/lit/ - Literature

>Is it fair to say Spengler was wrong?
>Roman civilization has not collapsed in fact it has only become better and better.
>btw keeping caesar in gaul will totally keep him out of politics

>>19196934
I'm Faustian Caesar. AMA.

>>19196934
He was absolutely right, reread.

>>19196960
What is your zodiac sign?

>Western civilization has not collapsed in fact it has only become better and better.
Western hegemony literally ended last year
What the fuck are you on?

>>19196950
Who are you talking about

>>19196934
OP is retarded as usual

>>19196974
So? Let me know when ceasarism is a thing.

>>19196980
Trump was a proto-Cesar
At least aesthetically

>>19196934

> it has only become better and better.

Yes, more porn, netflix and afghan refugees, who rape btw has made te west so much better.

>>19196987
Every stage of civ has small issues like that unless you believe in an earthly paradise.

>>19197004
>small issues
The spiritual crises of the west is not small and has not existed before in this scale. The closest thing to it was Rome which collapsed shortly after people started pursuing hedonistic ends and lost its unity.

The rise of technology and scientism is just accelerating this decline

>>19196960
Please be real. I would totally support the right Trump-esque leader that wasn't Trump. I want someone with vision.

>>19196980
>>19196984
Hey everyone! We got a couple of rubes here who can't even remember "don't look at superficial parallels" from the fucking intro! Let's laugh at them!

>>19197346
We needed Trump in Mike Pence's packaging.

>>19197309
how are a small minority of muslim refugee part of the same problem as spiritual decline

>>19197359
Yeah, surely this will be fine! Don't look at the demographics of Lebanon over the 20th century or anything.

>>19197359
How progressive!

>>19197365
>>19197373
What does this have to do with Spengler?

>>19197359
>ishydtt

>>19197365
>>19197373
>>19197359

Parallel legal system? A-okay!

>>19197376
Well, here we have the rising Islamic civilizational paradigm coming into conflict with the waning Faustian. It is incredibly relevant to Spengler, sorry it hurts your brain.

>>19197373
>western society is doomed because we give women and gays too many rights
>muslims are bad because they don't want to give gays and women rights

>>19197387
Yes.

>>19197376
I honestly can't help but laugh at how disingenuous or cognitively dissonant that question is. Imagine, for a moment, these were charting Westboro Baptists demographic growth and sociopolitical opinions, does that break through to you?

Actually, I read Spengler a long time ago and dismissed it and then I picked him again over the last year and I was awestruck. I’ve become increasingly convinced that if he wasn’t completely right, he was very close to it. He was right about a great many things. And personally, I think the real value in Spengler comes not necessarily in the correctness of his predictions but the way that nothing and no one of his time escaped his gaze. His critiques totally dismantled other modes of thinking for me and I now look back on them as sort of youthful romantic delusions of one sort or another. Whether that will ever change I can’t be sure. My only real criticism of Spengler at this point is that he actually wasn’t enough of a pessimist in some areas not objective enough.

>>19197403
Also, I’ve thought about it a bit and I think that if we adhere strictly to Spengler’s model (which we shouldn’t, but if we do) we wouldn’t yet be at the point of Caesarism. We’d be at a point roughly equivalent to the point just before the emergence of a Sulla-like figure.

>>19197387
>I can't respond without strawmen built around binary moral judgments of long-spanning and, within the context of Spengler, amoral analysis of natural collective human processes

>>19197410
Yes! This 100%. Trump as Caesar is superficial fanboyism. We are like three generations early.

>>19197386
unironically based. You can't be a complete atheist and believe in an original moral code. Every secular movement of morality was derived from """Judeo-Christian""" (I hate that term) thought

>>19197365
>Projected size of Muslim population in 2050 under HIGH migration scenario
what do they mean by "High migration"

>>19197359
Read his short book Man and Technics

>>19197418
Also, these people don’t read Spengler. He says plainly that one, you’re not supposed to find equivalents in every single figure. Caesarism occurs across civilizations. Julius Caesar does not. The same for Sulla, Gracchi, and so on. He also says that we’re fools for looking first and foremost at the Romans and the Greeks and in fact the only reason we relate everything we do to them is precisely because they’re the culture-civilization which is most far from us.

>>19197423
Some people can, but when I say "some" I mean a slim majority of the population who are just predisposed for whatever reason to be altruists naturally. Not to pat myself on the back, but I am in that category. But I have no illusions about the masses of average people. Adam Carolla said once that "people aren't bad, they're weak" and that has always rung true to me. Absent an upbringing or social conditioning that reinforces altruistic mores, people default to convenience and paths of least resistance. Then that spiritual malaise leaves them open to manipulation by strong-willed and charismatic selfish actors able to effectively play on average human psychology. See our current era, where that kind of puppeteering is a studied science.

>>19197434
I don't know, does 2 million in a single year to Germany alone sound low to you?

>>19197445
I know all that, and I freely admit all I have read of Spenglern is his Wiki page and the fucking INTRODUCTION to Decline, which clearly is more than most people in any Spengler thread. How many people on this board are really this dumb about topics they spout off on?

>>19197434
check out the source if you want to methodology, even their "zero migration" estimate puts them as a significant portion of the population

>>19197378
are there statistics on this in western europe?

>>19197486
He doesn't want sources, he wants straws for grasping. Let's see what's next.

>>19197486
This isn't related to the west declining but propsering. A decline means people start leaving.

>>19197495
Where do you think these immigrant pops are coming from, dude?

>>19197510
these are statistics on sharia law in every region of the world except for western europe and america

>>19196934 see >>19197410

Spengler’s personal prediction was that the West would descend into civilizational barbarism around 2100.

Trump would have liked to be a Caesar-figure, so would Andrew Jackson, but they were both born too early.

>>19196974
What does this hegemony even really mean? In the post-WW2 era, Prussian militarism and industrial domination are completely subordinated to Anglo-American economization, which, in fact, won the war. We see in it, the seeds which would sprout in America same as we might find those seeds of Rome in the Spartans, Hellenism, and the Peloponnesian wars. Whatever hegemony the Western assets over the world to this point, it’s precisely a Faustian economic-technological hegemony, which has existed for decades, exists now, and will continue to exist into the immediate future. The mistake is to see the method of domination in Faustian man as the same as that of the Greco-Roman.

>>19197499
>>19197509
Lmao, there's your answer. It's as if he didn't even read Decline of the West.

>>19197582
Grasping at coffee swizzlers he has mistaken for straws.

>>19197535
>Faustian economic-technological hegemony
>exists now
China is in control now, gweilo

>>19196972
nacqui io ideo con quelle stelle
ch’eran col sole quando l’amor divino
mosse di prima quelle cose belle

By which you might, rightly, think I mean Torus, but though it may not be a correct reference, I wish to evoke Aries, which is my zodiac sign.

>>19197822
And by what measure?

>>19197918
Eh, this nigga never heard of covid

>>19196934
Tranny detected

>>19197386
>rising Islamic civilizational paradigm
You must be fucking kidding me. Have you ever met a muslim in your life? There's no "rising civilizational paradigm" coming from Islam. They are too dumb to run their own countries and emigrate en masse to be second-class citizens in the first world so they can consume shit. Nothing deep about that.

>>19196934

>become better and better

Obvious bait.

>>19197857
No, for you see it was a trick question. You have many zodiac signs, and you have only given me your sun sign at most. Faust's Caesar would know the degrees and aspects of Chiron backwards.

Spengler said the islamic civilisation was on it's last legs

>Spengler was all about how brown immigration is bad!!
Come on guys...

>>19196934
He never said the West would collapse

>>19196960
What's your opinion on the issue of driving ATVs on public land?

>>19197349
Anon said proto-Caesar, which I think is a fair assessment. Trump may be a clown, but as an overall event his election and notoriety heralds the coming Caesarean age. People are ready for it, they already desire such a figure, and this desire is only going to grow as time goes on.

>>19199006
It's not doing too hot at the moment. The middle east consists of mostly puppet regimes under the thumb of western imperialism and some anti-intellectual extremists, their version of Caesars, fighting to halt all progress forever. Seems dead to me.

>>19196984
trump was closer to the gracchus brothers than anything

>>19196934
>Western civilization has not collapsed in fact it has only become better and better
Western civilization has collapsed, you just haven't realized it yet. Society is farm worse today than it was 30 years ago.

Because when a culture enters the "caesarism" age, it can last forever that way until a new culture, a war or a natural event kills it off. And the west is giving Spengler the right with it's internal instability and the population's lack of trust on their countries institutions, as well as the growing lack of connections and humanity and culture for modern civilized decadence.

>>19196934
obvious bait

>>19200084
>Because when a culture enters the "caesarism" age, it can last forever that way until a new culture, a war or a natural event kills it off
He does not even say that.

>>19200280
Yes he does. Indian Man and Chinese Man are both examples of this. Spengler is not actually a thinker of cyclical history, although he is often referred to as such. Once a Culture-Civilization reaches its "end point" it just sits there until it's murdered by another Culture-Civilization (he does not list any examples of any of them dying due to internal collapse other than Faustian Man's hypothetical suicide).

>>19200280
Ok felaheen

>>19199022
He kind of was

>>19200322
As I recall, he does not say that the Caesarism phase goes on forever. The Caesarism phase itself is just an intermediate inflection point on a civilizations transition to a potentially ossified terminus. That ossified terminus and the Caesar phase are not the same.

>>19200735
People's who go past the caesarist age petrify on that form or get integrated into new cultures, and are called Felah peoples. Half of the second book I think.

>>19197365
Infideltugal

>>19196934
I am actually the Ceasar. I am literally God. Give me 5 years.

Pay attention to politics in South Eastern Europe.

>>19201977
>He thinks the Western Caesar-figure will come from the B*lkans.

Sorry buddy, only people from world-historical nations need apply. My bet is it’ll be an American of German descent.

>>19196934
He’s wrong.

From “The Collapse of Complex Societies”

>>19203012
Lmao, any man of essence will disregard this sentimentalist drivel

>>19199362
That and a holocaust type scenario is not unlikely if they ever tried to overthrow Western regimes.

>>19197535
>In the post-WW2 era, Prussian militarism and industrial domination are completely subordinated to Anglo-American economization, which, in fact, won the war.
In the post-Persian-War era, Spartan militarism and Helot-ization were completely subordinated to Athenian economization, which, in fact, won the war.

>>19203049
>Athenian economization, which, in fact, won the war.
That would be what we now refer to as Hellenism actually, not Athenianism.

>>19203056
Pan-Hellenism didn't really enter the picture on a big scale until Alexander. As far as Athens and Sparta go, Athens drew its power from its commercial/trading empire more than it did its local resources or its populace, as opposed to Sparta which based its power on its ability to dominate its region militarily.

>>19199362
They are conquering Europe as we speak, what world do you live in?

>>19203068
Actually, this also fits the general pattern of still needing another century for an Alexander or a Caesar to arrive on the scene.

>>19203101
In Spenglers system Napoleon serves that role of opening up an ever increasing syncretism and the emergence of nation states.

>>19203068
Correct and Alexander’s Hellenism was the precursor to Roman Caesarism. Hellenism is what assimilated and filtered those Greek forms into that which we would find in the later Romans.

>>19203134
Different tho. Caesarism is when all form and culture is lost, and only husks remain of those ideals that were bled for only a century before. Those husks are used like socks by the Caesars, who are only interested in pure power politics of dynasty building. They are unwittingly the agents of dissolution.

>>19203068
Is a Britain/Germany comparison there a true parallel or superficial, you think.

>>19200735
You are correct, I was being hasty and assuming that >>19200280 was disagreeing with the idea that from Caesar on a culture-civilization can continue, such that Caesar's presence was a deathknell. So, yes, "Caesarism" as a period ends, but Caesar coming along doesn't mean that a culture-civilization is going to die, just that it's moving into the next phase of its existence, and after a certain point it just ossifies.

>>19203134
so anglos are the athenians and china will be the romans? That would fit the cultural divide in the mediteranean with the latin west and greek east/english atlantic and chinese eastern seas

>>19203012
What a nice ad hominem, truly insightful.

Hughes has not the Eyes to See.

>>19197387
They are bad because they are replacing native populations.

>>19202698
>American of German descent.
The most pussified racial stock from the most pozzed country? Give me a break lmao. Your countrymen are afraid of being mean to black people lol.

>>19203223
You could argue that Anglos are equivalent to either Hellenistic Greece or the Romans themselves due to the Anglo-American relationship (if we are to assume Americans are the Faustian equivalent to Romans), but again, Spengler warns us not to relate ourselves so much to the Classical world in particular precisely because it’s distance from the Classical of all culture-civilizations which draws us to it. According to Spengler, we desperately want to see ourselves as Greeks and/or Romans precisely because they are so different from us. It’s merely that our study of those Greeks and Romans have given us the most ample understanding to relate to. What do Westerners know of China, India, and Egypt? Not nearly as much as that of Rome and Greece.

>>19196934
sorta right, but refuted by Evola
devolution of the castes is the superior historical theory

>>19203201
Correct, but it’s important to not that the Caesarian and immediately post-Caesarian phase is not what ossifies. The Caesarian phase for Spengler is simply an expansionary intermediate point between the origin of the civilization and its terminal twilight. Alongside the Caesarian phase there’s a second religiousness, which nonetheless lacks creative power, but still co-opts the original religious forms of the original culture and carries them to its end. Caesarism expands the highways, railroads, ports, airports, missile silos, and skyscrapers that will one day lie in ruin, whereupon the civilization reaches its terminal twilight precisely in the ruins rather than the expansion until it’s killed off by an invading force. This is Spengler’s view.

>>19203323
Julius Evola fits neatly into Spengler’s notion the second religiousness or can be written off as someone who simply wants to return to the Classical, as he would, being Sicilian/Roman himself.

>>19203410
spengler was a seething hylic
metaphysics of power is the superior book compared to Decline
I like Spengler's other works though. His Viking vs Teutonic Knight battle for the true Faustian soul was good shit in Prussianism and Socialism. Hour of Decision was good too

>>19203416
Okay, but how does Julius Evola escape Spengler’s cold gaze of critique? He doesn’t seem to, though you insist he’s wrong. René Guenon also could be critiqued in the same way, albeit in regard to impulse for the Magian rather than the Classical. Indeed, Guenon, while not a Christian himself, was much friendlier to Christianity than Julius Evola was.

>>19196934
DEA agent Schrader looks like he lost weight.

I wonder if the hunt for heisenberg has been stressing him out.

>>19203253
The author of this work Joseph Tainter criticizes “mystical” explanations for the decline of civilizations. In particular, a part of mystical explanations often state that a society becomes decadent.

>>19203069
They're migrating there after getting btfo in their homelands and then turning gay from western culture. If they actually had a chance at overthrowing liberalism in Europe I might actually support them as a last resort but it doesn't seem likely.

>>19203485
Still a bit ridiculous. They’re migrating to the West en masse because the anti-religious West tolerates religions other than it’s own to a degree and these are economic migrants who will tolerate the West’s irreligiosity. They’ll remain an internal proletariat in the West and leave or be cast aside as soon as it’s no longer economically attractive to remain there. They have no political or military power and probably never will.

>>19203012
>he's wrong because he's mean and sounds like some sort of biblical prophet

that's not a very good criticism

>>19203455
There is no mysticism in Spengler.

>>19196934
>better and better
lol

>>19203455
Lmao that is some prime cope
>Imperial expansion.
This is difficult to judge in a trad sense. On one hand, it is the physical and material manifestation of victory and glory. On the other hand, it inevitably mixes peoples. One conqueror and one conquered and the mix between those two is the source of much evil (cfm. Cato, Bhagavad Gita)
>Decadence
Everyone knows what is meant with this and the authors pilpul make it seem that he himself feels judged by it. In essence it is a libertine society, hedonistic individualism placed above the common wealth.
And when people are more interested in good food and entertainment instead of making sure justice is done, or the borders are protected. That is decadence.
And the author is obv some progressive hack whose life got filtered by some trad book and now he's seething because deep down he knows he's worthless but he doesn't want to admit it.

>>19203674
Not him but the problem with "decadence" is that it's unscientific. It's easy to call a society decadent by anecdotal examples, but how do you really determine it? Quantify it? Compare societies? What criteria to use? I can assure you the west has seemed decadent to any primitive society they ever contacted. That is what Tainter means by "that which differs from one's own moral code.."

Instead he posits a clearly definable and measurable theory of the collapse of societies - it being their complexity. More complex societies essentially have more parts to them and require more energy to sustain. Think massive bureaucracies and religious monuments. Once energy sources run out, they collapse. The collapse will be predictable based on several criteria.

It's all very clear and scientific whereas with "decadence" you'll remain forever arguing over moral values.

And I say this as someone who actually got really interested in Spengler after hearing of his positions from Tainter.

I'll leave with this graph. One of the neatest things I've seen. Basically it is civilization quantified and fits well with his theory.

>>19196934
>Things get better for the upper rungs
>Masses become increasingly devoid
>Indomitable social inherency
No one has any clue.

>>19203848
Ok I'll put this one as well.

Basically, contrary to what one might expect, societies collapse right when they're at their highest. Eg. look at Roman army size throughout its history - it was the biggest during its worst decline before the collapse. Similarly the Mayans built the most monuments and had the largest population immediately before the collapse. Also the fact that usually life quality starts suffering right from the beginning of the civilization, under the pressures of having to maintain a complex society. Such pressures will accumulate and life quality will deteriorate over time until something gives out. At that point the trigger can be anything, it can come from outside or inside - point being, the society is so strained anything will bring it down.

Basically read The Collapse of Complex Societies, it's a short book.

>>19203012
>WAAAHH an academic is sounding certain in his prose therefore everything he says is wrong
This whining actually just strengthens Spengler's thesis

>>19196934
it will take centuries for the west to collapse and that will be the end of mankind

>>19204004
I don’t think this map is quite accurate. Neither does Spengler’s model necessarily line up neatly along the lines of contemporary national borders.

>>19203068
>Pan-Hellenism didn't really enter the picture on a big scale until Alexander

it was full on force because of the Persian Wars, Phillip II wanted to campaign against Persia even before Alexander entered the picture

>>19204031
it´s quite accurate, european people and the diapora are part of the western civilzation, i don´t know why he didn´t include Russia as part of the West though

Spenglerfag has to use the bottom of the barrel to prove Spengler's worth.

>>19203848
There is nothing wrong with the term decadence being "unscientific". The study of history cannot be scientific or objective - it's not physics or chemistry. This is a point that Spengler specifically addresses in the first book of Decline. This obsession with objectivity is bugman nonsense and exactly the thing one would expect from an autistic Anglo. How exactly does Tainter scientifically quantify the complexities of different societies with respect to things like art, religion and cultural shifts? It cannot be done.

Many right wingers would claim that the West is experiencing a clear moral decline despite technological/scientific advances, and traditionalist right wingers see those advancements as a bad thing. Perhaps there are some legitimate criticisms in terms of technological development and human evolutionary psychology failing to properly catch up with the post-industrial revolution, globalization, and so on. There is a lack of empathy in the population in general, and I see a lot of it coming from a place of confusion in people who I think are genuinely struggling with understanding all the problems and rapid developments that surround them, especially the older populations. However reverting to a mythical past that never was where the problems and deprivation compared to today are whitewashed away is not the answer to solving problems, as a lot of these psychological impulses manifested in other destructive ways in the past.

People get off on the fact that there is so much wrong with our world in general regardless of clear material progression in terms of quality of life, wealth, abundance, entertainment, medical science, technology, convenience, travel, connection, etc. and many if truly faced with the harsh reality of reverting back to a primitive technological state would beg for the comforts of the modern world to return. It is human nature to focus on the negative aspects and possibilities of something better even if the current situation is adequate or has objectively progressed since the past. There is a lot of romanticism of the past the further removed we are from it as well which does not allow us to fully understand the realities of the period without it being clouded by recollection, politically charged histography, and glossing over some of the more unpleasant realities of the time in favor of a rosier picture. People will never fully be satisfied with what they have and dream of something better, and sometimes this will manifest in a false notion of a mythical "better" past with little problems which they never properly experienced to make an objective judgment of what it really was like compared to their current time period.

>>19203485
>They're migrating there after getting btfo in their homelands and then turning gay from western culture
That's not how diaspora work. Their parents might be moderate but they will be extremists.

>>19204049
Try actually reading the book and maybe you’ll find out.

>>19204091
t. steven pinker fan

faggot

>>19203873
isn't spengler's whole argument that the process of decay starts when a culture turns into a civilization? roman culture was already dead before augustus

>>19203674
decadence in the spenglerian sense would strictly mean a society that has lost the vital thrust of its culture. decadence can easily take the form of ascetic spiritual movements, for example ("the second religiousness") but it's still decadence

>>19204004
>USA
>Core faustian civilization
wrong

Read Spengler's Future: http://www.benespen.com/spenglers-future .

>>19204197
He named those nations which he associates with Faustian civilization in a essay for H.L. Mencken’s magazine, and it includes America. If it didn’t, none of this would make any sense.

>>19204004
>the end of mankind
Good.

>>19197386
>rising Islamic
Islam doesn't exist anymore. It's in the post-death phase, ashes. It's all fellaheen who only exist in relation to the west.

a world without the west is a better world. it allows us a chance for something new and a brighter future for humanity

>>19204085
>There is nothing wrong with the term decadence being "unscientific".
Overall I agree, but when it comes to trying to figure out a predictive and thus necessarily falsifiable model of understanding history, it matters. As far as people reading Spengler understand that, it's fine. But as soon as they transgress and assume some sort of theoretical validity to this philosophy, they are overstepping. That's why Tainter was strict on it.

>How exactly does Tainter scientifically quantify the complexities of different societies with respect to things like art, religion and cultural shifts? It cannot be done.
Acckhshually...

The complexity of societies is pretty easily quantifiable. Like you wouldn't believe how straightforward - population density, tool differentiation, social roles differentiation, centralization (as measured by law enforcement (edicts), regulation, societal workforce), scale of monumental architecture (can literally be measured in kg's of moved soil and manpower engaged), stage of food production (hunter-gatherer > small-scale crops > swidden farming > intensive farming > industrial), etc.

As you can see, it's almost ridiculous how easily quantifiable a society's complexity is.

I haven't yet read Spengler but like I said, his ideas seemed really appealing. Especially his view of cities and urbanization as the signs of a dying civilization, so I don't want to come off as too harsh. But you get the point, the demarcation matters, and so Tainter's criticism is valid.

>>19204209
So we’ve got 40 to 60 years of things going on exactly the way they are…

>>19196934
sex gifs

>>19204355
What? No. It's appearance of Realistic Fascism and then some kind of grand conflict.

>>19204373
And that age of realistic fascism, that sounds particularly remarkable to you?

>>19204400
It might be institutionalized tradlarping but it won't be the same shit we've had these past 20 years. Christ I hope not.

>>19204373
> In Rome and the West, the paraphernalia of the authoritarian states of a century before, martial law and the concentration camp, first make their appearance in earnest. These new institutions created by the reactionaries are only extensions of initiatives made by their populist predecessors, and they do not actually stay in operation very long. However, the charm has been removed from the nucleating states. Their people have seen no historical corruption will be spared them.
>This is the last hurrah of the old-fashioned secret police, the kind who want to stop people from thinking certain things, rather than just making sure they do what they are told. Politics is temporarily closed down as a working institution, though the constitutional forms are maintained. These, indeed, are revived and refurbished to an extraordinary degree. For a few years, however, the reality of government becomes an exercise in vendetta on the part of the conservative victors, a comedy of hypocrisy on that of the discredited populists. Offices at home are filled on the basis of "merit," meaning the merit of adherence to the conservative party. Or, rather, to the conservative leader. Much, though not all, of the special legislation going back almost a hundred years which had been designed to reshape the constitution of society is now eliminated. This in fact makes little difference, since the legislation had always had consequences different from those intended, but the repeals mark the close of an era. Hereafter, until the end of modern times, politics really is just about power, and ideology consequently withers. For real power struggles, no analysis is needed.
So 40 to 60 years of consolidating political power, no civil wars, no caesar.

>>19204326
>But as soon as they transgress and assume some sort of theoretical validity to this philosophy, they are overstepping. That's why Tainter was strict on it.

Ultimately there is no way of proving a "theoretical validity" of a historical analysis or a philosophy. This is the case whether an author wants to give his analysis the veneer of science, which is nothing but an appeal to authority and an attempt to glamorize ideas by associating them with something enormously successful, or not.

>The complexity of societies is pretty easily quantifiable. Like you wouldn't believe how straightforward - population density, tool differentiation, social roles differentiation, centralization (as measured by law enforcement (edicts), regulation, societal workforce), scale of monumental architecture (can literally be measured in kg's of moved soil and manpower engaged), stage of food production (hunter-gatherer > small-scale crops > swidden farming > intensive farming > industrial), etc. As you can see, it's almost ridiculous how easily quantifiable a society's complexity is.

This is exactly the kind of thing that I mentioned in my earlier post about Anglo autism. This is a very simplistic or utilitarian way of looking at a society. There are plenty of factors that cannot be quantified. Are they then simply to be ignored and considered irrelevant? Can you have a proper analysis when so much is ignored because it is not amenable to the narrow framework the author uses? How does one "quantify" the role of religion in ancient Rome compared to our day - by using number of temples per capita? The examples you use are ones that are relatively straightforward to measure, but most aspects of society cannot be treated this way.

>>19204433
From the write up, this “realistic fascism” sounds a lot like paleocon senators and executives consolidating political and economic power. No civil war. No caesar. No art. No poetry. Not even second religiousness…

It sounds pretty awful to me.

>>19204519
Realistic Fascism already happened. From it came Ceasar, Art, and Poetry. Indeed Fascism was a religious conception to an extent.

I don't know where retards get their idea of what Fascism is, politcally it was Blanquism par excellence and philosophically it stressed the importance of carrying out your ideals.

>>19204545
>Ceasar, Art, and Poetry
Civil war too

>>19204472
>the veneer of science
No such thing. Unless the readers are uneducated rabble, and know what science entails, there can be no faking such a thing. Simply, either it is falsifiable or not. Either it corresponds to evidence or not. That's basically it.

>This is a very simplistic or utilitarian way of looking at a society.
I cannot help but feel you're attributing some judgement of value to the word "complexity", feeling that the determining of some society as "of low complexity" somehow fails to really appreciate its values. That is not the case. "Complexity" carries no judgement of value. It merely denotes the differentiation and organization level of a society, which in turn determines its energy requirements. If anything, Tainter's theory (and it seems also personal opinions) regard complex societies as cumbersome and unpleasant to live under. Not that the complexification of societies is avoidable. An understanding as to why it happens is another benefit of his theory.

There is also the question that anything that science can ever grasp must first be given a specific form - quantified and operationalized. Yes this transformation can elicit distaste, but that is a necessary requirement of the scientific method. Yes, it has its flaws, but everyone is free to disregard the scientific framework if they wish for philosophical or spiritual reasons. I just hope they really understand the difference.

Personally while I enjoy cryptic and obscure philosophizing, I also enjoy the autistic ability to know exactly how and why things happen. It is the understanding that one doesn't have to get stuck on either framework that gives a lot of freedom.

Science has its logic and to ask of it anything else is a misunderstanding of science, same for philosophy. Different things. I think scientifically you agree with Tainter, but it is the scientific method as such that is the problem for you.

>>19204573
>No such thing
Science today has become an institution. Like church. It is an ideological weapon. Obviously this is nothing against science as a process, but institutions as a whole.

Follow the money.

>>19204588
Do not confuse popscience or some bullshit products or articles touting "scientific agreement" or the like with real science. One is the actual thing, another, its reflection on piss rabble likes to gurgle down.

Science has become a goal in itself, sometimes to the detriment of people, that much is true.

>>19204209
wtf

>>19204545
You didn’t even read the greentext let alone the actual blog, did you?

>>19196934
orange man bad

>>19196934
>has not collapsed
The dysgenic pressures of the world wars, industrial sedentarism, and modern infant mortality are careening the human biomass toward another extinction event, and it's entirely down to the West not getting a handle on the demons of technology spinning off on their own devices. There is no reason the model cannot have new phases: the question is whether man gets to type II civilization and beyond the solar system, then going about establishing whether or not there are genetic cousins out there, and if it's desirable or even safe to make contact.

>>19196934
>idealist is wrong
wow, no way

>>19204601
>Do not confuse popscience
Why the hell would I think this.
Institutions peddle ideology. Even when these ideologies are in the name of 'science'. The evidence for this is all around you. No offense but you must be retarded if this is not obvious for you. Today diplomas are handed out practically for free.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-46856779

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1oWcfPSJ6eqWC9doaoBYFeRwL6lZJJ0Kb/view

>>19204615
That greentext isn't talking about fascism. I wrote in my post exactly what fascism was. I don't know how you can argue with me on what I said.

>>19204646
Just say “No, I didn’t read it.” If you did, you’d realize that it’s not fascism taken literally. It’s a “realistic fascism” in that it resurrects old forms and methods from a century ago in genuine fascism. The bit about art and poetry also makes no sense if you’ve actually read this book.

>>19204573
>No such thing. Unless the readers are uneducated rabble, and know what science entails, there can be no faking such a thing. Simply, either it is falsifiable or not. Either it corresponds to evidence or not. That's basically it.

This is very common today. The word science is often invoked to give a non-scientific field or work more legitimacy. To be fair, since I haven't read Tainter, I don't know if or to what extent he is guilty of this, but it is most definitely a thing in our modern science-obsessed culture.

>I cannot help but feel you're attributing some judgement of value to the word "complexity", feeling that the determining of some society as "of low complexity" somehow fails to really appreciate its values. That is not the case. "Complexity" carries no judgement of value. It merely denotes the differentiation and organization level of a society, which in turn determines its energy requirements. If anything, Tainter's theory (and it seems also personal opinions) regard complex societies as cumbersome and unpleasant to live under. Not that the complexification of societies is avoidable. An understanding as to why it happens is another benefit of his theory.

That's not really what I mean, although I understand why you might infer that. My point is that there is no way of establishing which of two analogous things in different cultures is more complex. You gave concrete examples before of things easily quantifiable, but consider this: Which is more complex and why - Greek sculpture or contrapuntal classical music and why? Or the rituals of pagan nature-worship or judeo-christianity? As I said before, not all things can be quantified or analyzed in terms of more or less complex, so are these things not important in historical analysis just because they don't fit into the framework?

>"Science has its logic and to ask of it anything else is a misunderstanding of science, same for philosophy. Different things. I think scientifically you agree with Tainter, but it is the scientific method as such that is the problem for you."

I work as a research scientist myself (in organic chemistry), so I have no problem with the scientific method. The main point I'm trying to make is that history is not the kind of field that is amenable to science. I'm sure that Tainter is right about many things, but when I see people throwing around the word science and accusing people of not being "scientific" or "objective" as Tainter does with Spengler, it makes me automatically assume the person is a hack using the authority of science and its enormous practical success to try to elevate his (non-scientific) ideas.

>>19204669
No I read your little greentext and I don't care for it. 'Realistic Fascism' was Italian Fascism. It worked for two decades, it drained swampland, built roads, funded and reformed schools, produced art, philosophy, epic poetry, architecture and many more great things. Then world war two happened.

'Genuine Fascism' is the ideology you are capable of forcing through your energy—but by this logic all political movements can be determined as 'Fascism', ergo 'genuine' Fascism was the Italian conception.

>>19204697
>'Realistic Fascism' was Italian Fascism
>all that other shit
Holy shit No.

>>19204697
So you didn’t read Spengler’s book, you didn’t read the blog, and ,let’s be honest, you just skimmed the greentext without really understanding and now you know what you’re talking about… What you’re saying does not even make sense in this context.

>>19204801
There were no other movements which were like Italian Fascism. There were only crude imitations at best. To call any other movement aside from Italian Fascism 'Fascism' one would have to be looking only at the surface features of Fascism and ignoring the philosophy and historical circumstances which gave birth to it.

Please don't argue with me on this.

>>19204827
I made no mention to Spengler's book so you have no grounds to critize me for not reading it. We are not talking about Spengler, we are talking about Fascism. You are the one going around using made up stuff like 'Realistic Fascism' and I am correcting you for your ignorance. Again, the topic of discussion is Fascism and not Spengler so don't try to turn this around on to me.

>>19204847
>>19204837
You are one illiterate fucking nigger. We're diacussing this spengler related book: http://www.benespen.com/spenglers-future#sf-comedy-errors . Specifically, section five a comedy of error where the author alludes to a coming phenomenon he says "might be called "realistic Fascism"". Holy fucking shit you fucking retard.

>>19204863
Not
>We
Fuckhead, retard. YOU.
MY FUCKING POST IS THIS >>19204545
IS A RESPONSE TO THIS >>19204519

I DID NOT MENTION GREENTEXT, I DID NOT MENTION BLOG, I DID NOT MENTION SPENGLER. MY RESPONSE WAS TO A SPECIFIC POST AIMED AND DIRECTED AT ONLY THAT POST.

THEN YOU COME OUT OF NOWHERE >>19204615 TELLING ME TO" READ GREENTEXT " AND BLOG WHEN I WAS NOT TALKING ABOUT THESE THINGS, I ONLY RESPONDED TO ONE (1) POST. WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU BUTTING IN TALKING TO ME ABOUT BULLSHIT I DID NOT MENTION? HUH? I AM NOT ARGUING SPENGLER OR HIS WORK. I DID NOT EVEN MENTION THE BLOG OR THE GREENTEXT.

YOU COME OUT OF NOWHERE TALKING ABOUT THAT AND PROCEED IN ARGUING WITH YOURSELF ABOUT BULLSHIT THAT I DID NOT EVEN MENTION.

DUMB MOTHER FUCKER RUINING MY FUCKING DAY. YOU SHOULD BE FUCKING SHOT. DON'T REPLY TO ME EVER AGAIN IDIOT.

>>19204847
>I made no mention to Spengler's book so you have no grounds to critize me for not reading it.
…

>>19204905
FUCKING IDIOT WHERE DID I MENTION SPENGLER? I RESPONDED TO ANON WHO MADE POST, I DID NOT MENTION ANYONE ELSE.

Because the thread is about Spengler you fucking mouth breather. You just barged in to sperg about Fascism without checking what the context was. Damn U dumb, nigga.

>>19204990
I DID NOT REPLY TO OP. I REPLIED TO POST WITH INCORRECT CONCEPTION OF THE NATURE OF FASCISM. IF I HAD SOMETHING TO ADD TO THE DISCUSSION ABOUT SPENGLER I WOULD HAVE MADE IT CLEAR IN THE POST. YOU ARE THE ONE WHO CAME TALKING TO ME TELLING ME TO READ SOME SECONDARY LITERATURE NONSENSE WHICH HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH MY POST.

MY ALL CAPS IS AN EXPRESSION OF HOW MUCH YOU RAISED MY BLOOD PRESSURE

>>19196934
Look at when he said that and compare the civilization from then to that of now, I'd argue that it did collapse and what we call today western civilization is in fact a counterfeit.

>>19205065
not yet bucko

>>19205069
You know it's just an unnecessary overcomplification of what that old Greek who was with Bill and Ted was already saying. I'm not even sure if I agree with it.

>>19205069
As I understand it, our civilization doesn't necessarily have to end like Rome, with warbands everywhere and looting. What if we end up like China, perpetually disintegrating and consolidating in stagnation?

>>19205157
Really, Rome ended up as the Turkish Republic.

>>19205157
sure, our stagnation can be the colonization of space, endless expansion across the stars until the time comes where the human species dies off and a further proof that his species was one of the finest in the whole universe

>>19205169
America, realistically. Translatio imperii and all that.
>>19205180
That's the Dune timeline. Very cursed.

>>19205216
America is from the British Empire which is from Scots who were never Roman and English who were Norman who were Vikings who were never Roman.
America is barbarian.

>>19205229

>>19205261
china? ottoman empire? nah i don´t think so

>>19205261
Purple doesn't sound right. Also, what about other "Right To Rule"s like the Mandate of Heaven?

>>19205157
According to Spengler Faustian Man ends with Faustian Man swallowing the entire planet and then nuking it clean of all life.

According to anyone who a brain and a working pair of eyes, yes, the USA absolutely ends like Rome did. Jewish Finance will abandon ship to the Old World, centered in Jerusalem as Neo-Byzantium, while Spic barbarians invade and eventually fragment into a gazillion micro-states. The difference will be that the average Mestizoid IQ is 75 while the average Germanic IQ was 100, so we'll eventually see a resurgence of neo-barbarian Whites from the US and Canada.

>>19205065
How do you mean?

>>19205387
>According to Spengler Faustian Man ends with Faustian Man swallowing the entire planet and then nuking it clean of all life.
Where does he say that? I don’t recall this at all. In fact, I recall that Spengler predicts that Faustian civilization will just start to hate the civilization it built for itself and turn away from it while it’s forms disintegrate. He says that one day the railroads and ports will lie in ruins and Faustian man will be as pious as it was in the spring phase.

>>19205387
But the Caesar is supposed to be the victory of Blood against Money no? Finance will hold no power. Also if the Universal State becomes Global, there wouls be no barbarians. This just seems a 2021-flavored apocalypse.

>>19205427
In regard to blood vs money, it’s the opposite actually. Spengler suggested that’s what the world wars were about and blood lost. Elsewhere he suggested that the German model was inherently reactionary and thus fated to lose. Either way, the message is clear. Faustian civilization brings with it a Cecil Rhodes type imperium and not a Bismarckian one.

>>19203049
Prussia lived on in socialist Eastern Europe.

>>19205447
No, straight from the book.
>The coming of Caesarism breaks the dictature of money and its political weapon democracy.
>Money is overthrown and abolished only by blood.Lifeis alpha and omega, the cosmic on-flow in microcosmic form. It isthefact of facts within the world-as-history.
Money wins = it wasn't real Cesarism.

>>19204357
lmao

>>19205387
Not a good reading of Spengler. It's just random memes mixed with inappropriate analogies.
Actually, what Spengler says directly about the actual death, winter, or Caesarism of a civilization isbjust a small portion of the Decline.
In my summation, America is the Rome of the Faustian culture to the Greece of Europe. Akin to the Qin, the Ottomans, the Babylonians, etc. It is a manifestation of the civilization idea inherent to the English, whereas in Germany you find the origin of the culture itself.
And this is obvious in the fact that America mantles NATO. Whether America is swarmed with nonwhites, or in other words, an alien group from the founding population, does not dispell its role. We can surmise this on the fact that Rome itself was, for a time, filled with barbarian migrants, traders, and slaves that outnumbered ancestral Italic Romans. These migrants, wanting or not, assimilated. Many Egyptians, Gauls, Greeks, Germans, and Easterners served in the Roman army during its imperial heights. As was true for the barbarians that assimilated into China (which became the vast majority of modern Chinese ancestors). This is one of the reasons it seems a culture loses metaphysical keenness and enters into pure extensiveness. But it's not the terminal point.
It's vacuous to say the US will utterly collapse because it's filled with foreigners and has failed war efforts overseas. The US has never suffered something has catastrophic as Teutonberg Forest or Cannae. And the kinds of tumult suffered now are demonstrably temporary as matters of history (compare it to the Great Depression). If there's another civil war, it will be winner take all, as was true in Russia and Spain.
The future Caesar men, I figure, will begin in Babylon America and mantle the whole of Europe, Australia, and numerous former colonies.

>>19205447
>>19205486
The blood vs. money dictum is more about the deciding feature of power, rather than presence. Money, as it is now, is everything in politics. Partly because it gets to decide the previous factor: ideas, via news.
This power if money creates immense stress and trouble.
My take on Spengler here is that one day, a spark of enlightenment hits: blood is the last and first power. It's about the man who takes, not he who schemes. Hence, a man like Caesar arises as an antidote. However, as Spengler sees Caesarian, it is a crude enforcement of once lively forms. A perilous sign.
But money is still a feature, just not the deciding one as it is right now.

>>19206012
Yeah, I actually just misread that poster’s question but if you read the full quote he mentions, he equates the rule of money to socialism and the rule of noble (presumably moneyed) families who value politics over economy. Money still plays a role, but in the United States we could consider this a battle between the wealth of New York and the wealth of Washington, two different types of money.

>>19205980
>whereas in Germany you find the origin of the culture itself
Interesting. I would consider it Scandinavia or France.

Anyway, don’t you wonder about just how Faustian America is and will be. Spengler’s views on race seem to contradict the idea that America is and will be Faustian regardless of current immigration trends. Where is the secret force that the land exerts on a people? Different people, different land, different culture/civilization, no? Unlike the classical world of Greece Rome, which always have been and always will be geographically proximal and similar, Northern Europe and North America are actually quite distant and very different. Suppose that this land doesn’t exert this force on Americans either because of time or some other factor. What happens after the civilization reaches its terminus? Wouldn’t the people left behind be formed into an entirely new people all together and be totally distinct from that we find in Northwestern Faustian Europe? I suspect anon has a point that the destiny of America might be to carry Faustian civilization to its terminus but ceases to be Faustian beyond that, in the same way that say, Rome (Italy) is still classical.

>>19206058
>Spengler’s views on race seem to contradict the idea that America is and will be Faustian regardless of current immigration trends.
Spengler called America Faustian quite directly. And the US is a culmination of European civilization, though not culturally vigorous. Hence, the civilization vs. culture idea. And there is a sense, as Spengler says, that Faustian has a planetary character.
>Different people, different land, different culture/civilization, no?
I think you start to deviate from Spengler and get into other thinkers, in that sense. I recall that Joseph Campbell espoused that land idea. Perhaps there's a point there, but the US is unmistakably defined by Faustian culture, and most of the immigrant population is assimilated into at least a superficial Americana as a formless, rootless urban mass. Such immigrants lack all cultural roots to their homeland. It fits quite well into Spengler's analysis of the civilization phase. You meet a 3rd generation Mexican, Indian, or Asian immigrant, you meet a pastiched urbanite. Even with pure blood, they have a mutt mind, just no proper American soul, which is why I think, despite the best attempts to artificially force them into politics, they can never dominate the political life as American whites can (see: Gavin Newsom in California), unless they're deeply entrenched.
Which you can quickly say about most of the world's population to a certain point.
>What happens after the civilization reaches its terminus? Wouldn’t the people left behind be formed into an entirely new people all together and be totally distinct from that we find in Northwestern Faustian Europe?
Cultures do take in aliens, and it's not outright destructive, necessarily, though it can be. We can learn from Spengler that the prime symbol and its liveliness experiences an internal death, and the civilization will never reach something metaphysically new. As in India and China, it will always relive old cliches or be subsumed by something living.
Perhaps Europeans will be a distorted memory, like the Sumerians or Egyptians. It's a dreary thought. The true founding Chinese seem to be a lost population, as well. But the civilization itself can go on. Albeit, ours is facing a dangerous virus: an evolved racial Marxism. If it succeeds, it makes sense that the remains of the west will simply be overrun form the East. But, it is a fad thus far, and nearing its peak.

Even though Spengler isn't about Caesarism, per se, the last formation of Imperium is definitely a big topic to us these days. How do you foresee future Caesarism and a Faustian universal state, /lit/?

>>19206251
>I think you start to deviate from Spengler and get into other thinkers, in that sense.
It was Spengler.

> A race, writes Spengler, has "roots", like a plant. It is connected to a landscape. "If, in that home, the race cannot be found, this means the race has ceased to exist. A race does not migrate. Men migrate, and their successive generations are born in ever-changing landscapes; but the landscape exercises a secret force upon the extinction of the old and the appearance of the new one."[15] In this instance, he writes of "race" in the tribal and cultural rather than the biological sense, a 19th-century use of the word still common when Spengler wrote.

I agree with everything you said, but this is still relevant. Different place, different race. My guess is that Spengler would say that America is still Faustian in so far as it’s dominated by European people with an inward sense of “we” (something else he refers to regarding race) which still feels itself to be decidedly Faustian, which still speak an essentially Faustian language, have Faustian blood in their veins, and have delayed the disintegration of all this with the Faustian use of technics. America as we know it is decidedly Faustian. But what becomes of America when the civilization reaches its twilight and the land once again exerts that mysterious force on the people? My guess is it literally becomes an entirely separate race. The moment that Faustian civilization reaches its terminus, Americans begin to change from Faustian to something else.

>>19204110
No they won't. The culture of dopamine that is the west will easily addict any young mind. How many of those progressive 2nd generation Mexican activists do you see going on pilgrimages to Our Lady of Guadeloupe? They won't, they dye their hair and have casual sex, with the blood in their veins, marred by disease of their own desire, is the only thing tying them to the ancestors they claim to fight for. Africans and Arabs in Europe will be no different. They'll whine about how much Euro Christians oppressed them, but ultimately, they will preserve nothing of Islam.

>>19206251
>The true founding Chinese seem to be a lost population
Where can I read more about this? Have there been genetic studies showing that the remains of the early Chinese are totally different from the Chinese of today?

>>19206423
I suppose my reading of Spengler is that the prime symbol itself does originate in a land. A geographical principle. However, it seems that it can spread beyond such and remain itself. My interpretation is that, as the focal point of China moved away form the Yellow River valley (which, even bland empiricist historians agree was decisive in forming Chinese attitudes and culture), so it can for others.
>The moment that Faustian civilization reaches its terminus, Americans begin to change from Faustian to something else.
That is possible, that even what we call "white" Americans will become a different culture, as Russians in the East may look and share traits of a German or Swede, but have a radically different ethos. However, since America is closing in on

>>19206513
We do know from history that China proper began in a smaller region than China today or the extent of the Han or Tang.
The problem is that modern Chinese are Han Chinese. They were codified in the days of the Han dynasty. If we put this in Spengler terms, it came quite a distance away from when they saw Imperium. Or, when the ruler of the Qin became the first true unifier of a proper Chinese empire, and hence Qin Shi Huangdi, the first emperor. This also has implications for how we discern the genepool of early Shang dynasty and the two Zhou periods.
Chinese history goes like this: early coalescence, eventually to Shang dynasty (there's a mythical Xia, but ignore that). The Shang were like the time of Charlemagne is to us. An initial "empire" but highly decentralized like all pre-Qin dynasties. The Shang fell, and gave way to the Zhou, split into western and eastern periods by historians. Western Zhou was sacked, capital moved to east, until the state of Zhou lost its power gradually and became just one of the many states. Hence, the warring states period emerged after a time. This plays into Spengler's "contending states" period, which I think is about the post-Alexandrian era of the rising Rome to the Punic wars and the colonial struggles of Europe up to the World Wars. Qin emerged on top, and formed a bureaucratic empire over the feudalistic kind. Qin fell apart after the first emperor died. From that era of rebellion emerged the Han. Then the Han fell apart, and China actually fractures which helped moved the cultural center south. Northern barbarians make their own dynasties and realms in the north, some unifying the north (it's complicated). Then come the Sui, but mostly we care about the Tang, because they were a near peak for traditional Chinese power and they instituted the exam system.
At each stage, the Chinese are conquering territory, but more importantly sending in people to mix in with "barbarians" who become semibarbarians instead, and eventually those barbarians become "chinese." Also, various peoples in East Asia are assimilating themselves into the prestige of their culture, this voluntary assimilation being more key than conquest. Korea, Mongolia, and Japan remain free and distinct based on geographical factors but also fierce resistance.
On genetics:
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fgene.2019.01045/full
The problem is, as I said, such studies are thinking about the *Han.* It would be like if Europe admitted the Mideast and the Americas and those areas began to think of themselves as regional Europeans. Or, more appropriately, if the whole of the Roman empire remained and to be Roman meant to be a Roman citizen after Marcus Aurelius made everyone in the borders so, and that cultural lived on for 400 years of a new genepool demarcation.

>>19206381
A fucking retard made your map, it's shit.

>>19205261
Ridiculous, fanciful, rubbish.

>>19206381
Caesarism in Faustian civilization would not be a Trump-like figure, like some retards assume, but something like what Dave Eggers' novel "The Circle" describes.

>>19206666
Explain how or forever be a pseud.

>>19206673
I'll explain this very briefly:

- Western Rome had no successor

- Eastern Rome was succeeded by the Ottoman Caliphate, which was destroyed in 1924

That’s all there is to it, don't come at me with your bullshit Muscovy this and Holy Roman Empire that, I'm in no mood.

A Cesar in a American moneyed context - would be similarly to that of Palpatine in Star Wars, a American Cesar would just straight use the broken system and exploit the decadent congressmen to build a party of personality. By bribing terrorist forces to gain further control of banks and to build an army on top of that for conflict, a slow and deliberate parliament force which is unlike a dominate military invasion to a time like the Roman empire. You take a society like America thats blinded by internal conflict, corrupted by politics, statemens who’s title is handed to them not my merit but by money and nepotism. It WILL eventually be destroy them due to this mass ignorance but you can sustain this corruption in congress to build a glorified fan club - who only care for their positions.

You have to usher in power not by a cue or traditional conquest - but accepted with applause from within.

>>19206705
You know what, I got quads there so go fuck yourself with your shitty map which is shit, lmao

>>19206381
This map is stupid and lacks actual knowledge of the places it pretends to color. China is much closer to Pakistan than it is NK. Serbia is absolutely not America-aligned. Hell, France is in the process of placing itself at the head of the anti-American Europe bloc. Bangladesh is not anymore Indian than Pakistan. Nobody in SEA is aligned with China at all. Like, there are so many little problems in this map that add up to it being complete shit. It is very clearly made by someone that does not have the necessary knowledge of the world to make such a sweeping map.

>>19206730
>This map is stupid and lacks actual knowledge of the places it pretends to color. China is much closer to Pakistan than it is NK. Serbia is absolutely not America-aligned. Hell, France is in the process of placing itself at the head of the anti-American Europe bloc.
You miss the point of the post completely. It's not about the map, per se. None of that means anything in the context of Caesarian conflict in the Spengler sense, which is assumed to be correct for this thread. Post-Caesarism civilization (which is in a timeframe inbetween 2000-2200, a centuries long opening) implies the collapse of democratic and moneyed politics and the reintroduction of force politics. You're implying geopolitics continuing on a trajectory of democratic self-determination of nation states, which in all ages has had its antecedents collapse. Implying such short-sighted projections, as political scientists always do, only accounts for Cold War adjacent politics, rather than macrohistorical ones. And history bodes that universal states, the metaphysical Babylon, are normative, not exceptional.
This is a failure of political science, which can scantly predict outside of a few decades.
The point is, after a hypothetical death of democratic politics (ALL the nations of the world with self-determined republican politics are only thus because of American influence and/or European colonialism, which is an obvious fact of history), how could one idealize, perhaps in a fantastical way, a world of the Caesar-man?

>>19206783
I'm not replying to the text in the post I literally only addressed the map as retarded, which it is. The more I look at it the more I find it infuriatingly wrong. Sub-Saharan Africa is just colored in completely arbitrarily. Like somebody who doesn't know a single thing about any of the countries there and just kind of decided "well these are physically closer to China and these are closer to America and I read a story once a year ago about one of these countries taking out loans from China so uh I'll just paint a cluster here to be China." South America too is just completely retarded. Asia just looks like the guy who made it has like cursory knowledge of the major nations in Asia but doesn't know shit about the lesser talked about ones like Myanmar or Bangladesh or really anything in SEA so it's all just arbitrary bullshit like everywhere else.

>>19206783
Why post the map at all then. Delete it if it's not important.

>>19206824
Bro, all of this you're explaining happened to me in less than a tenth of a second.

>>19206839
I don't know what this means

>>19206849
Don't worry about it. Get it or let it (the thread) return back to on topic.

>>19206878
Sure just stop posting retarded maps then and try to make your actual posts more legible.

>Others influenced by Decline
Shamil Basayev: Chechen warlord given Decline as a gift by a Russian radio journalist. He reportedly read it in one night and settled on his plan to organize life in Chechnya.[23]
> 1993, Basayev lead the KNK corps, this unit under Basayev carried out war crimes in Georgia, decapitating Georgian civilians.[28]

Rumour had it that Basayev drank the blood of Georgian troops, and "invented a new form of execution--the "Chechen tongue," in which the victim's tongue is pulled out through a slit throat".[

>>19206940
Based

>>19206940
It's not possible to read the whole book in one night. It's nearly 1000 pages long.

>>19206824
>>19206894
>Look at how informed at geopolitics I am with my endless nit-pickery bro!
You sound like an annoying twat.
By the way, I was curious about this, and right now there are 100,000 Chinese living in Madagascar. China owns 20% of Ugandan debt, and also gave out billions to Ethiopia to spend on infrastructure (which it can't pay back). Also, China's sole overseas naval base is in Djibouti, in the East. China's focal point in the east of the continent is well established.
>but muh east is just closer to China
Yeah no shit. Why would having a direct sea route be a big deal for maritime trade matter, anyway?
Also, apparently United States Africa Command precludes the east.

>>19207041
>wow you nitpicked my map using GEOPOLITICS but GEOPOLITICS don't matter and akshully here are a bunch of random headlines that show how GEOPOLITICS support my retarded map
lol

>>19206824
>lesser talked about ones like Myanmar
But Myanmar has terrible relations with both the US and China. The US, for attempted intervention, and right now Myanmar is dealing with Chinese ethnic rebels and border tensions. It's literally a state where both the US and China are trying to meddle.

>>19207069
Yeah, you tried nitpicking but showed you don't know anything about what you're talking about.

>>19204671
>The word science is often invoked to give a non-scientific field or work more legitimacy.
Which is why I said it's easy to recognize and ignore such bullshit. Science-obsession is the vulgar end of things, which in itself has nothing to do with science per se.

>so are these things not important in historical analysis just because they don't fit into the framework?
Like I said science demands a crude transformation of everything it touches. You seem to think only history has these factors that are inherently qualitative and that making them quantitative does away with a large part of their essence. But have you not understood that this is the very requirement of science? You say history isn't amenable to being scientific, but is psychology any more? Is even physics? The exact same case can very easily be construed for any scientific field.

For example how could anyone come to the conclusion that psychological wellbeing can be reduced to the function of some specific neurotransmitter and by someones taking in of a drug affecting it, such as the SSRI? Do you not see how a large part of what it means to be a human is disregarded by psychology, simply because it doesn't sit well with science? Any philosophy on what it means to live "the good life" is made irrelevant by the knowledge that serotonergic pathways play a major role in depression, which in its turn has been reduced to a chemical imbalance, a mechanical issue. Just as Tainter did with societies. That is the essence of science.

I could make the same case even for the most revered of sciences, physics. What does physics tell us of phenomenological quality of the world? Of the mind-body problem? Of substance? It doesn't. It merely disregards such themes as incompatible with quantification and operationalization, hence they're thrown aside.

Scientists are often so deeply specialized technicians that they lose the sight of the bigger picture. If you do not see how the utter disregard for a large part of the world is the very key to science's success, what makes it possible, then you haven't zoomed out enough.

Tainter makes history very compatible with science. Yes, those questions you asked are made irrelevant, but such is the march of science. Anything it cannot digest will be in danger of vanishing, through what is a conditioned blindness towards it, by the account of scientific and technical rigour.

Scientifically, I would argue the complexity factors correlate with music and sculpture etc. It's just those things are harder to measure and a lot of the evidence is inaccessible or forever lost.

>>19204637
Like I've been saying, the mouthbreathers interpretation of science isn't science. When the world "science" is touted around or misused and abused anywhere, that's not science. Usually there's a massive gulf between science and the mainstream knowledge of it. Eg most scientific knowledge only reaches mainstream consciousness after a 25-50 year delay. People may be quoting "scientific consensus" on issues long gone from actual science.

Eg. the study of IQ is largely hidden and only when a researcher does the mistake of publicly announcing the ideologically uncomfortable results, is there a backlash. That doesn't mean science obeys ideology, it merely means scientists will be very careful and remain in their obscure research collectives, hidden away from public rage.

I've read Leaving the Cathedral (not to the end), but I don't see how exposing the fetishism of science in the minds of common mouthbreathers detracts from science itself. It works well inside its paradigm and framework and any misapplication isn't the fault of scientific process, but of those who misapply it.

>>19206251
>Spengler called America Faustian quite directly
This was when USA was 90% white

>>19207272
I am not the guy you were talking to but let me just start with saying I'm a social scientist by training and I dislike using "science" (more likely statistical analysis) in a historical framework. Again I will assume we are using stats for the most part given that if we quantify certain data points that is likely how we are interpreting them. In terms of that I will remind you we will then need to look at said data points in form of regression analysis and finding how patterns best fit or maybe we get fancy to attempt to not just prove which things cause others but we attempt to predict how our key basket of indicators will lead to civilization trends.

The issue with all of this is something we can see with economics (my field) very easily. Black swan events happen all the time. Events we cannot time for prepare for, account for, or even know of. Things that we do not have recorded in our data points. The issue with the epistemology of cause and effect and as Spengler calls it the world as nature is nature in itself in a scientific world is static, but history is random and messy. Even if you are a deterministic our inability to have perfect information makes our world a random one on the ground. Something that is not very good for a statistical analysis of history.

That all said, let us remember that this doesn't mean it cannot be useful. All models are wrong, some are useful is a good mentality to have with regard to scientific and certain metaphysically modeled ideas. I will say I cannot vouch for how useful Tainter's model is but I find it a shame that Spengler's model was discarded by him due to it not aligning with his world as nature sensibilities. Spengler's though process is very different he views the world as history, that being entirely divorced from cause and effect and borrowing Goethe's morphology to explain how history processes. The idea of morphology being the understanding of one organism aiding our understanding in the organism of a similar kind. I can expect two trees to both grow somewhat similarly is the basic idea.

Spengler is entirely nonscientific because of this discarding of causality. His world as history view places his analysis also in a certainty. This is destiny for Spengler. If I observe one tree blossoms and then wilts and dies then I can assume the next one will as well. Tainter seems to complain about this because he does not understand that Spengler's method requires him to be absolute rather then probabilistic. A regression analysis makes something a possibility, and the causal mechanism gives us the option to introduce new stimuli to change the response. This is not at all the case for Spengler. Despite his metaphysical model not aligning well with Anglo liking to casual understandings his model remains the most powerful historical model I have seen to date. No other has better predicted the future as of now that I am aware of. I would be happily proven wrong given I dislike his conclusions.

>>19196934
Why are you posting a picture of crowley?

OP here: y'all be wildin'

>>19207303
>Like I've been saying, the mouthbreathers interpretation of science isn't science. When the world "science" is touted around or misused and abused anywhere, that's not science.
we are in a splenger post. and i want to remind that science is now faustian, so science will literally put their authority in every fucking thing you can imagine till people realize science is shit and a facade and collapse in itself, probably with another new worldview defeated it. my point is that science is always an interpretation of science.

>>19207607
That's irrelevant and actually something he covered. Culture-Civilizations are independent of race. A coal black nigger in the congo can be Faustian Man, Chinese Man, Sumerian Man, etc. The Culture-Civilizations are just abstract mental entities that infect humans and make us see spacetime in certain manners. They're independent of people, biology, religion, and culture (the KULTURE that Spengler talks about is different than "culture"). In fact, they'll happily warp those things to meet their ends. Christianity is a religion easily demonstrating this: Is it a Faustian religion, a Magian one, or a Russian one? It's none, it's just some accident of history, no different than chopsticks.

What DOES matter is that Faustian Man is incredibly virulent and seeks to swallow the globe. That requires letting non-Whites in. These non-Whites will then proceed to become Faustian Men, and all Faustian Men are equal (this is a belief that Faustian Men hold, it is obviously not true however), and then they'll get butthurt. This will lead to Bioleninism and GIBS ME DATS, which leads to the collapse of the system (nuking the world clean of all life).

>>19206553
I agree with that reading. Italy fits this reading. You had with the collapse of the Romans Northern barbarian invasions which changed it fundamentally. As such, Italy was an early contributor to Faustian culture and arguably remains Faustian, rather than Classical, to this day. The Faustian element displaced the classical. We might’ve seen something similar in the colonization and expansion of North America, which is today undoubtably Faustian. What’s perplexing is how and why America became a “core” state and Italy did not. If anything, Italy is closer to the land and the prime symbol than the North Americans could ever be. Still, while different North America is filled with primeval forests resembling that of North Europe. I would speculate that Faustian technics allowed Americans, and all New Worlders, to remain Faustian. I’ve seen it remarked that we’re it not for communication technology, American English and British English would be much farther apart than they are today, approaching what would eventually become distinct languages. The fact that they haven’t almost speaks to the fact that America is still just a Faustian colony, albeit one with outsized power. I think it’s interesting to speculate what will happen when the civilization runs out of steam. Personally, I think whites in America will die off or be bred out. The lack of indigenous whites is North America indicates this.

>>19208041
They’re not independent of race at all, but he does suggest that culture-civilizations are spiritual. So a man is Faustian in so far as he is spiritually Faustian regardless of his physical race. But again, this is illusive. Spengler writes that a culture is rooted in a particular race in a particular homeland, which exerts an invisible force upon the race. Non-white migrants to America and elsewhere are thus not so much Faustian as they are fellaheen men. Blacks in America, for example, can be regarded as what Toynbee coined “an internal proletariat” rather than a spiritual unit of Faustian civilization itself.

>>19208082
I would argue that there is probably a minimum IQ requirement (for simplicity) that you have to meet to be "possessed" by a Culture-Civilization, sure, but that's just what percentage of Negristo filth flooding in isn't Fellaheen. There IS a right half of the bellcurve, however small it may be. And for races like Asians, Semites, etc, there certainly are a number of people who are "smart enough" to be possessed by Faustian Man. Spengler's races aren't biological, they're spiritual, and Chinks and Arabs and Jews and all sorts of weird shit (biological minimums permitting) can indeed join the Faustian race.

>>19196934
The Age of Western man is over. The time of the Slav, has come.

>>19207820
In general Tainter split theories of collapse into categories and Spengler's fell into that of mystical explanations. Mystical explanations rely on value judgements, intangibles and biological analogies. They are also very intuitive. Anyone will understand what it means if a "society loses its vigor, grows senile like a withering tree and eventually collapses", but what does that really entail? Why would a society lose its vigor, grow senile? "Good times produce weak men." Okay, but do they really? Is there much reason why one would expect moral integrity from hard times and laxity from good times? Did the Soviet collapse and the hard times it brought produce moral integrity? Were the 90s a fertilizer for strong men? Is Russia a moral ideal now? One of Tainter's good points is that rulers automatically seem competent during the good times and inept during a decline. Is there a lower IQ, worse education, obvious moral deficiencies in later rulers? Could one really make a substantial case for that?

Take Hitler. He was an uncontested genius when he rose to power, his unbending vision a source of confidence and inspiration for an entire nation. But look at the second half of WWII and there's only talk of his pigheadedness, incessant need to micromanage his generals. Are there really any differences, or is it merely the context that made him seem one way or the other? One could easily try an ad hoc explanation - maybe old age, maybe addictions caught up, power got to his head, etc. etc. You know, the basic "long decline" archetype, just like Napoleon. But incongruently, nobody thought much of Hitler before his eminence either. How could it be that his coworkers missed the genius in him, that would become the sole source of confidence for everyone just ten years later? Just how much does context affect our judgement? Would Caesar have seemed genius, were he born three centuries later? Point being, "virility," "vigor," "drive" would just as easily fall prey to such distortions.

But what if amidst all these intuitive impressions, and countless theories recounting them, we could find an undeniable thread of objective force at play? That is what Tainter aims for.

>>19208113
It has to do with IQ only in so far as IQ can be said to be a consequence of the spirit and of the land and the blood. Jews have a unique geographic and historical relationship with the West for a multitude of reasons and as such, I think we can consider them something of an exception but even so, the Holocaust itself speaks to the fact that even Jews are and will remain something like an internal proletariat in the West. As for Arabs, Chinese, Indian, we see them in well paid employment but not in public office. Why? Fundamentally, they’re not Faustian. They’re akin to economic migrants.They too remain an internal proletariat, albeit one that is more or less capable of getting along. The blacks have been resigned to a unique degree of internal proletariat in part due to historical circumstance and in part due to the failure to integrate them even as economic migrants, which they never were. In light of these failures, the Civilization approaches its twilight and attempts are made to redefine the civilization rather than bring the internal proletariat into the fold. Some fail to integrate civically and economically to greater or lesser degrees than others, but on the whole, they all remain proletariat men

>>19208131
slavshits are western, they're just bad at it

>>19208113
So the european peasantry and artisans that toiled through Spring and Summer were never Faustian because they were dumb?

>>19208308
they were because they were european, if they were born as part of the aristocracy, they wouldn´t have a problem reading philosophy or making art

>>19208402
Plenty of aristocracy was barren of talent. And they were also Faustian. There is no reason why the underclasses of today can't have adapted to be Faustian. That's what happened to the Asians, they fit in the mold perfectly. Sinic civilization today is a dream of a dream.

>>19208674
africans are fellaheen, no matter where they live, and they´re dumb as fuck and incompatible with civilization, they belong to the jungle

>>19208674
A lot of what you’re arguing with us precisely the 3 tiered model of history (Ancient, Medieval, modern, a la Heidegger) or the 2 tiered mode of civilization (Peasantry, Middle Class, Aristocracy a la Dumezil, Evola). Both are right in a sense, but miss the bigger picture which you need to be able to start with in order to grasp Spengler. Others will remain thinking along the lines of caste, race, outdated historical models and the implications of them and thus can’t get Spengler. In order to get him you need to dismantle those. Still, there’s some confusion here. Men are not Faustian by virtue of living, even for a long time, in Faustian civilization. In fact, Faustian civilization, of all the civilizations, has probably done more to resign masses of other men to an out-caste (in regard to the culture) than any other civilization.

>>19196934
>Is it fair to say Spengler was wrong?
he believed that the Russian people imported Socialism and that Socialism is Western
he is clearly wrong on that one

in his terms:

Fascism seems distinct Western-Faustian (Roman-Catholic Christianity)
Socialism seems distinct Eastern-Russian (Orthodox Christianity)

Europe is geopolitical and spiritual in between West and East, it is neither distinctively Western nor Eastern

>>19206381
>How do you foresee future
people duking it out again who gets to keep Europe

>>19196934
Why are you nerd's talking about Hank Schrader lmao

>>19196934
>Western civilization has not collapsed in fact it has only become better and better
This is wrong lol
Also Spengler did not say the West would experience a Hollywood gollabse in a generation. His other civilizations continued to exist in a state of decay for long after the point where we are
Try reading the book

>>19196934
>collapsed
I don't think that is what it means, rather transformation
the Roman Empire vanishing was a good thing after all because slavery declined with it over a 1500 year period and it gave rise to new ideas
if Empire means anything it means the beginning of the end because the culture stiffens

we are seeing this right now in America, many people fat and the government doesn't care mostly because it has no solution other than grand speeches
America is very similar to the Soviet Union only that it is on the opposite end

if you take a democratic principle you can only stretch it out so much before it becomes it's opposite
when freedom and reason start to govern every aspect of life it can hardly be called that anymore because they are no longer in relation to anything but themselves

if you see Western Capitalism as anything else than soft slavery, where the cage is pretty, your kinda retarded
it needs to change and that's not going to happen with states all around the world and that can only happen if the world decentralizes

>>19209177
britain has been host to various indigenous socialist movements going as far back as medieval era

>>19206717
caesar had the support of the roman masses and was being resisted by the hereditary elite. an american caesar wouldn't need to bribe anybody

>>19210023
Caesar dished out absolutely astronomical amounts of bribes though. It's part of why the masses loved him (part).

>>19209177
Quote it if those are his terms…

>>19205980
Rare to see someone on this board who properly understands Spengler.

>>19196982
BASED.

>>19197423
>You can't be a complete atheist and believe in an original moral code.

Why not?

>>19210097
key difference between "bribe" and "reward". you can never have the loyalty of someone you bribe

>>19196934
the end was in the year 2000. Supposedly we are only 20 years after we have expressed all our possible forms. History is long, be patient.

>>19208173
>Mystical explanations rely on value judgements, intangibles and biological analogies
I think using the term mystical to describe Spengler is rather poor faith given his model is metaphysical. A mystical theory would be something more akin to a circular theory explained by the gods where as theories like Vico, Hegel, Kant, and Spengler are all theories crafted by internal logic through the reason that these theories have laid out. In general it either shows a disdain for metaphysics or unfamiliarity with it and thus the harsh criticism of lumping in metaphysical models with all other non-scientisms models. I will say that Spengler utilizes quasi Platonism to explain variations between high cultures which can be construed as intangibles and this makes his model not practical for explain exactly how a culture's destiny will actualize sometimes until it has, but those are the only two criticisms that really stick.

Let us also remember that biological analogies themselves are a form of science, all be it not how any scientist would think of one today. Goethe's science is non causal which allows for Spengler to navigate around your question of why. Spengler being a German idealist unlike the naive realist that Tainter is claims that objective truths cannot be pursued outside of a metaphysical realm we have no access to objectively. Because of this its pointless to seek out such forces unless one is to understand their forces are like all other physical models, subjective.

Understanding the Cesar figure is knowing about the other non-hellenic Cesars. Many people believe we'll literally suffer the fate of Rome, and talk about us being at the point of Sulla or the Gracchi. Which of course isn't any better than astrology.

>>19207093
You know there are much lower effort ways to troll that don't include spending your time making some super bait-y map

>>19211578
You didn't give much except loony jargon and showing ur assblasted about Spengler being called mythical lol. Who cares, it's obvious Tainter isn't into metaphysics, so he doesn't care about if it fits well with your taxonomy or not. I gave you reasons why these theories are open to distortions and you didn't respond.

>this makes his model not practical for explain exactly how a culture's destiny will actualize sometimes until it has, but those are the only two criticisms that really stick.
So it's horoscope with extra steps?

>their forces are like all other physical models, subjective.
Yeah like when putting a bullet into someone's head. Subjective. Or when a city starves to death because its energy sources were too small in relation to its costs (complexity).

>all be it not how any scientist would think of one today
So we're gonna have this discussion with definitions spanning multiple centuries, huh?

>>19213307
>I gave you reasons why these theories are open to distortions and you didn't respond.
I didn't direct engage with your argument on why non scientific models fail because your argument for why these models fail is one that criticizes the intuitive causal relationship which like I said Spengler bypasses. I assumed this was obvious and my doubling down on this point would make it clear but it didn't so I'll reiterate it here.
>Tainter isn't into metaphysics, so he doesn't care about if it fits well with your taxonomy or not
The more important thing I was trying to fish out of you was whether you agree metaphysical models can add to human knowledge in a powerful way? The statement of calling metaphysics not objective due to distortions be it for a historical model or otherwise makes me wonder if this is an area you share and if its with regard to all metaphysical models or if there is more to do with it.
>So it's horoscope with extra steps?
I'll be honest I have no clue what a horoscope is. But I'd assume not. Here are a few examples to illustrate what I mean. If Egypt and Rome had a period of civilizational expansion during their winter civilization period would could expect if the Aztecs had continued to exist unmolested for their high cultures' life cycle that they would have expanded their realm as well. Checks out given that now that we know more Aztec history since Spengler's death that the Aztecs were in a period of expansion. That said we wouldn't know how far they'd stretch, for how long they'd grow before they fell to another group, or collapsed. Spengler told of how other high cultures shifted from the masses in the armies to creating elite professional armies full of mercenaries and loyal followers. He pointed at this claiming eventually (given he died in 1936) this would befall the European states, but he would not know why or what said military's would look like after they transitioned.
>Yeah like when putting a bullet into someone's head
Note I said model. An absolute idealist might argue that it was subjective if someone is shot, but that is beyond the scope of our talk since we're talking about modeling history and not innate reality. But point stands given that this is what informs my statement all theories are wrong but some are useful.

So I'll rap this up stating as plane as possible given there has been some misconceptions:
Axiom 1 metaphysics adds powerful models to human knowledge.
Axiom 2 objective truth is divorced from scientific models which can describe the physical world to an okay degree but never perfectly.

If you agree with these two axioms then Spengler is not hard to sell. His model's usage of Goethe's morphology when applied to the structures of high cultures has had very strong abilities to explain past events and even more so is powerful in explain events to come. Its broad and generalist but that is the unit of analysis Spengler analyzes so that shouldn't be a surprise.

>>19213307
>I gave you reasons why these theories are open to distortions and you didn't respond.
I didn't direct engage with your argument on why non scientific models fail because your argument for why these models fail is one that criticizes the intuitive causal relationship which like I said Spengler bypasses. I assumed this was obvious and my doubling down on this point would make it clear but it didn't so I'll reiterate it here.
>Tainter isn't into metaphysics, so he doesn't care about if it fits well with your taxonomy or not
The more important thing I was trying to fish out of you was whether you agree metaphysical models can add to human knowledge in a powerful way? The statement of calling metaphysics not objective due to distortions be it for a historical model or otherwise makes me wonder if this is an area you share and if its with regard to all metaphysical or just limited to those that are historical.
>So it's horoscope with extra steps?
I'll be honest I have no clue what a horoscope is. But I'd assume not. Here are a few examples to illustrate what I mean. If Egypt and Rome had a period of civilizational expansion during their winter civilization period would could expect if the Aztecs had continued to exist unmolested for their high cultures' life cycle that they would have expanded their realm as well. Checks out given that now that we know more Aztec history since Spengler's death that the Aztecs were in a period of expansion. That said we wouldn't know how far they'd stretch, for how long they'd grow before they fell to another group, or collapsed. Spengler told of how other high cultures shifted from the masses in the armies to creating elite professional armies full of mercenaries and loyal followers. He pointed at this claiming eventually (given he died in 1936) this would befall the European states, but he would not know why or what said military's would look like after they transitioned.
>Yeah like when putting a bullet into someone's head
Note I said model. An absolute idealist might argue that it was subjective if someone is shot, but that is beyond the scope of our talk since we're talking about modeling history and not innate reality. But point stands given that this is what informs my statement all theories are wrong but some are useful.

So I'll rap this up stating as plane as possible given there has been some misconceptions:
Axiom 1 metaphysics adds powerful models to human knowledge.
Axiom 2 objective truth is divorced from scientific models which can describe the physical world to an okay degree but never perfectly.

If you agree with these two axioms then Spengler is not hard to sell. His model's usage of Goethe's morphology when applied to the structures of high cultures has had very strong abilities to explain past events and even more so is powerful in explain events to come. Its broad and generalist but that is the unit of analysis Spengler analyzes so that shouldn't be a surprise.

>>19213950
Yes, I do think metaphysical models add value. If you go back ITT through my posts, you'll see I criticize the scientific model for being absolutely unable to account for a large part of the experienced world and that it has to transform its subjects before it can analyze them, thus potentially subjecting them to conform to its model.

It's just that to criticize Tainter's stance on Spengler on the ground that he misunderstood him is to miss the point - that Tainter was building a strictly scientific interpretation of history and in my opinion, did surprisingly well.

I also think there's a lot of merit to Spengler's thinking, which is why I really want to one day read him. But I also realize there is a lot of danger involved in intuitive explanations. Just like with horoscopes (I'm talking about the bs celestial alignments and predictions for women in daily newspapers), where a prediction is given, which is then fulfilled only after the fact, from a backwards interpretation of events with the bias of wanting to make the facts fit the prediction. Not saying this about Spengler, but of intuitive things in general. The scientific term for that is Barnum effect. There's research on it pertaining to personality descriptions, whereby copy-paste bogus statements of people given to everyone can seem more accurate than specific statements given to individuals that actually account for their personal differences. That's also why horoscopes work. And that's why tree analogies seem to work universally, because they rely on our interpretation and outside of that, don't say much.

>the intuitive causal relationship which like I said Spengler bypasses
I can't really wrap my head around this until I've read him.

>>19196934
He was wrong.
And western civilization is a modern and fake concept.
He is a fraud.

>>19196934
It has become better partly BECAUSE it collapses.

>>19196934
>Is it fair to say Spengler was wrong?
the "collapse" already happened if you wanna call it that

>>19210419
>Quote it if those are his terms…
I used his words (Faustian) not a direct quote

Spengler talked about Pseudomorphosis and how Russia is a young, undeveloped Culture laboring under the Faustian form. He believed that Socialism is a Western import. He thinks this is the cause that Russia has anti-European sentiments

Spenglers approach is weird because there is clearly great anti-Russian sentiment not just from German fascists like Hitler but also American liberals like Patton visible in the Western World

>>19209992
doesn't matter because it's a different context and time
a church movement manifested itself into a state, got rid of the classical clergy and statespeople

>>19209177
Spengler does not speak of socialism in the economic sense in DotW for the western context:
>If we allow that Socialism (in the ethical, -not the economic, sense) is that world-feeling which seeks 'to carry out its own views on behalf of all, then we are all without exception, willingly or no, wittingly or no, Socialists.
Thus for Spengler Socialism in the ethical sense which western man has fallen for as his end line of thinking is wishing to universally apply Christian ideas to aid fellow man even if its entirely secular and divorced from Christianity. Russia on the other hand adopted the socialist form as a Pseudomorphosis, carrying little for the universality or ethical principles of socialism which are what western man latch so to but rather wished to apply socialism economically with a form of collectivization which better represented the Russian drive for horizontal space.

>>19214303
Understood then good to hear. I understand Tainter's scientific model by the sounds of it, I may read it eventually to see how powerful the model is.

>I can't really wrap my head around this until I've read him.
I'll attempt to give you an idea of this. Jose Ortega y Gasset wrote, "Life is a series of collisions with the future; it is not the sum of what we have been, but what we yearn to be." A causal model is one where we ask what is the cause once we have seen the effect. We start with our y and attempt to find our Xs preform a regression and then see how powerfully that has mapped itself onto the y variable we observe. When you asked what it really entails if a "society loses its vigor, grows senile like a withering tree and eventually collapses" you are asking for a cause. You have the Y (collapse) and the x can then be determine either through the logic of the statement (society loses its vigor, grows senile like a withering tree) or derived via analysis of data points (what Tainter does). If you were to remove the causal connection you'd basically be left with no statement at all in this instant due to the question at hand being one of cause and effect. A similar question which is non causal could be, "what will society likely look like in 200 years," Spengler model can answer. The question is not of cause or effect, and so a morphological model can be applied via comparison of similar organisms subtracting the unique elements of the original organisms. The issue then becomes adding the unique characteristics of the organism you are attempting to predict. Which can lead to very different aspects, which is why its not good to lean way too far into Spengler for exact predictions but rather a generalist understanding.

Lastly understood on your points regarding Barnum effects. This is why I'd like to not include Spengler in intuitive models, given this has to do with being able to falsify. For models like say astrology you can't falsify it because of how all encompassing each answer it gives you is. Spengler you can falsify.

>>19196984
>Trump was a proto-Cesar At least aesthetically

>>19217950
Time to go back with your -jak memes.

>>19216925
Yeah I'm still not getting the non-causal thing. If I'm asking how a society compares to a withering tree, it's more about getting at the substantiation of the statement than about finding out what caused the condition referred to. The aim is to see the content of the statement, instead of filling it with ones own interpretation, which probably everyone has of withering trees.

I also don't see how a question about the future is a non-causal one. If events are taken to lead to one another, then the future is merely the projection of the causalities into the future, speculation.

What exactly about Spengler is falsifiable? Isn't the model such that if a society collapses for internal reasons, then its conditions will be interpreted as of a withering tree, whereas if that same society should spring back up from the crisis stronger than ever, it would then instead show that it's at its vigorous, expansionary phase still. Tainter's model leaves no question, the facts always exist as they are, the only question being if they're accessible. Eg there can be no question whether current society is complex or not, regardless of what happens.

While complex societies move towards rigidity, diminishing returns, unbearable costs and friction, such factors are ultimately only relative to the constriction of energy sources. If we were to stumble upon an energy source even (energetically) cheaper than oil, we could keep complexifying ever more. There is no moral or vigorous or virile phase, there is only costs in relation to benefits. The model is essentially a formula of inputs, which would be disproven if eg a society would collapse (involuntarily simplify) despite abundant resources, breaking the formula.

>>19197387
small brain

>>19217950
I preferred the happy merchant to the ugly merchant, at least the former was comical

>>19219478
>I also don't see how a question about the future is a non-causal one
In the example I gave I opened the question up to be answered in a non causal way. The only way to answer what causes y is through saying X which is innately causal. Where as asking about the future can lead one to answer in both causal and non causal methods.

>If I'm asking how a society compares to a withering tree, it's more about getting at the substantiation of the statement
Okay I see. The attempt to substantiate then is just lacking a bit of key information. It is apt to briefly summarize Spengler's method as comparing the modern west with a withering tree, but its insufficient in telling the full depth of his model. The original criticism I had at your substantiation was just it lacking in the key information of Spengler's model not because causal which was the logic you used in attempting to see if his model held up to scrutiny. Which was fair given the information you had. But I see that this is our goal now so pic related describes his model outlined in the first book in depth. As you can see its morphological and keeps true to the idea of our current stage in the western Faustian civilization (his term to describe the west is with Goethe's Faust) but the substance of his model is to be more compared to the developmental cycles of other high cultures which can be likened to trees (as can most organisms) but most certainly are not.

>Isn't the model such that if a society collapses for internal reasons, then its conditions will be interpreted as of a withering tree, whereas if that same society should spring back up from the crisis stronger than ever, it would then instead show that it's at its vigorous, expansionary phase still
No, pic related is Spengler's model summarized. If at any point a high culture is to not meet one of Spengler's conditions which he outlines then it has failed to meet the criteria Spengler has put forward and his model has been falsified. That isn't to say one condition necessitates another due to it being non causal, allowing for a great degree of freedom (if one culture is to have a Socratic man appear then an Alexander man where as another is the opposite that doesn't detract from the model) but we should expect all items to be met throughout the morphology of a culture's life cycle, which follows a 1400 year arch and can be separated into areas where certain morphological events can be expected to transpire. Ex: in winter we do not expect a culture to bounce back with vigor of a healthier epoch.

>>19216237
I asked you to quote it because he literally did not say that. He talks specifically about Western socialism and “Petrinism”.

>>19217950
But it was the urbanite journalist class who was seething about trump and who condemned him as a fascist.

>>19196934
>the bubble hasn't burst yet therefore it never will in fact it has only gotten bigger and bigger

>>19203012
low iq post

>>19197918
everything you have is made in china retard, it's the world's factory.

>>19220188
> China controls the world because it’s like the world’s sweatshop or something
I’m not following that logic. Did Haiti control France because of that’s where it got it’s sugar and coffee too…?

>>19196934
>it has only become better and better
if by better you mean more parasitic

What I don’t understand about Spengler is that if his ideas about pseudomorphosis are correct and Christianity is, in fact, a pseudomorphosis that took hold in the nascent stages of the culture but will inevitably fall away over the course of the second religiousness, how does he explain Greek Orthodoxy, which is the dominant religion in Greece. If his theory is correct, Greece should be dominated by some sort of Greco-Roman agrarian cult and not Christian at all.

>>19211578
>I think using the term mystical to describe Spengler is rather poor faith given his model is metaphysical.
Not really. Metaphysics follow from the postulates of their own module through reason alone. Spengler tried to tie a metaphysical system with actual empirical phenomenon (historic process). Since there is no factual bridge between the two, he had to recruit literal magic to explain the "how" of his interpretations and predictions. Hence the accusation of mysticism. Hegel and Kant kept themselves from stepping down to that - that's why nobody accuses them of mysticism.

>>19220279
Precisely when was it not parasitic?

Where Spengler was wrong was that he chose Goethe rather than Milton.

>>19220321
>Since there is no factual bridge between the two, he had to recruit literal magic to explain the "how" of his interpretations and predictions. Hence the accusation of mysticism
What do you think about Kant and Marx's (or his adaptation of Hegel in material terms) own historical models then?

>>19196934
Anyone who tries to create some grand theory about the mechanism behind history or its goal is a buffoon not worth taking seriously.

>>19196934
No, he was right. Heisenberg was in fact Walter White.

>>19220307
You misunderstand. Christianity is completely separate from Apollonian Man and Faustian Man, and has nothing to do with either.

Rather, Spengler posits that the Culture-Civilizations eventually reach a point where they ossify. For Apollonian Man, this was post-Augustan Greco-Roman religion. Then, Magian Man killed Apollonian Man. Magian Man's ossification was later. Faustian Man's is happening now. Remember, Faustian Man starts in the forests of Germany around 700AD.

So yes, Greece WAS dominated by a Greco-Roman agrarian cult. Then Greece got Jewed.

>>19197434
realistic

>>19222651
Yeah I think Spengler or one of his latter day exponents gives the example that a Korean (i.e. Sinic) Christian and a Western Christian are still very different

>>19222651
So what he’s saying is that Apollonian man no longer exists in Greece?

I still don’t see how this fits. He proposes the pre-culture through springtime phase of Faustian man was as early as Carolingian France and reaches its apex in Gothic Christian Europe. That’s thoroughly Christian, and since his second religiousness suggests a return to the springtime religiousness that would suggest a return to Gothic Christianity, but he also suggests that Christianity is a pseudomorphosis. So assuming some other culture doesn’t come in and kill off Faustian man like the Magian killed the Apollonian, what does Faustian second religiousness even look like. It apparently can’t be Christianity but it also can’t be anything else either…?

>>19223035
>So what he’s saying is that Apollonian man no longer exists in Greece?
Correct. Apollonian Man was murdered by Magian Man, just like Magian Man murdered Sumerian Man and Egyptian Man. Remember, the Culture-Civilizations are just conceptions of space-time, so Greece could one day be Chinese Man, but also worship Quetzalcoatl. Biological race, religion, and culture are all separate from the Culture-Civilizations (in theory), and Culture-Civilizations will happily distort them to suit their own ends.

>So assuming some other culture doesn’t come in and kill off Faustian man like the Magian killed the Apollonian, what does Faustian second religiousness even look like.
By "Gothic Christianity" Spengler means an absolutely rigid, doctrinal, "faith". I put "faith" in quotes because there will be no need to have faith, everything will be known. Everything will be understood. All of religion will be about enforcing what is known and understood and desperately keeping what is known and understood from being lost. His opinion of "Gothic Christianity" is not a positive one: it's a priesthood hellbent on keeping power and control at all costs, for power's own sake. Religion becomes nothing more than a control mechanism. So it's basically today, but with more Jesus, and you go to jail if you don't get your sixth booster shot against sin. It's a global empire of one race, the human race, praising Rabbi Yeshua bar Yosef, the woke brown refugee who died for our science. It'll be the most godawful synthesis between Joel Osteen and Late Night """"""""""""""Comedy""""""""""" that you can imagine.

>>19196934
I'm planning on starting a fight club next year, fighting teaches you to place respect on power, modernity villanizes it as most people have no idea what it really feels like. I will never be a ceaser, but I hope to set an environment to make future ceasars great

>>19222189
>Kant's own historical models then
Nobody cares about them.

>Marx's
He doesn't use metaphysics, so he's free from that issue, at least.

>>19223307
I’m not sure I agree with this. Where specifically are you referring to? In what book and where?

>>19196934
>in fact it has only become better and better.
no

>>19223307
To be clear, I see what you mean on the first part. The second part I think you are totally wrong.

> The next phase I call the Second Religiousness. It appears in all Civilizations as soon as they have fully formed themselves as such and are beginning to pass, slowly and imperceptibly, into the non-historical state in which time-periods cease to mean anything. (So far as the Wesetrn Civilization is concerned, therefore, we are still many generations short of that point.) The Second Religiousness is the necessary counterpart of Caesarism, which is the final political constitution of Late Civilization... The material of the Second Religiousness is simply that of the first, genuine, young religiousness-- only otherwise experienced and expressed. It starts with Rationalism's fading out in helplessness, then the forms of the springtime become visible and finally the whole world of the primitive religion, which had receded before the grand forms of the early faith, returns to the foreground, powerful, in the guise of the popular syncretism that is to be found in every Culture at this phase.

It’s specifically a return to Springtime and/or pre-Springtime primitive religion and more importantly, it’s rural and popular. This is folk religion, not state enforced Christian positivism.