Word: spenglerism
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...Decline of the West is a philosophy of history. Spengler boots out the Ancient-Medieval-Modern pattern of schoolbooks, the "Progress" pattern of reformers and optimists, the cause-&-effect patterns of rationalists. He sees each culture-Classical, Chinese, Arabian, etc.-as an organic entity which is born, flourishes, wanes, dies, like plants and animals. As organisms, cultures have a uniform morphology, except where accident intrudes (as in the ruin of Aztec culture by a band of adventurers). Lifetime of a culture is about 1,500 years. Western culture of 1940 is at about the same stage of its life cycle...
During all the dark years of World War I, Oswald Spengler in a dank Munich tenement suffered from endless headache while he composed Der Untergang des Abendlandes. During the '20s, readers in seven languages suffered likewise in the effort to follow its vast erudition, cosmic vision, Teutonic mysticism. Americans read it as The Decline of the West. Because its title suggests doom & disintegration, and because it was the gospel of the Nazi intellectuals, The Decline of the West is perhaps the most misunderstood of the influential books of the 20th Century. Last week a U. S. disciple of Spengler...
Born among the Harz Mountains in 1880, Oswald Spengler loved peasants, lonely landscapes, flowers. He revered Goethe, adapted his philosophy of destiny-inspired evolution to mankind's history. Through Halle, Munich, Berlin he pursued a Ph.D. in mathematics and philosophy. In later years Spengler's contempt for Communism, forecast of Caesarism, belief in ruthless action over thought made him a Nazi favorite. But he despised Hitler's racial theories, self-conscious sense of history-making-and said so boldly until his death...
Since cultures develop uniformly, the course of an unfinished cycle can be predicted. As early as 1911, when his great work was conceived, Spengler foresaw for Western1 culture 1) not only World War I but World War II, III. . . :) the coming Caesars, victors over Capital; 3) declining birth rates; 4) decay of art from high style to petty cult problems; 5) budgets of billions not millions; 6) suicidal crumbling of democracy, etc. He did not predict imminent collapse of Western civilization. Said solemn Prophet Spengler: "We are still many generations short of that point...
...Today and Destiny Disciple Edwin Dakin presents mainly Spengler's views on economics and politics...