/lit/ - Literature

>tfw faustian

>>11851688
His essay "Man and Technics" is criminally underrated.

>>11851790
That and The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays came in the mail yesterday. Which should I read first?

>>11851879
The latter one is by Martin Heidegger btw.

>>11851889
Heidegger afterwards, he was a big Spengler fan.

>>11851771
>tfw Faustian
>tfw know that my laziness is de facto my Mephisto

Do you guys think that the American Caesarism started with Obama(nia) or with Trump? Anyhow, it coincides well with the changes around the oldest and wealthiest individuals and institutions, Rockefeller, Soros (soon), ~20 suicided Goldman Sachs executives, 2008 changes...

>>11852083
>20 suicided Goldman-Sachs executives

Link?

The essential incel philosopher.

>>11852135
/pol/ started digging after a banker shot himself with a nailgun to the back of his head.
https://www.itmtrading.com/blog/banker-suicides-is-something-going-on/
Here's something. Dead HDD had more stuff, and I suppose you could always ask /pol/.

I've been searching all over for this: does anyone know where in Spengler's work he talks about a "renaissance of the Medieval"?

>>11852174
>/pol/ started digging

The absolute state of /lit/

>>11852203
All of the digging was merely links of public and known mass media. The biggest article was on Forbes IIRC, but Google isn't of much use.

>>11851989
was he? I remember Heidegger mentioning the Spengler forgot the question of being

>>11852083
It's a slow process but the first caesar is probably Drumlg
He decisively won over the woke plutocrats and their entire intelligence and media apparatus. Billionaires hate him. He shits all over their old rituals. He's loved by the native plebs.
He's done a lot of caesarian dog whistling but I'm not sure if he actually wants to be king. Hard to know if it's him or the guy (or woman) after him.
I'm kinda interested in what nu religion we get. The evangelicals have been setting it up to be something along the lines of Jared Kushner being the antichrist (with him being the messiah for the Jewish ppl), the third temple being rebuilt after oy vey a Christian or Muslim extreemist blows up the Dome of the Rock, then Jesus dropping.
Who knows if that meme with come to pass though.

>>11852983
>I'm kinda interested in what nu religion we get. The evangelicals have been setting it up to be something along the lines of Jared Kushner being the antichrist (with him being the messiah for the Jewish ppl), the third temple being rebuilt after oy vey a Christian or Muslim extreemist blows up the Dome of the Rock, then Jesus dropping.
Rolling for fascist paganism

>>11852138
what the fuck are you even talking about?

>>11852083
we're not there yet, still in a proto-caesarist stage, but you get the sense there is a growing longing and necessity for such men to lead us

>>11852919
yes he said something along the lines of "I have yet to come across anything showing Spengler to be wrong"

>>11853054
>>11852983
I've put some thought into this. If we're going with "America is Rome" then we need to find out who the "New Israel" is.

Israel
>Is filled with Israelis, who are religious weirdos whose religion is deeply influenced by that of Persia
>Israel is given significant political autonomy in return for acting as a speedbump in case of Persian invasion
>Israel is next to Egypt, which is an old empire that has been conquered and acts as a significant economic asset
>Israel was formerly owned by Persia
>Israel's primary geopolitical value is that it acts as the closest entity Persia has to take in order to access the Mediterranean. This is important because the Mediterranean is the primary means of transport for goods through Rome's economy
So, assuming China is Persia, it's probably Japan or Korea, with the other being Egypt. Somewhere in SEA is also possible, but less likely.

This is assuming China is Persia and not Carthage, in which case things change. I would, however, wager that Germany is Carthage, which raises the question of who Russia is.

>>11851989
Nearly every mention of Spengler in the black notebooks is dismissive. He calls him a penpusher several times.

>>11852083
currently, i'd say President Trump, since he supports and is supported by the military (whereas Obama was deliberately undermining it).
Trump also has enormous "pleb" support.
Caesar was also part of the elite class that took an interest in the plebs, against his own class (iirc he was a tribune), much like Trump is an elite that is pissing off a lot of his own kind.

>>11851688
Glad to see another Spengler thread. Reading group when?

Where do you guys find spengler books? I know french and english and it's impossible to find his books in french. I heard an anon say that the english translation of decline of the west was not well translated and that some parts were missing from the original. Is this true?

>>11852048
>those uniforms and flags
>mfw this is something /pol/ would legitimately want back
I'm glad the world is burning. Everything after the Greeks [including the (((Romans)))] is a nightmare we need to wake up from.

>>11854412
>i'd say President Trump, since he supports and is supported by the military
Not really, most people in the military hate Trump because most people in the military tend to be pro-Establishment. What Trump supports is the Jews and the military industrial complex, which does indeed support him back.
>whereas Obama was deliberately undermining it
Obama was almost worse than Bush, lol. He pushed for a ton of military intervention as well as military spending, and the military sucked his cock all the time.
>Trump also has enormous "pleb" support.
No, he doesn't. It's fair to say that less than half of Americans even like Trump, never mind "supporting" him. The majority of people that voted for Trump voted against the Democrats, not FOR Trump. Very few presidents in American history were beloved by the majority of the population. And as far as world leaders go, Putin is probably one of the few if not the only one right now that has the full support from most of Russia's citizens.
>Caesar was also part of the elite class
Not at all. By the time Caesar was born, his branch of the family was incredibly poor, and they hadn't even been consuls in decades. They were scraping by on name alone, which is why Caesar had to make countless loans in order to get his career started.
>took an interest in the plebs
Caesar didn't give a fuck about the poor, since I assume that's what you mean by plebs and not actual plebeians. He paid them off to have their support within the streets of Rome, and that was about it. Though he was smart enough to understand that you couldn't piss of the legions forever and did make changes to assist them in that regard.
And I hope you're not implying that Trump cares about poor whites or something like that, because then this is just laughable altogether.
>against his own class
Again, this is wrong. Much of what Caesar did was a response to what others first did against him and looking to his own interests. But in no way was Caesar for the lower classes apart from assuring the stability of Rome, which the rampant greed displayed by many of the senators threatened to undermine.
>iirc he was a tribune
Ugh, this disgusting level of stupidity... Caesar was a military tribune, not a tribune of the people (or plebs). The two have absolutely nothing in common. Why do you talk when you clearly know nothing about history and politics? Seriously? Just why? Do you feel like a big boy typing out all this drivel and shitting up /lit/?
>Trump is an elite
No, he's not. He's failed businessman that came from a well-off family, but in no way has Trump ever been an "elite." They have never been that rich nor that powerful. He is still pretty much a buffoon within the White House that the real elites (see: establishment Republicans and Democrats) struggle to keep in check.

But yeah, please don't speak ever again.

>>11852083
With neither, and it won't ever start. Not every culture follows the same pattern of decline. Also, when the Republic gave way to the Empire, Rome was the indomitable power of the Mediterranean. America is crumbling from within and from without. Its entire existence depends on the surplus that's sent its way by its vassal states.
Literally the only reason you'd want for America to go on existing if you were another competing power is because the loss of America threatens the entire world economy due to the infernal structure that's imposed upon us by the neoliberals.
People that think China would ever attack America are fucking retarded, since China actively needs the American market in order to survive. If Americans outright stopped buying Chinese goods, China would be fucked. And if China then refused to buy goods from American allies, like South Korea and Japan, they would be fucked. Soon enough we'd enter an economic meltdown potentially worse than what we got in 2008.
But if American elites don't get their shit together soon and start building up the poor of the country and its infrastructure, they're putting themselves in a perilous position for the future.

>>11855430
>Putin is probably one of the few if not the only one right now that has the full support from most of Russia's citizens.

his rating declined massively after unpopular pension reforms, several regions voted for opposition leaders because of that

t. russki

>>11855469
>due to the infernal structure that's imposed upon us by the neoliberals.

What do you mean by that? Worldwide free capital flows and free trade?

While these have brought us lots of uncertainities, they're also the only reason we have had peace around the developed World for almost 80 years. Countries are too dependent on each other economically, so attacking your neighbor always means cutting your own flesh.

>>11855494
>What do you mean by that?
I mean that America is a superpower with a blackhole deficit that's actively dependent on two things to survive:
1. The surplus generated by its allies (and also enemies) that then gets pumped back into the system through Wall Street. This would stop as soon as the dollar standard is lost and/or America loses its hegemonic control over the economy. Which has already started with the 2008 near-collapse, and will definitely repeated itself given that we're still running under the same corrupt system with basically no fixes. The Fed and Wall Street (or the Jews, for the /pol/acks out there that need this simplified) still run things in the exact same way they did before the 2008 crisis.
>Worldwide free capital flows and free trade?
Oh, anon... You don't actually believe in free flows of capital and free trade, right? You realize this has never been a thing and will never be a thing? It's inherently against the capitalist system, as well as national interests. The only reason other countries even have a working economic system is because Americans allowed them to do so. Without America to prop up places like Germany and Japan they would've been a big fucking zero. If America hadn't intervened Germany would be way worse than what Yugoslavia is right now. The only reason they saw this kind of growth is because the American leaders decided to give it to them. They literally sacrificed entire American businesses and undermined them in order to let Japan export to the USA and let its vassal grow into an economic power in its own right.
>They're also the only reason we have had peace around the developed World for almost 80 years
Lel. This is pathetic and below you, dude. You aren't a fucking Democrat or Republican shilling the party line. The only reason there has been "peace" is because America is not a power anyone would fuck with. That's it. Once capitalism came to full power in Europe it gave way to imperialism and corporatism, not to fucking nationalism. If you seriously think "free trade" is what's keeping the peace, you're utterly misinformed and bordering on delusional. Pax Americana keeps the peace among some states. That is all.
>Countries are too dependent on each other economically, so attacking your neighbor always means cutting your own flesh.
This is wrong and it shows that you do not understand anything of what's being said. There is definitely a reason to attack your neighbor, which is why imperialism took off in Europe. The world is large. I don't need to export to you. I can fuck you up, take your resources, and export to someone else. This is in no way what I am talking about. What I'm talking about is the very fact that there is no such thing as "free capital flows and free trade." There is only the dollar. And all of these countries - especially China that everyone says is America's greeeaaaat enemy - have bought into the dollar.

>>11852083
I'm not American but I would say with George Bush and the whole Iraq war.
>>11855559
Not that guy but there are big efforts in China to push the Yuan as another possible world currency and many countries are actively buying gold to protect themselves from the possible dollar collapse.

>>11855559
Interesting post.

What role does the Eurozone play in all of this? Its as big of an economy as the USA, so it must have some weight.

caesarism retained the semblance of republican government in Rome, so it is likely that by the time caesarism has begun, we won't actually know it for some reason

>>11855329
Well the only version in publication is an abridged version so yes.

>>11853427
The Vandals

>>11855329
look at ebay, my uni library has two unabridged copies in english translation and original german

>>11852178
Can I get an answer to this, please? I've looked all over for it.

>>11852083
It started with Franklin Roosevelt beyond a doubt. You are expecting too much too quick.

>>11858282
>Caesarism started but there has been no Caesar and we are still a Republic
are you the same guy from the other day

>>11852178
Never read anything by Spengler who said that but I heart the author of "lauros" has some ideas similar to that.

Unfortunately I can't find a PDF anywhere online

Oh. I have a copy of part 1 of The Decline Of The West that I never got around to reading. I was always intimidated by it. I'm sorry I missed the previous thread. OP, can you post a URL of it from the archive?

>>11858819

>>11828567

Can we please have a thread were we don't talk about Caesarism? From now on, let's discuss Palestrina and Don Quijote, OK?

>>11852174
They probably started making more money after the economy got better and blew some of it on one line of coke too many
>t. someone who knows people in IB

>>11858819
>>11858927
You should really start using Warosu

>>11855430
Most members of the military voted for trump. About 80 percent or so. Look it up.

>>11859014
Also, many of the counties that swung the election for Trump had heavy casualty rates from Iraq and Afghanistan. Plenty of the military is apolitical too, idk why the other anon would find them to be pro-establishment

>>11851688
Deleuze invalidated his theories

>>11859037
Explain.

>>11852048
What did Anon mean by this?

>>11859264
It means that he didn't read Spengler and projected his own definition of Faustian civ into the post.

>>11851790
THIS.
The last four pages (talking about the original edition from 1931) are absolutely crucial to understand where we are going.

>>11852919
Spengler wasn't a metaphysicist, so of course Heidegger would object to him leaving any ontological questions out. Adorno did the same by saying Spengler didn't consider modes of production. Yet both praised Spengler for his observations and his predictions.

Spengler is read by players, but he's not read by people who read players

(They left Burroughs off the list.)

Spengler's thinking could itself be one of the triumphs of the West.

>>11860626
>Wittgenstein
what

>>11860638
Witty was also a fan of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_Weininger

Not quite the level of metaplayer as Spengler, but read by some players.

>>11860243
Spengler does have a metaphysics, he talks about it in Volume 2 of Decline

It's centred around a framework of spacetime that he divides into Cosmic beat(the historical natural lving world, associated with plants but also with human history) and Waking tension(the animal world, which also creates the dichtomies of 'science' or what analyzes Nature in 'dead' forms)

>>11860638
witty liked his stuff on language iirc, spengler makes a clear distinction between language and thought that may have influenced wittgenstein. He praised him in any case

anyone know where Spengler talks about progress and linear history aside from in the Decline?

anyone else trying to live out the Spenglerian ideal? What is your chosen medium in which you will excel? i am going for diplomacy and statesmanship

Kissinger, Nitze, and Kennan were all apparently inspired by Spengler

>>11855377
what the fuck is wrong with those uniforms and flags?

Reminder that Spengler's book was panned for unsourced gibberish.

>>11859563
>civ
I'm no such thing. My Mephisto gives me infinite knowledge.

>>11862216
Can you give an example of "unsourced gibberish"?

>>11862264
no he can't

spengler was panned and then forgotten because no academics could muster up a sufficient response and so it was easier to forget than confront harsh truth

>>11862350
t. Spengler

>>11862380
then show where he wrote "unsourced gibberish"

>>11853427
I don't know whether you think what you're saying has anything to do with Spengler, but Spengler thought that civilizations and cultures went in cycles, not historical periods.

>>11862264
The idea that nations are living things, the who idea of faustian autism. He just says it without any evidence. Marxism explains everything far better, including the Wiermar Republic's breakdown.

>>11860626
Those influences-influenced lists on wiki are fucking retarded. As is about 75% of wikipedia as a whole.

>>11862476
>The idea that nations are living things, the who idea of faustian autism.
Autism doesn't have the 'who' concept. It's only natural for higher entities to have qualities from lower realities. In this case, a human collective has human qualities and aspects, the same way an ant hive has organic qualities, or your arm has chemical and physical properties.

>>11862476
>He just says it without any evidence.

Spengler rejected historical empiricism literally in the prologue of his book idiot.

>>11862380
It was actually Adorno who said that

>>11862549
I agree, but Heidegger, Adorno and Wittgenstein all explicitly cited Spengler or openly praised him in one way or another.

Bump

>>11862568
*dabs in relatively honest leftism*

>>11855430
you are clearly not military.
i was.
the military supports President Trump, big time.
Obama tried replacing key positions in the officer section, allowed trannies and openly gay people... all to undermine the military.
Bush was supported by the military-industrial complex.
Not sure that Trump is. He hasn't started any wars despite (((them))) attempting to entangle the US in another war (in either Syria, Russia, NKorea).
You clearly don't know anything about Caesar.
Please don't ever speak again, you know as much about history as you do about the modern military, you're a starbucks intellectual with hornrimmed glasses.

>>11859034
>idk why the other anon would find them to be pro-establishment
because he's a starbucks intellectual that hates Trump, and will make up any bullshit story, however ridiculous it may be, just to vent his hatred.

>>11860656
this.

Time:
female
historical
cosmic
plants
land
aristocratic
Being
Culture
warrior

Space:
Eternity/Infinity
Male
Animal
Waking tension (opposed to Being)
Civilization
Priest/scholar

>>11864063
forgot to add

Time:
feeling/emotion, practical

Space:
concept, idea, rational

>>11862350
I mean nobody wants to hear that right. It's why you find so few mentions of the impending collapse of ROme in their literature. ANybody like Spengler provokes hostility and basically is just forgotten

>>11862476
you must be at least 18 years old to post here

Bump

Anyone know further readings on nations/cultures/civilizations as organisms?

>>11865016
Marxists.

>>11865016
All traditional stories.

>>11864063
I disagree with you.
The woman is definitely more animal of the two. Man is more abstract, and is less of a presence as the animal (the ape) than the woman, leaves behind less, requires less. The woman is a stable existence; by rule you know their lineage, but men need hope for that, and even invented names so that they'd leave something behind; an abstract mark.
As women are both more stable and less expendable, they change slower. This means that they need artificial standards - but not arbitrary - to maintain their development and prevent regression towards the more animalistic times and of course, men.

>>11862565
why does he do that=

>>11865295
Sometimes, maps get in the way of descriptions.

>>11865208
the list i made is as Spengler himself divided it.
the reason is chose Animal as representative of male is because man is abstract and more rational, though an easier way to look at it is that woman is Plant because plant is life giving like woman is life giving.
Plants are rooted, and woman is rooted. Animal is wandering, and man is wandering by nature.
Women represents Time, and embodies Change.
Man represents Space, the eternal and abstract.

(again, this is how Spengler himself divided it all. feel free to disagree with him)

>>11865295
empirical research is impossible to conduct in history.
you cant change anything, to confirm your hypotheses

>>11865342
Ahahahahahahahsha wow anon that's really clever

>>11865439
you can't falsify anything in history, applying scientific method to it is impossible, so how are you supposed to conduct "empirical research" in there? you can't, unless you make time machine and can start controlling factors and changing them

>>11865208
Also women are incapable of higher thought.

>>11855377
U r rarted.

>>11859141
Deleuze in his near bottomless sophistry proved that because words don't real, history is actually a triangle, not a line or circle.

>>11862162
>Spenglerian ideal
What that be?

>>11851688
>tfw I read The Decline of the West in Italian, translated by none other than big boi Julius Evola himself
being italian is pretty good sometimes

>>11851790
I was thinking about reading it, I've read ony The Decline and Prussianity and Socialism. What are the main points it argues?

>>11865016
If you are into ancient history, I especially recommend Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War and Polybius' Histories.

>>11866779

>We are born into this time and must bravely follow the path to the destined end. There is no other way. Our duty is to hold on to the lost position, without hope, without rescue, like that Roman soldier whose bones were found in front of a door in Pompeii, who, during the eruption of Vesuvius, died at his post because they forgot to relieve him. That is greatness. That is what it means to be a thoroughbred. The honorable end is the one thing that can not be taken from a man.

>>11865522
At least unwilling. I wonder if I'd ever learned to think if I wasn't attacked so often.

>>11853054
You know it's going to be Mormonism adapted for the Silicon Valley elites.

>>11866828
maybe I'm retarded but where in Thucydides is an organic conception of the state mentioned?

>>11867431
Man and Technics is such an incredible little book. Spengler is seriously underrated in the rest of the npc world.

>>11852048
youre retarded and have misunderstood Mephistopheles

>>11852083
Caesarism hasnt started yet.

Though from Roosevelt onwards we've already had plenty of proto-caesars.

I'm expecting the first caesar figure to be a contemporary Huey Long type.
Consider this: Trump is to Ron Paul like this first caesar will probably be to Bernie Sanders.

>>11852983
>'m kinda interested in what nu religion we get

neo-marianism emerging out of depleted feminism.
Think that Beyoncé worship but even more gay.
its going to be terrible.

>>11855469
>Also, when the Republic gave way to the Empire, Rome was the indomitable power of the Mediterranean. America is crumbling from within and from without

lol, you dont know Roman history very well, do you?

>>11865016
check Delanda's "A Thousand Years of Nonlinear History"

its a fantastic read that applies some biologic and mineral analogies to western history.
Its basically applied cybernetics and complex systems theory to history.

>>11868356
Thanks

>>11868220
My laziness gives me all the answers I bother asking it, and in order to learn I tend to ask my laziness.

>>11851688
Do ya'll buy into his historical determinism? That all societies follow their seasons until eventual civilizations and decay?

>>11868842
It certainly seems to be the case. Though there are plenty of ways for civilizations to end by other means, just as is the case with all life.
Out of the civilizations that get to grow old, all will die of old age.

>>11868842
I don't think determinism is the right word but kind of. Man is certainly constrained by the inevitability of birth, youth, maturity, old age, and death -- but man still has the will to do what he chooses with the time he has been afforded. I think it is the same for cultures and civilizations.

>>11867455
No one like mormons and they kinda fucked it up in the 70s and 80s.

>>11859014
Only 60%.
>>11864037
Doesnt really matter since trump is not a strong leader and people hate his guts.

Bump

>>11864037
>says he's military
>proceeds to speak like a retard
seems accurate desu american soldiers are subhumans

>>11852083
>>11855469

Not the anon you were talking to, but my hypothesis is this. The United States is an empire but it is not an empire like Rome was, but more similar to the British one, and even there, there are crucial differences. Spengler quite honestly didn't expect the US to become the vehicle for the one empire that would take over Faustian/western civilization because he thought the Anglo mindset was too focused on money, profit, strict class antagonisms and exploitation of foreign lands. It is what he labels as the Norman or piratical mode of empire or regime in the Hour of Decision.

The US empire is not an empire in the way Rome was , which was able to centralize Apollonian civilization with ease in the world forms of the city (Rome the center of empire was a city state). The US instead is the gatekeeper and the model of a particular type of liberal democracy and free market capitalist production and exchange. It does this by maintaining an Atlantic alliance of other states which involves security, economy and foreign policy. For the US to become the "One empire" to annex the whole of Faustian civilization is exceedingly hard because firstly they do not want it, second they have no immediate profit from it. So they do not expend their will for such a goal but rather to maintain this network of alliances. Spengler said that the opposite to the British/American mode of empire was Prussian socialism. But this was defeated in the world wars, and socialism was entirely abolished as an economic model with the collapse of the Soviet Union. So we are at an impasse, centralization into one empire cannot happen, and the West is organised into smaller units of living space and political units, while at the same time decline is felt due to further decentralization, with the challenge of the Atlantic alliance.

For those interested beyond Spengler on how this transition from Britain to America's mode empire happened , they should read Carl Schmitt's "Nomos of the Earth", Carroll Quigley's "The Anglo-American Establishment", and Hard's and Negri's "Empire" (they are leftists but this is a seminal work on current analysis of empire).

>>11869471
>People hate his guts

Cat ladies, fags, and 80 IQ brown people hate his guts. He's pretty popular within people who actually matter.

>>11859709
can you post scans or caps of it ?

>>11870316

https://archive.org/details/ManTechnics-AContributionToAPhilosophyOfLife193253/page/n1

>>11870467
oh, had no idea its this easily accessible
thank you

>>11867431
How would I apply this? Sorry man I'm not very smart.

>>11851688
Marshall Mcluhan eternally BTFO Spengler in Understanding Media

>>11871036
Pick your medium of choice, whether it's statesmanship, politics, art, academics, etc and excel and fight with all your strength against that decline which you know is inevitable.

>>11865961
Deleuze is a multiplicity of based.

bump

>>11870216
>dreddit matters
You need to go back.

>>11871128
Elaborate

>>11873119
Dreddit overwhelmingly leans the other way
Blormp is a turd in Reddit’s lunchbox

>>11868842
>y'all
can you fuck off

>>11873824
bump

For all those interested in this topic (the course of civilizations and their comparison, wrongly or rightly, to organisms with determinate lifespans) it might be worth your while to take a look at the writings of Nietzsche, particularly The Gay Science. I'm fairly certain Spengler cited Nietzsche as an influence on his thought; and certain passages in TGS make it clear why. (Note: I don't recommend reading Nietzsche out of order, in the sense of reading his aphorisms as standalone thoughts disconnected from the larger whole. Rather, key passages, while lending themselves to interpretation in a vacuum, so to speak, must be understood within their textual context - indeed, within the context of Nietzsche's literary career as a whole).

Specifically I am thinking of aphorism 23 in Bk 1 of TGS, wherein Nietzsche compares civilization directly to an over-ripe fruit hanging from the tree of culture. In this remarkable passage he challenges the notion, prevalent in his time but one which I believe to be timeless, an idea affixing itself to certain "conservative" personalities in every age, that Western civilization is currently in a period of "corruption." (Next time you find yourself despairing at the future of the West, remember that this is rather an old feeling, as old as the feeling that we are tending toward something newer - and freer). Notably, Nietzsche inverts the idea of corruption and asks his readers to consider if what they perceive as the decay or degeneration - or "untergang" - of Western culture is not rather the perfection of a long course of history which began at some point in the murky aftershocks of the Greco-Roman period. The lessening of the Christian faith, the triumph and science and the secular society of which it is the harbinger, the prolonged defeat and retreat of the Catholic Church in the face of the capitalistic Reformation movements - all these things and more speak, yes, to the end of something great and tragic and old. But the sturdy tree of the West was always meant to bear very ripe fruit.

Nietzsche puts this idea into the context of *individuals*, making the point that, like Caesar and the rise of the Imperial Romans of an earlier period, the West (or Europe, as we might as well call it) has come once again to the historical moment in which certain personalities, suffused with the entire history and pre-history of their various ethnolinguistic subclades, have enough room to exercise their individuality to the fullest extent. It is a period in which the individual (we are not just talking about the "Great Men" of this period, although they too are a phenomenon of such an age of corruption) can *be himself* and *know that he is right in doing so.* In other words, men have superstitious - irrational, even - reasons to believe that they exist for a certain purpose and that this purpose is counter to the periods of history which came before.

>>11874701
It should be noted that this usage of superstition is once more a brilliant use of irony on the part of Nietzsche. One would think that in the age of secular humanism, or what have you, superstition would be dead, replaced instead with something harder - something rational. But as he is at pains to express in Bk 5, even this newfound faith in science is just that: Faith. But that's another topic of discussion. What should be taken away from the reflection on modern superstition, and the reasoning it provides to individuals for them to act in whatever new manners they see fit, is that the period of corruption in which we find these types is sure of itself. It provides its own reasoning, internal to the very late cultural currents underway in such an historical moment.

Nietzsche, of course, champions these types and welcome their appearance. One suspects that he believes they herald the Overman; and his satisfaction that such all-too-human pasttimes as religion, nationalism, and racism, to name but a few, are on the way out in the face of a new type of rational human, indicates that he sees, far off, a bright dawn on a still very dark horizon. How far off that morning is, none can say. Personally, I find Nietzsche to be fairly naive at this point. He at one of the same time points out the cyclical nature of history (and this is a point different from the Eternal Recurrence), yet believes, or wants to believe, that they individuals comprising the period of corruption in which he happens to be placed are unique, new, and deserve to be regarding with the highest esteem - for the trail they are blazing to a new type of Man who has Overcome his humanity, and the remaining vestiges of the older forms of human interaction and virtue. Now I could be misunderstanding this thought here, but I'm not sure you can have both. At the very least I'm surprised that he finds reason to celebrate the arrival of these new types of men, being, as they are, but another point along nature's aimless course. Whatever revaluation they can provide, whatever new Goods and Evil they can instantiate, are almost beside the point. They, too, are swallowed up in the eternal fumbling of a chaotic, blind unfolding of history.

But I take this to be more a reflection of Nietzsche's own internal state - that is to say, his psychological make up. As a man wrecked by various physical maladies, lovelorn and lonely, the victim of an overbearing sister's manipulations, it is no surprise that he read in the "untergang" of which he was keen observer an optimism which defies belief. As he makes clear as well in TGS: much religious philosophy, indeed all religions which have proclaimed a better, happier future state, were largely manifestations of anxiety regarding the state of our temporal bodies. Is it any surprise that Nietzsche, so much more benighted than a Christ or a Buddha, would dream of an Overman immune to the slings and arrows which daily brought him low?

>>11874753
But now I am really off on a tangent. Back to the point about civilization and corruption: Nietzsche asks us to consider if the "degeneration" of our times isn't really the culmination, the fruition, of a growth which has taken a very long time. Trees live to bear fruit; and in a state of nature, over-ripe fruit falls from the tree and - bursts open, its contents spilling across the ground and, one hopes, sowing a new tree where new fruit will eventually spoil.

Spengler takes this idea and tries to locate certain specific civilizations that have, generally speaking, followed this course of growth and decay. And perhaps this is a fun pasttime for the student of history. But I think Nietzsche's criticism goes deeper. I think he is asking us to consider the idea that the period of corruption we see, which is really a period of ultimate fruition, of conclusion, of very late growth setting the stage for a new era, is a continual process. It's always occurring like this, we are always in a period of decline, or degeneration, or going under, or what have you. And this is the brilliance of his irony once more, the reason he doesn't challenge the idea that we live in corrupt times but asks us to see what this corruption really is, that it is actually, to say it again, a period of very full, ripe sensuousness, the sight of which ought to bring joy at the possibilities just now appearing on the horizon. Don't you want to rush headlong into the future and see what kinds of men will tame the earth and redefine what it means to be human? What could be more exciting than that?

But the point still stands: rather than ask us to pick two points on the historical timeline, one the beginning and the other the end, Nietzsche is challenging us to consider every historical moment as both a moment of growth and decay *simultaneously.* Granted, as I mentioned above, I think he does believe "modernity" is a bit different from older periods of human existence; but he even betrays this conception with his offhand remarks on capital and the seeming disregard he pays to revolutionary movements on the rise throughout Europe. He considers these, as far as I can tell, as no more than contemporary manifestations of ancient passions, Agrarian Laws writ anew by modern Gracchi.

At any rate, his thought, even in this one aphorism, is a fascinating reflection on the nature of history, and particularly the idea that history moves in cycles and has certain periods of growth and decay.

>>11874809
>>11874753
>>11874701

Fuck me anon this is brilliant thank you. I haven't read it in full yet but I will the moment I finish all the homework I have bearing down on me

>>11851688
This man, his work fucking slaps!

>>11874809
>>11874753
>>11874701
Great posts anon. Thanks for that

>Tfw your 2 volume set of the decline is overdue because too lazy to drag it to the library to renew it

>>11851879
Both

Are we in the time where Blood will once more prevail as a force over Money?

>>11855430
The funniest part is this is not even pasta, he was honest-to-god so mad he had to write this all out himself

bump

>>11855430
>Not really, most people in the military hate Trump because most people in the military tend to be pro-Establishment.

t. some liberal soi latte drinker

Everyone I know in the military loves Trump. He's more popular than Bush ever was.

>>11874701
>>11874753
>>11874809
Deserves another (you)

bump

So I need to read Nietzsche first before Spengler, but what do I need to read Nietzsche? The entirety of western canon?

>>11874809
>>11874753
>>11874701
>>11874701
Based effort psoter

bump

>>11876888
Your library doesn't have online renewals?

>>11885164
It does but for some reason couldn't renew anymore so I have to take it in person

>>11874809
>Don't you want to rush headlong into the future and see what kinds of men will tame the earth and redefine what it means to be human? What could be more exciting than that?
Yes, liberal idealism. Very daring and avant garde.

>>11881943
Greaks

>>11881943

Plato, the New Testament and Kant for the abridged version.

bump

>>11885650
God I hate Kant, fucking midget