What does /his/ think about Oswald Spengler?
YIPPIE-KI-YAY
why would I give a shit about what a pedo thinks?
unironically god tier
Most important philosopher of 20th century
le degeneracy
le meme
Anyone who predicted the West's decline at its apogee is a genius.
He was my favourite ghostbuster.
Dean Norris really slimmed down.
I can't believe they killed him in BB :(
>>1413376
Looks kind of like Crowley
>>1413439
le someone who never read Spengler
They are minerals, Marie
This board is so fucking shit.
>>1413448
I wouldn't say the West was at its apogee, he published his books in the 1920s post-WWI, so cracks were definitely showing in Europe despite the Allied governments' view that it had been the war to end all wars. However, he was still way ahead of the curve when a lot of people subscribed to a view like Toynbee's.
I would describe him as a pessimist who rejects the idea of a universal progress.
Painfully read through Decline of the West a few months ago, he's sort of what Freud is to psychology minus the popularity, just unfalsifiable pseudoscientific sounding meme. Not only makes a lot of generalizations and (admittedly even by his modern readers) gets stuff factually wrong, but also carries on making vague connections and inconsistent "classifications" of world civilizations in a pedagogic tone that reminds me of either phrenology or those "Nordic race" theorists, and I don't mean that it triggers me because of this or that political idea I mean it's literally made up. How some people here can make fun of postmodernism's bloated obscurantism and like this guy simultaneously defies reason.
This isn't to say, completely dismiss Spengler, he is probably right in that religious and philosophical ideas play an important role in civilization making and unmaking, but the same can be said of Freud getting a handful of things right and a lot of stuff wrong. It's just he gets caught up on making a lot of unnecessary and inaccurate details in making some big dea of how civilization is run like an organism. Hell, maybe there are cyclical and identifiable markers of civilization stage, in Collapse of Complex Societies Joseph Tainter discusses some possible ones from an economic perspective (albeit also reductionist and potentially wrong in getting caught up in details too).
(I'm splitting this in two because my wall of text is too dam big)
>>1414660
The simplest and most sound criticism against Spengler, and this is setting aside all the wrong little details in his theory is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonini%27s_paradox , which essentially states that the more complex a model is the more true but the less understandable and usable (and vice versa, the least complex the more practical but less true). This is a problem population biologists face out there, you can't draw a perfect model of the population of say, Salmon when there are countless factors at play whose additive role means any model you make is bound to make errors, and the more specific you try to make it the more bloated and difficult to use it becomes. Needless to say, the problem of modelling salmon or bird populations becomes exponentially higher with humans, whose behavior is so complex that the scientific disciplines which study human behavior at an INDIVIDUAL level are still largely inaccurate and incomplete. To predict how humans will behave in a specific number of filial generations or how something as large as the conglomerated ideas of millions of people develops then becomes near impossible, you can like with sociology point to general trends but even those trends change and sociology is also in its baby steps. When someone like Spengler (or, to continue my analogy, Freud) speaks deterministically on behalf of optimism or pessimism and about all human civilization (or human behaviors), to nobody's surprise he's gonna be largely wrong.
Or: You can also point out to the fact it's been almost a century since Decline of the West and the West has only expanded even further into other countries, more people than ever speak English as a second language and that's even outside of the West.
Sorry for the length of my post and I hope it helps. If you wonder whether you should read Decline of the West, my recommendation is: Don't spend months going through that much bunk, if you're interested summaries are enough for sure.
>>1414660
>>1414665
>reading Spengler for historical "facts"
you're either a pleb, or a shallow reader...
Witty carried a copy of Decline of the West around with him like GreenPill carries around Prometheus Rising
>Or: You can also point out to the fact it's been almost a century since Decline of the West and the West has only expanded even further into other countries, more people than ever speak English as a second language and that's even outside of the West
If you had read Spengler properly you'd know that this is a sign of a dying culture. Mass expansion and imposition of the culture on others by people who don't even know themselves. He would point to the Roman Imperial expansion (colonization), and the British colonization in Africa in the late 19th century. The American Empire is going though this hyper expansion too, in the 20th century, after centuries of isolationism.
>When someone like Spengler (or, to continue my analogy, Freud) speaks deterministically on behalf of optimism or pessimism and about all human civilization
he doesn't. If you are trying to argue that Spengler cannot be pessimistic or optimistic because we cannot predict what our civ will be like in a millennia, just ask yourself: where are the Minoans? the Assyrians? Where did the last Egyptian Empire go? what about the Roman? the Voltaire meme Empire? the Kang Empires? even the British Empire has gone. He states that Western Civilization began in the 11th century. Christianity is dead in the West, every major Empire in history is gone. Europe has withered into insignificance, cue: "muh European Union can save us!". Why do you think your American Empire will last for ever when all others have crumbled to dust? if you think that Americanism is the last eternal evolution of the state, your view of history as simple as the Marxist.
>>1414725
also, just to add: posting Nietzsche as an avatar is Reddit tier.
>>1414660
>>1414665
This has always been my impression of Spengler, he's one of those guys with a high signal-to-noise ratio with tons of jargon, some extremely questionable inferences, and overly deterministic conclusions, which is true of a lot of academics; this is why I've never bothered to read his books (aside from a few pages in a bookstore), just summaries, like you recommend.
Your critique using Bonini's paradox is true, but could be leveled at any comprehensive historical analysis, such as Marxist thought, Jared Diamond's GGS, and any other variety of materialism; same for postmodern analyses of the present and future like Baudrillard. Not saying you're wrong to raise this point (it echoes Karl Popper and Walter Benjamin's attacks on historical materialism), but I think Spengler's pessimism that this won't go on forever strikes a note of truth in what is otherwise a lot of vague theoretical analysis.
>You can also point out to the fact it's been almost a century since Decline of the West and the West has only expanded even further into other countries, more people than ever speak English as a second language and that's even outside of the West.
While you read the whole thing and I didn't, can this really counteract Spengler's hypothesis? Doesn't he write on a civilizational scale of centuries, rather than a few generations? Furthermore, how would other cultures appropriating the language or clothing of one civilization be a sure sign that that a given civilization is growing in strength? Since we're on 4chan, is anime's popularity a sign that Japan is rising? Cultural appropriation is as old as culture, and a lot of past cultural items also reside in the present, so I don't see how this would refute his hypothesis unless he starts making very specific predictions about the future like "In 80 years we'll all be speaking Chinese", although again, you read it, I didn't.
>>1413376
He spengled quite a bit. Possibly the most accomplished spengler in history. Really just a titan in the spengling community.
>>1413376
I don't
>>1414725
>reading Spengler for historical "facts"
It isnt the reason you read Spengler but when he cites an example to connect dots and its wrong or there are counter examples its very much a valid criticism, I can also come up with whatever mechanism for civilizational collapse I want and back it up as I see fit and be purely wrong.
>If you had read Spengler properly you'd know that this is a sign of a dying culture.
Regretfully I did, but for a dying culture I see no cultural implosion, perhaps even the opposite over the last century. Plus, a)America IS the West b)What is "people who dont know themselves"? Sounds like psychoanalytic collective unconscious crap.
>just ask yourself: where are the Minoans? the Assyrians....
But Spengler did not just argue "civilizations die" any more than Freud argued "people get mental diseases". He argued for a mechanism and a very far fetched one too that unifies all civilizational collapse. That ignores the stark differences in the development and unfolding of each civilization and tries to connect the dots on some grand scheme that fits when you look at it a specific way and use the right obscurantist terminology. Also, because the imperial possessions of Britain and other European countries are no longer theirs doesn't mean British culture is dead any more than German is, or that either is in some grand decay process.
I also, mind your reading comp, never argued the modern system of government is final because, unlike Marx and unlike Spengler I don't claim the faculty of proposing what comes ahead in a complex and unprecedented system as is the modern world (for instance, in an equally obscurantist way postmodern writers like Baudrilliard argued the nuclear threat has meant a societal implosion at all levels and history has come to and end, yadda yadda). It's all the piecing together of whatever connections the author wants to see and deduce and a lot, I mean tons, of confirmation bias.
(Short cont)
>>1414725
>Bringing based Witt in to defend Spenglebot
Whew lad what are you doing
>>1414827
Just to close, and I will look at the thread in the morning though I need sleep, it isn't being shallow, just reading critically. As the guy who posted after you said, this applies to ( as I hust referenced) Baudrillard and historical materialism as well, all make claims which might stright as slightly true but miss on as much as they hit if not more, and more than anything digress on a suspiciously large scale for all being 'well grounded' theories.
>>1414770
Completely agree with your first point, you're surely better than me at not writing unnecessary text walls.
As for your second point, he uses very colorful jargon to show what he thinks is civilization collapsing and whatnot, the problem is by any perspective short of looking for our civilization's failures the west is doing well, fertility rates have dropped for sure but we're not culturally or economically dead, we still output a lot "culture" in the very vague sense in which Spengler places it against "civilization". I think the whole "we're becoming more superficial" observation is just the past being more easily mystifiable, in 400 years the practices we see as practical and bland may seem equally mystical to future humans. Additionally, if I remember correctly he finished Decline in the early 1920s, and I'm fairly confident by any measure we are better today than by then. I fail to see how the aesthetic and sociological changes of the last few decades have brought us close to demise, unless we want to talk about shady and complex economics, energy and environment stuff which has little to do with Spengler. Anyways, if this thread is not completely dead by the morning I'll try to be a bit more specific because I'm in bed right now and it's 3AM. Sorry if I was a bit too reductive in answering
>>1414728
I just thought he was relevant, after all he cites Goethe and Nietzsche as his main inspirations. Sorry if Nietzsche being overmemed makes you feel badly about him.
He was probably my favorite character in the show honestly.
>>1414923
Saul is objectively the GOAT character
>>1414938
Saul is actually much better in the spinoff than he was in the BB.
>>1413376
>>1414660
>>1414665
You're understanding him completely the wrong way around. Spengler isn't following the scientific method. His process is intuitive. But that doesn't change the fact that his model fits. It explains just about every mystery of history, and has successfully predicted many things since.
>Or: You can also point out to the fact it's been almost a century since Decline of the West and the West has only expanded even further into other countries, more people than ever speak English as a second language and that's even outside of the West.
This shows that you didn't read his book beyond the title, since Spengler literally predicts this would happen.
>people who never read Spengler discussing Spengler based only on the title: the thread
>pessimistic
>pessimism
>pessimist
>pessimism
Spengler explicitly explains that he isn't being pessimistic at all. Quite the opposite, the West still has glorious days ahead of it, and the cycle of civilisations means that even when it dies new civilisations will rise.
>>1413448
>Anyone who predicted the West's decline at its apogee is a genius.
So basically everyone since the Industrial Revolution.
He certainly got /lit/'s panties collectively knotted tightly:
https://warosu.org/lit/thread/S4570057
>>1414923
Oh shit. I've watched never watched breaking bad and I decided to look up Hank on YouTube. My uncle sounds, acts and kind of resembles Hank in Breaking Bad who looks like Oswald Spengler. Thanks /his/...
>>1418088
That OP is actually Spengler's prose?
Fuck. How come every single (bar none) "follower" of Nietzsche turns out to be a complete and utter letdown? Both aesthetically and philosophically.
>>1414660
>>1414665
Perhaps you know?
>Hear me! For I am such and such a person. Above all, do not mistake me for someone else!
>>1418390
He's not a follower of Nietzsche at all, and no he didn't write that.
