/The Decline of the West/

[Anonymous No.17694081]

/Lit/, have you read Oswald Spengler? Do you think he was right in predicting Culture's decay over the next century, when he predicted modernity would begin to decay in 1918? His view is that history ought to be seen not as a linear tapeworm which industriously adds epochs to its body, but as a living organism (a flower) that grows and decays over centuries. What do you think the West will do in the next few centuries?

[Anonymous No.17694093]

I just want it to be over already. I fucking hate everyone, all of you the most. Humanity was a mistake, begone with it the soonest. I curse all of you to an eternity of suffering, you pathetic beasts. I can't wait to see civilization in flames, good riddance, you cosmic mistake.

[Anonymous No.17694189]

>>17694093
Fuck off pessimistic nihilist, BE BOGGED *splash*

[Anonymous No.17694394]

>>17694081
silly Spenglerian, civilizations aren't alive. They're social constructs.

Even if they were alive, what is all this non-sense about spirits and prime-symbols? You can't just intuitively feel some prime essence of something. There is no essence.

[Anonymous No.17694449]

>>17694394
Begone, hylic saboteur.

[Anonymous No.17694455]

>>17694081
Is he right that Western civilization is Faustian, understood in terms of its sensibilities to great open spaces and the sublime? I feel that applies to Emersonian America where even the land is sublime, every natural wonder here is marked by its spatial magnitude being bigger than anything in Europe, for example the Grand Canyon, and the ideas that were born in America have a very high sensibility for the sublime. Europe had it in the 19th century but it feels like it's just gone. The Americas feel more Faustian to me than Europe, and Europe ironically feels...more Magian? It's way too Orthodox/Catholic/Protestant, and they're way too preoccupied with essence and light flowing through cavernous cathedrals. Instead of the sublime, their focus is in some sort of bracketed divine, treated as mystery to have some measure of reverence towards, but it's not the awe of the true sublime. On the other hand America birthed Mormonism and if you read their texts there's endless reports there of these very sublime visions characterized by their great magnitude and scope and how almost beyond the limit of human comprehension they are. America birthed Lovecraft for a reason. The West isn't Faustian and Spengler was wrong. The old West (European civilization) was mostly an updated Magianism and Apollonyanism, and it's its own civilization on its way to decline, that much is true, but true Faustianism belongs to future Panamerica and has only just begun.

[Anonymous No.17694610]

hello genlit

[Anonymous No.17695176]

>>17694394
>You can't just intuitively feel some prime essence of something. There is no essence.
Then why am I feeling the Faustian essence flowing through my blood. I can feel it, the impulse towards infinity. HNNNNNNNNNG IM GONNA COOOOM INFINITE TITTIES

[Anonymous No.17695196]

>>17694394
>They're social constructs.
Oh so their the exact opposite of that!

[Anonymous No.17696243]

>>17694394
>You can't just intuitively feel some prime essence of something
Maybe you can't.

[Anonymous No.17696259]

>>17694081
"The West" is a totally asinine concept to anyone who has a solid understanding of world history, especially antiquity. Lumping Kant, Aristotle, Locke, Plato, Smith, and others into a single culture is ridiculous. The entire basis of this discussion is stupid

[Anonymous No.17696299]

>>17696259
>Lumping Kant, Aristotle, Locke, Plato, Smith, and others into a single culture is ridiculous.
It's a good thing Spengler doesnt do that, which you could have known if you had bothered to read beyond the title of the book you insipid moron.

[Anonymous No.17696338]

>>17696259
Yea he literally says that Greco-Roman civilization and The West aren't one continuous civilization.

Well done, Anon, you exposed yourself as a pseud.

[Anonymous No.17696360]

>>17696338
>>17696259
then what exactly is the "West" as he uses it? Apologies for my misconception...

[Anonymous No.17696388]

>>17696360
He doesn't, Der Untergang des Abendlandes was a title chosen by the publisher against his wishes. He initially wanted to call it something like
>A historical analysis and subjective reasoning of the general trend and format of world spirits throughout time and space
or some other academic garbage, but that doesn't sell books now does it?

Faustian Man is a conception of space-time originating in the forests of Gaul and Germania around 900AD. That is "the West". It is not declining, it's just living out the life-progression of all things of its type. Others include Apollonian Man, Chinese Man, Mesoamerican Man, and so on.

[Anonymous No.17696442]

>>17696388
Thanks anon. I read parts of this for a course but these parts seemed to compare the decline of antiquity to the decline of Western Europe (Faustian, right?) so I inferred that he was implicating that they're essentially the same. I must give it another read, then.

[Anonymous No.17696447]

>>17696360
The title he used is clickbait. He originally wanted to call it something like "Analysis of the morphologies of civilizations" or something like that. it's not focused on "the west", thats just how he drew people in (and it worked).
Spengler defines the West/Faustian culture as something that originated in early Medieval Europe. He sees Classical antiquity as well as Byzantine Christianity as something different altogether.

[Anonymous No.17696470]

>>17696360
The West as he uses it is Western Europe(Britain, France, Germany, Netherlands, northern Italy + a few small meme countries) starting around 900AD, which includes their diaspora like USA. He's not the only person to think of this a distinct civilization, you can make an argument on purely economic grounds as well, though the lines are increasingly blurred in modern world.

[Anonymous No.17696482]

>>17696470
>>17696447
Danke

[Anonymous No.17696537]

>>17694081
He didn't predict culture's decay. He said that we're already in the "winter" stage of civilization (different from culture) and that it will now enter a mode of Caesarism (strong man leadership) and a Second Religiousness (a combo of Gothic Christianity with the fervor of Adventism) and will remain static and stagnant for centuries thereafter, perhaps indefinitely (but probably not because that is contrary to the Faustian spirit). He predicted that Faustian civilization will collapse because of its own technology causing it to diffuse endlessly into infinite space (hello Internet) and begin a new cycle, or the Faustian spirit will finally be destroyed by its own technology in a similar manner (hello nuclear warheads, ICBMs, AI, and social media).

[Anonymous No.17696625]

>>17696537
>(a combo of Gothic Christianity with the fervor of Adventism)
It should be noted that he's using this as an example. The Second Religiousness has the rigidity of Gothic Christianity combined with the fervor of Adventism, but it can be applied to anything. It's a degraded-yet-true-to-form variant of the "normal" religion of that worldspirit.

>static and stagnant for centuries thereafter, perhaps indefinitely
It's important to note here that Spengler isn't positing cyclic time; worldspirits go through progression up to a point where they just ossify. In theory, they can then remain forever. Egypt and Sumer both did this for a long time, and China and India have been ossified for almost two millennia now. Worldspirits come about independent of each other, and while they interact, they don't eat each other (they can murder each other and strangle each other, though) and they don't come from each other's corpses. There's no cycle here at all. The end of Faustian Man comes about because of Faustian Man's innate characteristics, not because all worldspirits HAVE to die.

[Anonymous No.17696692]

>>17694455
Europe is geographically the same size as the US, it's just more populated. As for natural wonders, neither the Alps not the northern fjords nor the Mediterranean basin can be beat by anything the US has to offer, though possibly equalled by one or two things in northern California.

[Anonymous No.17696711]

>>17694093
haha ur mad

[Anonymous No.17696728]

>>17696259
WESTERN FRAGILITY

[Anonymous No.17696741]

>>17696447
>>17696388
should have come up with a non-shit title then.

[Anonymous No.17696750]

>>17696741
yeah, well, he had to find a publisher and the publisher wanted that title.

[Anonymous No.17696794]

the west is not declining. the west is more free and diverse than it has ever been. culture is exploding and innovating like never before before due to the end of christian morality and euro-centrism. technology is doing incredible things for wiping out disease and poverty and extending life and innovating culture. there has literally objectively never been a better time to be alive. the only current threat to the west is traditionalism and capitalist modes of production

[Anonymous No.17696818]

>>17696794
the only thing exploding is debt and misery

[Anonymous No.17696849]

>>17696794
This is a good example of what I mean in >>17696625 about how it's a rotten form of the "true" religion of the worldspirit, but it uses that rot to achieve a rigid adherence to the point of the religion (or at least, what it means to the adherents). Stability sacrificed for speed, if you will. It'll be interesting to see the precise theological hoops that will be jumped through to tie Christianity back into this. I'm predicting some kind of Noahidism, revising Jesus to be an ascetic Rabbi preaching a doctrine of Social Justice. We'll probably see a Bible rewrite by a Tranny at some point.

[Anonymous No.17696875]

>>17696849
>We'll probably see a Bible rewrite by a Tranny at some point.
Sounds based

[Anonymous No.17696890]

>>17694081
>What do you think the West will do in the next few centuries?
Continue to unravel and there will be no grand Caesar. The post-industrial epoch is a unique one and Spengler failed to take that into consideration.

[Anonymous No.17696915]

>>17694081
>/Lit/, have you read Oswald Spengler?
Some. Not all.
>Do you think he was right in predicting Culture's decay over the next century, when he predicted modernity would begin to decay in 1918?
Not exactly.
>What do you think the West will do in the next few centuries?
Continue to progress into oblivion.

[Anonymous No.17696923]

>>17696794
Literally less free also the only diversity that matters is that of opinion.

[Anonymous No.17696981]

>>17696890
>The post-industrial epoch is a unique one and Spengler failed to take that into consideration
Every civilization is unique in terms of how it will have modernity and post modernity play out but never the less modernity more or less is analogous across civilizations is Spengler's argument. One civilization may have contending states battle each other till one wins (china) and another may have a general remove the oligarchy's power (Rome). I really doubt we will not revert back to force politics when every indicator I'm seeing is screaming that there is a rise in force politics and a rise in the power of the executive branch in US politics (guess if you are a euro this doesn't apply and you could make the argument that the US will collapse but I rather doubt this.)

[Anonymous No.17697010]

>>17696981
>never the less modernity more or less is analogous across civilizations is Spengler's argument
Right and I’m saying he was wrong.

[Anonymous No.17697370]

>>17696890
is there anyone who did?

[Anonymous No.17697392]

>>17694081
reading history ruined spengler for me

[Anonymous No.17697417]

>>17694093
>>17694394
>>17694455
>>17696259
>>17696794
>>17696890
>>17696915
>>17697392
>t. haven't read Spengler, yet felt complied to give their shitty opinion they stole from other shitty posts
why?

[Anonymous No.17697507]

>>17696794
b8

[Anonymous No.17697522]

>>17694081
Oswald Memer is astrology for chuds.

[Anonymous No.17697801]

>>17697522
>chuds
Spengler isn't even right wing though. He's more of a historical nihilist. He doesn't really decry modernity, he sees it as something natural in every civilization.

[Anonymous No.17697867]

Spenglerian thought on the Sneed phenomena? A prime signal destroying all that was, that is and will be?

[Anonymous No.17697977]

>>17697801
that's right-wing

[Anonymous No.17697991]

>>17696299
Kek

[Anonymous No.17698003]

>>17697507
>>17697522
>>17697507
>>17697522
>>17697801
>>17697867
>>17697977
>>17697991

Western civilization is always in decline. But in its decline there are blossomings of something new. These are the people maintaining the civilization. They are the people procreating while you sit alone, consume videos, or feel depressed all day. Get a grip over your life.

[Anonymous No.17698017]

>>17698003
This, wash your penis and chin up bucko.

[Anonymous No.17698181]

>>17698003
Oswald Spengler

[Anonymous No.17698203]

>>17694093
rude