/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.23154234]

>The gehumellschellschaft of the Magian soul was shown by al Bimbabi in 812 AD in his great work the al-Majistitarikh, presaging the decline of the Faustian spirit, which will go through the same untergangbeschullenichte as all civilizations preceding it.
Bruh I'm not reading all this lmao. Closed it before I even got to page 20. Why tf so many people read this wordcel garbage though? Nigga was deadass a high school teacher lmao, just needed to get some mf pussy.

[Anonymous No.23154240]

>>23154234
well, it's not like you could do something about it

[Anonymous No.23154244]

>words words words
>bruh im NOT reading this lmao no cap fr fr this shit aint bussin wordcels be seething

[Anonymous No.23154270]

lokey he do be finna spittin woke ass fax tho no cap

[Anonymous No.23154289]

>>23154234
lmao filtered

[Anonymous No.23154312]

>>23154289
bruh this nigga think he's smart and sophisticated cause he know who Caesar was and looked at The Course of Empire paintings on google images lmfao

[Anonymous No.23154342]

Yeah Spengler assumes you know as much as he does: you don’t. Reading Spengler is such a challenge, but the good kind. Makes you want to go read 100 books to learn more then return to it

[Anonymous No.23154345]

>>23154342
Where do I start?

[Anonymous No.23154601]

>>23154345
Well you want to get a lot of important stuff under your belt, so I recommend stuff like Will Durant Story of Civilization, or those Penguin History of Europe series. Durant does a lot of art history which is helpful. Spengler is also big into architecture and art so maybe something like The Story of Art by Gombrich and Story of Architecture by Rybczynski. That should provide a good foundation. You don’t need to know about China, this is a weakness of Spengler analysis. You only need to know about Islam(ic art and architecture)

[Anonymous No.23154611]

why should one read spengler? is he a philosopher? I don't really understand the guy's deal. I don't want to just buy a book and be filtered to mars on something that I am not interested in.

[Anonymous No.23154634]

>>23154611
He's trying to create a description of how civilizations (interpretations of how human life interacts with spacetime) exist (as in, what they do, how they live, grow, age, etc). I can drop some screencaps if you want.

[Anonymous No.23154646]

>>23154611
He is one of the very few historians (if you can call him that) to ever ask the question: Why?
As in, why do things take the forms that they do? Why do they appear and disappear in history at the time that they do? It’s not about how; it’s not about some Marxian analysis of economic forces. He is asking very deep questions specifically about art and architecture and postulating what these mean to their respective civilizations. Why does Byzantine art have gold backgrounds, for example, is the kind of question he will ask and have a fascinating answer to.

[Anonymous No.23154647]

>>23154634
I feel like I already got filtered man.

[Anonymous No.23154674]

>>23154647
Reading Spengler is a revelation man, even if you don’t buy into his schema. It will just challenge you to learn more. Really, give it a try.

[Anonymous No.23154708]

>>23154611
It is a better theory than the current one of increasingly enlightened progress. That each major/higher Culture (a term akin to a superorganism of a single race and area that influences every expression one can imagine from perception of time to art) had a unique worldview or weltanschauung that can not he repeated.

It also charts that Cultures have a measurable duration that can be plotted. Along with this plotting are certain traits and trends that appear that are either the cause of or are affected by the gradual aging of the Culture.

[Anonymous No.23154965]

>>23154601
Thanks for the rundown that should get me started.

[Anonymous No.23155282]

>>23154708
Every culture also goes through the same rough stages in its lifecycle, according to Spengler.

At the beginning of a culture, it carries itself through feudalism, then the Feudalism matures, cities develop, a sort of mercantilism arises. Then come the Frondes, the dissolution of the nobility, the constitution of the nation state, then expansion. And afteward comes civilization.

[Anonymous No.23155284]

>>23154345
Start with the Greeks

[Anonymous No.23156245]

>>23154345
You should have had a history encyclopedia at home when you were a kid you dumb ass.

[Anonymous No.23156273]

>>23154611
He is partly a political theorist and partly a philosopher of history. You know how Marx was mainly a political theorist and but a Marxist philosophy of history informed his political theories? Spengler is almost the inverse. He has a philosophy of history, which is informed in part by political history and which implies certain political theories.

The book is honestly incredible. It’s one of the most impressive books I’ve ever read. I’ve actually never come across anyone who read the whole thing that wasn’t impressed.

[Anonymous No.23156277]

You got filtered I guess. Spengler is the single most impressive and influential person I’ve ever read and it’s actually not even close.

[Anonymous No.23156337]

>>23154611
No. He is a histroian that discusses history and its laws. You need to have some general knowledge of at least western history though. He will not teach you the facts of history, since its a given you already know basics. If you don't know much China, Asia, India and Egypt history you can read him though. The notes explain stuff you might not know about hose.

The genre he is writing in is Philosophy of History.

[Anonymous No.23156443]

What is the best, unabridged edition of Decline of the West and how should one prepare to read it (assuming preparation is necessary)?

[Anonymous No.23156516]

>>23154601
Why the fuck would you recommend books from decades after Decline and Fall was published. Terrible advice
>>23154345
Actually read the books Spengler read. Dont listen to the idiot anon. Gibbons’ History of Decline and Fall of Roman Empire is extremely important to Spengler. Also key are (obviously) the great ancient Greek works and German philosophy. You’ll especially want pay close attention to Schopenhauer and (arguably even more so) Nietzsche. All of Neitzche’s key works are integral to Spengler, but especially are Zarathustra and Will to Power

[Anonymous No.23156521]

>>23156443
I bought the Arktos edition and thought it was good, but I don’t know German and have never read in original German so I can’t be sure. The Arktos translation is overflowing with footnotes.

>>23154345
With Decline of the West.

[Anonymous No.23156526]

>>23154342
>>23154345
>>23154601
No need to have a masters in history to understand him
Just dont be retarded and take things as he gives them
Just dont be a wigga zoomer that thinks people before 1980 died at 30

[Anonymous No.23156536]

>>23154234
This isnt even in the book. This is a troll that understands Spengler and just wanted to make a thread about it starting with this pastiche

[Anonymous No.23156563]

You should unironically learn Ancient Greek, Latin, French and maybe even German (and by extension have read the masterworks of each language) before opening Spengler.

[Anonymous No.23156770]

>>23156563
Absolutely retarded lmao. Obviosly bait but just in case anyone takes it serious its completely stupid.
Spengler was only really fluent in German. He knew English but rarely used it. All of the books in his personal library were in German translations. He never wrote anything in another language (aside from a few English letters to academic colleagues in UK and America) in his life.

[Anonymous No.23156828]

>>23156770
bro went to school in Germany so he knew his Latin and Greek, otherwise he wouldn't have been able to pass the university entry exam as well.

[Anonymous No.23156968]

>>23156516
Are you idiotic? You read those books to gain foundational knowledge. That they were published after is utterly irrelevant . We are dealing with historical phenomena ffs

[Anonymous No.23156987]

>>23156828
Where do you get the presumption that German universities in the 19th centuries required matriculants to be fluent in Greek and Latin, lmfao. Latin especially, as Garmany was 300 years removed from the papal yoke

[Anonymous No.23157000]

>>23156968
They are late “academic” historiographical works that have virtually nothing to do with Spengler, lmfao. Why the fuck would you recommend those over the actual historical and philosophical texts from which Spengler derived the evidence and arguments thag formed his book?

[Anonymous No.23157029]

>>23156987
Even today German Universities require Latin.
Also Germany then was half Catholic, and Erasmus (Catholic yes but you get my point), Luther, Calvin and tons of other reformers wrote in Latin. Nobody viewed it as only a Catholic language.

[Anonymous No.23157094]

>>23157029
On Erasmus:
That poor man now has a program named after him which serves exclusively to deliver upper class European roastoids into other European countries to do nothing academically and spread their STDs.

[Anonymous No.23157852]

>>23156563
You forgot ancient Egyptian, classical Chinese and Nordic petroglyphs.

[Anonymous No.23158375]

>>23156516
>lso key are (obviously) the great ancient Greek works and German philosophy. You’ll especially want pay close attention to Schopenhauer and (arguably even more so) Nietzsche.

What horse shit is this? He explicitly states Nietzsche and Goethe are his biggest influencss in the first pages of the introduction to Decline.

To OP, just fucking read it, if its too difficult try some of his essays.

[Anonymous No.23158465]

>>23156828
Idk the details, but it was definitely expected that a well-educated person know Latin and Greek during the 19th and early 20th centuries, especially after Philhellenism made its mark. Latin instruction is still somewhat popular in Germany as one of the many languages you can learn.