/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.4421427]

Peace is a desire. War is a fact. History has never paid heed to dreams or utopias. Pacifistic ideals are a static, terminal condition that is contrary to the basic facts of existence. Life is a struggle involving plants, animals, and man. It is the struggle to make one's Will prevail. Thus, world peace is not possible.

All great men in history were daring men of Valor. Cowards deny this by claiming "progress". Yet, heirarchy is everywhere, even in childrens games. There is a constant battle between life and death. Equality is a religion- the cult of modern man. The greatest advocates of "progress" are always demanding things like human rights, affirmative action, toleration, welfare- they are under the trance of equality. But in actuality, man's value lies in his spirit. Greatness comes from conquering adversity, and that is what makes one Noble. Therefore the nature of man is Hierarchy.

Culture is an organic process with stages of birth, maturity, and ultimately death. Western culture's boundless optimism lies within Christianity- the idea of the progression of time towards a final, perfect heaven on Earth. This feeling of progress was rationalized, naturalized, and secularized in the Enlightenment. For modern man, his religion is Enlightenment ideology, believing in the holy trinity of Equality, Democracy, and Materialism will bring Utopia to Earth. But at the end of the day Pacifism will not save mankind.

Equality will not save mankind.

Science will not save mankind.

Capitalism/Socialism will not save mankind.

There is nothing that will usher in utopia for man and this world. Utopian ideals are perfect and static. Life is change. When an entire society chases after utopian fantasies, it is a sign of old age. Every civilization, no matter how formerly great, has ended. A people must insist on their own existence, for no one else will.

[Anonymous No.4421444]

This machine-technics will end with the Faustian civilization and one day will lie in fragments, forgotten our railways and steamships as dead as the Roman roads and the Chinese wall, our giant cities and skyscrapers in ruins like old Memphis and Babylon. The history of this technics is fast drawing to its inevitable close. It will be eaten up from within, like the grand forms of any and every Culture. When, and in what fashion, we know not.
Faced as we are with this destiny, there is only one world outlook that is worthy of us, that which has already been mentioned as the Choice of Achilles: better a short life, full of deeds and glory, than a long life without content. Already the danger is so great, for every individual, every class, every people, that to cherish any illusion whatever is deplorable. Time does not suffer itself to be halted; there is no question of prudent retreat or wise renunciation. Only dreamers believe that there is a way out. Optimism is cowardice.
We are born into this time and must bravely follow the path to the destined end. There is no other way. Our duty is to hold on to the lost position, without hope, without rescue, like that Roman soldier whose bones were found in front of a door in Pompeii, who, during the eruption of Vesuvius, died at his post because they forgot to relieve him. That is greatness. That is what it means to be a thoroughbred. The honourable end is the one thing that can not be taken from a man. ~Oswald Spengler, Man and Technics, 1931

[Anonymous No.4421467]

3edgy5me

[Anonymous No.4421473]

>2013
>almost 2014
>still subscribing to Hegelian philosophies

Toppest of keks

[Anonymous No.4421496]

HOLY FUCK ITS HANK FROM BREAKING BAD

[Anonymous No.4421499]

>>4421473

>Spengler spends a huge chunk of The Decline of the West criticizing Hegel and dismissing the notion of dialectical, linear progression
>faggot Anon accuses him of being a Hegelian

At least read the Wiki before shitposting, friend.

[Anonymous No.4421501]

>>4421473
>2014
>not realising Hegel is the greatest mastermind ever

[Anonymous No.4421520]

I agree with all that

[Anonymous No.4421527]

>science will not save mankind

Why the fuck not? Ever heard of the Singularity? That wasn't around during Spengler's time

[Anonymous No.4421536]

I love how Spengler is the antithesis of /pol/

[Anonymous No.4421537]

[Anonymous No.4421540]

>>4421427
But dreams of Utopia have caused war

[Anonymous No.4421544]

>philosophy of history

[Anonymous No.4421558]

I love how Spengler is the antithesis of /lit/

[Anonymous No.4421560]

It's a historic fact of nature that man is by and large born equal and free and that the original hunter gatherer societies did not inflate the tiny differences of equality to subject and bamboozle other people to their will.

Nature made man equal and free and there is nothing you can do about it.

[Anonymous No.4421570]

>>4421527
Singularity is a neckbeards wet dream, not a real possibility in the near future

What's much more likely is global thermonuclear/biological wars, technological slavery, global imperialism, Orwellian police states, etc.

[Anonymous No.4421577]

>>4421560
Nice job proving him right
>This feeling of progress was rationalized, naturalized, and secularized in the Enlightenment.

[Anonymous No.4421582]

>>4421444
>like that Roman soldier whose bones were found in front of a door in Pompeii, who, during the eruption of Vesuvius, died at his post because they forgot to relieve him. That is greatness.

I was sort of with you, until the end there.

[Anonymous No.4421585]

>>4421570
You have a bright vision for the future. Surely it's wise to put people like you in charge of anything.

[Anonymous No.4421589]

>>4421560
OP never said man wasn't equal, he's just saying the belief in equality as a political ideology to fill the void of the culture's original religious ideology caused the Downfall or the Undergoing of the West and other cultures

[Anonymous No.4421597]

>>4421585
Hey man you could call me a realist I'm just judging things by the current trends. There will be a time in the future where humanity as a SPECIES will have to make a decision about whether it wants war/debt/slavery or Peace, and when that time comes it will be up to the men of the Will

[Anonymous No.4421600]

>>4421589
Facts can not be political ideologies.

[Anonymous No.4421606]

>>4421582
Most people think he's overly pessmistic when he says things like that. But that's why there are authors like Evola who specifically disagree, and say that the culture's destiny depends entirely on the choices the civilization makes

[Anonymous No.4421613]

>>4421600
>all men are created equal

This is a more of a statement regarding the State than it is of God. Why didn't people in the middle ages make that argument when they were slaving away as serfs? Because the spiritual realm, the realm of Tradition was alive and strong, meaning the Church had more influence than the State

[Anonymous No.4421617]

>>4421589
No utopia =/= equality rightwingers have their own Utopias of "natural hierarchies" he's purely anti utopian not "right wing".

He has an organic view of civilization. Which means that, like all organisms, everything dies and gets reborn no matter what ideology the society follows.
Basically he just makes a poetic and beautiful case that "all good things must come to an end".

[Anonymous No.4421638]

>>4421617
but there is science to back up his claims

http://www.humanbiologicaldiversity.com/articles/Weiss,%20Volkmar.%20%22The%20Population%20Cycle%20Drives%20Human%20History%20_%20from%20a%20Eugenic%20Phase%20into%20a%20Dysgenic%20Phase%20and%20Eventual%20Collapse.%22%20The%20Journal%20of%20Social,%20Political%20and%20Economic%20Studies%2032%20%282007%29.pdf

[Anonymous No.4421641]

>>4421589
>>4421600
i'm not involved in this discussion here, you guys are free to argue but i've seen too many of these where the two argue about different things

make sure you clarify what is meant by "equal." usually one person is of the position

>people have different abilities and needs and therefore are not equal ie not the same

and the usually the other person means

>people have the same rights regardless of their differing abilities or needs

they are different things. one concerns a person in and of themselves, the latter considers the person's relation to government

[Anonymous No.4421652]

>>4421641
Again I don't disagree with the statement of fact that all men are equal. I'm merely pointing out that Equality as a ideology was created when urban intellectuals like Rousseau concentrate their focus on the material world of politics, economics, technology, and materialism rather than the Traditional/Spiritual/Religious/Hierarchial

[Anonymous No.4421654]

This is the most one-track minded post I've seen in quite a while. You're focusing on chasing a piece of meat dangling in front of a treadmill without realizing you don't have to be on the fucking treadmill in the first place. Peace isn't some sort of goal to be achieved, its a gradual swelling of ideals and mentalities that eventually spreads across the land and creates nearly permanent paradigm shifts in more area of civilization and reality than one. You're also forgetting to look at humanity from an evolutionary standpoint, being that individual goals are not conducive to realizing a goal of an entire species. Things like psychopathy and basic greed are good for short-term success, but fuck us in the long run by inhibiting the self-actualization of our entire human race. If you observe Maslow's hierarchy of needs, you can see that over 95% of people have the inability to reach their full potential. The same goes for the human race. We can't be focusing on minuscule, self-fabricated issues like inflation, but on solutions that are oh-so achievable, if only it means that the world's wealthiest and most powerful take into consideration that their sweatshop employed miscreants are just like them, fucking human beings.

[Anonymous No.4421661]

>>4421638
Any science saying it's happening and arguing for a start and end for all civilizations would support his case. I'm saying he's not "right wing" he's "anti utopian" he's saying that no matter the ideology history is cyclical and the "agents" driving history is civilizations. These civilizations are organic and like all organisms gets born matures gets old and dies to say it in the simplest of terms. You are doing humanity a disservice by politicizing this claim.

[Anonymous No.4421683]

>>4421654
I disagree, I believe peace is business. For example France and England hated each other's guts for centuries, but now they're happy trading partners.

Peace = business

[Anonymous No.4421684]

>>4421661
its strange because the OP, if he's the one who also posted the link, seems to ultimately disagree with spengler.

if i understand correctly spengler posits that all civilizations are like organisms and are born and will die. OP and the link seem to imply that a civilization might exist that would never die, if only one did the "right thing"

the disagreement would be that spengler would never agree that one can create a civilization that can't die; ie utopia.

[Anonymous No.4421704]

>>4421684
You are talking about Fatalism. Spengler was a fatalist, and believed that it didn't matter if cultures were actively aware of the cycle, because destiny ultimately wins no matter what. That's just his opinion, and is where a lot of traditionalist authors tend to disagree

[Anonymous No.4421719]

>>4421684
That's because almost any other political affiliation other than anarchists and socialists, admit their own utopianism and state their ideals as "logic" or "facts".

[Anonymous No.4421726]

>>4421719
>That's because almost any other political

Should have been

That's because almost no other political* sorry.

[Anonymous No.4421743]

Caesarism when?

[Anonymous No.4421770]

>>4421743
NOW

[Anonymous No.4421774]

>>4421719
>>4421726
your typo has me confused and i dont think i grasp how your response relates to what i said.

basically make a guess that OP thinks one can create a never-dying civilization
Spengler says no, all civilizations decline no matter how 'good' they are

i therefore question why the OP seems to support spengler or use his theories as a pillar of his own thinking. there is a contradiction.

so what does socialism or anarchism have to do with this.

[Anonymous No.4421776]

>>4421770
>that guy
>not yours truly

[Anonymous No.4421785]

>>4421776
>It is the struggle to make one's Will prevail.

Mmm, that's good

[Anonymous No.4421791]

>>4421774
goddamnit i also made a typo

>basically make
should be >basically i make a guess that OP

[Anonymous No.4421792]

>>4421774
I was pointing out, in a very confusing way (sorry), that i think OP's reason for doing this is that he dont sees the his idea of a "right way" utopian as that is typically reserved for socialists and anarchists.

Hope this clears it up, sorry for the confusion.

[Anonymous No.4421795]

>>4421792
There is nothing utopian about syndicalism and or anarcho syndicalism.

[Anonymous No.4421800]

>>4421795
i was wondering when the 'practical anarchists' might show up

[Anonymous No.4421808]

>>4421792
>he dont sees the his idea of a "right way" utopian as that is typically reserved for socialists and anarchists.

Fuck it I can't write for shit today.

Should have been.

he dont see his idea of a "right way" as utopian, because that is typically reserved for socialists and anarchists.

Wow

[Anonymous No.4421820]

>>4421808
ah. i see now what you're saying.

[Anonymous No.4421881]

>>4421501
>>4421427

Has anyone done a dialectical fusion of Spengler's organic fatalistic civilization and Hegel's notion of Geist?

Shit so contradictory could be interesting yo?

[Anonymous No.4421885]

Epic red pill Oh Pee! So epic!

[Anonymous No.4421895]

Just because utopia isn't achievable doesn't mean the struggle for it doesn't accomplish anything.

Fuck off /pol/

[Anonymous No.4421904]

nice utopian view you got there m8

[Anonymous No.4421910]

>>4421895
Spengler did have a point that's worthy of consideration though. It's impotent because he argues no one is in control of the future, that's an important consideration. Don't politicize him pls.

[Anonymous No.4422021]

>>4421589
>OP never said man wasn't equal

What's wrong with saying that all men aren't equal? It's true. All it takes to prove the point is a walk down a crowded city block.

[Anonymous No.4422046]

>>4421776

Daily reminder that Spengler considered native Russian culture to be separate and distinct from Western culture; Russian culture's principle idea was formed on the steppe, whereas Western culture's principal idea was formed in the forest.

He felt Dostoevsky expressed true Russian culture best. Tolstoy, on the other hand, was a Western imposter in Russian costume.

Spengler also predicted that Russians would cast off Communism by the end of the century and eventually return to Tsarist Christian rule. He felt that Russian culture was still in its infancy; he implied it might very well be one of the next great cultures.

[Anonymous No.4422501]

>>4421895
>Spengler
>anti racist
>anti anti-semitic
>against Hitler
>/pol/

I don't think so tim. Maybe you should read the wiki before resorting to your "LEL go bk 2 POLE HUEHUEHUE IM SO SMART"

[Anonymous No.4422507]

>>4421776
>that pic

Every time

[Anonymous No.4422514]

I for one can't wait for our new Caesaristic overlords

[Anonymous No.4422522]

>>4422046
>In Russia it will be replaced by some new form of tsarism, the only possible system for a people living under such conditions. Most probably this tsarism will resemble the Prussian socialistic system more closely than capitalist parliamentarism. Yet the future of the unconscious forces of Russia lies not in the solution of political and social quandaries but in the imminent birth of a new religion, the third to emerge from the matrix of Christianity, just as Germanic-Western culture unconsciously conceived the second form of Christianity around 100 A.D. Dostoyevsky is one of the prophets of this new faith; it is as yet nameless, but it has already begun to enter with quiet, infinitely tender power.

>For us citizens of the Western world, religion is finished. In our urban souls what was once true religiosity has long since been intellectualized to "problematics." The Church reached its fulfillment at the Council of Trent. Puritanism has turned into capitalism, and Pietism is now socialism. The Anglo-American sects represent merely the nervous businessman’s need for theological pastimes. There is no more repulsive spectacle than the attempted of certain Protestant groups to revivify the cadaver of religion by smearing it with bolshevist offal. The same thing has been tried with occultism and theosophy. And nothing is more deceptive than the hope that the future religion of Russian can stimulate a revival of religion in the West. There should no longer be any misunderstanding: with its hatred of state, science, and art, Russian nihilism is also directed against Rome and Wittenberg, whose spirit is present in all forms of Western culture and thus an integral part of what this nihilism aims to destroy. Russia will push this development aside and link up once again, by way of Byzantium

[Anonymous No.4422569]

>being this mindlessly emotivistic

It's like you don't even know what a logically-sequenced argument is. WHY, exactly, is struggle so inevitable.

[Anonymous No.4422577]

Spengler set up the dichotomy of Rural vs. Urban. He believed that the rural countryside was the fortress of a culture's moral traditions and customs. When city life/urbanization conquers country life, the transition of values occurs. What begins as a hierarchial system where the aristocrats (this is where Plato and Nietzsche come in) interpret society for the people, giving it a moral guideline and a direction. When this aristocratic class is swallowed up via class warfare and subverted through new theories on how to govern society by urban intellectuals, the gradual degeneration of the culture begins. Where at one point the culture was introspective and pursued the realms of Science, Religion, Philosophy, and Art starts to look outwards to the Materialist realm of Economics, Politics, Technology, and War, ushering in the Winter stage of the civilization

[Anonymous No.4422615]

>>4422569
The Will as the desire for power is the principle of Reality. Intellect, reason, knowledge are all instruments of this Will. Knowledge is a means to acquire power. We observe that everything in this world has a tendency to try to overcome others, to gain superiority over everyone else, to vanquish or rule the whole world of beings. The law that directs all activities in life is the law of power, the urge to excel all others in strength. This urge is universally present and its aim is the production of the superman, the master of all beings, who is above all others in power. This Will-to-power can achieve its purpose only by striving and suffering and an inevitable loss on the part of the weak. Life is meaningful only on account of struggle. War is good; peace is a stagnation which is not worth desiring. War strengthens the race, peace weakens them. There is no universal truth, no unity, no oneness. All is difference, inequality, strife. Courage and strength are the greatest virtues; pity and compassion are bad, for they contradict the Will-to-power. Self-denial and asceticism, peace and happiness, non-resistance and equality are all oppositions to the primary instinct in life, the Will-to-power. Life is struggle for existence at its highest. The test of a man is energy and ability. The desire of the superman is to face danger, to encounter strife in order to be supreme himself.

[Anonymous No.4422651]

>>4422615

Well yes that all sounds very pretty, but I wouldn't say I have any reason to believe it actually to be true,

[Anonymous No.4422701]

>>4422651
You don't think that life is a struggle? Were you born in a cryogenic tube and fed nutrients intravenously in a mansion with 20 butlers and 7 Bugatti?

[Anonymous No.4422764]

>>4422569
You're asking why life is a struggle?

I think you should read Darwin

[Anonymous No.4422773]

>The greatest advocates of "progress" are always demanding things like human rights, affirmative action, toleration, welfare- they are under the trance of equality.

Ah, the ole jab at liberals. touche

[Anonymous No.4422793]

This has to do with Jews how?

[Anonymous No.4422801]

stfu and crawl back into your dirt hole

[Anonymous No.4422804]

>>4421427
>2013 going on 2014
>believing grand narratives

top kek^2

[Anonymous No.4422807]

and THATS... the ultimate red pill
*puts shades on* *cue the drums*

SHABAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAM

[Anonymous No.4422813]

>>4422804
>being a post modern douchebag
>not realizing that cyclical patterns in history can be easily observed

[Anonymous No.4422829]

Guys, what should I believe? There are so many options and I have read so few books.

[Anonymous No.4422841]

>>4422813
>>not realizing that cyclical patterns in history can be easily observed
Are you observing cycles in history, or cycles in the observer?

[Anonymous No.4422842]

>>4422829
Nothing, for now. Just read more.

Rinse and repeat until you've read everything there is to be read.

See where I'm going with this?

[Anonymous No.4422847]

>>4422829
>believing anything
>not holding a skeptical stance towards all ideologies

[Anonymous No.4422848]

>>4422813
>not understanding bias on the part of historians
>not grasping the need to relate to certain narratives by making them more comparable to current events

So, how was your first year of AP History?

[Anonymous No.4422858]

>>4422813
word? when did postmodernism take place back in ancient greece? did they have internet porn in ancient egypt? or are you talking about things so general that it'd be silly to count them as significant patterns (such as the rise and fall of governments which can easily be attributed to the fact that humans are mortal and ideas die off with them)?

[Anonymous No.4422861]

>>4422847
If I'm skeptical towards all ideologies, how do I function?

[Anonymous No.4422864]

>>4422841
Cycles in history

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

[Anonymous No.4422875]

>>4422858
>when did postmodernism take place back in ancient greece?

Approximately 5th century B.C.E.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophism

[Anonymous No.4422888]

>>4422861

Look at things a bit more coldly.

"Oh human beings create ideas based on the modes of production and survival necessary to maintain both the structure of societal AND its cultural needs"

"The values of a human was different in hunter-gatherer tribes than in civilized tribes"

"Oh our physiology has a majority history in the hunter-gatherer mode of production and the pathologies of civilized modes of living are partially the result of the brute-forcing of a physiology into an inadequate mode of production and survival"

"Also, there's a variety of cybernetic material and matter evolution systems that could be described as manipulation and intelligence without that ape fantasy of the localization of such capabilities in neuro biosoft"

BAM, now you can actually read between the lines of a lot of humanity.

[Anonymous No.4422889]

>>4422864
I'm suggesting that Spengler's claims are eisegetical, and a result of an interior process in the thinker.

[Anonymous No.4422894]

>>4422889
Uh, so is every piece of historical literature ever? What the hell is your point? That we must discredit all historians because they are biased?

[Anonymous No.4422903]

>>4422889
>eisegetical
When do you NOT use that word, nigga?

[Anonymous No.4422905]

>>4422889
>>4422861
>>4422858
>>4422848
>>4422847
>>4422804

>2013
>still being a "WE CAN NEVER KNOW" fag

Sophism called, they want their skepticism back

[Anonymous No.4422909]

there's one book yall could take into your 2014 reading list. The bible will nswer your questions.

i love how desperate unbelivers are all the time. faggets

[Anonymous No.4422913]

>>4422889
By that logic, we should never listen to anyone who's ever said anything

[Anonymous No.4422933]

>>4422615
This is a gross misreading of Nietzsche. The Will to power id not exactly Will to domination (it can be, but its too narrow), its more a Will to agency or a Will to autonomy, to impose your will on the world and not lay under for anyone else as the small people do in resentment.

Again only retards reads Nietzsche as a social Darwinist the only reason one would do that was his nazi sister ruining his philosophy. Anyone calling Nietzsche rightwing is calling anarchists and nihilists rightwing.

[Anonymous No.4422951]

>>4421473
>being this much of a coward

the end line of keks

[Anonymous No.4422955]

>>4422894
"Eisegetical" doesn't mean bias chap. Exegeses are normally biased. Spengler's claims do not derive from his source material, but from inspiration.

[Anonymous No.4422964]

>>4422913
>>4422905
Eisegesis has a specific interpretive meaning, chaps. It isn't an appeal against empirical knowledge. It is a suggestion that the knowledge being produced is _not_ empirical in nature.

[Anonymous No.4422971]

>>4422905
Yes of course, i only know if I agree with you? Amirite?

[Anonymous No.4422974]

>>4422955
I still don't understand what you're saying

[Anonymous No.4422977]

>>4422905
Don't worry, not everybody has the mental fortitude necessary to deal with flux. Some people need to keep the training wheels on. There's no shame there, sport.

[Anonymous No.4422983]

>>4422971
You don't have to, just stop being a skeptic pussy. Seriously, skeptics are the equivelent of agnostics. Too scared to hold a position for fear of being challenged. A much easier thing to do is just say "hurr we cant no!!!!"

[Anonymous No.4422984]

>>4422974
That he didn't use his senses but made it up by his feels and intuition which many brilliant men can do.

[Anonymous No.4422985]

peace and war are both facts

[Anonymous No.4422990]

>>4422985
Peace is not a fact unless history itself ends.

[Anonymous No.4422993]

>>4422985
Peace is the absence of war and is the natural state.

[Anonymous No.4422999]

>>4422990
Most people live in peace.

[Anonymous No.4423000]

>>4422993
But there is no abscence of war, everything you do is an act of war.

Eating a peice of grass is an act of war on the plant. A dog eating a squirrel is again war. Everything is war, everything is struggle. Even our cells on the most basic level are fighting a war for survival

[Anonymous No.4423003]

>>4422984
Prove to me how that's demonstrably true.

[Anonymous No.4423004]

>>4423000
That's a broad definition and means so little that it almost sounds like apologetics for war. "Oh no I stepped on grass! Now it's ok to murder a family in another country" dude...

[Anonymous No.4423007]

>>4422984
>That he didn't use his senses but made it up by his feels and intuition which many brilliant men can do.
Indeed, my criticism isn't that Spengler isn't brilliant—I have not stated a position on that—but only that Spengler's argument relies upon brilliance, rather than rigorous interpretation of primary source documents. Spengler's argument is not empirical in nature, but spiritual in nature. The object of observation was not external reality, but Spengler.

Whether Spengler is right, therefore, depends on whether Spengler's brilliance is correctly inspired. In the hermeneutics of religion, we would say that Spengler would need to be touched by God to be correct in his interpretation, a saint if you will.

Normally, at this point, someone observes that nobody can share whether Spengler's brilliance is true inspiration or not. Which is why historians deal with masses of primary source material and explainable, sharable, empirical correctness, and not in "brilliance."

[Anonymous No.4423009]

>>4423003
I cant but thats not important his works makes sense as a framework for history.

[Anonymous No.4423015]

>>4423007
True, it's still damn good literature though.

[Anonymous No.4423018]

>>4423007
But it's not like Spengler is the ONLY PERSON in the world to subscribe to this idea. It's essentially Perennialism/Traditionalism, and is supported by many authors such as Toynbee, Dostoevsky, Evola, Frithhof Schuon, Hossein Nasr, Julius Evola, Rene Guenon, etc. etc. Are they all also getting their arguments on sheer intuition?

[Anonymous No.4423038]

WE INTERRUPT THIS THREAD TO BRING YOU AN IMPORTANT NEWS BULLETIN

THIS JUST IN, THE GOVERNMENT IS ON RECORD USING 4CHAN FOR DATAMINING AND CONTAINING/DISRUPTING DISSENT AND DISCUSSION

[Anonymous No.4423043]

>>4423018
They reject science don't they? The mystical is intuition. It's the imagery in your mind your inspired thought, your eureka moment where it all makes sense.

[Anonymous No.4423053]

>>4423018
>Are they all also getting their arguments on sheer intuition?

If they fail to use primary source material, then yes. It's not like it's uncommon for groups of people to believe in arguments that are "spiritual in nature", that does not change the state of their empirical evidence (which is close to none). Not the anon you're responding to, btw.

[Anonymous No.4423058]

>>4423053
>>4423043
But Toynbee does use source material and does so very specifically. His views also align with Spenglers

[Anonymous No.4423066]

>>4423058
Is he inspired by Spengler then he might have found historical events that support Spenglers revelation (lol thesis).

[Anonymous No.4423069]

>>4423038
What exactly am I looking at here and where can I get more context?

[Anonymous No.4423071]

>>4423069
>>24821693

[Anonymous No.4423073]

>>4421527

>>>/www.reddit.com/

[Anonymous No.4423077]

>>4423058
Well if Toynbee deploys correct methodology and is therefore correct,
And if Spengler deploys incorrect methodology and is therefore wrong,
Does their conclusions agreeing make Spengler any less wrong?

(The correct answer if you're a historian is: no; methodology and methodology alone grounds a particular claim to truth.)

[Anonymous No.4423078]

>>4423069
>In this paper, we focus on mining surprising periodic patterns in a sequence of events. In many applications, e.g., computational biology, an infrequent pattern is still considered very significant if its actual occurrence frequency exceeds the prior expectation by a large margin. The traditional metric, such as support, is not necessarily the ideal model to measure this kind of surprising patterns because it treats all patterns equally in the sense that every occurrence carries the same weight towards the assessment of the significance of a pattern regardless of the probability of occurrence. A more suitable measurement, information, is introduced to naturally value the degree of surprise of each occurrence of a pattern as a continuous and monotonically decreasing function of its probability of occurrence. This would allow patterns with vastly different occurrence probabilities to be handled seamlessly. As the accumulated degree of surprise of all repetitions of a pattern, the concept of information gain is proposed to measure the overall degree of surprise of the pattern within a data sequence. The bounded information gain property is identified to tackle the predicament caused by the violation of the downward closure property by the information gain measure and in turn provides an efficient solution to this problem. Empirical tests demonstrate the efficiency and the usefulness of the proposed model.

Paper source
http://www.cse.ust.hk/~leichen/courses/comp630p/collection/reference-2-7.pdf

[Anonymous No.4423086]

>>4423018
>But it's not like Spengler is the ONLY PERSON in the world to subscribe to this idea. It's essentially Perennialism/Traditionalism, and is supported by many authors such as Toynbee, Dostoevsky, Evola, Frithhof Schuon, Hossein Nasr, Julius Evola, Rene Guenon, etc. etc. Are they all also getting their arguments on sheer intuition?

Is an indefensible defence of an argument defensible? No. Does that make the argument indefensible? No.

Dostoevsky's argument is sheer intuition. However, in his case as a poet, we might accept that he has a mythopoetical insight into what it is to be human and that his evidence is the quality of his verse.

In each case, does the author's methodology supply sufficient communicable (ie: public) proof of their correctness? If no, then no the only way to defend their argument is by claiming they're inspired. If yes, then their "inspiration" doesn't matter as their publicly critiquable argument is methodologically sufficient.

[Anonymous No.4423089]

>>4423078

[Anonymous No.4423091]

>>4423009
>I cant but thats not important his works makes sense as a framework for history.
This is exactly what post-modernists say when they use Foucault on history, "so foucault was wrong, demonstrably wrong, his framework is still inspiring and useful."

>>4423015
I'm glad you enjoy him as literature. As I said, my criticism of Spengler was _solely_ limited to his claims to historical knowledge and solely limited to the deficiency of his historiography in historiographical terms.

A similar example is Robert Graves. His claims are indefensible. They're amusing literature though. (Graves explicitly argues that he sees through time due to poetry. This is not an acceptable historiography).

[Anonymous No.4423098]

>>4423086
What are the origins of this use of the word "inspiration"? I'm assuming it's rooted in either hermeneutics or historiography.

[Anonymous No.4423103]

>>4423078

[Anonymous No.4423123]

>>4423098
I'm using "inspiration" in the religious sense of an inspired text. So it is rooted in hermeneutics. In religious hermeneutics most readers believe the text to have been divinely inspired. They know as readers that they are not divinely inspired. Therefore their question is how to read an inspired text, knowing that their reading will necessarily degrade the meaning of the text, because they're incapable of fully communicating the inspired nature of the text. (Unless they're a saint, in which case their reading would be inspired, but anyone reading the saint's reading couldn't read the inspired content).

[Anonymous No.4423149]

>>4422046
>Spengler also predicted that Russians would cast off Communism by the end of the century and eventually return to Tsarist Christian rule. He felt that Russian culture was still in its infancy; he implied it might very well be one of the next great cultures.

It's important to note though, while this has happened, most people in the USSR were against the collapse of Communism. Over 2/3rds did not want the USSR to end.

The return of the Orthodox Church theocracy was more to do with the shock doctrine put in place in the 90s than anything else. When the entire structure fell apart due to Yeltsin, people were pushed into the arms of the church.

It's actually really sad how backwards Russia has gone culturally over the past 20 years.

[Anonymous No.4423166]

>>4421427

>All great men in history were daring men of Valor

Just to point out, this does not mean they were men of violence. Ghandi, Einstein, Martin Luther King, da Vinci, Buddha, Tom Paine, Darwin. Peaceful men, who strived towards peace, some of the greatest in history.

[Anonymous No.4423189]

>mfw the only progress in history has been technical/formalistic mathematics.

>that is to say the advancement of pure relation of the human mind, formalized language and the world

>mfw people confuse technical/technological advancement when history, excluding technological advancement, can at best be only characterized by a series of changes.

>mfw the myth of 'total progress' or 'absolute progress' is falsely perpetrated under the banner of technical/technological advancement.

>technical progress is the only true linear progress whereas the other cultural norms are merely a continuous battle between superior and inferior.

>the only arbiter of this conflict between 'superior' and 'inferior' is poetry. Poetry, forever under appreciated by the linear-progressive understandings of society, is consistently awarded second caste.

>thus the moral, ethical, cultural, aesthetic and social elements of societies are in constant recurrence or chaos.

>even in our age of technological-industrial progress, the view of 'total cultural progress' is fundamentally false.

>whereas the technical/mathematical/technological is demonstratably linear, the metaphysical forces of societies are fundamentally not predictable in this sense.

>hence modernism fails and new eras will be beggeted, ever resembling bygone ages to the adept philosopher-historian.

Progress is a myth, when fully evaluated.

[Anonymous No.4423206]

>>4422905
>not being mentally trained to accept ever changing realities

top kek^8

[Anonymous No.4423215]

You can keep up the struggle for hierarchy in a way that is productive to all of us. We will know to forgive you if in the process of declaring yourself over us, you contribute to mankind.

[Anonymous No.4423235]

>>4423189
However technological progress is not.

[Anonymous No.4423313]

>>4423235
It is, just not continual nor respective of philosophy. Philosophy is often superior, too, in the sense than artist can be said to be superior to an artisan. That is to say, the artisan is preoccupied with the immediate and practical whereas the artist is focused on the true or complete/holistic. Our era is one in which the artisan has usurped the place of the artist: upon close, personal inspection this is quite salient.

I do not advocate the superiority of mathematics (the root of the technological) because Mathematica are as much metaphysical as the other great categories. However, I am trying to highlight a fallacy, whereby we substitute the linear progress of one vocation of that particular quality (and its derivatives) for the totality of things, history, metaphysics, etc. which seems to me to be the chief error of the post-enlightenment era.

[Anonymous No.4423356]

>>4423235
Actually I think I misread you as being a response to something else within the other post.

[Anonymous No.4423373]

>>4423313
It's not linear, it's exponential. You know that the era of technological art has begun right? Artists expressing themselves with bits as their canvas. Yes the first 60 years of computing was dominated by engineers, that's coming to an end since Heidegger's questions on technology it has slowly but surely become increasingly legitimate for the 'artist' to have a say in technology.

[Anonymous No.4423378]

>>4423356
Maybe, it was still a good response though.

[Anonymous No.4423423]

>>4421427
Is insistence necessarily violence