/lit/ - Literature

>>17719311
You give up your soul for knowledge. You probably do this every day by feeding Google, Facebook, or other data collectors lots of data points about you in exchange for their information services. You made a deal with the devil by not reading how badly you are being fucked over in the fine print... because with every search and click you give up more of your essence.

>>17719311
I think he means that it has the spirit of Faust, not that it has made some kind of concrete Faustian bargain (although it wouldn't be wrong to say it has)

no. faustian is willing to make a deal with the devil, not simply having made a deal with the devil. The faustian man has the will to power which allows him to be willing to bargain with the devil.

Western civilization is faustian only since the scientific revolution in 17 century. Fuck this spergoid Spengler, before that Europe was simply christian.

>>17719436
The creation of the clock, telescope, eye glasses, the musket, the printing press, etc are all a bit older. These are all invention to cross space and time.

The Christian religion in a meme, we went from Plato (300 ad to 1050 ad), to Aristotle (1050 to 1650) to Descartes (1650 to 1800) and then Kant (1800 to present). Period. These where our religious periods. The popular cults dont matter.

>>17719311
Wrong. He described Germanic civilization as Faustian. He did not recognize a Western civilization like we do today, and rejected any true continuity with classical Greco-Roman civilization, which he viewed as distinct. Spengler called Germanic Civilization (Germany, Britain, France) "Western European Civilization" to avoid the confusion, but more properly Faustian Civilization. The character Faust basically wanted to know everything and be everywhere, which relates to Faustian High Culture's ur symbol of infinite space. If you look at the scope and scale of Goethe's "Faust" then you'll recognize it as a good (perhaps the best) literary expression of that ur symbol. The deal with the devil only comes in with Faustian Civilization's collapse. Faustian Civilization's ur symbol basically dooms our civilization to be destroyed by our own technology just as Faust was doomed by the bargain he'd struck with the devil for knowledge. Spengler predicted Faustian Civilization's end would come through something like rocketry (infinite reach bringing nuclear destruction?) or computers (society dissolving into infinite cyberspace?).

>>17719311
Faustian as in: seeking knowledge even after one is exhausted in mind and spirit, going as far as one can possibly go, "infinite space"

>>17719339
This. Western culture is information based. Western philosophy above all seeks to inform the individual rather than transform him like in other cultures. This is why we have no direct equivalent to Stoicism or Confucianism. Western civilization (Bacon?) says knowledge is power. Socrates said knowledge is virtue.

>>17719339
is corporations finding out that: need parts for my rx7, I need certain tools, like certain products, read certain books, eat certain foods, etc really a loss of my essence? Who the fuck cares? advertise to me all you want. I’m fine with being able to close an app. Just worried about when the ads start to manifest in our dreams.

>>17719495
Why do you say that Aristotelianism started in 1050 AD? What brought this about?

>>17719531
What we call the Germanic/Celtic civilization expands into Spain, Italy and large parts of Eastern Europe through the Germanic tribes moving into that area and the latter nobility.

>>17719659
Dam, can you show some interest in yourself instaid of fashionable edgy nihilism.

>>17719666
Not that guy but i'll give an overview from my understanding. Plato's formalism had been transmitted to the Middle Ages by Boethius. Medieval Platonic universalism taught that everything is a representation of a universal form, including people. The Middle Ages were very conformist and anti-individualist e.g. people were thought of as craftsmen, noblemen, merchants, etc rather than their capacities as unique individuals. This is reflected in medieval institutions like the monasteries and the guilds.Eventually this arose in the problem of universals, whether or not universal forms objectively existed or just in our minds, debated between followers of John Duns Scotus and William of Ockham's Nominalism. Belief in Platonic forms died out as Nominalism became the popular accepted view. In comes Aristotle, whose works were rediscovered during this time. People were looking for an alternative to Plato. Aquinas became a very close follower of Aristotle and called him "the" Philosopher. Aristotelian physics dominated for the next couple of centuries until people Galileo, Bruno, Kepler, Copernicus etc came long and demonstrated factually that Aristotelian physics were false. Now if Aristotle was wrong about physics, what else was he wrong about? In comes Descartes, who decides to clear away every pseudoscientific theory that had come before and starts again from a rational basis of Baconian experimentation. Thus begins the modern age

>>17719666
Look, this is basic knowledge if you ever read a basic history of philosophy of the Western world. Early Middle Ages where primarily Platonic, latter Middle Ages Aristotelian. Those two phases are the real religions of the Western world before Descartes. You could say the religious history before Constantine was Stoic.

So the religious history of the West is:

Pythagoreanism, Stoicism, Platonism, Aristotelianism, Descartesianism, Kantianism. With occasional episodes of oddball cults like the Dyonisians, Cathars, Calvinists and Marxists.

This all has some plausible, but how would a "Spenglerian" respond to complaints of this being very over-generalized or over-analogized? Like, there's a hurdle to buy-in for all of this.

>>17719767
You have no idea what constitutes a 'real' religion.

>>17719767
Name your sources for they are wrong in both western history and comparative religion. There is nothing in the philosophies you cited that claim revalation, no sacred scripture and no rites --- more importantly, they are no means to reach God. You can say they are taken as sacred by profane people but in themselves they are not sacred.

Philosophy is the profanation of theology.

>>17719311
Spengler was ethnically Jewish and engaging in psychological demoralization of his European hosts. If he were honest he would label Christian Europe as an example of pseudomorphosis: a civilization developing under an alien ideology, which is how he referred to Russia under Christianity, and later, Bolshevism. He also denied the importance of race, which allowed for his "culture to civilization" model, which didn't make any sense, since it claimed that Chinese civilization had already run its course when clearly it didn't. Spengler was spinning cobwebs and ignoring reality. Read de Gobineau instead.

>>17719311
Turning nature into a slave for a "heaven on earth". You see that every tradition becomes a commodity, and in Man and Technics he expounds how a waterfall can only be seen as how much horsepower can be extracted or the cattle and how much can it supply a food industry. Eventually nature will find a way to reimpose her power over the Faustian man, and it will be apocalyptic.

>>17720077
Classical Chinese civilization had run its course and was moribund, that's why the country had a Communist revolution... take your meds.

>>17720077
>>17720365 is right. Chinese Civilization ended in 221 BC with the Chinese Caesar Shi Huangdi. After that, China was invaded by barbarians (e.g. Mongols, Jurchens). China is now stagnant, and what they are under today is their interpretation of communism with the Tao (prime symbol).

>>17719311
He chose Faust because of the 'desire for infinity' quality, the deal with the devil is just a form of man out-stepping his own reach in search of this infinity. He characterizes the whole culture as equivalent to a man striving towards an always unreachable horizon, which lends it what he calls a tragic aspect.

>>17719767
No Locke?

>>17719311

I would guess imperialism as this was basically the defining policy of Spengler's own time and even at that time the drawbacks were probably already apparent but are hyper apparent now
He probably predicted that WW2 would happen

>>17719733
This post is making me seethe so much because I know it's true fuck g*rms

>>17720602
I love germanics. They brought science and industry to the world, unlike slav(e)s

>>17720077
Meds. Take them.

>>17721127
Every time I see this the post it's replying to is good lol. I might start just searching the archives for this phrase to find interesting posts

>>17719311
Imperialism, colonialism, exporting their civilization around the globe to non European races and lands, desire for unlimited worldly knowledge and fascination with exploring vast spaces

>>17719311
Spengler has german biased and clouted by nationalism, he never even credited the French, Italians or Greeks for the contributions of European Culture, no, for some reason Germany created Western Civ, Spengler´s ancestor were mud hut dwellers and his grandsons will also become mud hut dwellers (but with brown skin this time)

>>17721199
germans were barbarians in the eyes of the romans. nordcucks have a chip on their shoulder about that. thats how you get the german autism and megalomaniac cold calculated desire for world domination you see from time to time in certain german/anglo saxon figures

>>17720077
>Russia under Christianity
You know that Christianity not an ideology and not a european religion, do you? Its middle eastern

>>17721211
The Romans had a pretty blatant Noble Savage thing going on with the Germanics. Anyway German autism and coldness is probably genetic rather than the result of some 2000 year old cultural resentment.

>>17721134
If you honestly think that post is "good" then you should really consider giving yourself a lobotomy.

He starts by claiming Spengler is a Jew (he wasn't but evidently had one Jewish great grandparent which he might not have been aware of). He claims Christianity is a completely alien ideology without also acknowledging how native European cultures also adopted and shaped it to conform with their own cultures, not to mention the fact that the Greeks (who he likely admires) were just as alien to western Europe as Christianity supposedly is. Then he tells you to read fucking Gobineau, the original nordicist retard, who was a French a aristocrat that liked to larp as a viking.

Christ this board has gone to shit in the last few months.

>>17721199
>>17721211
This shit too sounds like it belongs on /int/

>>17720077
>a civilization developing under an alien ideology
>which is how he referred to Russia under Christianity
Christianity "alien" to all european countries too then

>>17721355
I didn't even read the post I just reply things like that to 'take your meds' posts because it's what they deserve

>>17721211
That's not true whatsoever. There's no resentment towards meds who are generally seen as less efficient although admired for being more capable of enjoying life and world domination wasn't something that either Anglo or German culture ever embraced. Anglos see it as a Christian obligation and burden, Germans never attempted it, we didn't even consolidate into a unified state until the 19th century.

>>17721199
The product of med and more nordic cultures were roughly equal. In historical terms there was only a short period of true med supremacy which was just related to the maritime networking advantages which allowed for early collaborative cultural exchange with a large amount of people. The 'mud hut' isn't really something you find in European history, there are remains of pagan 'cathedrals' and walled cities which are over 6,000 years old. When Caesar entered Gaul he encountered advanced technology and cities populated by tens of thousands of people. Germany was a little behind that for geographic reasons. If you really want to psychoanalyze then contemplate the psychological need of meds to invent a fraudulent history of supremacy. It's not a great cultural feat to have been geographically located in a manner that allowed to absorb Mesopotamian and Egyptian advances who themselves were only able to develop first for geographical reasons.

>>17721486
>Anglos see it as a Christian obligation
any proof of this from the empire|? genuinely curious

>>17719311
sex gifs

>>17719531
>g*rmanic
>civilization

Pick one and only one. Nowadays they are just a bunch of slavic rapebabies living in american protectorate.

>>17721498
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_White_Man%27s_Burden

You can think that into the present. Politics and economics aside what is nation building other than the attempt to establish the western moral framework onto the world? It's not like we argue internally in terms of opening new markets, we talk about human rights.

>>17721535
>>>/int/
or
>>>/his/

>>17721486
>to invent a fraudulent history of supremacy. It's not a great cultural feat to have been geographically located in a manner that allowed to absorb Mesopotamian and Egyptian advances who themselves were only able to develop first for geographical reasons.

they didn´t had to invent, their actions proves them right! Caesar and Alexander the Great, not once, twice

It was a cultural feat since the egyptians and mesopotamians stagnated, if they were just copy-pasting, we wouldn´t have philosophy as we have now, now there´s no ancient oriental comparison to the Ionian Enlightenment where widespread of ideas, basically every pre-socractic had invented their own system to see how the world (laws of nature) operated, it finally concluded with Socrates/Plato which made it a legitimate science

If we argue by your argument, Germany and Britain were lucky that they were near Southern Europe and absorb their culture, remember that A.N Whitehead said that philosophy just were a serious of footnotes to Plato

>>17719311
Technology. There’s a Promethean wildfire over the past couple centuries

>>17719311
>Memegler

>>17720365
>Classical Chinese civilization had run its course and was moribund, that's why the country had a Communist revolution... take your meds.
>>17720401
>Chinese Civilization ended in 221 BC with the Chinese Caesar Shi Huangdi. After that, China was invaded by barbarians (e.g. Mongols, Jurchens). China is now stagnant, and what they are under today is their interpretation of communism with the Tao (prime symbol).
"Classical civilization" is a meaningless term in a racial context. What makes pre-Huangdi China more legitimately "Chinese" than what came after it? The Mongols ruled China for about a century and when the Chinese drove them out they completely wiped out all the "reforms" they introduced in order to re-establish their connection to the past. That's what healthy peoples do when they free themselves from foreign conquest, unlike weak and sickly peoples like Russians, who hilariously portray the Christian-murdering Stalin as saint in their propaganda.
China is shitty for many reasons, but the fact is that Chinese civilization, in one form or other, persists.

>>17721127
>Meds. Take them.
Take them where? Meds are very happy living where they are.

>>17721313
>You know that Christianity not an ideology and not a european religion, do you? Its middle eastern
Yes. Precisely my point.

>>17721355
>He starts by claiming Spengler is a Jew (he wasn't but evidently had one Jewish great grandparent which he might not have been aware of).
Yes, Spengler's great-grandmother was a Jew and he was clearly aware of it, since he famously opposed racial anti-semitism.
>He claims Christianity is a completely alien ideology without also acknowledging how native European cultures also adopted and shaped it to conform with their own cultures,
I guess Christians destroying the Oracle at Delphi was part of that "conforming" process? And Charlemagne running around exterminating and enslaving European pagans was as well? Europeans did not alter Christianity, Christianity altered Europeans. 2,000 years of Christian breeding has produced the modern European: weak, feminine, gullible, incapable of self-rule, colonized and tyrannized by Jews and Arabs.
> not to mention the fact that the Greeks (who he likely admires) were just as alien to western Europe as Christianity supposedly is.
Wrong. All Indo-European religions worshiped celestial and solar deities.
>Then he tells you to read fucking Gobineau, the original nordicist retard, who was a French a aristocrat that liked to larp as a viking.
Yeah well he was still right.

Theories of history are glorified prophecies. They aren't real. Stop believing in groundless fairy tales.

>>17720348
His take on Man and Technics is pure shit.

I always took it slightly more literally, in that Faust's deal was specifically for knowledge (which led to power). Europeans have been willing to forgo everything just to discover hidden truths, the functions of the universe. Physics and the nuclear bomb are what come to my mind when I think of us as Faustian, but crossing the Atlantic to discover and conquer new lands, or space flight also come to mind. Other civs like China were happy to sit still and rule what they had, and their technology was pretty well developed but stagnant for a long time. We kept pushing the boundaries, but we lost a lot on the way.

>>17719928
Spenglerianism is hyperspecific to a single cilture/civilization and contacts between civilizations are essentially meaningless. He'd say that universal history is overgeneralized.

Letting a bunch of immigrants in America for cheap labor, only to give us crime/drug problems/terrorism in return

>>17721535
But the whole point is that America is also Germanic

>>17723655
>Yes. Precisely my point.
Not him but Spenglerian readers are pretty split on this you can come out of this in two different directions both of which make sense, and both of which are supported by Spengler.
1. Christianity is completely alien and we were under a pseudomorphous by the megian culture as Christianity was imported to Europe as a false form. Spengler talks about this constantly and how on top of this we were under a strong pseudomorphous of the classical civilization as well. He makes reference to this with us needing to break out of the Cathedral (music) and how we stray from sculpture and painting of the body and move towards landscape painting (depth perception) and musical eternalness. In both of these cases we cast off the Megian (middle eastern) and classical world feelings. You could make the argument because of this that Christianity is a visible organ we imported from a foreign culture and it has nothing to do with the west.
2. Christianity had a Hegelian-esc synthesis with Germanic though to form the west. By the time our preculture phase kicks around the west is mostly christian with maybe the exception of the Scandinavians. A lot of ideas within Christianity explore the ideas of infinity such as a God that makes the universe knowable and allows for Faustian techinics. Christian elements that call to the infinite are what are emphasized as opposed to the Megian elements and by the time the reformation and counter reformation kick off Catholicism and Protestant branches of Christianity are completely transformed to meet with summer Faustian man.
This is Spengler on Christianity in the western forms Spengler was not a Christian really he was more of a Nietzschian from what I've gathered (correct me if I'm wrong other anons).

>China is shitty for many reasons, but the fact is that Chinese civilization, in one form or other, persists.
Spengler agrees with you I think the other anon misspoke. Chinese civilization persists in a dead state because that is what civilization is, dead. The thing has already become its static not moving and dead, there are no more opportunities to be had just a struggle for zoological power. Civilizations according to Spengler fall down this route after their creative period ends and can be in this phase indefinitely if something doesn't kill them (like what happened to Rome.)

Also lastly Spengler does make mention that race plays a role in things though he defines it more like Mussolini did in a construct of a common people with heritage. Its real fucking dumb to try and call the Chinese today as the same group as they were 2k years ago, since they've been mutted by a lot of foreign ethnics at this point. Genotypically China as we know it today is a construct of the last 300 years, of the heriitige/tradition sense they are a civilization that has existed over the last 3k years in a Spenglerian sense.

>>17722887
Of course Germany was lucky to be in the vicinity. The reason Greece was successful was most likely the same Europe in general became successful, which is a geography that favored decentralization. Competing polities then allowed for migration and thus forced comparable liberty into existence.
What I mean by an invention of supremacy is to ascribe Greek and Italian success to some inherent med attribute. But that's silly, as soon as the necessary cultural technology spread to wider Europe all the people there created their own versions and today of course we find that the southerners do seem slightly less capable of good governance than their northern relatives. This likely was already the case back then.
There's this constant theorizing on the right about what happened to these great people but really it is just a misinterpretation. The Egyptians and Mesopotamians likely had a lower average IQ back then. It's just that the geographic advantages outweighed the ones derived from 5 more IQ points. When the Greeks absorbed those cultures they were capable of accelerating the development just like northern Europe thanks to population numbers and seemingly higher organizational skills did that after the meds. It's actually somewhat astounding that Rome was unable to induce the industrial revolution. They were so close. People generally blame slavery which makes sense considering what we know about the American south..

>>17719767
>decartesianism

>>17724894
>It's actually somewhat astounding that Rome was unable to induce the industrial revolution
Romans famously missed the soap tech. Never had a chance.

>>17721199
>never even credited the French, Italians or Greeks for the contributions of European Culture
The fuck you on about, read his work before you make stupid comments like this.
Simple wordcount on the groups, not even going into all the nice shit he says about all the groups your being a retard about.
Spain mentioned - 84
French mentioned - 216
Germanics mentioned - 401
English mentioned - 208

German bias? Sure. Tunnelvision of other western group? he never even credited the French, Italians or Greeks for the contributions of European Culture? Nope. Well maybe not the Greeks but that has more to do with Spengler's definition of western culture being different from classical culture, to which he argues Greeks are pretty much synonymous with classical culture.