/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.4674048]

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/earth-insight/2014/mar/14/nasa-civilisation-irreversible-collapse-study-scientists

Seems like the ghost of Oswald Spengler is making the rounds of newsheadlines?

Cyclical civlizations /lit/ what do you think?

[Anonymous No.4674075]

It's a religious sentiment.

[Anonymous No.4674080]

It's about fucking time.

[Anonymous No.4674084]

conservatives will just claim it's more junk science

[Anonymous No.4674095]

>>4674048
>not reading the academic Spangler
Toynbee did a better research in his Study of History. Most civs follow the cyclical model, but linear advancment or parenthood of another civilization is an option if there is a challenge to advance such development.

[Anonymous No.4674098]

Anyone here have access to Ecological Economics so that we can read the actual study?

[Anonymous No.4674100]

Did Spengler predict people who will civilization's demise so that their pet theories can be proven right? I don't understand how this is really related to Spengler.

[Anonymous No.4674321]

>>4674048
>The guardian

[Anonymous No.4674346]

Civilization collapse is so bullshit, such a static way of thinking

[Anonymous No.4674347]

>>4674095
There will always be a tension between the Spengler and Toynbee factions - it is stipulated that Toynbee was the institutional superior. Spengler appeals to the type of mind that needs to internalize a personal narrative of history rather than poise another lapidary gem upon the crown of the academic knowledge base.

And I'm ok with that, OP. Spengler is gettging conflated with Fourth Turning much lately.

It is also fair to observe that the West has always been eschatologically pre-disposed, largely owing to Christianity/Judeaism's core apocalyptic/messianic bent, but it is also true that Spengler addresses those as such, and accounts for them in his metaphor.

My own best hope is that the whatever happens next at the global scale can hold off a few more decades so I am not here for it.

[Anonymous No.4674564]

>>4674346
>Civilization collapse is so bullshit, such a static way of thinking

Name one civilization that hasn't collapsed?

[Anonymous No.4674621]

>>4674564
Israel

[Anonymous No.4674643]

>>4674048

About time! Can't imagine SJWs and feminists will have much of a place after the collapse of our decadent civilization.

No more mass immigration, no more rootless bourgeois cosmopolitanism, no more womyn's studies - it's gonna be great! I really hope I live to see it.

>in b4 back to pol

[Anonymous No.4675660]

>>4674564
Maybe in the empirical sense there has been no civilization that has lasted continuously throughout history, but can you analytically prove that a long-lasting civilization is not possible.

[Anonymous No.4675699]

>the world will end if you don't restore our cut salaries so we can mine moon-dust!
Thanks NASA

[Anonymous No.4675703]

>>4675660
Troll. The preponderance of evidence, all that matters as "proof," is that such a possibility is non-zero, like the percentage chance of a killer whale flapping its pectoral fins and flying in the air from Vanuatu to Carmel, or the percentage chance that you have read either Spengler or Toynbee. It's not impossible, it's just very, very small.

[Anonymous No.4675714]

>>4675703
>the percentage chance that you have read either Spengler

I have.

It's a good thing.

[Anonymous No.4675736]

>>4674621
I have to agree with this

although I don´t get how thinking about civilization collapse is "static thinking"

[Anonymous No.4675815]

>>4675736
You are willing to draw an equal sign between the tribe of Abraham and Moses (sheep-fucking child-killing superstitious Hill Of Foreskin sword and sandal fags) and the modern state of Israel (safest airline, top10 most wired, nuclear armed, geopolitical poker champs)? Really? An equal sign?

[Anonymous No.4675834]

>>4675815
what is an equal sign

[Anonymous No.4675835]

>>4674048

Vico>Spengler

[Anonymous No.4675836]

>>4675815
You're willing to draw an equal sign between all the shit Spengler draws an equal sign between?

[Anonymous No.4675849]

>>4675815
Look t the dangerous way this guy uses words. He's like some kind of journalist or speech writer.

[Anonymous No.4675854]

>>4675836
But he doesn't. Judea circa 200CE is not = Gothic Europe circa 1000. His whole thesis is discontinuity, not continuity.

The statement "Israel has continued as a monolithic civilisation, defined by a static and unaltered cultural identity from 3500BCE to the present day," Spengler would reject with the most spare of derisive harumphs. And rightly so.

[Anonymous No.4675856]

>>4675815
>sheep-fucking child-killing superstitious Hill Of Foreskin sword and sandal fags
cry more

and yes, insofar as history allows for such a thing, I am willing to equate contemporary Jews with their ancestors. The Jews have mixed with others much less than other nations, and thanks to that they are much more akin to their ancestors, both in "racial"/ genetic terms and in terms of their way of life.

[Anonymous No.4675883]

>>4675856
"others are less decayed than us" is not equivalent to Spenglerian stasis. Israel of today has Zero as a digit, skyscrapers, fiat currency, concrete in its buildings, internet. It bears no resemblance to the Jerusalem of Nero, and would be incomprehensible to them of then. You have demonstrated that either you have never read Spengler, or wish to appear never to have read Spengler. You may now rejoin whatever you call your life without me, already in progress.

[Anonymous No.4675893]

>>4675883

Dat Faustian soul

[Anonymous No.4675905]

>>4674048
>http://www.theguardian.com/environment/earth-insight/2014/mar/14/nasa-civilisation-irreversible-collapse-study-scientists
I've been saying this for years, anybody with a brain can figure out that the West won't last another century. Especially with all of our drives to "educate the third world." What the fuck do they think is going to happen? At the same time global gas supplies are dwindling or being choked off and stored, we're trying to educate our periphery because "hurr if dey edumacated dey gots monee." And then what happens? You have approx. half the planet, previously uneducated, now educated, still poor, and fully conscious of the fact that they constitute the West's economic periphery. I say again, what the fuck do you think is going to happen?

[Anonymous No.4675928]

>>4675883
I haven´t read any Spengler, but I´m pretty sure that if the Jews managed to survive millennia of persecution, they´ll survive peak oil (and whatever other problems the modern world may face) as well.

[Anonymous No.4676014]

>>4675905
Today, there are four billion people in Asia, one billion in Africa, one billion in the Americas and one billion in Europe. By 2100 there will be five billion people in Asia, four billion in Africa, one billion in the Americas and one billion in Europe.

The decline of the West is inevitable no matter what we do.

[Anonymous No.4676025]

>>4676014
Spengler's concept of the "west" wasn't a geographic, ethnic, or racial notion. It was a worldview and societal edifice that moves in cycles.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Decline_of_the_West#Spenglerian_terms

Tl;dr: The entire west is powered by infinity but produces ugly side effects.

[Anonymous No.4676043]

>>4676014
Yes, but the West itself is hastening its own demise. You'd think some precautionary measures would be taken.

>>4676025
I guess I mean the Western West, as in the global economic hegemony of the USA and EU, and their allies. I foresee the same "Western" ideals that make up the core of the current West's ideological doctrine (secularism, globalism, et al.) will be taken up by the rising East. So, I suppose the East will "become" the West, in your terms. I don't know, I haven't read much Spengler.

[Anonymous No.4676077]

Is that Hank from Breaking Bad?

[Anonymous No.4676171]

>>4676077
i thought the same thing from the thumbnail

[Anonymous No.4676178]

>>4676171
ETERNAL RECCURANCE

[Anonymous No.4676198]

>>4675856
>, I am willing to equate contemporary Jews with their ancestors. The Jews have mixed with others much less than other nations, and thanks to that they are much more akin to their ancestors, both in "racial"/ genetic terms and in terms of their way of life.
>ashkenazi
>not mostly non-semitic
>orthodox judaism
>not a new ruse younger than christinaty

[Anonymous No.4676201]

>>4676077
I was pretty sure it was, until I read the filename.

[Anonymous No.4676271]

>>4674564
United States

[Anonymous No.4676314]

>not moving to Japan/China

lol you may laugh at us weebs now but our children will be the ones laughing at yours

[Anonymous No.4676318]

>>4676077
I thought it was Aleister Crowley.

[Anonymous No.4676347]

>tfw always wanna read spengler after reading spengler threads
>tfw get bored as fuck while reading him

[Anonymous No.4676357]

>>4676347

This may help, but don't substitute it for reading.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uha7WWgoeX4

[Anonymous No.4676368]

>>4676314
>Japan
extinct in 100 years because lolnokids
>China
enjoy your lung cancer

[Anonymous No.4676373]

>>4676318
They do have a striking resemblance. Not only in appearance either. They're both extremely silly.

[Anonymous No.4676378]

>>4676347
Why the fuck would anything /pol/ related be interesting?

[Anonymous No.4676404]

>>4676378
i don't think it's fair to cast him off as /pol/, though.

just look at the influence spengler had: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oswald_Spengler#Influence

[Anonymous No.4676407]

>>4676368
>extinct in 100 years because lolnokids

That's why you move there and have kids. Less competition for everything and less resources needed to maintain themselves which is why they'll stay relevant even after the west isn't.

And yeah I agree China isn't a nice place right now but in the next century it will probably have pretty much swapped places with the US, so it's not a bad bet for your progeny.

[Anonymous No.4676412]

>>4676378

It's not even /pol/ related. Spengler is much more in the Nietzschean tradition than anything else.

He's a historiographic giant.

[Anonymous No.4676423]

>>4676407
>in the next century it will probably have pretty much swapped places with the US, so it's not a bad bet for your progeny.
I'd be really, really surprised if that was the case. Economically the country can only survive through rapid industrial expansion and any environmental programs would hamper that drastically. China since Mao has been dogshit for its citizens beyond getting money for a small percentage of them.

[Anonymous No.4676437]

>>4676423
Still looks like it's gonna have a better future than the US regardless though.

Japan is clearly your best bet right now though.

[Anonymous No.4676459]

>>4676404
>i don't think it's fair to cast him off as /pol/, though.
Honestly, you're probably right. Just tired of seeing these threads every time I'm on. At least someone try and talk about something specific and unfamiliar of his instead of half-assed generals or "derp spenglr wuz rite".

[Anonymous No.4676504]

>>4674048
Civilization will never destroy itself; civilization is a process. It thrives through crises; "collapses" give it a chance to reinvent itself to reassert its granular domination.

If we are ever to escape its confines, we can no longer wait in enfeebled, masturbator self-satisfaction. Nor can we search exits, for the current form of civilization is precisely one that encompasses EVERYTHING, metaphysically and physically. We need to *create* exits, open ruptures in the fabrics of Empire; we need to actively dismantle civilization.

[Anonymous No.4676567]

Does Spengler precisely define what he means by a "collapse"? I'm pretty certain he does, but I'd like to see his definition.

Looked at one way, the end of feudalism and the rise of nation-states can be seen as a collapse of civilization. So could the end of Europe's Golden Age with the start of World War I.

[Anonymous No.4677512]

>>4674621
Do you mean the ancient kingdom of Israel that was annihilated repeatedly by everyone and didn't exist for thousands of years or the modern one that's going to be swept into the sea as soon as the USA can't afford to keep propping it up in ten years?

[Anonymous No.4677522]

>>4675856
Sorry Chaim but you kikes are nothing but an Asian rabble from the steppes, the last few descendants of the Israelites, if there are any at all, are in Israeli concentration camps and being killed with Israeli missiles.

[Anonymous No.4677550]

>>4677512
>>4677522
What part of Israel still exists for it to be called Israel?