Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Biography
3 AFTERMATH
At that time the World-War appeared to
me both as imminent and also as the inevitable
outward manifestation of the historical crisis,
and my endeavor was to comprehend it from
an examination of the spirit of the preceding centuriesnot years. ... Thereafter I saw
the presentthe approaching World-Warin
a quite other light. It was no longer a momentary constellation of casual facts due to national sentiments, personal inuences, or economic tendencies endowed with an appearance of unity and necessity by some historians
scheme of political or social cause-and-eect,
but the type of a historical change of phase occurring within a great historical organism of
denable compass at the point preordained for
it hundreds of years ago.
Spengler, Oswald The Decline
of the West v. 1, 1926, Alfred A.
Knopf, pp. 4647
The book was completed in 1914, but publishing was delayed by World War I. Due to a congenital heart problem,
Spengler was not called up for military service. During
the war, however, his inheritance was largely useless because it was invested overseas; thus he lived in genuine
poverty for this period.
2.1 Impact
His book was a success among intellectuals worldwide
as it predicted the disintegration of European and American civilization after a violent age of Caesarism", arguing by detailed analogies with other civilizations. It
deepened the post-World War I pessimism in Europe.[9]
German Kantian philosopher Ernst Cassirer explained
that at the end of World War I, Spenglers very title was
enough to iname imaginations: At this time many, if
not most of us, had realized that something was rotten in
the state of our highly prized Western civilization. Spenglers book expressed in a sharp and trenchant way this
general uneasiness.[10] Northrop Frye argued that while
every element of Spenglers thesis has been refuted a
dozen times, it is one of the worlds great Romantic poems and its leading ideas are as much part of our mental
outlook today as the electron or the dinosaur, and in that
sense we are all Spenglerians.[11]
Spenglers pessimistic predictions about the inevitable decline of the West inspired Third World intellectuals, rang2 The Decline of the West (1918)
ing from China and Korea to Chile, eager to identify the
fall of western imperialism.[12][13] In Britain and AmerMain article: The Decline of the West
ica, however, Spenglers pessimism was later countered
by the optimism of Arnold J. Toynbee in London,[14] who
history in the 1940s with a greater stress on
When The Decline of the West was published in the sum- wrote world
[15]
[lower-alpha 1]
religion.
mer of 1918, it was a wild success.
The perceived national humiliation of the Treaty of Versailles
(1919) and later the economic depression around 1923
fueled by hyperination seemed to prove Spengler right. 3 Aftermath
It comforted Germans because it seemingly rationalized
their downfall as part of larger world-historical processes.
A 1928 Time review of the second volume of Decline
The book met with wide success outside of Germany as described the immense inuence and controversy Spenwell, and by 1919 had been translated into several other
glers ideas enjoyed during the 1920s: When the rst
languages. Spengler rejected a subsequent oer to be- volume of The Decline of the West appeared in Germany
come Professor of Philosophy at the University of Gt- a few years ago, thousands of copies were sold. Cultivated
tingen, saying he needed time to focus on writing.
European discourse quickly became Spengler-saturated.
The book was widely discussed, even by those who had
not read it. Historians took umbrage at his unapologetically non-scientic approach. Thomas Mann compared reading Spenglers book to reading Schopenhauer
for the rst time. Academics gave it a mixed reception.
Max Weber described Spengler as a very ingenious and
learned dilettante, while Karl Popper called the thesis
pointless.
In the second volume, published in 1922, Spengler argued that German socialism diered from Marxism, and
was in fact compatible with traditional German conservatism. In 1924, following the social-economic upheaval
and ination, Spengler entered politics in an eort to
The great historian of antiquity Eduard Meyer thought bring Reichswehr general Hans von Seeckt to power as
highly of Spengler, although he also had some criti- the countrys leader. The attempt failed and Spengler
cisms of him. Spenglers obscurity, intuitionalism, and proved ineective in practical politics.
3
In 1931, he published Man and Technics, which warned
against the dangers of technology and industrialism to culture. He especially pointed to the tendency of Western
technology to spread to hostile Colored races which
would then use the weapons against the West. It was
poorly received because of its anti-industrialism. This
book contains the well-known Spengler quote Optimism
is cowardice.
Despite voting for Hitler over Hindenburg in 1932, Spengler found the Fhrer vulgar. He met Hitler in 1933 and
after a lengthy discussion remained unimpressed, saying
that Germany did not need a heroic tenor [Heldentenor:
one of several conventional tenor classications] but a
real hero [Held]". He quarreled publicly with Alfred
Rosenberg, and his pessimism and remarks about the
Fhrer resulted in isolation and public silence. He further rejected oers from Joseph Goebbels to give public
speeches. However, Spengler did become a member of
the German Academy in the course of the year.
The Hour of Decision, published in 1934, was a bestseller, but the Nazis later banned it for its critiques of
National Socialism. Spenglers criticisms of liberalism[17]
were welcomed by the Nazis, but Spengler disagreed with
their biological ideology and anti-Semitism. While racial
mysticism played a key role in his own worldview, Spengler had always been an outspoken critic of the pseudoscientic racial theories professed by the Nazis and many
others in his time, and was not inclined to change his
views upon Hitlers rise to power. Although himself a
German nationalist, Spengler viewed the Nazis as too narrowly German, and not occidental enough to lead the ght
against other peoples. The book also warned of a coming world war in which Western Civilization risked being destroyed, and was widely distributed abroad before
eventually being banned in Germany. A Time review of
The Hour of Decision noted his international popularity
as a polemicist, observing that When Oswald Spengler
speaks, many a Western Worldling stops to listen. The
review recommended the book for readers who enjoy
vigorous writing, who will be glad to be rubbed the
wrong way by Spenglers harsh aphorisms and his pessimistic predictions.[18]
In his private papers, Spengler denounced Nazi antiSemitism in even stronger terms, writing and how much
envy of the capability of other people in view of ones
lack of it lies hidden in anti-Semitism!" and that when
one would rather destroy business and scholarship than
see Jews in them, one is an ideologue, i.e., a danger for
the nation. Idiotic.[19]
Final years
5 Inuence
When Malcolm Cowley in 1938 polled leading American intellectuals on the nonction book that had given
them the greatest jolt, Spengler came in fth behind
Thorstein Veblen, Charles A. Beard, John Dewey, and
Sigmund Freud. He was tied with Alfred North Whitehead and ahead of Lenin and I. A. Richards.[21]
Spengler inuenced two major European philosophers: Martin Heidegger[22] and Ludwig Wittgenstein.[23]
American authors inuenced by Spengler include Ernest Hemingway, Willa Cather,[24] Henry
Miller,[25] John dos Passos, and F. Scott Fitzgerald,[26] who once referred to himself as an American Spenglerian.
Numerous British writers, such as H. G. Wells,[27] as
well as novelist Malcolm Lowry were inuenced by
Spengler. William Butler Yeats acknowledges there
were striking coincidences but says he got them independently of Spengler.[28]
Many Germans and Austrians were inuenced
including painter Oskar Kokoschka, conductor
Wilhelm Furtwngler, and lmmaker Fritz Lang.
In Latin America, intellectuals and writers were especially drawn to Spenglers argument that implied
Europe was in terminal decline.[29]
Communal readings of The Decline of the West held
great inuence over the founding members of the
Beat Generation. Spenglers vision of the cyclical
nature of civilization and the contemporaneity of
the end of the Western European cycle led William
S. Burroughs, Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg to
look for the seeds of the next cycle in the communities of which they were a part.[30]
Spenglers concept of the Faustian outlook was an
important part of Herman Kahn's book The Year
2000. Kahn used the Spenglerian term to describe
cultures that value continual, restless striving.[31]
Francis Parker Yockey claimed Spengler was a pivotal inuence on him and wrote Imperium as a sequel to The Decline of the West. Yockey called
6
Spengler The Philosopher of the Twentieth Century. However, Yockeys philosophy, and especially his vehement anti-Semitism, diered heavily
from Spenglers, who criticised anti-Semitism and
racialism much in the same vein as his own inuence Friedrich Nietzsche had...Drawing from Spenglers thesis, Yockey maintains that in the long run it
would have been better for Europe if World War II
had gone the other way.[32]
SPENGLERS WORKS
6 Spenglers works
Der metaphysische Grundgedanke der Heraklitischen Philosophie [The metaphysical idea of Heraclitus philosophy] (in German), 1904
Der Untergang des Abendlandes: Umrisse einer
Morphologie der Weltgeschichte [The Decline of the
West: Outlines of a Morphology of world history],
Gestalt und Wirklichkeit; Welthistorische Perspektives (in German), 191822, 2 vols. The Decline
of the West; an Abridged Edition by Helmut Werner
(tr. by F. Atkinson).[51][52]
On the Style-Patterns of Culture. In Talcott
Parsons, ed., Theories of Society, Vol. II, The
Free Press of Glencoe, 1961.
Preussentum und Sozialismus, 1920 (Prussianism
and Socialism).
5
Jahre der Entscheidung, 1933 (The Hour of Decision
tr. CF Atkinson).[56]
Reden und Aufstze, 1937 (ed. by Hildegard Kornhardt) Selected Essays (tr. Donald O. White).
Gedanken, c. 1941 (ed. by Hildegard Konrnhardt) Aphorisms (translated by Gisela KochWeser OBrien).
Briefe, 19131936, 1963 [The Letters of Oswald
Spengler, 19131936] (ed. and tr. by A. Helps).
[8] Fischer, Klaus P. History and Prophecy: Oswald Spengler and The Decline of the West P. Lang, 1989, p. 27
See also
Carroll Quigley
Fernand Braudel
Intermediate Region
Spenglers civilization model
Notes
[9] D. G. Bridson (2014). The Filibuster: A Study of the Political Ideas of Wyndham Lewis. A&C Black. p. 78.
Arnold J. Toynbee
References
11 FURTHER READING
[28] Cormack, Alistair (2008). Yeats and Joyce: Cyclical History and the Reprobate Tradition. Ashgate. pp. 13334.
[29] Ricardo Roque-Baldovinos, The 'Epic Novel': Charismatic Nationalism and the Avant-garde in Latin America, Cultural Critique (2001) 49#1 5883 esp p. 63
10 Bibliography
Farrenkopf, John (2001), Prophet of Decline: Spengler on world history and politics, Baton Rouge:
Louisiana State University Press, ISBN 0-80712653-5
11 Further reading
Theodor W. Adorno Prisms. Cambridge, MA: MIT
Press 1967.
Jerry H. Bentley Shapes of World History in Twentieth Century Scholarship. Essays on Global and Comparative History Series. (1996).
Thomas F. Bertonneau (August 18, 2009).
Snapshots of The Continent Entre Deux Guerres:
Keyserlings Europe (1928) and Spenglers Hour of
Decision (1934)". The Brussels Journal.
11.1
In foreign languages
7
H. Stuart Hughes (1952). Oswald Spengler: A Critical Estimate. Charles Scribners Sons.
Hughes, H. Stuart (1991). Preface to the Present
Edition. The Decline of the West: An Abridged
Edition, by Oswald Spengler. New York: Oxford
University Press. ISBN 0-19-506751-7.
Kidd, Ian James. Oswald Spengler, Technology,
and Human Nature: 'Man and Technics as Philosophical Anthropology. In The European Legacy,
forthcoming.
Kogan, Steve. "'I See Further Than Others: Reections On Oswald Spenglers The Decline of the West
and The Hour of Decision, Part 2(A), Part 2(B),
Part 3, Part 4(A), Part 4(B), Part 5(A), Part 5(B),
The Brussels Journal, 201011.
Robert W. Merry Spenglers Ominous Prophecy,
National Interest, January 2, 2013.
Nicholls, Roger A. (Summer 1985). Thomas Mann
and Spengler. The German Quarterly 58 (3).
Rees, Philip (ed.) (1991). Biographical Dictionary of the Extreme Right Since 1890. ISBN 0-13089301-3.
Weigert, Hans W. (October 1942). Oswald Spengler, Twenty-ve Years After: The Future in Retrospect. Foreign Aairs.
Caruso, Sergio. Minoranze, caste e partiti nel pensiero di Oswald Spengler. In Politica e societ.
Scritti in onore di Luciano Cavalli, ed. by G. Bettin. Cedam: Padova 1997, pp. 21482.
Paul Gottfried (March 1982). Spengler and the Inspiration of the Classical Age. Modern Age XXVI
(1).
12
Messer, August. Oswald Spengler als Philosoph,
Strecker und Schrder, 1922.
Reichelt, Stefan G. Oswald Spengler. In: Nikolaj
A. Berdjaev in Deutschland 19201950. Eine rezeptionshistorische Studie. Universittsverlag: Leipzig
1999, pp. 7173. ISBN 3-933240-88-3.
Schroeter, Manfred. Metaphysik des Untergangs:
eine kulturkritische Studie ber Oswald Spengler,
Leibniz Verlag, 1949.
12
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