The Decline of the West (Oswald Spengler)

[Batavia]

The Decline of the West (German: Der Untergang des Abendlandes), or more literally, The Downfall of the Occident, is a two-volume work by Oswald Spengler. The first volume, subtitled Form and Actuality, was published in the summer of 1918. The second volume, subtitled Perspectives of World History, was published in 1922.
In all its various editions, it has sold nearly 100,000 copies.
According to Spengler, the Western world is ending and we are witnessing the final season, the "winter" of Faustian Civilization. In Spengler's depiction, Western Man is a proud but tragic figure because, while he strives and creates, he secretly knows the actual goal will never be reached. The author describes how we have entered into a centuries-long "world-historical" phase comparable to late antiquity. Guided by the philosophies of Goethe and Nietzsche, he rejects linear progression, and instead presents a world view based on the cyclical rise and decline of civilizations.

Spengler lists eight high cultures that have existed:

Babylonian
Egyptiac
Indic
Sinic
Mesoamerican (Mayan/Aztec)
Apollonian or Classical (Greek/Roman)
Magian or Arabian
Faustian or Western (European)


Conclusion: It is well written most of the time, but Spengler keeps repeating himself; he always uses the same empty phrases. Despite this it is a very important book (even if I don´t agree with everything he wrote).
One should read this book.

9/10

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[Übermensch]

I've read this book,very interesting...

[Mortimer]

I think it comes in cycles we obviously witnessed the decline but I think that most non Whites are low bottom feeders and in large cities I think they will not survive food shortage economic collapse civil war and whites will repopulate Europe I think that was the case in Italy that immigrants died and whites repopulate the cities or Italians would not be white at all today

[Blondie]

Nice thread, i will read it for sure.

[Hexachordia]

Leo Tolstoy had a discussion about what history is in his epilogues of the Novel "War and Peace", I had not yet finished that book, just read a few chapters and some of the epilogues since the discussion there is interesting(it is pretentious to talk about a book ones has not finished, just an alert,go read yourself). I take history to be the foundation of human reason, rationality is not just an intellectual faculty, also historical, this historical foundation of human reason includes wealth, national power, social experiences, education. The power of reason is not purely an issue of personal attributes, also contextual. I do not know if we have philosophers already pointed out this, but I will use this rationale as my perspective. From this perspective, we can see why some poor country will be always poor, because poverty also depraves peoples ability in reasoning, fosters superstition. Rationalism is not just a moral trait, more importantly it is also vulnerable to the the influence of materialistic needs, therefore rationality of humankind is not impeccable in any sense, it is also morally questionable in this case. This explains why in rich countries, moral decay is also prevalent.

History and rationality are the major factors of a civilization, even you might want a magical civilization, these two elements count too. So far, modern interpretations of history and rationality are only SUPERFACIAL, therefore, I do not see how modern age can present to us a real civilization in all its aspects. The only explanation is that, what we see as modern civilization today is only a facade of an unknown order of civilization, or a tip of the iceberg what we do not know yet. To talk about the downfall of anything in this context, is nothing but delusional, like the Downfall of the west and the Rise of China(not even the east), constituting the representative order of our facade understanding of what is civilization.

All the near modern and modern philosophies from the west are nothing but a turn off for whatever greco-roman philosophies have to offer, all the discoursive, overtly self-important styles of discussion in rationalism, science are boring, even vulgar, as if they think their native languages and university degrees are impunities for forgeries. I know there is a strong sense of academic ethics in the west, but not this ethic is not universal in their studies in all kinds of knowledges. I am not convinced a bit, even more and more become repulsed by all these enforced materialistic objectivism and empiricism, weighed with secret moral and racial, imperialistic sanctimony.

Given the relative nature of rationality, we can not say, anyone can be morally superior just because he/she is richer or smarter or not convicted in any crime. But moral standards must be universal, never to be obfuscated by ideological manipulations, through complex social, economic, ideological institutions. We are being manipulated from our conceptions of the world, like putting on a VR helmet, being shown what we are forced to see. No, this is not the downfall of the west nor the rise of china, but there is something we must change to our ways of thinking and living, which is far far more foundamental to our true concepts of civilization, making us closer to truth, to the true order of the world not the one displayed as the manufactured reality. Is this the greatest of all times? never, but the worst? nor neither. This has nothing to do with ourselves, focus on the inner truth, not something aggrandizing falsities, thinking on these vanities distract you to make you a part of others history as a slave.

[Hexachordia]

Spengler lists eight high cultures that have existed:

Babylonian
Egyptiac
Indic
Sinic
Mesoamerican (Mayan/Aztec)
Apollonian or Classical (Greek/Roman)
Magian or Arabian
Faustian or Western (European)

That is interesting but lets face the fact that we almost know nothing of real importance about all these cultures and civilizations. We not only know nothing about the past civilizations, also almost nothing about our own times, we are like cattles doting on botched fodders. On one hand we have alien gods, venutian spiritual teachers, martian octopus warriors; on the other we have laboring apes and monkeys suddenly evolved into cheating and lying homosapientes. History taught in our time is total utter garbage.

Let me fix some little truths about these civilizations:

1-The origin of all Abrahamic religions.
2-Abolished human sacrifice about 3000BC.
3-The true ancient trade center between the west and the east.
4-Still practicing human and child sacrifices untill 1860s
5-They built the best astronomical observatories in human history untill modern times.
6-The origin of human artistic concepts.
7-A solid warrior culture.
8-The center of money cult of modern times.

[Hexachordia]

Like the west using the jews in money systems, the muslims probably converted the khazars and brought them into Europe in 1000AD, but the discrepancy is how comes the muslims converted khazars not to Islam but to judaism, if jews at the time were under the rules of Islam??

Jews and Judaism in Medieval Europe

Yechiel Schur, Robert Chazan

In the year 1000, Christian-controlled areas of Europe housed only a tiny proportion of world Jewry. The majority of Jews lived in the Islamic world. Indeed, the largest Jewish communities on European soil were found in those areas of southern Europe under Islamic rule. At the turn of the millennium, western Christendom began a process of invigoration destined to transform this area of weakness, relative to its Byzantine and Islamic competitors, into the most powerful religious-political bloc in the Western world by the year 1500.

THE ORIGIN OF THE EUROPEAN JEWS

The origin of the people today known as Jews is a subject that only a few historians have
been brave enough to discuss. Because this is a subject that has been left untouched, the
average person has assumed that the Ashkenazi or Eastern European Jews, as they are
currently known, are the descendants of the Biblical Hebrews. The Ashkenazi are not the
people of the Bible but are the descendants of Khazars, caucasians who converted to
Judaism in the 8th century A.D.

--Deuteronomy 28 (A site)

According to the khazar jew theory, southern european jews under muslim rule before christian conquest should have been khazars and their mixlings, but how muslims converted khazars into jews?? The jewishness as we know today could also have been a fake, like communism. And the real jews hide themselves, in order to control the money.

If modern day authority settle with khazar jews as the judaic people, as a part of their 3 pillars of faith, I think the west needs to clarify the khazars question, how did they came into Europe under muslims. This would also clarify the problem of modern communism because it has its root in the khazar paradox.

Just As We Told You It Would Happen, The Vatican Now Makes Its Move To Bring Judaism Into Chrislam As The ‘Third Pillar’ Of The ‘Abrahamic Faiths’

“This darkness,” Mr Lauder said, “has been pierced by the ray of light that is the Document on Human Fraternity” signed by Pope Francis and the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar on 4th February this year. He said this document is a “defining international document, that we Jews deeply respect…and endorse”. He likened it to a “spring of water in the desert”, heralding the “adoption of a culture of dialogue as the path, and mutual cooperation as the code of conduct”. On this basis, each of world’s three monotheistic religions should defend the rights of the others when they are violated.

[Batavia]

I also recommend Preußentum und Sozialismus (Prussianism and Socialism).