, but note that his military has been, in writing, disinclined to cross the Rubicon.
> resurgent popularity of religion
[citation needed] Even in the US context, imx much more religious than ours, religion isn't resurging. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_the_United_States#...
TL;DR: unfalsifiable, true, false?
TIL Alea iacta est referred to ἀνερρίφθω κύβος (and is referred to by finyish du wedzha). https://laudatortemporisacti.blogspot.com/2017/12/let-die-be...
How would you describe christianity in the roman empire? I might considerit a 'new civilization' once it was adpoted.
In the US, religion is in severe decline in any place near or in a city. Rural religious communities are hanging on by threads. I've seen church closings and communities that have adopted agnostic beliefs fairly qucikly in the last 4 years. Immigrants do bring a lot of religious people here but their children usually do not conform to those beliefs.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crisis_of_the_Third_Century
> "The crisis began with the assassination of Emperor Severus Alexander by his own troops in 235. This initiated a 50-year period during which there were at least 26 claimants to the title of emperor, mostly prominent Roman army generals, who assumed imperial power over all or part of the Empire."
Furthermore,
> ... religion is in severe decline in any place near or in a city. Rural religious communities are hanging on by threads.
is not supported by the data[1] on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_the_United_States#... and we know from the 1950-2019 graph that secular trends are not rapid enough to drastically change the numbers below in half a decade.
For instance, Seattle itself was 63% religious, and as for rural religious communities, alabama was 87% religious.
[1] It's amusing to me how the US divides religious beliefs. For example, my wife, from a traditionally catholic area, divides christianity with the trichotomy of "Christians" (catholics), "Reformeds" (protestants) and "Fishies" (all the other cults). To be fair, she might count orthodox in their own grouping, but when this came up we were talking about local cults.
So (assuming all those racially segegrated listings are evangelical denominations?) she'd say the US a few years ago was 13% reformed, 20% christian, and 32-35% fishie.
To your point, I think that not only are his predictions about the future falsifiable, but the structure itself has issues. I don't disagree with the whole notion of the cycle of seasons applied to civilizations. I think that is actually a very useful frame that connects humankind to nature and the circle of life that we could do more of. But if he wishes to use the vehicle of the cycle, then he must accept all of its implications, not just the ones which are convenient to him. From "winter" comes "spring." But according to the article "this ‘feeling’ is a remembrance rather than an anticipation. " Why should we accept this frame?
> The time of birth and rejuvenation is forever finished, metaphorically speaking. In this present phase, Spengler’s prophesising limns an authoritative ruler or ‘new emperor’ who emerges in response to the disintegration of culture. He called this the Caesarian age.
It is true that many empires of old were hereditary monarchies of strongmen rulers. Perhaps even today we see authoritarian governments with long running proto-monarchs. But will their tenure survive their lifespans? Have they built a resilient enough structure to do so? The truth is that if his own analogy holds, nature eventually "conquers" man, and winter always gives way to spring. Every empire crumbles back into nature under a relatively long timespan. If this is the case, isn't his idea of a Caesarian age somewhat optimistic and naive? Perhaps even ironically so for someone so commonly known as a pessimist.
Decline of the west
From the vantage of the twenty-first, I say: false.
[1] examples: "Above all, this is manifested in the bizarre hypotheses of atomic disintegration which elucidate the phenomena of radioactivity ... With ideas like these the mythopoetic force of the Faustian soul is returning to its origins."
"Every physics, as I have shown, must break down over the motion-problem, in which the living person of the knower methodically intrudes into the inorganic form-world of the known."
Force is "(1) in the 17th century (Galileo, Newton, Leibniz) ... pictorially formed and in unison with the great art of oil-painting that died out about 1630: (2) in the 18th century (...Laplace, Lagrange...) ... abstract character of the fugue style and is in unison with Bach ...(3) with the Culture at its end ... the theory of functions of several complex variables ..."
etc. etc.
What change has caused interest in Oswald Spengler to increase?
Forgive me if I’m being sensitive. It’s just, you know, the whole democracy thing, that little anti-semitism thing, and his support of just slightly questionable politicians like Mussolini.
;)