/lit/ - Literature

Do all civilizations go through the same type of decline? Or does it depend on their character and circumstances?

According to Evola in RATW, Guenon in Reign of Quantity, etc., we see the pathway described in pic-related. But I also have heard about how the esoteric traditions of the West managed to strike a careful balance between appreciating the material and the spiritual world. China focused too much on the material, while India focused too much on the spiritual, while the West did fine... for a while.

What does that mean? It seems like the West and China are sharing in a similar civilizational pathway. But wouldn't that mean that India faced its own civilizational decline that is some kind of mirror image of involution in the opposite direction (i.e., spiritual while neglecting the material)?

If so, what would that look like?

>>12082370
no, read up on involution. involution both mathematically and philosophically represents when a certain function, value, or idea undergoes some changes and eventually returns back to its original state. traditionalism argues that everything is a cycle, similar to the strauss-howe theory. it argues for positive stagnation, to preserve an orderly social structure for as long as possible. however, the cycle is always moving (even if slowly), and traditionalists understand that various ages or periods of time (each denoted by various phenomena) are ultimately unavoidable. this was what evola's "ride the tiger" spoke extensively on, that the man of tradition in an era hinging on social collapse should instead ready himself internally for what's to come afterwards while simultaneously aiding society's collapse by going along with it.

you say "progressives want to change" and "but you only want to resist", implying that both options are equals. they are not. traditionalism desires an ultimate preservation of order, whereas progress demands change which cannot occur without chaos. ultimately these two forces reset when the critical point is reached and the cycle restarts often via civil war.

>>11729116
To leftists, a "conspiracy theory" is basically concern about anything other than the disruption or too-slow pace of what they call progress, which is mostly just the endless inversion of all traditional values and power structures.

What are your thoughts on this? I personally see a lot of truth in it, but of course there is a lot of faults, just as Spengler's or Glubb's theory of civilizational decline had.