Talk:Oswald Spengler/Archive 1

Archive 1

The Hour of Decision was more than "slightly" critical of the Nazis

In it, Spengler writes, "But in speaking of race, it is not intended in the sense in which it is the fashion among anti-Semites in Europe and America to use it today: Darwinistically, materially. Race purity is a grotesque word in view of the fact that for centuries all stocks and species have been mixed, and that warlike - that is, healthy - generations with a future before them have from time immemorialalways welcomed a stranger into the family if he had 'race,' to whatever race it was he belonged. Those who talk too much about race no longer have it in them. What is needed is not a pure race, but a strong one, which has a nation within it." I'd say that's a pretty sharp criticism of Nazi ideology. He also makes many jabs at Hitler and the Nazis that are nor explained outright but fairly obvious. It is true that he was not insulting or blatant about it, but the The Hour of Decision was quite critical of the Nazis from a right-wing perspective.Shield2 06:23, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

further minor observation

Indeed, and this is just my opinion, but I agree with the above post. Some of the Nazi propaganda has what to many today sounds like a populist conservative slant, particularly the vulgar quasi-populist anti-intellectualism. This does not change the fact that to many right-wing intellectuals in German circa 1930, Hitler looked like a clown or a madman. A reactionary conservative in Germany at that time would be much more interested in restoring the Kaiser and the aristocracy, and with bringing back the good old days of a powerful Catholic Church that had a finger in every pie. To someone with this perspective, and I think Spengler had this point of view, Hitler was at best a phony, at worst a lunatic indistinguisable from the Spartacists and the Bolsheviks.

Yes, many German right-wingers who admired the old German Empire created by Bismarck saw Hitler and the Nazis as unscrupulous and classless thugs. Initially many of them reluctantly supported his rise to power because they felt the Nazis were the lesser of two evils compared to the possible Bolshevik alternative. Spengler fell into that category, but in The Hour of Decision, he questions whether even that is the case. At one point he laments a streak of unrealistic and dangerous idealism that runs deeply in the character of his countrymen, then remarks, "To this petty and essentially German mode of thought belong almost all the political ideals and Utopias that have sprouted from the bog of the Weimar State: the International, Communist, Pacifist, Ultramontane, Federal, 'Aryan' visions of sacrum imperium, Soviet State, or Third Empire, as the case might be." Shield2 07:37, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

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13 Mar 2007 - from P.W.Miles (some later editing)

Hello Shield2. Your replies are brilliant. Thank you, they have given me much to ponder on. As I tried to say before, I am hardly qualified to interpret Spengler, but then, who is?

Here are some responses to your thoughts.

Spengler concedes, "With Baroque the leadership in music passes to Italy. But at the same time architecture ceases to be the ruling art and there is formed a group of Faustian special-arts in which oil-painting occupies the central place." To Spengler, Baroque was the true heir to Gothic rather than simply a reaction to it and signifies the triumph of the proudly Faustian over the Faustian pseudo-Classical. Spengler believes this cultural victory had been achieved by Luther, the last great Gothic who "liberated the Faustian personality.

I am not sure how to reply -- to me Baroque is a sort of twirly-whirly style found in Catholic churches of the 17th century -- Bernini was its great sculptor -- but the name is also attached to the profoundest Western music, such as Bach's. Architecture was a famed art of the Italian renaissance, resulting in St Peter's cathedral in Rome, and Palladio who still has an influence in England. Most important to me is that oil painting had been established, in Italy, long before any events Spengler can be referring to, by masters of the 14th century such as Giotto. Besides painting and perspective, the Italian Renaissance was a ferment of ideas which left us great progress in mathematics (e.g. solutions of the cubic and quartic), double entry bookkeeping, the great forms of classical music, and (a bit later) the physics of Galileo. Spengler's dismissal of it seems simply perverse! That said, your point that the Italians are really Germans (Goths and Lombards) in classical disguise is interesting

..the point Miles made about about how Spengler's theory seems more like the notion of a civilization as a dying tree than truly "cyclical," (of course, one could say that he sees the next culture as another tree growing out of the decayed compost of that dead tree)

I don't think Spengler saw a cyclical succession of any kind, except possibly in pseudomorphic repetitions or reenactments, such as the Chinese dynasties or the Renaissance. I tried to argue that this is too limited, but we must respect the author.

...insight on his view of Latin-speaking nations when he writes, "That which flowed into the lands of southern Europe under the diverse names of Goths, Lombards, and Vandals was undoubtedly a race in itself" because races that migrate are shaped by the landscapes they migrate to.

I have tried to find the quotation online, but I couldn't. It is very interesting whether it is from "Decline of the West" itself, or from one of the later works such as Prussianism and Socialism or The Hour of Decision. In my view Spengler started out as an anti-Darwinist, a sort of cultural Lamarckian. However in his later years, in the 1920s, he was drawn more to German nationalism and stressed ever more the "race" aspect of the German migrations and their consequences.

Decline of the West does not properly explain where the Ottoman Empire fits in, but in the The Hour of Decision Spengler writes that the "Turkish-Mongolian races appeared first as mercenaries and then as masters" of the Magian world just as the Teutonic peoples did in the Classical world (actually in both cases they were subjugated or enslaved before they were mercenaries...

True. But according to Spengler, events after the transition to Civilisation are contingent, depending only on external factors. So one cannot make analogies, at least not predictive ones. (I would like to elaborate and substantiate this but it would take a PhD or two to do it!).

his assessment of the West's underrated Germanic roots is brilliant and he was basically correct in predicting that Western culture would soon fall into decline after the age of Western world power ended

Again, I believe Spengler started as an anti-Darwinian, but ended as German Nationalist. There was some common "German" character of Western culture, e.g. the Anglo-Saxon St Boniface preaching to the the Frisians in their own language, or the setting of Beowulf in Denmark. However as a continuing badge of identity (comparable to the selfconsciousness of the ancient Greeks as Hellenes), Germanness seems to me to have faded out by the eleventh century or so

The Hour of Decision was more than "slightly" critical of the Nazis In it, Spengler writes, "But in speaking of race, it is not intended in the sense in which it is the fashion among anti-Semites in Europe and America to use it today: Darwinistically, materially. Race purity is a grotesque word in view of the fact that for centuries all stocks and species have been mixed, and that warlike - that is, healthy - generations with a future before them have from time immemorialalways welcomed a stranger into the family if he had 'race,' to whatever race it was he belonged. Those who talk too much about race no longer have it in them. What is needed is not a pure race, but a strong one, which has a nation within it." I'd say that's a pretty sharp criticism of Nazi ideology. He also makes many jabs at Hitler and the Nazis that are nor explained outright but fairly obvious. It is true that he was not insulting or blatant about it, but the The Hour of Decision was quite critical of the Nazis from a right-wing perspective

I think I put that quote on Flork, or some such (as myself, Patrick Miles)

I think Spengler had this point of view, Hitler was at best a phony, at worst a lunatic indistinguisable from the Spartacists and the Bolsheviks.

But he was a friend of the "socialist" Nazi, Gregor Strasser. And fulsomely supported the seizure of power: " the national revolution of 1933 was a mighty phenomenon and will remain such in the eyes of the future by reason of the elemental, super-personal force with which it came and the spiritual discipline with which it was carried through" (Hour of Decision, introduction). I still think Spengler's legacy can be rescued from appropriation by the far right, and the anti-Semites, much for the reasons you set out three paragraphs above

German right-wingers who admired the old German Empire created by Bismarck saw Hitler and the Nazis as unscrupulous and classless thugs. Initially many of them reluctantly supported his rise to power because they felt the Nazis were the lesser of two evils compared to the possible Bolshevik alternative... A reactionary conservative in Germany at that time would be much more interested in restoring the Kaiser and the aristocracy, and with bringing back the good old days of a powerful Catholic Church that had a finger in every pie.

The "old German Empire" was new! Even Wilhelm I (its first Kaiser in 1871 or so) objected to being crowned its emperor, having a hereditary if theoretical loyalty to the Hapsburgs. This is well explained in Edward Crankshaw's biography of Bismarck. Regarding the Catholics, Germany (to this day) is about half and half Catholic and Protestant. Bismarck waged the so-called "Kulturkampf" against the Bavarian Catholics and their control of the schools in particular.

Anyway thanks again.

Thank you also Burkhardt for starting the discussion.

PS. I need to get hold of DOTW again, before continuing with this! Will check out for a while

The quote I presented about Italians was from The Decline of the West, not one of his later works. It is true that Spengler did not explicitly voice his German nationalism until after the 1919 armistice and did not become active in politics until after Decline was published, but he was always a Germanophile with a Teutonic view of Western culture. On a personal note, his beloved sister's suicide that same year probably contributed to his increasingly bitter tone. But even before that, he believed that Italians and other Latin-influenced Western Europeans were really Teutons who had inherited, appropriated and remade Classical culture in their own image. That is one of the main themes in Decline, and also how the Faustian Culture remade "Magian" religions in its own image. He did not deny that the Renaissance produced great achievements, but from the standpoint of his cyclical theory it was not the rebirth of Western Civiization but a part of the Faustian Culture of which Gothic marked the birth. You are right about the German Empire, and thanks for pointing that out. By "old German Empire" I meant from the perspective of people like Spengler in the Weimar Era longing for the days of Bismark's Empire. I wasn't the one who wrote the first paragraph about him being a reactionary who distrusted the Nazis, but I agree with it except for the part which associated him with Catholicism. Spengler was not a Catholic reactionary, he was a "Prussianist." And in some ways he was going beyond Bismark, back to Frederick the Great. By American or English standards he would be considered a man of the "far right," but judging him by the standards of his country in his particular time in history, Spengler was merely right of center. He did advocate a national revolution to overthrow the Weimar Republic and establish a right-wing authoritarian government in its place, but what's far right in some places and eras is center right in others. Spengler himself contrasted Germany's authoritarian traditions with England's more libertarian tradtions in Prussianism and Socialism. Even in Prussianism and Socialism what he was advocating was something like enlightened despotism rather than outright tyranny, and at one point he writes that some form of consensus should be implemented "the German way." Also, from a purely philosophical standpoint I don't think his unique anti-Darwinian views on race ever changed from what they were in The Decline of the West, but they took a more hardened nationalistic tone in his later work. He had always mentioned the importance of Germanic migration, but his theory was that a people progressively loses its "strong race" as it advances from Culture to Civilization to Empire and finally into ruin. While he did believe that the Germanic barbarians once had very "strong race" which gave birth to Faustian Culture, he believed this was a thing of the past and that the "colored races" had the advantage of stronger barbarism than the Late Urban Faustians, just as their anscestors had over the Late Urban Romans. His later work is still anti-Darwinian and continues the cyclical theory he laid out in The Decline of the West, but with less observations about cultural achievements and more talk of "colored races." In Decline he did predict an inevitable clash between competing peoples and civilizations following Western Man's shift from Civilization to Caesarism, but he was not as distasteful (by today's standards) about it as he was in his later work. Even as his work took the direction it did he was still capable of remarkable insight, but I think one of the main reasons his reputation suffered is because in such a desperate time his ideas sometimes fell on less delicate ears. By the time he voiced his disillusionment with direction of the nationalist revolution he had once advocated, it was too late. I think that's the main reason many people dislike him and overlook how brilliant he was.

Finally, you are right that he was not one of the rabid anti-Semites who were all too common in his day. He ridiculed their ideas in The Decline of the West and again in The Hour of Decision. Even in the instances where he described Judaism and Western Culture as mutual antagonists or discussed the Jewish influences on Bolshevism, he went out of his way to put these issues in perspective and to be as tasteful as possible so as not to sound like a common Jew-baiter. Shield2 11:00, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

To make another point about his views on Italy and the Renaissance, you may be right that focusing on the Germanic migrations there reeks of the type of Darwinian racialism Spengler claimed to abhor, but for one factor. He believed human history is war history, so to say that Germanic blood was a driving factor in Italian culture would simply mean Germanic ancestry if claimed by most German nationalists of his time, but claimed by Spengler it would be referring more to blood spilled by Germanic peoples (theirs and that of the Romans). He rejected the absurd claims by people like Houston Stewart Chamberlain that the Greeks, Romans, and just about everyone else who contributed to human civilization was of Teutonic descent. But to say that Italian culture was heavily indebted to the wars between the late Romans and the Barbarians is not innaccurate. By Spengler's view of history that is when Italian Renaissance culture would have been "becoming," and by the actual time of the Renaissance it already "had become." Of course his assessment of the Renaissance was clearly biased, but he made some excellent points. I don't even think all Italians would disagree with the notion of Italian culture being a marriage of Roman and Barbarian culture, although they wouldn't be pleased with Spengler's portrayal of the latter as the "man of the house." Shield2 20:32, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Patton source

I removed this from the main article:

• George S. Patton, who prided himself on having studied German culture and philosophy "all my life,"[1] expressed many historical, cultural, and philosophical views which bore an unmistakable resemblence to those of Spengler.[2]

We need to find a source that actually makes the explicit connection between the two.—Perceval 18:12, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

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Patrick Miles 20:39, 21 March 2007 (UTC) Patrick Miles 20:31, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Hello again Shield2. I said I would stand back for a while but once again, you have come up with intriguing ideas so I owe you a reply. NB I have just got myself registered on Wiki after a slight glitch with this page, I'm still not sure how all of it works. Regardless...

He believed human history is war history... (from your last).

For sure! But the idea is repellent to most history readers and writers of today. This seems a characteristic expression of it, from "Prussianism and Socialism" section 17:

http://home.alphalink.com.au/~radnat/spengler/prussianism.html

World history is the history of states; the history of states is the history of wars... War is the eternal pattern of higher human existence, and countries exist for war’s sake...

An inseparable element of any political pattern is, however, the people that has created this pattern, that bears it in its blood, that alone is capable of embodying it... Each culture and each single people within a culture arranges its affairs and fulfills its destiny according to patterns that are congenital and essentially immutable.

Thus, Spengler recognises "political patterns" -- I think "political forms" would equally translate this -- and argues they are made by war. However I don't think he ever tried to list the actual political forms of the different cultures (correct me if I am wrong). Some obvious (to me) political forms, with the approximate dates of their most flourishing existence, are

Greek city state (to 338 BC, battle of Chaeronea)

Mediaeval feudalism (500 - 1500 AD)

Modern nation state (after 1500 AD)

And who could deny that these forms were fashioned by and for war? What is more, they each were forms for conducting war with other political units of the same kind and belonging to the same culture. Greek city fought Greek city, mediaeval kings and barons fought each other, modern nations (until the twentieth century) spent most of their organised energy warring and preparing for war with other nations.

Spengler in P&S argues for a differentiation of political forms within the Western culture, singling out the Prussian and Spanish monarchies and the English parliamentary form. Biased and absurd as his account of England may seem, the essay as a whole seems a pioneering effort.

The English historian AJP Taylor during the Second World War wrote an equally biased book (from the opposite direction) called "The Course of German History". In this he focuses on the Reich as the German political form since the early days of the Holy Roman Empire.

I am trying to back up something I said in my first piece here

suppose this Western-Modern culture is only now approaching Spengler's decisive transition (from Culture to Civilisation). In such a transition, the political form -- in our case the nation state -- is dissolved and replaced by formless, contending, multinational dominions...

Support (of a kind) is found in P&S

War is the eternal pattern of higher human existence, and countries exist for war’s sake; they are signs of readiness for war. And even if a tired and blood-drained humanity desired to do away with war, like the citizens of the Classical world during its final centuries, like the Indians and Chinese of today, it would merely exchange its role of war-wager for that of the object about and with which others would wage war. Even if a Faustian universal harmony could be attained, masterful types on the order of late Roman, late Chinese, or late Egyptian Caesars would battle each other for this Empire for the possession of it, if its final form were capitalistic; or for the highest rank in it, if it should become socialistic.

Repugnant as Spengler's thought may appear set against present day internationalist efforts and aspirations for world peace and unity, I have a feeling he tells us something of the future.

I suppose the debate is endless. Neither Spengler himself nor any successor seems to have got to grips with all the implications of his ideas. But thank you again for your latest reply.

Yes, Spengler is the antithesis of what he called the "world-improver" type. When you understand his notion of eternal war, his metaphysics make more sense than critics would like to admit. Another misconception is that his "Caesarism" prediction is necessarily a totalitarian dictatorship. In Prussianism and Socialism, he writes, "The Viking has become a free-tradesman; the Teutonic knight is now an administrative official. There can be no reconciliation. Each of these principles is proclaimed by a German people, Faustian men par excellence. Neither can accept a restriction of its will, and neither can be satisfied until the whole world has succumbed to its particular idea. This being the case, war will be waged until one side gains final victory. Is world economy to be worldwide exploitation, or worldwide organization? Are the Caesars of the coming empire to be billionaires or universal administrators?" And note that he also includes Americans as Englishmen in this case. Also, exactly before the section you quote, he writes, "Ideas that have become blood demand blood." From the Spenglerian perspective, the international mess today is proof that internationalism starts wars just as surely as nationalism, a case of old-fashioned war as a result of "world-improvers" who never learn. But if you really want to get into Spengler's mode of thought, the transition to Faustian Caesarism we are seeing today would probably be the "has-become," the result of an idealistic culture bred by the Allied victory in World War II and America's triumph in the Cold War. He also predicted a period of contending states, in which the Faustian states, then the different civilizations would struggle for would domination.Shield2 04:53, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Spengler's civilization model

Hi all. I came across the Spengler's civilization model article while doing some disambiguation work and noted that it really provided no context at all. I wrote a very short blurb of an intro but I was hoping someone here could expand a bit on it, not to mention maybe adding a few citations too. Thanks! —Elipongo (Talk contribs) 17:56, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

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Hello Elipongo. Let's see your blurb

Patrick Miles —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.68.211.136 (talk) 20:45, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Source???

Removed this from the end of the fifth paragraph of the section entitled Nature of the Pattern "Rome’s empire died of arteriosclerosis" I suppose this is a joke, but if its some kind of (rather bazaar) metaphor, it at least needs citation/clarification 66.131.221.53 (talk) 17:06, 21 November 2009 (UTC) Simon Seamus

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petit-bourgeoisie

Why petit-bourgeoisie? Is this an encylopedia or a propaganda bulletin? I can see how one might find the phrase petit-bourgeoisie in Das Kapital or maybe even in Mein Kampf. Not a good idea.

Jüri Estam Estonia

Spengler and the Second World War

Perhaps the most horrifying implication of Spengler’s thesis, is its indication that Europe would now be better off if the Second World War had gone the other way. Obviously (and I am sure he would agree), we do need to qualify that by adding the assumption that the Nazis would eventually have been replaced by decent, enlightened rulers.

Without doubt, Spengler was hoping and expecting that Germany would lead Europe into its final, authoritarian phase – corresponding to the Roman Empire and the Chinese Han Dynasty. However, he felt that Hitler was not the right man for the job. Indeed, subsequent events proved that Spengler’s assessment of the “Fuehrer” was quite correct.

I did actually present a paper along those lines at a Political Science Workshop in 2008 – but the above theme left many of the participants rather bewildered, to say the least. The handout at that workshop may still be read at http://DLMcN.com/spengws.html ... Full references are included to justify the presentation and the deductions. The accompanying slide show may be viewed at http://DLMcN.com/spengslides.ppt DLMcN (talk) 11:05, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Philosopher Box

Most philosophers get a "Philosopher Box" on Wikipedia, which lists their major ideas in phrase form, their influences and the people they influenced, and so forth. A philosopher doesn't even have to be terribly important to get one of these. Shouldn't Spengler get one? I would argue he is more a philosopher than a historian; most of the people who influenced him and whom he influenced were philosophers, not historians (Nietzsche and Hegel on the one end; Wittgenstein, E. M. Cioran, Yockey [regrettably] on the other). His work is dismissed by professional historians as un-empirical, and indeed he is essentially forming a philosophy of history that is cyclical and has implications for philosophy of life, opposed to those of Marx and, in some respects, Hegel.

(I don't have the proper authority to form a philosopher box here myself.)

128.164.61.53lk) 20:45, 4 N128.164.61.53|talk]]) 15:37, 23 January 2009

Adding a philosopher box isn't practically all that difficult, it just needs to be copy/pasted from the page source of another philosopher and then fill in the blanks. 136.242.110.135lk) 20:45, 4 N136.242.110.135|talk]]) 06:47, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Are you "Elipongo"? I will be pleased to research and contribute to the article about Oswald Spengler. P.W.Miles, patrick@miles51.freeserve.co.uk, 21 Feb 2009

He was most certainly a philosopher. Oddly, aside from the Comparative Historians, he was more influential in lit crit and the arts. Lang, Frye, Campbell, etc were all heavily, and very obviously, influenced by him. I think he's dismissed by historians more for comparing cultures than his methods. Cultural Relativism has made such viewpoints unfashionable, despite the obvious fact some civilizations have been more advanced than others.Guinness4lifelk) 20:45, 4 NGuinness4life|talk]]) 02:32, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Prime Symbols

Goethian - I noticed that you reverted my last entry. The Russian Prime Symbol (the "Horizontal Plane") is certainly not from my research ... it was Spengler who suggested that. However, you are quite right (as indeed I acknowledged) that the Mayan one was not Spengler's idea ... It crystallized out of a three-way discussion, as logged in my "History Correspondence" file (in www.DLMcN.com). But I do take your point that it should not really be on the main page ... although is that not also the case with the proposal for an Indian Prime Symbol? DLMcN (talk) 08:54, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Spengler

Hello,

thanks to the author for giving us quite a good introduction to the life and ideas of Oswald Spengler.

As for the later influences of his thinking, Samuel Huntingtons "CoC" is indeed a plausible candidate. But what about Francis Fukuyama? His "End of History" may also have drawn in Spengler for inspiration.

I wonder if anybody has ever had the audacity to outrightly ask Huntington or Fukuyama whether they have read Spengler's "Decline of the West" and, if so, whether they themselves feel it had any influence on their thinking?

Burkhardt Brinkmann (Germany)

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Hello Burkhardt. I have read Fukuyama, though not Huntington unfortunately. I don't suppose either would think themselves influenced by Spengler, whom the "academy" dismissed long ago, in English speaking countries at least.

There is a nice paper about Spengler's ideas by a contemporary blogger who I admire, John J.Reilly of New Jersey:

"The World After Modernity"; alternative title "Spengler's Future"

http://www.johnreilly.info/twam.htm

I first read Spengler (in the English translation) about 25 years ago. I used to believe him completely, but lately I have had a few doubts. I will condense my ideas as best I can:-

For Spengler, Western culture began around AD 900 (plus or minus a century or so), as is shown by the table here:-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spengler's_civilization_model

This date of AD 900 always seemed odd to me, but it was a long while till I understood why Spengler had chosen it. After all, most would agree, the beginnings of Western culture lay in the invasion of the Western Roman Empire by Germanic tribes in the 5th century AD ("Völkerwanderung"). And in the centuries following, Western institutions took shape, such as the Western monastic orders (Benedictine rule, c. AD 529*), and feudal law, developed under the Frankish Merovingians c. AD 500-800.

• This and other information is from "The Penguin Atlas of World History", 1974, translated from dtv-Atlas zur Weltgeschichte, Hermann Kinder and Werner Hilgemann, 1964.

But -- and here is my point -- Spengler's starting time for Western culture, approximately the two centuries AD 800-1000, was when Western culture began in Germany. It was a sort of package deal: Christianity itself, monasteries, bishoprics, the feudal system and feudal law. These things were adopted by the Germans (the main movers being, I presume, the chiefs of the formerly heathen and barbarian tribes), because of the prestige of Charlemagne, the first Holy Roman Emperor; but also, perhaps, because the tribal chiefs saw a better future as feudal barons?

Eventually Charlemagne's line failed and the Germans took emperors of their own (Otto the Great, crowned AD 962).

I am trying to show that Spengler's view was somewhat coloured by his German loyalties. Spengler puts Germany at the centre of Western culture, to the point of dismissing the Italian Renaissance as a mere "pseudomorphism" -- a futile imitation of the forms of a dead culture, the Classical. For Spengler, the peak of Western culture was the Baroque era (perhaps 1650-1750), and especially its great musicians, such as Bach. Now Bach was a very great composer, but I have this question: did he not work in a form (classical music in general) that was, as far as I know, devised entirely in Italy, during this same Renaissance?

Another example: Spengler would have us believe that Kant was the Western Plato, and stood at a similar autumnal summing-up phase of his culture. But I do question whether Kant's influence has been as great as Plato's. How many people, even educated ones, could explain what Kant actually said, and what he had meant to them?

Again: Napoleon is supposed to be the Western Alexander, and to stand at the end of "Culture" and the beginning of "Civilisation". And yet, the political developments surrounding them seem quite opposite: the Macedonians brought the Greek city-states under royal tyranny, whereas the French revolution led to the end of absolutism in Europe.

The legacy of Napoleon as an individual seems less, on the whole, than that of Alexander, but there is one place that Napoleon did thoroughly conquer and remake irrevocably: Germany!

I do admire Spengler, and I think there is something really grand and inspiring in his vision in all its ramifications of artistic perception. (I hope it is clear I also admire German scholarship and culture in general, and I am trying not to be nationalistic).

However: Spengler does not seem a very analytical thinker, lacking self-criticism, and inclined to arbitrary dicta. For instance, he sets out the "group of the higher cultures" (Egyptian, Babylonian, Indian, Chinese; Classical, "Magian", Central American and Western). But if these were the "higher cultures", perhaps there have been others that were less high (the Celtic, for example?) -- but of these Spengler has nothing to say.

I think one has to admit, our Western culture is a more various and multi-stranded affair than Spengler made out. And what is more, I think one could argue for elements of repetition, or new cultural beginnings on substantially the same territory. (This may also be true of China, as it seems hard to believe its whole history since about AD 200 has been mere "fellahdom", though I don't know enough to argue that case in detail. Also the "Magian" (Eastern Christianity plus mediaeval Judaism plus Islam) is very hard to fit into Spengler's time scheme; its universal state (Ottoman Turkey) comes far too late).

If I was going to re-write Spengler (a task completely beyond me) I would separate Western history into two distinct cycles, both different from the one he proposed:

1. Western-Mediaeval

2. Western-Modern

The "spring", "summer" and "autumn" of Western-Mediaeval would be the commonly accepted Early, High and Late Middle Ages (about AD 500-900, 900-1300 and 1300-1500). We live in the deep winter of this culture, its main remaining influence being through religion. To me, Spengler's famous words about the "Second Religiousness"...

at http://www.alphalink.com.au/~radnat/spengler/spengler20.html

...apply better as history -- of Protestantism, especially the hellfire fundamentalist type -- than as prophecy.

But we also live, maybe, in the autumn of Western-Modern, that had its springtime flowering in the "scientific revolution" of the 17th century.

As a final speculation: suppose this Western-Modern culture is only now approaching Spengler's decisive transition (from Culture to Civilisation). In such a transition, the political form -- in our case the nation state -- is dissolved and replaced by formless, contending, multinational dominions, until at last one triumphs and sets up universal empire (but not, I fancy, for hundreds of years yet). Will the more imminent transition take us from "Western" to "Westernism" -- that is, Western culture carried on, after a fashion, but torn from its roots so to speak, and by distinctly non-Western personnel, such as the East Asians?

Patrick Miles, England, November 2005.

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Huntington cites specifically "The Decline of the West" a lot of times throughout "The Clash of Civilizations". Huntington himself wants to avoid the "ptolemaic system" of history, to adopt a cyclical vision of history, along with Vico and Spengler.

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Hello Burkhardt, vielen Dank for your reply.

Vico I believe was quite an influence on Spengler, though not acknowledged by him (either Geyl or Collingwood made this point). "Corso e ricorso", turning and returning, is Vico's famous phrase -- meaning that a culture advances to a certain point, and then retraces its steps. Vico is introduced by Edmund Wilson in "To the Finland Station".

I don't understand what Huntington can mean by the "Ptolemaic system". After all, that is a term which belongs to astronomy, as opposed to history. Spengler's view of history is often characterised as "cyclical". However in my opinion Spengler's theory was not really cyclical. He saw cultures like trees in a forest: each would grow on its own ground, flourish and then die, but it had no regular ancestor or descendant.

Huntington's original "Clash of Civilisations" paper is here

http://courses.washington.edu/siscall/Assigned%20Readings/Huntingtonclashcivs.pdf

Best regards, Patrick Miles, England June 2006

I am quite new to Wikipedia, and wondered how reliable it was, I went to an entry that was relatively obscure in which I was well relatively versed in. The information in this article is not perfect. However, the big ideas are there and there is a debate. I am quite pleased!

Oswald Spengler is "relatively obscure"? How sad. I haven't read him yet, and admittedly he has several very unpleasant notions, but he was a major force in the twentieth-century. Any encyclopedia worth anything should have an article on him this good or better. Obscure, to my mind, is like Otto Eisenschiml.--T. Anthony 11:23, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree with some of Patrick Miles' points, but I disagree with the idea that Spengler's view of Bach is somehow intellectually inconsistent. Spengler concedes, "With Baroque the leadership in music passes to Italy. But at the same time architecture ceases to be the ruling art and there is formed a group of Faustian special-arts in which oil-painting occupies the central place." To Spengler, Baroque was the true heir to Gothic rather than simply a reaction to it and signifies the triumph of the proudly Faustian over the Faustian pseudo-Classical. Spengler believes this cultural victory had been achieved by Luther, the last great Gothic who "liberated the Faustian personality." The fact that Bach was a Lutheran was not of minor significance, not to the direction of his music and almost certainly not to Spengler. And going back to the point Miles made about about how Spengler's theory seems more like the notion of a civilization as a dying tree than truly "cyclical," (of course, one could say that he sees the next culture as another tree growing out of the decayed compost of that dead tree), he offers more insight on his view of Latin-speaking nations when he writes, "That which flowed into the lands of southern Europe under the diverse names of Goths, Lombards, and Vandals was undoubtedly a race in itself" because races that migrate are shaped by the landscapes they migrate to. He also believes that "Race, in the end, is stronger than languages" and that a race and/or culture transforms the meaning of the languages and systems it inherits. To Spengler, the Italians were a Faustian race with Classical pretentions, which created its own distinctly Faustian version of the Classical style and mindset to counter the Gothic style and mindset. The only way in which they were really a product of Ancient Rome is that the growth of their culture was influenced by the landscape shaped in part by the Roman Civilization, not because they were actually the same people as the Classical Romans. This is precisely why he challenged the notion that the "Medieval West" was distinct from the "Modern West." In this view, Napolean signified the beginning of the real "Modern West" or the transition of the West from "Culture" to "Civilization." As for whether Napolean qualifies as the Faustian Alexander, he was not as brilliant or successful a conquerer as Alexander, but he spilled enough blood to make up for it in terms of historical impact (sort of a bad omen of what the Faustian Caesar would be like). Miles is correct that Decline of the West does not properly explain where the Ottoman Empire fits in, but in the The Hour of Decision Spengler writes that the "Turkish-Mongolian races appeared first as mercenaries and then as masters" of the Magian world just as the Tuetonic peoples did in the Classical world (actually in both cases they were subjegated or enslaved before they were mercenaries, but that fits into the prediction Spengler makes in The Hour of Decision of a coming "Colored World Revolution" against the Faustian world). Now, for the record I have great respect for Italian culture and I am a fan of Vivaldi as well as Bach, but nevertheless I think Spengler makes brilliant polemic arguments about Italy and the Renaissance which call the validity of the "Medieval-Modern" dichtonomy into serious question. So I must strongly disagree with Patrick Miles on that, although I agree that Spengler's vision is so unapologetically biased that it puts many readers off. But post-WWII historians often underrate or denigrate the historical importance of the Germans who would infamously follow the blood-soaked route that they did in the 20th Century, which makes Spengler's brilliant ideas more obscure than they should be but also helps to fufill his dark prophesies. I agree that "our Western culture is a more various and multi-stranded affair than Spengler made out," but his assessment of the West's underrated Germanic roots is brilliant and he was basically correct in predicting that Western culture would soon fall into decline after the age of Western world power ended.Shield2 00:07, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Spengler a "historian"? I have not studied Spengler, but a survey of his bibliography reveals no works of history, either academic or popular. The names that come up in the foregoing discussion -- Toynbee, Huntington, Fukuyama, are those of political scientists who wrote large-scale history-based speculations on the future course of events. That is not History. I strongly recommend removing the designation "historian" from the first paragraph of the article. 66.93.53.233 (talk) 19:45, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Spengler's philosophy

I'm a little embarrassed by my previous contributions here (since 2005 or so).

The point, I think, is the old crux - in German, wesen oder werden - in English, being or becoming? It goes back to Plato - in the Republic, the bit about the cave.

"And it had long ago been a source of perplexity to the great Eleatics [i.e. Socrates and Plato] with their doctrine that through cognition there could be no becoming, but only a being (or having-become). [DOTW V1 p49]

Atkinson's translation fails, I think, a little here. In Spengler's own words:

...das schon die großen Eleaten stutzig gemacht hatte, als sie behaupteten, daß es, für den Erkennenden nämlich, kein Werden, nur ein Sein (Gewordensein) gebe.

The last bit means, I think, that the "knowers" - Erkennenden, the philosopher-rulers - (after they had finished their education, which was supposed to take till they were 50) - would only "be", not "become". P.W.Miles—Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.17.146.118 (talk) 21:39, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

I wonder if – because of their different “soul-character” (when compared with the Western one) – the Ancient Greeks found it more difficult to focus on the “Becoming-process” ... Admittedly, Plato did try to do that, but see Spengler’s remarks about him in DoW vol. I, p.14.

My suggestion above seems consistent with DoW vol. I pp. 140-141, including the footnote: “ … The Classical, ahistorical, Euclidean soul has no “evolution”; the Western, on the contrary, extends itself in evolving like the convergent function it is. The one is, the other becomes”. > … >

… also p.266 of the same volume: “The Apollinian form-language reveals only the become; the Faustian shows above all a becoming. [My italics here]. DLMcN (talk) 08:41, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

(To Patrick Miles): Incidentally, there is no need to feel embarrassed about your earlier contributions. I read them – and agreed with a lot of what you said. However, it also seemed worth trying to expand some of your ideas. Did you ever receive my e-mail, containing a few comments and suggestions – sent on 10th June 2010 to your ‘Freeserve’ address?

According to Wikipedia policy, the discussions here are intended to lead to improvements in the main Spengler article. In this respect it is worth focussing again on your last comment above, highlighting the difference between “Becoming” and “Being”. That seems particularly relevant if we refer to the footnote in Decline of the West vol. 1 pg. 49, quoting Goethe; it ends by saying “This statement comprises my (Spengler’s) entire philosophy”. Thus, something along those lines should surely be mentioned on the main page? But we will of course need the support and sympathy of other editors in order to do that. DLMcN (talk) 08:23, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

Yikes DLMcM. The Wiki gods are making this too complicated. Please e-mail me, dear correspondent, at

patrick.miles51@yahoo.co.uk

With best wishes, PWM, 6 Oct '10. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.17.146.118 (talk) 20:29, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Bad translation of title

I think it ought to be pointed out that DECLINE OF THE WEST, though traditional, is a poor translation of the German title, which is an elaborate metaphor. "Abendlands" means "Evening lands", a poetic way of referring to the western end of Eurasia. "Untergang" can be "decline" but it can also refer to the sun going down in the evening. Thus the German title evokes the image of the sunset, part of a natural cycle, rather than a historical phenemonon that could be turned around, and it also implies a later "dawn" as another culture rises. Though I admit it would be difficult to convey all this in a brief English title. CharlesTheBoldlk) 20:45, 4 NCharlesTheBold|talk]]) 17:38, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

The translation would be: The Downfall (or: Breakdown, or also: Sunset) of the Occident. "Decline" equals to "Niedergang". However it is argued that somehow Spengler meant Niedergang when writing Untergang, and thus Decline be an accurate rendition of what he meant instead of what he wrote. (Though maybe you could say Untergang for Niedergang in the 1910s. There certainly is a difference now.) --91.34.217.248lk) 20:45, 4 N91.34.217.248|talk]]) 10:19, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

Why is it not mentioned, that his father was Jewish?

I think it is not a shame to be partly Jewish. --46.115.33.64 (talk) 19:58, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

To directly answer 46.115.33.64's question, I'd say that 46.115.33.64 didn't add that to the article. That's why. I don't know if Spengler's Jewish heritage is significant, but if it's true and verifiable it could be part of the article. That is if editors don't want to war over weight. I'm a matrilineal North American Jew. I kinda assumed that other diaspora Jews (Anglophone) hold views that I strongly disagree with. That the word "Jew" (CTRL-F) appears only once in this particular article seems odd to me. Has any editor read Spengler's works? You're right, 46.115.33.64, "it is not a shame to be partly Jewish". That it wasn't trumpeted in this article means exactly nothing - 74.196.17.155 (talk) 00:09, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

According to John Farrenkopf [in his "Prophet of Decline ...", quoting August Albers] Spengler's grandparents were all Christians - three Protestants and one Catholic. Nevertheless, as implied in the main Wiki article, Spengler was not anti-Jewish. He mentions an interesting point [in his "Decline ...", II, p.323] that (unlike Islam) Jewry was in danger of losing its identity because it did not have its own soil. Of course, the state of Israel did not exist when Spengler made that comment ! --DLMcN (talk) 05:35, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

"Influence" problems

The "Influence" section seemed a bit generous on praise and sparing on sources, so I checked the first one; that exact quote is in the Collected Works of Chesterton but the section doesn't name Spengler at all. On that basis I think it's best to remove all the unsourced ones. Feel free to restore any entries if they can be properly sourced. bobrayner (talk) 22:25, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, Rjensen, for providing sources. However, that just reveals an underlying problem - the content seems to be cherrypicked, and very carefully worded to make Spengler seem important & influential.

• Chesterton doesn't actually name Spengler, and the overall tone of his discussion rejects Spengler's work.
• The thing about Toynbee is self-published.
• The third one isn't supported by the source at all.

Need I go on? It's not hard to find reliable sources which are more dismissive. But they're not used in this article. bobrayner (talk) 22:50, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

Chesterton was writing in 1920 about the new tone of pessimism that had been in large part defined by Spengler. It's important to say that some people rejected Spengler's pessimism. Lots of people have commented on the ties between Spengler & Toynbee, eg H Stuart Hughes (who thought Spengler was important enough to write a full book on him). I added the cite on Campbell. bobrayner seems to think Spengler is unimportant...an odd conclusion with little support. Lots of people say he was wrong but they agree he was influential in worldwide thought in the 1920s. Rjensen (talk) 07:11, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

"The content is poorly sourced" is not a proxy for "Spengler is unimportant". Personally, I don't care about Spengler; I care about having accurate and neutral content. bobrayner (talk) 16:49, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

The article says that he was "tied" with Alfred North Whitehead. But I never read Whitehead talking about Spengler or neither Spengler talking or writing about Whitehead. And even if we find a lot of developments about the concept of civilisation written by the english philosopher, I would like to know what source do we have in order to affirm this influence from Spengler. 23 February 2016— Preceding unsigned comment added by 2a02:a03f:140d:d900:6932:8dd6:73a5:1d01 (talk • contribs)

Article needs more about his politics etc.

Currently the article says things like 'scholars[which?] remark that his life seemed rather uneventful.' I am not sure that is true but I think the article does not give enough information on the other elements of his life. Now the problem is that I don't know German so much of Spengler remains closed off from me, also I don't own Farrenkopfs Prophet of Decline or Spengler's letters which had a lot of information on his other activities. These activities should be noted in the article however, (I am not entirely certain where). His political activism was very important, he was iirc promised a cabinet post in the event of a right wing coup in the mid 20s (Led by Seekt maybe?) and of course there were his literary ambitions which Farrenkopt dealt with somewhat including his writing the libretto to at least one performed opera (Diana's Wedding) to me at least this is highly relevant and important material on Spengler that should be included. Does anyone else feel the same or is the rest of the community fairly satisfied with this article? Threadnecromancer (talk) 18:33, 27 December 2013 (UTC)Threadnecromancer

he became very famous indeed after 1918 but he was a very obscure high school teacher before that. Rjensen (talk) 18:43, 27 December 2013 (UTC)

• I don't disagree with you, but the parts of his life that I feel deserve more prominence were all post 1918. His political schemes never seemed to have amounted to much but they occurred after he was already a great public figure, the same I think with that opera (which I am most curious about although I have never been able to find much information on it in English). Threadnecromancer (talk) 17:34, 28 December 2013 (UTC)Threadnecromancer

Puccini he was not. His views on music history may deserve attention but no RS has much to say about his musical compositions. Rjensen (talk) 19:12, 28 December 2013 (UTC)

Why no Beat Poets in the "Influenced" section?

Henry Miller is correctly listed in the Influenced section, so obviously it's appropriate to list novelists and poets as opposed to professional philosophers and historians only. When Burroughs encountered other writers he would insist they read Decline and it was through him that Kerouac and Ginsberg read it. Unfortunately I don't have sources with me now to corroborate this but I've seen Spengler's name come up often in the considerable biographical literature about the Beats. More specifically I remember reading (somewhere I can't remember now) that Spengler's thoughts about the Second Religiousness that overcomes the Late City Men influenced Kerouac's On the Road. I would have inserted Burroughs, Kerouac, and Ginsberg myself in the Influenced Section had I seen an option to do so. Thoughts anyone? Suggestions? Counterarguments? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2602:304:B250:F309:9D03:6D4A:8889:7A3E (talk) 05:11, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

And of course one minute after I wrote the above I read about Spengler's influence on the Beats in the body of the article. I guess it's just an issue of the Influenced section not being complete. But nonetheless it seems the Spengler/Beats subject could be expanded upon. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2602:304:b250:f309:9d03:6d4a:8889:7a3e (talk) 05:15, 25 March 2014‎

other sources

Some relevant sources discussing Spengler's hypotheses are Lawrence Brown's The Might of the West and Ricardo Duchesne's The Uniqueness of Western Civilization. I will be leaving Wikipedia shortly for an indefinite period of time, but interested editors are encouraged to consult those texts for their hypotheses as regards Spengler and their unique discussions of Spengler.Gggtt (talk) 06:27, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

unencyclopedic

i doubt that the material you keep removing is unencyclopedic. how is influences between philosophers and historians not encyclopedic? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 73.93.155.38 (talk) 10:52, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

I could not find anything similar to this gigantic and vacuous list of "influenced" names in Britannica or in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. See, for example, this article: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nietzsche/ 91.122.8.169 (talk) 11:09, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

ok fine you got me. sorry about reverting you. 73.93.155.38 (talk) 11:14, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

Our job as editors is to report what the RS say about Spengler. All the statements are fully cited. If you think he was not really influential in 1920s among intellectuals, writers historians, social critics, sociologists, then you need to tell us a RS that says so. As for the Stanford encyclopedia he is mentioned in 8 different articles--the article on relativism says he was influential in his day. As for other encyclopedias: his influence is remarked upon in Encyclopedia of Modern Political Thought (2013); Historical Encyclopedia of Natural and Mathematical Sciences (2009); A Global Encyclopedia of Historical Writing (1998); Encyclopedia of the World Novel (2015)' Encyclopedia of Historians and Historical Writing (1999) etc etc. Google gives 2000 different encyclopedias that mention him! see https://www.google.com/search?tbo=p&tbm=bks&q=spengler+intitle:encyclopedia&num=10 Rjensen (talk) 11:48, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

Spengler's immense influence is mentioned in the first paragraph of the Aftermath section. I do not dispute it. But this cancerously growing list of influenced people is unencyclopedic. 91.122.8.169 (talk) 11:57, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

"cancerously growing " --that's not encyclopedic. I guess that means "growing-influence-I-dislike" but why do you dislike it so much? try to explain your real reasons--keeping in mind that hundreds of encyclopedias cover him. Rjensen (talk) 12:02, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

No articles in established encyclopedias contain such lists of individuals influenced by a particular philosopher. For example, this article does not include a list of persons influenced by Nietzsche: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nietzsche/ 91.122.8.169 (talk) 12:19, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

Wiki requires reliable secondary sources for contentious claims about dictatorship.

the long quotes selected and paraphrased by an anonymous editor have been challenged already at https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateFascism/comments/67hgcu/an_issue_with_oswald_spenglers_wikipedia_page/ statements like "humans will be synergized into a harmonious and happy entity by a dictator" are not in Spengler--they violate WP:PRIMARY. Rjensen (talk) 12:32, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

Misrepresented concept of race

There is no mention of either "blood" or biological race in the quotation following this:

"Thus people of non-German blood are in an irreconcilable ideological conflict with people of German blood, and that conflict can be resolved only by their death:"

The idea Spengler seems to be endorsing here isn't too different from current american imperialism, i.e., it does not imply the physical destruction of adversaries but only a sort of cultural conquest. It can be debated whether this is much better than Nazism, but it's not Nazism, so that sentence is extremely misleading. It should be noted that Spengler's uses of words like "blood" and "race" take on a more spiritual character rather than the biological character of the Nazis. — Preceding unsigned comment added by SaltyRooster77 (talk • contribs) 23:27, 20 October 2017 (UTC)) (UTC)

Problems with the Prussianism and Socialism Section

In the Prussianism and Socialism section, this preface is given before a passage in which Spengler criticizes what he believes to be the English view of work. "While the Jews and the English have a bourgeois mindset and prefer mental work to robot-like physical work, the ethnic Germans have a "prolet-Aryan" mindset and prefer robot-like physical work to mental work:"

This is incredibly misleading. First of all, Spengler had almost nothing to say about Jews in Prussianism and Socialism. Even the quote that is presented as evidence to support that statement makes no mention of Jews.

"The concepts "bourgeoisie" and "proletariat" reflect the typically English preference for business rather than manual work. (But of course not over mental work. Just as the English intellectual was by choice either a Tory or a Whig, he has had to choose between the two new economic parties. Being a "gentleman", he has naturally opted for big business.) The former is a blessing, the latter a calamity; the one is noble, the other base. But with their hatred the misfortunate ones say, "Business is the evil occupation, manual labor the good." … Martin Luther praised the simplest manual activity as pleasing to God; Goethe wrote of the "demands of the day". … What the Englishman calls bliss—business success that saves physical work and makes one a gentleman—is good for all Englishmen. For us it is obscene. It smacks of mobs and snobs"[1]

I will include an external link to a pdf of Prussianism and Socialism at the bottom of this section. Conveniently, there is a search function on that website. Search for the word "Jewish". You will find the word used only twice and both of these uses are in the same sentence. This sentence can currently be found on the wikipedia page. It's about Karl Marx, whom Spengler considered an English thinker. Search for the word "Semitic". You will find it only used on a single occasion, when Spengler is referring to the great, flourishing cultures of the past. Search for the word "Hebrew". You will find nothing. Search for the word "Semite". You will find nothing. Search for the word "Jew". You will find nothing. Although Spengler does criticize a Jew, Karl Marx, he doesn't really criticize Jews as a group. My guess is that someone has mistakenly assumed that since Marx was ethnically Jewish and Spengler was criticizing Marx and Marxism, these criticisms should be viewed as being targeted at Jews. However, as Spengler states on page 61 of Prussianism and Socialism, in his eyes, "Marx was thus an exclusively English thinker".[1]

The term "prolet-Aryan" is also being used incorrectly here. "Prolet-Aryan" was a term Spengler used when criticizing the populist nature of the national socialists.[2] Spengler was an elitist. It was an insult. Calling them "prolet-Aryan" was meant to be an attack on their less refined and resentment-based nationalism. Spengler was without a doubt a strong believer in nationalism but he was disgusted by the type of nationalism espoused by the Nazis.

Hopefully, this explains why I am going to change the preface from "While the Jews and the English have a bourgeois mindset and prefer mental work to robot-like physical work, the ethnic Germans have a "prolet-Aryan" mindset and prefer robot-like physical work to mental work:" to "While the English prefer mental work to physical work and see work only as a means to increase their personal wealth or an ugly necessity, the German mindset embraces work as an inherent good and is motivated by duty:"

External Link

Prussianism and Socialism pdf

References

[1] Spengler, Oswald. Prussianism and Socialism. 1919. Translated by Charles Francis Atkinson

[2] Eatwell, Roger. “Fascism .” The Oxford Handbook of Political Ideologies , First ed., Oxford University Press, 2013.

SaltyRooster77 (talk) 15:35, 21 October 2017 (UTC)SaltyRooster77

Please sign all your talk page messages with four tildes (~~~~) — See Help:Using talk pages. Thanks.

Whatever is properly sourced is welcome. So by all means feel free to wp:FIXIT. - DVdm (talk) 23:31, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

I have changed "Jewish contempt" to "English contempt" when describing Marxism because Spengler identified Marx as being a purely English thinker despite Marx's Jewish heritage. I have also changed "German superorganism" to "Germany" because Spengler saw civilizations as being superorganizsms, not individual states, so Germany in his view was a key component of the greater Faustian, i.e., Western, Civilization, not a civilization/superorganism of its own. SaltyRooster77 (talk) 14:09, 22 October 2017 (UTC)SaltyRooster77

Massive expansion of pullquotes

I've reverted a very large number of recent edits for two reasons: One is that the massive expansion of pullquotes is not an encyclopedic approach. The article should summarize according to reliable independent sources. Relying on editor-selected highlights is not neutral, and has a very high risk of being WP:UNDUE as well.

The other is that this is exactly the same tacit used by Blastikus, and their many socks Antichristos and their many socks. Either one of these would be a valid reason to slow down and judge these edits more carefully, but both combined make this a serious issue that warranted a drastic revert, in my opinion. Grayfell (talk) 23:02, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

Wrong SPI. Easy to get them confused. Grayfell (talk) 23:15, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

The Aftermath Section

Is the Anti-Comintern pact poster necessary? It seems a bit out of place. The same goes for the Hitler image. SaltyRooster77 (talk) 14:16, 22 October 2017 (UTC)SaltyRooster77

No, you're right, it really isn't necessary at all. This is sock-puppetry from someone who has been blocked since 2011 for disrupting the project. I have reverted to the previous stable version per WP:BE. See Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Antichristos for more. Thanks for taking it to the talk page, though. Grayfell (talk) 23:52, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

Relationship with Nazism

If anyone has a copy of Ferrenkopf's bio or Spengler's Collected Letters could you add some info about the Nietsche (Society?) and Spengler's cutting ties with it because it was too Nazi - which was part of what alienated him from them? I don't have access to the books unfortunately or I would add that myself but I think it is important, both because his earlier involvement ties in closely with his philosophical considerations and his later break demonstrates his political allegiances rather clearly.

I have edited the "Final Years" section to include two letters that show this, feel free to edit it to make it smoother if necessary. I have the book of Spengler's letters and access to the Farrenkopf biography if anything further is required. — Preceding unsigned comment added by JackPD (talk • contribs) 15:13, 22 November 2017 (UTC)

More sock-puppetry from Ben Steigmann

Just giving a heads up here. Ben Steigmann (Blastikus) is now sock-puppeting on a new account Com18, (a possible reference to combat 18?).

This is exactly the same material about an "Influence" section that Ben added on his blocked Gggtt account [3], compare this edit to his new sock [4]. Mods should take action. 117.20.41.10 (talk) 19:34, 29 November 2017 (UTC)

I've reverted the edit. This does appear to be a sock, but even if it isn't, the edit was dripping with WP:PEACOCK words, cherry-picked quotes, and misuse of sources. This source, for example, does not clearly support the two sentences that preceded it, making it WP:SYNTH at best. Grayfell (talk) 23:16, 29 November 2017 (UTC)

That source Grayfell mentioned predated Gggtt's contributions and appeared before that person's edits. And the username is not intended as endorsement of Combat 18.Com18 (talk) 04:02, 30 November 2017 (UTC) Sock puppet, obviously. Grayfell (talk) 22:30, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

Are you denying being Blastikas? Your editing history and interests is exactly the same. Oswald Spengler, racism and Friedrich Nietzsche. Gggtt and yourself Com18 make exactly the same edit on this article. Unlikely not to be a sock-puppet. In the space of a few months nobody else had tried to upload that content about an "influence" section. You are also sock-puppeting on the Joseph Banks Rhine article within an hour of your edits here. Unlikely to be a coincidence, sorry. It would help if you were honest because soon a check user will look at this and you will be blocked. 117.20.41.10 (talk) 15:11, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

Reparations

WP:NOTFORUM Grayfell (talk) 22:34, 30 November 2017 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Reparations did not cause economic depression in Germany. The Germans only paid a tiny fraction of the reparations they were supposed to pay - to use reparations as an excuse for German economic problems in the 1920s and 1930s is an error - the Germans used reparations as an excuse for the failure of their own government economic interventionism which was seen even during the First World War (before reparations even existed) - see Ludwig Von Mises "Nation, State and Economy" for the failure of German "War Socialism". The economic interventionism of the Weimar Republic was also a clear failure, and its policy of printing vast amounts of money led to economic consequences. The Germans blamed outsiders for problems that were actually their own fault - this Spengler would have seen as a petulant childish reaction to the situation the Germans had created for themselves. The First World War was not the result of inevitable of historical forces - and the post war treaty was not overly harsh upon Germany. No one forced the German government to go to war in 1914 - it was certainly not preordained centuries before (determinism). Both the Russian and French governments made it clear that they did not want war, but the German government declared war anyway - first upon Russia and then upon France. The German Declaration of War upon France is not about "historical forces" it is a series of specific charges against France all of which were lies - the French were not bombing Bavaria and so on. Avoiding specific historical events (for example that the German government unjustly declared war upon, and invaded, France in 1914) by talking about "historical forces" and "culture" (and so on) is a form of intellectual cowardice. Also the artificial German state, only created in 1871, was not broken up after the First World War - although many people argued that it should be (that the independence of such places as Bavaria should be restored). The post war treaty left the German state in existence with the vast majority of the territory and people it had controlled in 1914 still under its control. This is why the French commander, Marshall Foch, despaired that the treaty did not create peace - it created a "20 year truce", a prediction that was sadly proved correct in 1939. The Second World War, like the First World War. being a war of choice of the German government - it was not the result of "historical forces" or "culture", the German government (specifically Chancellor Hitler) made a decision (exercised their free will - they could have chosen to do other than they did, determinism is a "cop out") to invade and try to conquer other countries, just as the Imperial German government had made such a choice in 1914 - they also could have chosen otherwise, they made a choice and it was a choice to unjustly attack. The "national humiliation" was not defeat - it was the unjust invasions, both in 1939 and in 1914.2A02:C7D:B5E6:6400:F896:6C66:2849:AE5D (talk) 09:55, 12 May 2017 (UTC)

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