/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.4016221]

>that feel when Western Civilization is now experiencing its final stage of life

>;_;

Critique on Linear History
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNcwaR2xW1Q

The Decline summary
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NaA7yzHh2as

The Rise of Caesarism
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dpof96pVx-c

[Anonymous No.4016232]

Is this /pol/?

[Anonymous No.4016238]

What is Western Culture?
It is the Faustian Soul, the yearning for that which is unattainable, vast open spaces ready to be explored.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ml1UXUclYQI

[Anonymous No.4016242]

>>4016232
No god DAMNIT.

Spengler wasn't even a fucking catholic. Spengler was very against anti-semitism and racism in general. he was highly critical of Hitler and the Nazis. I wouldn't say he's /pol/, unless /pol/ is everything you don't like

[Anonymous No.4016247]

Is there a eastern version of Spengler?

[Anonymous No.4016249]

So Hitler was the Caesar, but he was stopped so it's being delayed?

So who will step up? Who will fulfill the Strongman role of planetary emperor?

[Anonymous No.4016253]

>>4016247
The Hindu Yugas come to mind

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yugas

Interestingly enough Julius Evola believed in it,

>Evola believed that mankind is living in the Kali Yuga, a Dark Age of unleashed materialistic appetites, spiritual oblivion and organised deviancy.

[Anonymous No.4016258]

Perennialism General? Alright.

Here are some author recommendations


>Rene Guenon
> Frithjof Schuon
>Seyyed Nasr (for Islamic perspective)
>Julius Evola
>Spengler
>Toynbee
>Schopenhauer's essays on the Will and also Thus Spoke Zarathustra

[Anonymous No.4016260]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spengler%27s_civilization_model

[Anonymous No.4016268]

/pol/ pls leave

everyone and their grandmother's have already read this book.

[Anonymous No.4016274]

>>4016268
fk off m8
ill bum yur mum i wil m8

[Anonymous No.4016282]

>>4016249
Putin.

>second religiousness through the Orthodox Church
>tolerated dictator within a nominal democracy

[Anonymous No.4016293]

>>4016221
Good riddance.

[Anonymous No.4016307]

>>4016293
What is wrong with Spengler?

[Anonymous No.4016311]

>>4016307
The problem isn't Spengler, it's "Western" civilization

[Anonymous No.4016313]

>>4016311
According to Spengler Western civilization is ending, so again what is the problem?

This concept of Western Europe + colonial extensions have a cultural continuity over time and space offends you somehow?

[Anonymous No.4016319]

So what exactly did Spengler want? How did he want Germany to be? All I know is Nazis killed his dream of conservative revolution. What little I know about Evola is near the end of his life he went full mystic. Ride the Tiger was pretty much "fuck this shit I'm going to the moon".

[Anonymous No.4016327]

>>4016232
just fuck off pls

[Anonymous No.4016331]

>>4016242
>>4016327
Sorry guys.

I'm pretty conservative actually. The only reason I bring this up is because I saw the exact same videos posted on /pol/ a week ago.

[Anonymous No.4016339]

>>4016282
Interestingly enough, Spengler claimed that the Russians would surpass the West

Putin confirmed for Space Emperor

[Anonymous No.4016346]

>>4016313
>whats the problem

It's ganna be bloody. Think Augustus, Alexander, Qin huang Di, Ummayad Calpihate

We're ganna be live through "those" kind of times and likely die violent deaths

[Anonymous No.4016349]

>>4016319
he wanted people to embrace life realistically and pessimistically

[Anonymous No.4016350]

Wittgenstein loved Spengler.

Spengler's remarks on academia perfectly describe post-structuralism.

[Anonymous No.4016355]

>mfw Spengler predicted the rise of postmodernism

[Anonymous No.4016360]

Also a notable read is Amaury De Reincourt's The Coming Caesars.

[Anonymous No.4016376]

THE GOYIM ARE READING? OY VEY!

[Anonymous No.4016380]

>>4016376
this is truly another Shoah

gib israel monies pls ty

[Anonymous No.4016385]

>perennialism
>metaphysics
>2013

[Anonymous No.4016392]

>still reading pessimisstic doom and gloom pre-WW1 right wing propaganda

[Anonymous No.4016393]

>Spengler
>not just making shit up to justify totalitarianism
>liking the sophistry known as philosophy of history

[Anonymous No.4016399]

>>4016392
Oh I'm sorry

Maybe I should switch to pre-WW3 left wing propaganda. Maybe that would satisfy you?

Pic related. It's me reading your shitposts

[Anonymous No.4016402]

>>4016393
>has never read Spengler
>yfw

[Anonymous No.4016411]

/lit/ is too pleb to read these kind of books. It's best you just take this thread to /pol/. We only like novels here

[Anonymous No.4016414]

>>4016411
Pleb? More like leftist

[Anonymous No.4016418]

>that feel when you only read one theory and subscribe to it because "prove me wrong"

[Anonymous No.4016419]

we had our time, we shouldnt be selfish :) and see how we like it having different languages all over the dam place.

[Anonymous No.4016425]

>>4016260
How can people take this seriously?

[Anonymous No.4016433]

>>4016418
>>4016425
I don't know, ask them

http://nationalinterest.org/article/spenglers-ominous-prophecy-7878

[Anonymous No.4016441]

>>4016402
>Focuses on unprovable ideas like 'culture is a becoming and civilization is the thing become'
>making up non-scientific models and altering the past to fit them
>Justifying your philosophy on sophist fetishist ideas like race, blood, and Destiny

Sounds like you`re the one who hasn`t read Spengler. His writing is completely awful and lacks any style, and his thinking is 2edgy 4 u

[Anonymous No.4016461]

>>4016355
can you elaborate please? this sounds interesting

[Anonymous No.4016485]

thank fuck, western civilization is played out as all hell

[Anonymous No.4016492]

>>4016221

[Anonymous No.4016552]

and it's dragging down the rest of the planet with it too, just like white people, if you go down, you have to bring everyone else down into your global warming hellhole of a planet with you

oh well, everything's impermanent right?

[Anonymous No.4016643]

>>4016552
>and it's dragging down the rest of the planet with it too, just like white people, if you go down, you have to bring everyone else down into your global warming hellhole of a planet with you
Implying we don't just want to survive as a population

[Anonymous No.4016667]

>>4016441
>>Focuses on unprovable ideas like 'culture is a becoming and civilization is the thing become'
To me that is self-evident. Early cultures don't even have settled economies and political structures.

>>Justifying your philosophy on scientifical ideas like culture, genetics, and prediction

[Anonymous No.4016688]

>>4016399
>Maybe I should switch to pre-WW3 left wing propaganda. Maybe that would satisfy you?
But that would be objectively better.

[Anonymous No.4016696]

>>4016643
>implying the majority of "whites" aren't being strung along by their capitalist warlords and slave-masters, none of whom give a quarter of a fuck about longevity of population
>implying light skinned Europeans/Euro-Americans aren't given the title "White" as a joke from their economic lords

[Anonymous No.4016694]

>>4016247
Without looking into it, I'd guess Spengler was at least partly inspired by Buddhist/Hindu thinking. Buddhism has the world going in great cycles called kalpas. That's why you get millenarian Buddhists- they're claiming that the kalpa is coming to an end and a new one will be born from the chaos. But IIRC kalpas last for hundreds of thousands of years. Buddhists don't mess around when it comes to the scale of things.

[Anonymous No.4016697]

>>4016694
that's a really big assumption dog, i mean the kalpa shit is true and all but he could have just as easily been influenced by ragnarok from his own western mythology, or anything with a cyclical nature for that matter, which is a lot of shit

[Anonymous No.4016698]

>>4016696
>>implying the majority of "whites" aren't being strung along by their capitalist warlords and slave-masters, none of whom give a quarter of a fuck about longevity of population
No, I mean those of us who care about such matters, who speak of the West in Spengler's term, do not promote crapitalism.

I didn't even mention whites. I identify as English and Castilian.

[Anonymous No.4016721]

>>4016698
The guy you responded to mentioned Whites and you responded to that quote with "we".

[Anonymous No.4016729]

>>4016721
>The guy you responded to mentioned Whites and you responded to that quote with "we".
He was responding to the OT of 'Western civilization' and those who speak about Spengler.

He brought up white to derail the conversation and because he doesnt know any better.

[Anonymous No.4016743]

>>4016697
Ah, perhaps, just speculating. Buddhist kalpas are also (again, IIRC) divided into four periods, like Spengler's civilisations.

[Anonymous No.4016842]

I don't have much of an intellectual basis for this but I've always felt like the new element of advanced technology has rendered all the traditional "cycle of civilizations" stuff moot. Civilization simply doesn't operate like it use to, technology has changed it fundamentally. Our food supplies are limitless, communication instantaneous, transportation quick and efficient, information endlessly available. Shouldn't this change the mix quite a lot?

[Anonymous No.4016853]

>>4016221
>abridged
>"celtic" cross

[Anonymous No.4016855]

>>4016842
>Our food supplies are limitless
B-but that's the opposite of true.

[Anonymous No.4016863]

>>4016842
>traditional "cycle of civilizations"
I'm not sure it is traditional. Spengler was writing in the context of technological change- he assumes huge changes taking place within the cycle. Earlier cyclical ideas, like the Chinese vision of history, was more about the rise and decline of dynasties- the common people's way of life (the civilisation itself) was assumed not to change much, or at least change only within predetermined boundaries. Spengler assumes modernity, but sees it coming to an end.

[Anonymous No.4016873]

>>4016842
This scholar has quite a different take on the matter, although he's no traditionalist. Still, Industrial Society and Its Future is required reading for every Spenglerian

[Hoeng !!GmzYnVS4ZXU No.4016911]

>>4016221
pdf of this Spengler?

[Anonymous No.4016913]

>>4016346
>Qin huang Di,
Well this is really boring and I'd rather live in a time where I can die on my feet.

[Anonymous No.4016959]

>>4016258
Didn't Guenon end up end up converting to Islam? What an embarrassment.

[Anonymous No.4017018]

>>4016842
What happens when we hit peak oil?

What happens when more non whites exist in europe than whites?

What happens when finance capitalism exhausts is possibilities?

Caesarism. Followed by Byzantianism.

[Anonymous No.4017021]

>>4016842
But people are failing exactly because they have to do no work.

Americlaps bring in Mexicraps that them become Mexiclaps that don't do any work either. How long can this 'cycle' last?

[Anonymous No.4017022]

>>4016959
Yes, how unfortunate that not everyone be as euphoric as you

[Anonymous No.4017023]

>>4016911
http://archive.org/details/declineofwest02spenuoft

[Anonymous No.4017028]

>>4017018
And the Byzantine Empire was the end of "Western Civilization," right? It ended there and never kept going, right?

[Anonymous No.4017036]

I haven't read Spengler myself and only know his ideas secondhand, but what, if anything, did he have to say about the Ottoman Empire? I'd assume he discussed it as part of the Arabic culture, and its long, protracted decline would have been, in my opinion, easily the best contemporary subject for a comparison with his posited decline of Western culture.

[Anonymous No.4017041]

>>4016688

>objectively

I don't think you even know what the word means.

[Anonymous No.4017043]

>>4016221
“I am at the moment writing a lengthy indictment against our century. When my brain begins to reel from my literary labors, I make an occasional cheese dip.”

[Anonymous No.4017055]

>>4017028
The Roman Empire was the final, sclerotic ("fellaheen") stage of classical civilization. The Byzantine Empire was partly a continuation of the Roman Empire and partly the early cultural stage of Magian civilization, deformed ("pseudomorphosis") by the influence of the older civilization, and finally liberated by the Arab conquests. Western civilization starts in AD 1000 with the Gothic period.

[Anonymous No.4017084]

>>4017055
Who the fuck would consider Turkey a step up from Byzantium?

[Anonymous No.4017088]

>>4017084
>Ottoman Empire in its prime
>dynamic, innovative, tolerant successor to the moribund and rotted Byzantine state, which was so inefficient half its later emperors spent more time bickering with one another, being blinded, and asking Europe for help than actually running the empire
>not a step up

[Anonymous No.4017094]

>>4017088
Byzantium: full of Europeans, preservation of classical literature, nice buildings, and the seat of an religion uncorrupted by politics and politics uncorrupted by religion
Ottoman Empire: spread of Armenoids, rapists, sex trafficking across the Mediterranean and the pilfering of Southeastern Europe

[Anonymous No.4017097]

>>4017088
The Byzantines wouldn't have gay-raped Lawrence of Arabia, that's for sure.

[Anonymous No.4017104]

>>4017094
>implying Byzantium's collapse wasn't brought about by serious flaws in its governmental system stemming from its Roman past, and that despite the success of the Macedonian dynasty in delaying the effects of this on the empire's territorial integrity it wasn't only a matter of time before superior Ottoman organisation, government and administration displaced it

[Anonymous No.4017107]

>>4017097
We're talking about the early Ottoman Empire, before it became as worthless as the later Byzantine state

[Anonymous No.4017111]

>>4017104
>>implying Byzantium's collapse wasn't brought about by serious flaws in its governmental system stemming from its Roman past, and that despite the success of the Macedonian dynasty in delaying the effects of this on the empire's territorial integrity it wasn't only a matter of time before superior Ottoman organisation, government and administration displaced it
I think it had a little to do with accident, since the West actually allied the Mongols against Byzantium.

>The Fourth Crusade (1202–1204) was originally intended to conquer Muslim-controlled Jerusalem by means of an invasion through Egypt. Instead, in April 1204, the Crusaders of Western Europe invaded and sacked the Christian (Eastern Orthodox) city of Constantinople, capital of the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantine Empire). This is seen as one of the final acts in the Great Schism between the Eastern Orthodox Church and Roman Catholic Church, and a key turning point in the decline of the empire and of Christianity in the Near East.

[Anonymous No.4017114]

Ever since Hegel people have been treating History as some sort of god.

[Anonymous No.4017120]

>>4017114
>Ever since Hegel people have been treating History as some sort of god.
I think what Spengler was trying to do was apply biology to history, which is brilliant.

[Anonymous No.4017126]

>>4017043
"I suspect that beneath your offensively and vulgarly effeminate façade there may be a soul of sorts. Have you read widely in Boethius?"
"Who? Oh, heavens no. I never even read newspapers."
"Then you must begin a reading program immediately so that you may understand the crises of our age. Begin with the late Romans, including Boethius, of course. Then you should dip rather extensively into early Medieval. You may skip the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. That is mostly dangerous propaganda. Now that I think of it, you had better skip the Romantics and the Victorians, too. For the contemporary period, you should study some selected comic books."
"You're fantastic."
"I recommend Batman especially, for he tends to transcend the abysmal society in which he's found himself. His morality is rather rigid, also. I rather respect Batman."

[Anonymous No.4017149]

>>4017126
What is this from? It's hilarious.

[Anonymous No.4017150]

>>4017114
Ever since the French Revolution, people have been treating history like a god. It's not since Hegel, Hegel was just one of the first and most influential to do it and theorize it.

[Anonymous No.4017152]

>>4017022
I'm a Roman Catholic, like Guenon was before his conversion.

[Anonymous No.4017168]

>>4017111
The Fourth Crusade wouldn't have been possible without Byzantine government being in the miserable quagmire it had sunk to since the Macedonian Dynasty. As sad as Byzantium's collapse is, by that point it was inevitable. The Ottoman Empire was superior as a system of government.

[Anonymous No.4017171]

>>4017168
>The Fourth Crusade wouldn't have been possible without Byzantine government being in the miserable quagmire it had sunk to since the Macedonian Dynasty. As sad as Byzantium's collapse is, by that point it was inevitable. The Ottoman Empire was superior as a system of government.
Alright. I'll concede. I'm not even really done with Spengler. I just started Decline.

[Anonymous No.4017188]

>>4017152
I thought Guenon's whole point was that you couldn't chose the wrong religion.