Oswald Spengler

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[[File:Oswald Spengler.jpg|right|thumb|165px|Spengler in 1929]]
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{{cquote|[[Understatement|Dr. Oswald Spengler has an unfortunate manner]]. He writes like an angry professor lecturing a class of [[Mark|idiot boys]]. And if a boy is so rash as to ask a question - [[Critical thinking|even a quite intelligent question]]&nbsp;— [[Bullying|the storm of sarcasm that follows is sure to silence him]], though not so sure to convince. [[Argument by gibberish|With a scream of italics and exclamation marks]], Dr. Spengler falls upon the fool who hints that mankind might escape [[Prophecy|the gathering doom]]. As if driven to expiate some enormous guilt, he offers the whole Western world as a sacrifice to Fate, and there are [[Snarl word|no words too impolite]] for the victim who demurs. [[Credentialism#Credential_abuse|This is what has to be!]] [[Historical determinism|History cannot be interfered with!]] Bare your throats and ''[[Thought-terminating cliché|don't argue!]]'' |||Pulitzer prize winner Herbert Agar, 1932<ref>[https://archive.org/details/sim_english-review-uk_1932-07_55/page/92/mode/2up Literary Notes] by Herbert Agar (1932) ''The English Review'' 55:93-97.</ref>{{rp|93}}}}
{{cquote|[[Rationalism]] is at bottom nothing but criticism, and the critic is the reverse of a creator: he dissects and he reassembles; conception and birth are alien to him. Accordingly his work is [[vitalism|artificial and lifeless, and when brought into contact with real life, it kills]]. All these systems and organizations are paper productions; they are methodical and absurd and live only on the paper they are written on. The process began at the time of [[Rousseau]] and [[Kant]] with philosophical ideologies that lost themselves in generalities; passed in the nineteenth century to scientific constructions with scientific, physical, [[Darwinian]] methods - sociology, economics, materialistic history-writing - and lost itself in the twentieth in the literary output of [[Social justice|problem novels]] and [[Political party|party programs]].
|||Oswald Spengler, "The Hour of Decision"<ref name="Hour1934">Spengler, O. (1934). [https://www.google.com/books/edition/_/F_pn7eQQFtwC The Hour of Decision] A.A. Knopf</ref>{{rp|10-11}}}}
'''Oswald Arnold Gottfried Spengler''' {{lived|29 May 1880 in Blankenburg am Harz|8 May 1936 in Munich}} was a [[German]] "[[Ultracrepidarianism|polymath]]", who was active as a writer in the fields of [[history]], [[culture]], [[philosophy]] and [[politics]]… in a way that a ten year old [[edgelord]] [[Reddit]] keyboard warrior with a bad case of [[Dunning–Kruger syndrome]] is. In particular, he's best known as [[Social degeneration|declinist]] thinker known for his notorious ''The Decline of the West'', in which he predicts the inevitable decay of [[Western world|the West]], based on [[Cherry picking|selective]], [[deterministic]] and [[Argument from incredulity|largely impressionistic evidence]].

Spengler, who was an influential figure at the time of the [[Germany#Weimar Republic|Weimar Republic]], was considered to be part of the [[nationalist]] and anti-democratic "{{wpl|Conservative Revolution||".}}<ref>Claeys, Gregory (2013). page 766.</ref><ref>Mohler, Armin (1950). ''Die konservative Revolution in Deutschland 1918-1932: ein Handbuch'' (2005 ed.). Ares. OCLC 62229724. pp. 379–380; François 2009; Klapper 2015, pp. 13–15.</ref> Philosophically, Spengler is associated with both the {{wpl|Irrationalism|irrationalist}} and ''{{wpl|Lebensphilosophie}}'' movements; meaning that he espouses that [[science is fallible]] and therefore [[intuition]] and/or [[other ways of knowing]] are superior to [[rationalism]].<ref name="Lukacs1"/><ref>{{cite book |last=Herf |first= Jeffrey|date= 1986|title= Reactionary Modernism: Technology, Culture, and Politics in Weimar and the Third Reich|url= https://www.google.com/books/edition/Reactionary_Modernism/QRHbrqzywrcC|publisher= Cambridge University Press|page= 49|isbn=9780521338332}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |editor=Klaus Hentschel |date=2011 |title= Physics and National Socialism: An Anthology of Primary Sources |url=https://www.google.com/books/edition/Physics_and_National_Socialism/qibj0oRKPKEC|publisher= Springer Basel|page= xxv|isbn=9783034802024}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1= Ashman|first1= Keith |last2=  Barringer|first2=Phillip |date=2005 |title=After the Science Wars: Science and the Study of Science |url= https://www.google.com/books/edition/After_the_Science_Wars/e4eEAgAAQBAJ |publisher= Taylor & Francis|page=158 |isbn=9781134616176}}</ref>

While Spengler was primarily a Conservative Revolution ideologue, he is also the (unwitting) intellectual pioneer of [[Nazism]] as well. His irrationalist philosophies and very [[Relativist fallacy|relativistic]] and [[historical determinism|deterministic]] [[Pseudohistory|view of history]] were assimilated by the Nazis,<ref>Dreher, Carl</ref> and his book ''Prussianism and Socialism'' may have even given them their name.<ref name="Winkler1"/> Despite essentially enabling their existence, later in Spengler's life, he tried to denounce National Socialism and in particular its racial ideology, only to die before seeing [[World War II|the fruits of his own labour]].

Because of Spengler's dubious grasp of subjects he discusses and the jeremiads he mires his [[Bullshit|esteemed work]] with, no authority takes his writings seriously in any field. However, Spengler ''himself'' is studied in context of continental philosophy and [[Weimar Republic]] socio-politics. Additionally, his real-life personality was infamously peevish, and he managed to piss of lots of people, including like-minded dipshits like [[Martin Heidegger]] and [[Leo Strauss]]. Even the Nazis eventually got sick of his shit.

Despite temporarily falling to obscurity following [[World War II]], today Spengler's work is popular amongst  [[right-wing]] audiences and especially with the [[far-right]]. His works experienced a resurgence following the 2007-2009 [[Great Recession]] and the emergence of [[Populism#Right-wing|right-wing populism]] and associated movements during the 2010s. His [[Prophecy|prophecies of doom]] and pseudohistorical [[woo]] has been consumed like candy by his audiences and has introduced various colorful words to the jargon of right-wing [[culture wars]], being one of the (if not ''the'') originators of "[[Faustian spirit]]", "[[Alt-right glossary#Western civilization|Western civilization]]" (and all the "[bad thing] of west" {{wpl|snowclones}}), "[[Good old days]]", “[[The Great Replacement]]" theory and using [[Technobabble|incomprehensible terminology]] to title cultures.<ref name="WilsonK1"/><ref>Engels, David (2019).</ref>

And yes, he ''is'' the namesake of Egon Spengler from the ''{{wpl|Ghostbusters franchise}}''.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/movies/news/a27498/ghostbusters-oral-history/|title=An Oral History of Ghostbusters|last=Matloff|first=Jason|date=February 24, 2014|publisher=''Esquire''}}</ref>

==Who?==
[[File:Blankenburg um 1900.jpg|thumb|right|300px|Blankenburg, Harz (photo from 1900). Spengler's hometown.]]
===Early life===
Spengler was born to a [[conservative]] [[Social class#Class structure|lower middle-class]] family in Blankenburg (a German town at the foot of the Harz mountains). He was the eldest of four children and the only son, with his father originally coming from a long line of miners before deciding to become a postal clerk.<ref>Lewis, Ben (2022). Page 7.</ref><ref>''Key Thinkers of the Radical Right: Behind the New Threat to Liberal Democracy.'' (2019). Oxford University Press. {{isbn|9780190877606}}</ref>{{rp|4}}

Spengler was very reserved during his childhood; as he grew older, he became fond of reading and sought solace in great figures of culture. He was in poor health and suffered from migraines and anxiety disorders throughout his life.<ref>Fischer, Klaus P., History and Prophecy: Oswald Spengler and The Decline of the West. P. Lang, 1989, p. 27</ref>

At the age of ten, the family moved to the university town of Halle. Spengler completed his classical studies at the local {{wpl|Gymnasium (Germany)|gymnasium}} (academically oriented secondary school), where he studied Greek, [[Latin]], [[mathematics]] and natural sciences. It was there that his passion for [[art]] developed — especially poetry, drama and [[music]] — and he came into contact with the ideas of Goethe and Nietzsche.<ref>Hughes, H. Stuart (1991), page 59.</ref>

After his father's [[death]] in 1901, Spengler attended various universities (Munich, Berlin, and Halle) as a private student, taking courses in many subjects: history, philosophy, mathematics, natural sciences, literature, the classics, music and the fine arts. In 1903, he failed his doctoral examination — for which he had submitted a thesis on {{wpl|Heraclitus}}— because ''he did not have sufficient [[references]]'' (this will be important), which made it impossible for him to begin an academic career.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://www-zeno-org.translate.goog/Philosophie/M/Spengler,+Oswald/Reden+und+Aufsätze/Heraklit/Einleitung/1.?_x_tr_sch=http&_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp|title=The Fundamental Metaphysical Thought of the Heraclitean Philosophy|author=Oswald Spengler}}</ref><ref>Farrenkopf, J. (2001). ''Prophet of Decline: Spengler on World History and Politics'', LSU Press. p. 14-15</ref> In 1904, he obtained his doctorate. He experienced a nervous breakdown in 1905, on a day he was supposed to have started as a school teacher. Presumably he saw the job as undignified, when he craved to be an respected academic-level intellectual.<ref>Lewis, Ben (2022). Page 10.</ref>

His life at this stage was uneventful. He taught briefly in Saarbrücken and then in Düsseldorf. From 1908 to 1911 he taught [[science]], German history and mathematics at a scientific-technical secondary school (Realgymnasium) in Hamburg. In 1911, following the death of his mother, he moved to Munich, where he lived until his own death in 1936. <ref name="Britannica">{{cite web |url= https://www.britannica.com/biography/Oswald-Spengler|title=Oswald Spengler: German philosopher|author=The Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica|date= September 3, 2024 |website= Britannica|access-date=October 13, 2024}}</ref>

He lived as a solitary scholar, with the means provided by his modest inheritance. He also supported himself financially by giving private lessons and/or by writing for newspapers.<ref>Engels, David (2019). Page 4.</ref>

When he began work on the first volume of what would become ''The Decline of the West'', he intended to only focus on Germany, but he was deeply affected by the {{wpl|Agadir Crisis}} and expanded the scope of his work. Spengler was inspired by {{wpl|Otto Seeck|Otto Seeck's}} ''Geschichte des Untergangs der antiken Welt'' (History of the Decline of the Ancient World), so much so that Spengler seemingly gave a nod to it by naming his book in similar way.<ref>Lewis, Ben (2022). Page 11; "Spengler began to conceive of [Decline of the West] that was to help him flee his solitude. He was prompted to do so by what has become known as the Second Agadir Crisis. This diplomatic emergency entailed a stand-off between Germany and France in Morocco, when Britain took France's side in what was a foreshadowing of the First World War." </ref><ref>Hughes, H. Stuart (1991), page 15.</ref>

The first volume was completed in 1914 but publication was delayed by the outbreak of the [[First World War]]. During the war, Spengler lived in extreme poverty, because his inheritance, invested outside Europe, was virtually unusable.<ref>Engels 2019, p. 5.</ref>

===Fame===
[[File:OswaldSpengler1922.jpg|thumb|right|200px|A 1922 caricature.]]
After its publication in 1918, ''{{wpl|The Decline of the West}}'' proved to a huge success, primarily due to circumstances in Germany at the time. Following the defeat of Germany in the First World War, there was despair over the national humiliation of the [[Treaty of Versailles]] and then the economic depression around 1923, fueled by the [[hyperinflation]] of the Weimar Republic.<ref>Voegelin, E. (2004). The Drama of Humanity and Other Miscellaneous Papers, 1939-1985. University of Missouri Press. ISBN: 9780826264336</ref>{{rp|74}}

The theses presented in ''The Decline of the West'' comforted the Germans (especially the nationalist-minded), because thanks to it, the collapse of Germany could be explained in a ''seemingly'' rational way, as part of larger world-historical processes.<ref>The United States and Germany During the Twentieth Century: Competition and Convergence. (2010). Cambridge University Press. ISBN: 9780521197816</ref>{{rp|195}} The book also proved unexpectedly popular outside Germany and was translated into many languages. While the contemporary reception to the work was positive, [[Critical thinking|not everybody was completely stupid]]. The book was scrutinized by historians who knew their shit, who were dismayed by the amateurish attempts of an inexperienced author and his [[Woo|unscientific]] approach. Additionally, Spengler's [[Apocrypha|obscure sources]], [[Intuition|intuitionism]] and [[national mysticism]] were subject of criticism. 

Spengler was ultimately unharmed by his own ineptitude as a philosophical historian. [[Eponymous laws#The Peter Principle|On the contrary]], as György Lukács pointed out, it was just what ''"gave rise to [Spengler's] unscrupulously cynical candour, his cheerful boldness in making uncritical generalizations"'' (read: refuge in audacity), and because of this, Spengler had more presence than his like-minded contemporaries (such as Leopold Ziegler and Hermann Graf Keyserling) of post-WWI German culture historian/philosophers.<ref name="Lukacs1"/>

Despite having essentially become a icon, Spengler refused the chair of philosophy at the University of Göttingen to concentrate on writing.<ref>March, R. H. (1992). ''Physics for poets.'' McGraw-Hill. {{isbn|9780070402454}}</ref>{{rp|197}}

In 1919, he released a book called {{wpl|Prussianism and Socialism|''Prussianism and Socialism''|,}} in which he tried to explain [[socialism]] the way [[Relativist fallacy|he thought]] what socialism is. This was part of the interwar-period Conservative Revolution politics&nbsp;— to which Spengler had aligned himself to&nbsp;— in which they tried to hijack the definition of socialism, [[willful ignorance|just because they thought they could]]. Like ''The Decline of the West'' (Vol. 1), the book did have its fans. Anton Drexler and colleagues at the DAP ({{wpl|German Worker's Party}}), including this one [[Adolf Hitler]] fellow, really dug the book, especially the title of it. So circa February 1920, the group decided to rename, but found the "Prussian" was a tad nondescript, and thus decided to go with [[Nazi|"National" Socialists]] instead.<ref name="Winkler1"> Heinrich August Winkler, Alexander Sager.'' Germany: The Long Road West.'' English edition. Oxford, England, UK: Oxford University Press, 2006.</ref>{{rp|414}}<ref group=note>For further info, see [[Hitler and socialism]].</ref>

Around 1923-1924, in the wake of political and social unrest and inflation, Spengler entered politics in an attempt to engineer Reichswehr General {{wpl|Hans von Seeckt|Hans von Seeckt's}} rise to power. At the time, General von Seeckt held lots of military power and certain level of charisma, which led to Germans to believe that there was a chance he could carry out a [[Coup d'état|military coup]] and assume leadership of the country.<ref>Kolb, Eberhard. ''The Weimar Republic'', Routledge, 2005, page 172.</ref><ref>Lewin, Ronald (1998) [1968]. ''Rommel As Military Commander'', Barnes & Noble. {{isbn|978-0-7607-0861-3}}.</ref>{{rp|8}}<ref>Wheeler-Bennett, Sir John (2005). ''The Nemesis of Power: German Army in Politics, 1918–1945''. Palgrave Macmillan Publishing Company. {{isbn|9781403918123}}. OCLC 180887965.</ref>{{rp|76-77}}<ref>Nicholls, A. J., ''Weimar and the Rise of Hitler'', Macmillan, 2000.</ref>{{rp|69–70}} Spengler being the [[Dunning–Kruger effect|smug]] snake he was, thought he could insert himself into von Seeckt's sphere of influence, so that if the General did carry out the coup, he would have been in position of power as well. It did not go well as Spengler turned out to be just as bad at politics as he was at interpreting history. After that disaster, von Seeckt denounced Spengler as a pompous opportunist.<ref>Craig, Gordon Alexander (1978). ''Germany, 1866-1945''.</ref>{{rp|490}} The von Seeckt coup never became reality (as von Seeckt was forced to resign from his position in 1926 by President von Hindenburg, among other higher-ups<ref> Dorpalen, Andreas (1964). Hindenburg and the Weimar Republic. Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press. pp. 111–112. </ref>), while [[Nazis|that one group]] that was dismissed by Spengler and colleagues of the Conservative Revolution, did so in 1933 with the [[Adolf Hitler#Reichstag fire|Reichstag Fire Decree]].

In 1931, Spengler published {{wpl|Man and Technics||,}} which warned of the dangers of [[technology]] and industrialism to culture. In particular, he pointed out the tendency of Western technology to spread among enemy "colored races," who would then take up arms against the West.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Spengler |first1=Oswald |last2=Atkinson |first2=Charles Francis |title=Man and technics; a contribution to a philosophy of life; translated from the German by Charles Francis Atkinson |date=1932 |publisher=A.A. Knopf}}</ref><ref>Hughes, H. Stuart (1991)</ref>

===Rise of Nazism and death===
[[File:Grab Oswald Spengler.jpg|thumb|right|200px|Spengler's grave in Munich]]
In 1932, Spengler did not vote for {{wpl|Paul von Hindenburg}} but rather for [[Adolf Hitler]], even though he found the latter vulgar.<ref>Young, J. (2020). German Philosophy in the Twentieth Century: Lukács to Strauss. Taylor & Francis. ISBN: 9781000201758</ref>{{rp|103}} After Hitler won, Spengler met with him in 1933, for the same reasons he did von Seeckt. As noted by Barbara Beßlich, Spengler likely thought he could establish control over Hitler,<ref name="BarbaraB2002"/> acting as sort of his {{wpl|Joan Quigley||.}} However, as gigantic of an asshole as Spengler was, Hitler was still the bigger one (in that he now wielded the power to back it up). After a long discussion (that was likely unpleasant for both of them), Spengler proclaimed that Germany did not need a "heroic tenor", but a "real hero".<ref>Hughes, H. Stuart (1991). Page 127.</ref>

Trying to still assert dominance, Spengler wrote ''The Hour of Decision'' (''Jahre der Entscheidung''). Published in 1934, which became a bestseller.<ref>Tate, Allen (1934). "Spengler's Tract Against Liberalism," The American Review April 1934.</ref> Spengler's criticism of [[liberalism]] was welcomed by the Nazis, even though Spengler disagreed with their [[Eugenics|biological ideology]] and [[anti-Semitism]]. While [[National mysticism|racial mysticism]] played an important role in his [[worldview]], Spengler had always been openly critical of the [[pseudoscientific]] racial theories (ironic considering his own perchant for [[pseudohistory]]) professed by the Nazis and many others of his time. Although himself a German nationalist, Spengler considered the Nazis "too German" and "not Western enough" to lead the fight against other peoples. The book also warned of a future war in which Western civilization was in danger of being destroyed.<ref>Evans, J. H. (2022). David Jones and Rome: Reimagining the Decline of Western Civilisation. Oxford University Press. ISBN: 9780198868194</ref>{{rp|138}}

The success of ''The Hour of Decision'' landed Spengler in hot water with the Nazis. They forced Spengler into a public debate, with Nazi ideologue {{wpl|Alfred Baeumler}} capitalizing on Spengler's fatalism and portraying the latter as "the enemy of the people" who was not sufficiently aboard the Nazi ideology. With Spengler also refusing to join [[Joseph Goebbels]] public speeches, the Reich Propaganda Ministry would place a gag order on the news outlets, prohibiting them from talking about Spengler and his works.<ref name="Blamires2006">{{cite book |last= Blamires|first= Cyprian P.|date= 2006|title=World Fascism: A Historical Encyclopedia (2 Volumes) |url= https://archive.org/details/worldfascism1|page=628-629|publisher= ABC-CLIO Inc.|isbn= 1-57607-940-6}}</ref><ref>Thacker, T. (2016). Joseph Goebbels: Life and Death. Palgrave Macmillan UK. Page 22. ISBN: 9780230274228</ref> Despite Spengler's cred with the old guard of the lunatic fringe, this was not really a major loss to the ruling Nazis… since there were others who were able to write the same pseudo-historical [[Bullshit|gobshite]] that Spengler could, and be more Hitler friendly -- notably [[Alfred Rosenberg|the other Alfred]].<ref>Cecil, R. (1972). The Myth of the Master Race: Alfred Rosenberg and Nazi Ideology. Batsford. ISBN: 9780713411218</ref> {{rp|102}}

Afterwards Spengler was now a powerless pariah in the world he helped to build… tragic irony or poetic justice? Shortly before his death, he wrote in a letter to Hans Frank, at a time when his thoughts were, as is known, turning toward Christianity: "the [[Nazi Germany|German Reich]] will probably no longer exist in ten years." In an staggering chance of irony, Spengler got something unambiguously right. Afterwards, he died of a heart attack on May 8, 1936.<ref>Hughes, H. Stuart (1991). Page 136.</ref><ref>Claeys, Gregory (2013). page 77.</ref>

==Works==
Spengler's big gist is that he saw history as a constant process of decay rather than as progressive evolution. In some of his political writings (Prussianism and Socialism, Reconstruction of the German State, etc.), Spengler was a supporter of a strongly authoritarian state.<ref>Lewis, Ben (2022). Page 99.</ref>

Spengler supports the thesis that there are no universal cultures, philosophies, sciences, morals, valid always and everywhere, but that every discipline and every cultural aspect are indispensable in the context to which they belong. What Spengler fears, in addition to the crisis of spirituality and religiosity, are the new emerging political forms, such as [[democracy]] and [[socialism]], which alter the "natural", or rather traditional, relationships of power.

Spengler's work, particularly ''The Decline of the West'', tends to be lobbed alongside "other Interwar German classics" such as ''[[Mein Kampf]]'', and [[Martin Heidegger]]'s ''Being and Time''.<ref> Steiner, George (1991). ''Martin Heidegger''. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. pp. vii–viii. {{isbn|0-226-77232-2}}</ref>

===''The Decline of the West''===
[[File:La Subiro de la Okcidento, eldono 1922.jpg|thumb|right|215px|1922 German copy of ''The Decline of the West''. It’s contributed more to the West's decline than anything it criticizes.]]
The two-volume doorstopper ''{{wpl|The Decline of the West|}}'' is essentially Oswald Spengler's magnum opus and the work he is best known for. To put it nicely, at best it is right for the wrong reasons and at worst, it's an unremitting train-wreck that keeps on piling.

In the first volume, released 1918, Spengler attempts to summarize a morphology of universal history. While in the second volume, published in 1920 (following his 1919's ''Prussianism and Socialism''), Spengler changed gears and argued that "German [[socialism]] was different from [[Marxism]]" and was in fact compatible with traditional German [[conservatism]]. As a bit of context, the book reflects the experiences of the time before and during the [[First World War]] and is inspired by the revolutionary circumstances of the era. As a [[Crank|philosopher]], however, Spengler recommends "looking at the historical world of forms spanning thousands of years […] if one really wants to understand the great crisis of the present."<ref>Claeys, Gregory (2013). page 767-768.</ref><ref>Social Change And Social Control. (1997). Atlantic Publishers & Distributors (P) Limited. ISBN:9788171566679. Page 38.</ref><ref name="DeclineV1xV2"/>{{rp|34 (Vol.1)}}

The book introduces itself as a [[Bullshit|"Copernican overturning" of historical science]] (i.e. undoing the foundations laid by [[Immanuel Kant]]) and observes history mostly through the lens of {{wpl|Goethean science|"Goethean science",}} while rejecting the "[[Eurocentric]]"/"[[British]]" [[Empiricism|empiricist]] view of history. Further outlining that he doesn't believe in the division of history into the classical linear periods, as in; "ancient - medieval - modern".

According to Spengler, the meaningful units are not eras, but cultures, which evolve as organisms. He distinguishes eight higher cultures: [[Babylonian]], [[Egyptian]], [[Chinese]], [[Indian]], Meso-American (Maya/Aztec), classical (Greco-Roman), [[Arabic]] and finally the Western or "[[European]]-[[American]]" culture. He [[Pseudohistory|presents the bizarre idea]] of [[​​Muslims]], [[Jews]] and [[Christians]], as well as their Persian and Semitic ancestors, as "[[Magi]]" (which is actually a term  for [[Zoroastrian]] priests and not a specific culture; in German, he used "Magisch", meaning "magical"); the Mediterranean cultures of classical antiquity, such as [[ancient Greece]] and [[ancient Rome]], as "[[Apollonian and Dionysian|Apollonian]]"; and the modern Western world as "Faustian".<ref name="DeclineV1xV2"/>{{rp|183-216 (Vol.1)}}
<ref>{{cite book |last=Gooch |first= Todd A. |date=2012 |title=The Numinous and Modernity: An Interpretation of Rudolf Otto`s Philosophy of Religion |url=https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Numinous_and_Modernity/tZkgAAAAQBAJ|publisher= De Gruyter|page= 151|isbn=9783110816860}}</ref> He also claimed that all these different cultures had to develop in similar ways, if not stopped from it, e.g. by being eradicated like the Aztecs and Inca. However, he never stated which'd be the equivalent of the Nazis in other cultures, which logically should exist if his theory was sound.

He states that cultures have a limited lifespan of a few thousand years. The last phase of each culture is, in Spengler's terminology, a 'civilization'. He then argues that civilizations ''go through a natural [[Cyclical theory|cycle of development]]'', flowering and decay. Spengler then prophecised that the 20th Century [[Europe]] aka "Faustian Civilization", victim of narrow [[materialism]] and [[Civil disobedience|urban chaos]], was in the last stage, "the winter season".<ref name="Britannica"/>

Historical development, according to Spengler, should not be seen in the [[Enlightenment]] perspective of [[progress]], but on a par with the natural sciences, as the development of great civilizations (birth, apogee, decline); societies develop by carrying absolute values ​​within themselves, which instead take on a relative character outside. It is precisely the decay of these values ​​that is at the origin of Western decline. In Spengler's description, Western man is a proud but tragic figure, who, although he pursues and creates goals, is secretly convinced that the actual goal will never be achieved. Europe, unless it were able to purify itself and restore its [[Religious Right|spiritual values]] ​​and [[White supremacy|original lineage]], would fall prey to "[[otherism|policies]] of [[Anarchy|barbaric]] [[Racism|savages]]" and "[[Apocalyptic literature|wars of annihilation]]".<ref name="DeclineV1xV2"/>{{rp|, 350-351 (Vol.1)}} Here, Spengler exhibits one of the earliest forms of [[The Great Replacement]] theory.

Spengler sees the final state of civilization as having come for antiquity with the beginning of the [[Roman Empire]], for the [[Western world|West]] with [[Napoleon]], for the Orient with the [[Ottoman Empire]], for [[China]] it was the  imperial era (when there were fewer ups and downs), and for [[Egypt]] with the dawn of the New Kingdom. Spengler also calls the state of civilization (after overcoming the crisis of its emergence) the era of world peace. However, this was based only on the resignation of the broad masses, while the great "Caesars" and [[dictator]]s had struggled for power and influence. Spengler's idea of ​​the necessary transition of political constitutions into "{{wpl|Caesarism}}" (the imperial period) of the late-stage of civilization includes an anti-democratic and anti-liberal attitude.<ref name="DeclineV1xV2"/>{{rp|27-38, 58, 336 (Vol.1)}}

The {{wpl|French Revolution|French revolution of 1789}}, the ideals of {{wpl|Liberté, égalité, fraternité|"Liberté, égalité, fraternité"}}, in his opinion only led to the [[plutocracy|rule of money]] by capitalism. But capitalism undermines the social structure and ultimately turns against its own foundations of the liberal constitution. As a result, the rule of the Third Estate ultimately passes to that of the Fourth Estate, the formless mass of the world cities, or more precisely to those who can use these masses of civilization as tamers in the service of their own power intentions. The result is the decline of [[democracy]] and the advent of the rule of demagogues and dictators. Spengler believed this development is inevitable. He therefore distrusted the ideals of liberal democracy and the constitutional state.<ref name="DeclineV1xV2"/>{{rp|37, 365-367 (Vol.1)}}

Spengler declared [[imperialism]], which he affirmed, to be a necessary phenomenon in the context of the decaying culture. Stating that ''"I am teaching imperialism here [...]. Imperialism is pure civilization. The fate of the West irrevocably lies in this manifestation."''<ref name="DeclineV1xV2">Spengler, Oswald (1918). Der Untergang des Abendlandes (The Decline of the West): [https://archive.org/details/declineofwest01spenuoft/mode/2up Volume 1] (1918) and [https://archive.org/details/declineofwest02spenuoft/page/n7/mode/2up Volume 2] (1922)</ref>{{rp|37 (Vol.1)}}<ref>{{cite book |editor1=Andreas Schönle |editor2= Julia Hell |date= 2010|title=Ruins of Modernity |url= https://www.google.com/books/edition/Ruins_of_Modernity/a8gOCMu30_kC|quote= "Imperialism," Spengler argues, "is pure civilization." In Spengler's iron logic of civilizations, empires will end up as "dead bodies," and the end result of this process will be what the political geographer Friedrich Ratzel called "ruin countries": like Rome, London, Paris, and Berlin will become "petrified world cities" that will eventually disintegrate into ruined urban deserts, their inhabitants ruled by emperors interested only in unending wars fought for gain. In Spengler's view, Rome's golden age was the era of the First Punic War and "great Scipio," when Rome was culture and Carthage civilization." Carthage lost, Spengler writes, because the Carthaginians subordinated politics to their economic interests. With the victory of Scipio, Rome enters its imperialist era, when "money triumphs in the form of democracy," eventually leading to chaos and a new form of political rule, Caesarism, with its endless wars for the "private possession of the world." Spengler thus admires the Rome of Scipio Africanus the Elder, yet advocates Caesarism as a model: like the Imperium Romanum, Europe might ward off its ruinous fate-albeit only for a while - with the help of the Prussian state that would hegemonize Middle Europe. Empires, Spengler coldly affirms, are uncanny, and their inevitable decline needs to be confronted with a cold, sober gaze. At times this gaze, with which the anorganic intellectual scrutinizes the petrified remains of what once was an organic culture full of life, shades into a gaze enthralled by decay, expressing a kind of sublime elation. Yet this heroic, detached stance crumbles when faced with the sight of the urban ruins of the late Roman empire. This particular passage does not resonate with heroic pathos but is filled with a profound sense of grief. Spengler's detached gaze thus disintegrates, resonating with the emotions of centuries of ruin gazing: grief, awe, and terror. The fate of Rome matters - even to Spengler. Spengler situates himself as Europe's very last ruin gazer, while leaving open the possibility of a different scenario - the barbarian ruin gazer from a foreign culture. Hitler and Speer, however, project themselves into the future, thereby asserting German mastery over ruination - while keeping Spengler's barbarian out of sight. Sharing Spengler's assessment of contemporary Germany as decadent, the Nazis endeavor to build a new Reich against Spengler's tragic vision of Europe as an apocalyptic ruinscape. Hitler and Speer fantasize about building ruins to enthrall the future Aryan ruin gazer with the sublime spectacle of everlasting imperial power. |publisher= Duke University Press |page= 178-179|isbn=9780822390749}}</ref> In the course of cultural development, the forces of the "cultural soul" bind all life energies into a strict form, even in the context of warlike actions. In Spengler's eyes, the {{wpl|Absolutism (European history)|absolutist regimes}} of the 17th and 18th centuries, those of {{wpl|Louis XIV}} and {{wpl|Frederick the Great}} (and in ancient times; the time of {{wpl|Pericles}}) marked the heyday of the well-designed communities. To Spengler, these sort of great leaders embody the proverbial autumn phase of the cultural cycle.<ref>Lewis, Ben (2022); "Politically, the autumn period of all cultures represents for Spengler the most perfectly developed state form: absolutism. For him, this system embodies a functioning unity between the city and the countryside, between the state and society, and between the three estates: the nobility, the Church and the estate of the commoners, which has emerged in the towns and countries. Spengler's point of reference here is the ancient regime and figures such as Louis XIV and Frederick the Great. As we will see in the following chapters, Spengler views such leaders, and the absolutist politics they embody, as the highest form of political representation achievable within the life-cycle of a culture. This pinnacle of a culture's development also finds reflection in artistic and cultural terms. In Faustian culture, it represents the age stretching from Bach, Mozart and the Rococo through to Beethoven from ca. 1700 to the middle of the nineteenth century. Simultaneously, however, this cultural output is the first outward expression of the manifestations of that culture's decline. As with the absolutist state form, it is the most complete expression of a rational understanding of musical and artistic forms."}}</ref>

Under the auspices of cultural decay, the energies of life would be released blindly again and chaos would break out. Taming this would always fall to the great individuals, "the Caesars". Consequently, their historical mission was unavoidable. The [[cult]] that later periods develop around their "leaders" therefore contains something inevitable in the history of every civilization.<ref name="DeclineV1xV2"/>{{rp|72 (Vol.1)}}

At the end of the [[culture war]], the winner would always be the one who knew how to best control the anarchic tendencies during the period of cultural decay and neutralize them for themselves. The example of the Romans in ancient times shows this. According to Spengler, the Prussian-Germans should take them as an example for the West. Spengler had argued that the last, in his words "Caesarism" phase of Western high culture would develop under German dominance and that Germany's defeat in war had prevented this transition.<ref name="DeclineV1xV2"/>{{rp|28, 180 (Vol.1)}}

===Prussianism and Socialism===
[[File:Scheidemann proclaiming the Republic in front of the Reichstag (4688558376).jpg|thumb|right|325px|9 November 1918.]]
{{cquote|Prussiandom and socialism stand together against the inner England, against the world-view that infuses our entire life as a people, crippling it and stealing its soul…|||Oswald Spengler, Prussianism and Socialism}} 
{{wpl|Prussianism and Socialism|}} was Spengler's polemic that was published in 1919. In it, hammers the "German socialism was different from Marxism" thing, that he will touch upon in the second volume of The Decline of the West (which was released after this book). Here, he aims to connect the "Prussian character" with his idea of "socialism", which is the correct "socialism" compared to the "[[English]] socialism"; which Spengler may have assigned to being English, simply due to the {{wpl|Chartism}} movement.<ref>Lewis, B.J. (2017) [http://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/99223/1/BJLewis1%20Spengler%20Prussian%20Socialism.pdf Spengler's Prussian Socialism]. European Review, Academia Europaea,25 (3). pp. 479–93. ISSN 1062-7987, University of Sheffield</ref><ref>Oswald Spengler als europäisches Phänomen: Der Transfer der Kultur- und Geschichtsmorphologie im Europa der Zwischenkriegszeit 1919-1939. (2013). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Page 71. ISBN: 9783647101262</ref><ref>Elliott, W. Y. (1932). The New British Empire. Whittlesey House, McGraw-Hill. Page 169
</ref> The book dabbles on following issues:
* '''Trauma of the November Revolution''': Spengler considers the {{wpl|German revolution of 1918–1919|political upheaval of November 9, 1918}}, which brought an end to the Hohenzollern monarchy, in the larger context of a tragic history of Germany. The lack of a sense of fact that is characteristic of Germany shapes politics to a large extent, even in the style of revolutions. Thus, in 1918, as a result of the disintegration of the monarchy, elements "without the slightest statesmanlike talent of English parliamentarians" came to power. The uprising of the Marxist proletariat followed on the heels of "the liberal destruction of 1917." Spengler states that "The revolution of stupidity was followed by that of meanness. [...] It was the most senseless act in German history."
* '''Dawn of civilization''': The revolution takes its course against the backdrop of the end of Western culture. Spengler's perspective corresponds to the historical-philosophical and morphological interpretation of culture as it develops with the decline of the West. Spengler sees "socialism" as the "last world mood" into which the tired Western European-North American cultural area takes refuge. The final battle for power in the emerging "Faustian empire" includes the fundamental question of whether the future state and economic constitution should be capitalist or socialist. Likewise, under what auspices the coming violent people of the Western end times will exert their power. For Spengler, this question decides nothing less than "the fate of the world". And this question, as the philosopher of history believes, must "be solved in Germany for the world".
* '''Liberalism, anarchism, socialism''': According to Spengler, several “schools of thought” of political and economic style compete with each other on Western European soil. First one is ''English liberalism''; “The English instinct decided: power belongs to the individual. Free struggle of one against the other; triumph of the stronger: liberalism, inequality. Second is ''French anarchism''; “The French instinct: power belongs to no one. No subordination, therefore no order. No state, but nothing: equality for all, ideal anarchism, in practice repeatedly (1799, 1851, 1871, 1918) kept viable by the despotism of generals or presidents.” And the third being ''German/Prussian) socialism''; “The German, or more precisely Prussian, instinct was: power belongs to the whole. The individual serves him. The whole is sovereign. The king is only the first servant of his state (Frederick the Great). Everyone gets his place. Orders are given and orders are obeyed.” Prussian socialism is essentially “illiberal and anti-democratic, as far as English liberalism and French democracy are concerned.” It is also anti-revolutionary.
* '''[[England|English]] [[capitalism]]''': Spengler deems that the location of Isle of England made the strong state superfluous. British history has seen the lower classes grow into aristocratic forms - as with Whigs and [[Tories]]). Spengler therefore arrives to conclusion that "liberalism and capitalism are intrinsic to the English nation", and that democracy and universal suffrage are tried and tested English methods of capitalism. This does not mean that there are no hierarchies. Spengler comments on England's style of government, not without inner admiration: "The latest decisions of the party leaders are a secret even to the majority of members of parliament." The "fine English way" of governing from above and at the same time legitimizing oneself democratically from below commands unconditional respect for Spengler's aristocratic attitude (because of course it does).
* '''[[Socialism]] in [[Germany]]''' For Spengler, the liberal English (and the French anarchist) system remains tied to the psychological and historical conditions of the peoples concerned. Such principles cannot be successfully imitated by others without neglecting their own conditions and constraints. Spengler believes that parliamentarism is alien to Germany. In contrast: "Only socialism in some form can be of internal importance in Germany." Spengler does not mean Marxist socialism, as the following statement makes clear: The transition to socialism has already taken place in Germany, "this German socialist revolution took place in 1914. It took place in legitimate and military forms." German flirtation with English liberalisms, on the other hand, is not appropriate. It merely throws society out of shape and plays into the hands of English power. Spengler therefore calls for a fight against “inner England”, which “has secured the final victory for the outer England of the Entente powers by overthrowing the state”.
* '''Anti-Marxism''': Spengler's criticism of [[Karl Marx]] ultimately aims at the fact that the mastermind of the [[Communist Manifesto]] mixed up psychological and economic problems and also judged the situation in England from the perspective of a German-[[Hegelian]], and thus misunderstood it. Moreover, according to Spengler, Marx stands in the powerful tradition of theological thought. Marxism itself is essentially a religious, not a political movement. Just as Marxism is not true socialism, Russian [[Bolshevism]], which refers to Marx, is not real socialism. (This guy doesn't know when to stop, does he?) To the extent that Russianness "does not feel internally Asian again", it is "culturally alien" and has been shaped by Western ideologies (pseudomorphosis). “This childish, dull and prescient Russianness has now been tormented, disturbed, wounded and poisoned by ‘Europe’ through the imposed forms of an already masculine, foreign and domineering culture.” And therefore the Russian events since the October Revolution of 1917, to which Western Europe has paid so much attention, are not even relevant to the question of genuine socialism.
* And finally, '''Spengler's appeal to Germany''': Spengler appeals to the German working class and to the upper classes of the German people alike. The workers should free themselves from the ideology of Marxism, because "for the worker there is only Prussian socialism or nothing." But the conservative classes must also give up their bias in outdated thinking. They have to accept democracy in principle - Spengler expressly states - but a democracy that is far removed from the western English conditions. Spengler emphasizes the inner connection between his Prussian socialist idea and the idea of ​​power. If the Prussian aristocracy realizes socialism, the path to new global political heights for Germany will be clear.

===''Man and Technics''===
{{cquote|There is only one world-view that is worthy of us, and which has already been discussed as the Choice of Achiles -- better a short life, full of deeds and glory, than a long life without substance. The danger is so great, for every individual, every class, every people, that to cherish any illusion whatsoever is deplorable. Time cannot be stopped; there is no possibility for prudent retreat or wise renunciation. Only dreamers believe there is a way out. '''''Optimism is cowardice.''''' We are born into this time and must courageously follow the path to the end as destiny demands. There is no other way. Our duty is to hold on to the lost post, without hope, without rescue, like the Roman soldier whose bones were found in front of a door in Pompeii, who, during the eruption of Vesuvius, died at his post because they forgot to relieve him. That is greatness... The honorable end is the one thing that can not be taken from a man.” |||Oswald Spengler, ''Man and Technics''}} 
''{{wpl|Man and Technics}}'' is a philosophical text by Oswald Spengler, that was published in 1931. Prerequisites ''Man and Technics'' is not a mere reflection on the position of technical processes in the modern world or their culturally conditioned criticism. Rather, Spengler tries to show that contemporary technology necessarily arises from a "[[Faustian spirit|Faustian impulse]]" to life that is deeply rooted in Western thought and will perish together with this very impulse.

Oswald Spengler states that man is a predator and transfers this to the institutions he develops. Struggle is the essence of existence. Technology is the tactic in that struggle and cannot be understood as a tool. Thinking developed with the improvement of the technique of the eye and the hand for hunting. At the end of the era of the armed hand, cattle breeding, agriculture, settlements, graves etc. appear and the era of entrepreneurship begins. Making and thinking separate. Two types of people arise. Thinker/leaders and makers/executors. Both experience the growing culture and the separation from nature as a painful lack of freedom.

He sees that it is not the usability of an invention but the personality of the inventor drives everything forward, his "being a predator". Leaders and guides no longer understand each other or the machine technology that has become esoteric. The entire earth is subjected to it, everything organic succumbs to its organization. Western civilization gives away its technical knowledge to the guided peoples. They will use it as a weapon to defeat the West but will never be able to develop it further themselves.

==Analysis of Spengler and his ideas (and what's wrong with them)==
[[File:Lukács-comisario-alimentos-hungría--outlawsdiary02tormuoft.png|thumb|right|215px|{{wpl|György Lukács}} (pictured 1919) is tired of Spengler's [[bullshit]].]]
{{cquote|Few were persuaded by [Spengler's] "morphology of world-cultures," but the power of Spengler's thought lies not in the clarity of his arguments, nor in the plausibility of his claims, but in his polemical intensity and visionary power.|||Ian James Kidd (Encyclopedia of Modern Political Thought)<ref>Claeys, Gregory (2013). page 768.</ref>}} 
Now, if you read the last section on Spengler's works, you likely went "hold the fuck up" a few times.

In general, due to Spengler's work being massive books with brick-walls of text, [[Argument by gibberish|written in nonsensical dribble]], [[Fractal wrongness|with so many details wrong]], [[Gish Gallop|coming at massive torrents]] and [[Willful ignorance|even relishing about "being heroically wrong"]], it has made detailed criticism and rebuttal of his work very difficult. Not to mention him vacillating between doomist {{wpl|cultural pessimism}} and triumphant [[national mysticism]], making it even more difficult to figure out what he really believes in.

As such, most of his critics focus on deconstructing Spengler himself, using whatever tidbits that they managed to get out of Spengler's jumbled writing. And in doing so, they tend to arrive to the same, simple conclusion, that Spengler is a "amateur historian who doesn't know what he is talking about, doing second-rate Nietzsche."<ref name="Popper1"/>

===Spengler's how and why===
The key to avoid being swept up by Spengler's [[crank magnetism]] - [[Rationalism#Sanity_and_proper_function|besides the obvious]] - is to outline the how and why. In terms of deconstructing Spengler, the works of H. Stuart Hughes (''Oswald Spengler: Critical Estimate''), {{wpl|György Lukács}} (''The Destruction of Reason'') and  David Engels (''Key Thinkers of the Radical Right: Behind the New Threat to Liberal Democracy'') remain indispensable.

One of the keys to Spengler's thinking is something called {{wpl|Goethean science}}, as he states so ''multiple times'' in The Decline of the West.<ref name="DeclineV1xV2"/>{{rp|(Vol.1)}} Goethean science is fundamentally a field of [[woo]], as it is by design created as an alternative to the [[natural science]]s of the [[Age of Enlightenment]]. Instead favoring a {{wpl|phenomenological}} approach to natural history, in which morphology, anatomy, and optics are given priority.<ref>Tantillo, A. O. (2012). The Will To Create: Goethe’s Philosophy of Nature. University of Pittsburgh Press. ISBN:9780822970644. p.1-11.</ref><ref>Goethe's Way of Science: A Phenomenology of Nature. (1998). State University of New York Press. ISBN: 9780791436820. p.16–55.</ref> Together with [[Rudolf Steiner]], Spengler is identified as one of the users of "Goethean alternative science" as means to protest against modern scientific methods.<ref>[https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Practice_of_Cultural_Analysis/3Rx5e_KdgdkC The Practice of Cultural Analysis: Exposing Interdisciplinary Interpretation.] (1999). : Stanford University Press. ISBN: 9780804730679. Page 295.</ref>

In his book, György Lukács goes on detail how Spengler results to [[charlatan]] tactics to try assert [[Argument from authority|false authority]]. Lukács proposes that Spengler's philosophy was formed by a purely vitalistic (i.e. {{wpl|Lebensphilosophie|German Vitalism / Lebensphilosophie}}) reading of {{wpl|Johann Wolfgang von Goethe}} and the ever-popular [[Friedrich Nietzsche]]. He additionally points to there being "smattering
of {{wpl|Henri Bergson}}", whom Spengler "simplified as vigorously as [Bergson] had {{wpl|Wilhelm Dilthey}} and {{wpr|Georg Simmel}}". 

In practice, Spengler applied ''German Vitalism'' to historical analysis (complete with the philosophy's rosy [[jargon]] and [[loaded language|buzzwords]]); regarding life and death, intuition and reason, form (as in Gestalt) and law, simile and concept, symbol and formula etc. etc. Another key element Spengler utilized is something called ''Diltheyan method of "perception through men of genius" epistemology'', a devolved form of [[historicism]] and [[epistemology]] based on Dilthey's philosophy, that had permeated in the German aristocratic circles. Lukács stating that;
{{quotebox|With this epistemology Spengler intended to degrade all causal and law-controlled knowledge. The means of grasping dead forms is the mathematical law. The means of under­ standing live forms is the analogy. Spengler now extended analogy, as the central category of history, into the method of a universal morphology, into a 'symbol-system ', a 'physio­gnomy' of history. [...] Cause and effect, whose[sic] framework Spengler called the 'logic of space', were to be replaced in history by the framework of destiny, the 'logic of time '. Thus he achieved the identification of irrationalist life and history: 'life is the alpha and omega, and life has no system, no programme, no [[rationality]]; it exists for itself and through itself, and the profound order in which it realizes itself can only be intuited and felt - and then perhaps described..' Thus he declared history to be a universal science and, in the same breath, denied it any scientific character: 'The wish to treat of history scientifically is, in the last analysis, always a paradoxical thing... '}}
Thus, by resorting to totally arbitrary form of epistemology, in which every­ thing boiled down to "[[Appeal to experience|experience]]" and to "[[intuition]]", was according to Lukács; " Spengler's way of asserting the undisputed mastery of historical relativism." 

Therefore; if everything is historical, then with Spengler, that meant that ''everything'' was historically relative, [[Relativist fallacy|purely relative]]. This emboldened Spengler to [[Ultracrepidarianism|get more creative]], as this meant that he could also start "historicizing" even [[natural science]]s. Per Lukács; "for [Spengler], it was not to do with the historical character of the real process in nature but with a pseudo-historical dissolving of the objectivity of all natural-scientific categories." And due to applying philosophical vitalism to everything, this opened doors for not only increasingly radical relativism, but also to outright [[mysticism]] as well.

Although the question of a historical treatment of nature (inits objective laws etc) had been in the air since Darwin and even with the Kant-Laplace theory, Spengler reversed all pre-established methods in purely subjectivist-vitalistic manner. Thus by ignoring accepted historical evolution of nature, Spengler too "historicized" the knowledge of nature by making it a mere function of the character-type of a given "cultural cycle". 
Therefore, removing all the nature's independence and autonomy, thus causing the complete disappearance of the genuine problem, the historical being of nature itself within objective natural laws. This distorted proposition then giving new problems; namely how and to what extent the historical evolution of society affects the compass, character, etc., of our perception of nature.
{{quotebox|But Spengler dismissed from consideration the necessary basis for the correct proposition, the objectivity of nature and evolution of the productive forces of a given society, and the stage in the growth of science and technology which they determine. By making an absolute principle of the element of historical relativity in our perceptions of nature, he likewise eliminated the fact of their progressive approximation to nature's objective reality. Not acknowledging the interaction between the evolution of productive forces and perceptions of nature, he intuitively derived the separate forms or results of natural science directly from the .. 'morphological form' of a 'cultural cycle'. And in so doing, he engendered a myth based on the radical and permanent relativity of all knowledge.}}

And as more popular Spengler got, the more audacious he got in stating completely incomprehensible nonsense and creating other insane paradoxes. To him, even {{wpl|numbers}} are a historical category. Spengler himself having stated that; ''"A number in itself does not and cannot exist. There are several worlds of numbers because there are several civilizations. We find an Indian, Arabic, ancient and occidental type of number each at bottom unique, each the expression of a different course of events..."'' And thusly, Spengler proclaims that there are ''"more than one kind of mathematics"'', to a point where even {{wpl|causality}} is just ''"an occidental and more precisely a Baroque phenomenon."''
{{quotebox|For Spengler, history took precedence over nature as a general rule: 'Thus history is the original world-form and nature a late one which only men of a mature culture may fulfil, not the reverse as a prejudice in urban scientific understanding tends to assume”. And so the whole science of physics along with its object was a myth of the late occidental 'Faustian' culture. The atom, speed of light and gravitation were just as much the mythical categories of 'Faustian man' as poltergeists and household demons were categories of the period that believed in magic. [Lukács points to Spengler drawing conclusions regarding historical relativity of knowledge from pre-WWI imperialist vitalist thinkers like Simmel and popularizing them in the process.] For those reasons, culture was for Spengler the 'primary phenomenon histories'. Of all past and future world-histories.}}
Regarding ''The Decline of the West'', Lukács sees the book as a one big con, in which Spengler basically attempted to turn “all fields of human knowledge subservient to his philosophy of history, no matter whether he personally had truly mastered them or whether they, in themselves, had already yielded unequivocal, philosophically applicable results”. Further noting that the book sought the "intellectual redemption of German imperialist capitalism , with its aristocratic-militaristic features, by dubbing it the 'real' socialism. This, however, was already to anticipate the basic idea of Hitlerian social demagogy."<ref name="Lukacs1">{{Cite book|url=http://archive.org/details/the-destruction-of-reason-by-gyorgy-lukacs |last= Lukács|first=György |date= 1981|orig-date= 1953 |chapter= Chapter IV. Vitalism (Lebensphilosophie) in Imperialist Germany, 4. War and Post-War Period (Spengler) |title= The Destruction of Reason |publisher=Humanities Press|page=459-474|isbn=9780391022478}}</ref>

Sebastian Rosenberger calls Spengler's method of interpreting phenomena of different civilizations from very different eras as "simultaneous", that is, as equivalent within the rhythm of emergence, prosperity and decline being "not rational by scientific standards". Rosenberger points to ''The Decline of the West'' being almost perfectly devoid of scientific argument. Rosenberg concludes that Spengler saw [[rationality]] itself as a form of "decline" to be avoided.<ref name="Rosenberger1"> Sebastian Rosenberger: Oswald Spenglers „Der Untergang des Abendlandes“. Eine völkische Geschichtsphilosophie? Zum Begriff des Völkischen. In: Ingo Haar, Michael Fahlbusch (Hrsg.): Handbuch der völkischen Wissenschaften. Akteure, Netzwerke, Forschungsprogramme. 2. Auflage, Walter de Gruyter, Berlin/Boston 2017, ISBN 978-3-11-042989-3, S. 118–139, das Zitat S. 128. </ref>

===Unoriginality===
[[File:Karl Gotthard Lamprecht 1909.jpg|right|thumb|165px|{{wpl|Karl Lamprecht}} (pictured 1909) is not too impressed about Spengler [[Plagiarism|stealing his act]].]]
{{cquote|{{wpl|Harry von Kessler|Harry Kessler}} heard [Spengler] lecture at the Nietzsche-Archiv and came away feeling that he was "a half-educated [[charlatan]]… a fat [[pundit]] with a flabby chin and a brutal mouth who for an hour poured out [[bullshit|the tritest and most trivial stuff]]… [[Plagiarism|Not one original idea]], not even false diamonds. Everything uniformly insipid, colourless, flat, boring. Yes, Spengler managed to make even [[Nietzsche]] boring!"|||Gordon Alexander Craig, recounting Harry Kessler's statements from ''Tagebücher''<ref>Craig, Gordon Alexander (1978). ''Germany, 1866-1945''. Page 490</ref>}} 
Although Spengler seems like a trailblazer, he is not. Various topics he touches upon has been done by others before him, and often in better fashion. 

Declinism as a genre has existed since recorded history, with {{wpl|Hesiod||'s}} (c. 750-650 BC) being the earliest surviving literature discussing the decline from a "[[Golden Age]]" to a terrible present. Various people - notably {{wpl|Ibn Khaldun}} (1332-1406) and {{wpl|Brooks Adams}} (1848-1927) - had discussed cyclical-structural history, as well as how "technology saps life out of culture".

People like {{wpl|Ernst Cassirer}} have pointed that - particularity regarding ''The Decline of the West'' - Spengler's work was essentially a retread of German historian {{wpl|Karl Lamprecht}}'s.<ref>Ernst Cassirer: Das Erkenntnisproblem in der Philosophie und Wissenschaft der neueren Zeit, Band 4: Von Hegels Tod bis zur Gegenwart (1832–1932), Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 1957, Page. 286 </ref> Much like Spengler, Lamprecht too was disregarded as a "dilettante historian" who employed questionable methods of presenting history, being scrutinized all the way from the release of Lamprecht's "Deutscher Geschichte" book series. Lamprecht insisted in the importance of "cultural and economic" history, being [[willful ignorance|willfully negligent]] of important socio-political aspects and other natural science-related factors. Also having been influenced by {{wpl|Wilhelm Wundt}}'s ethnopsychology, Lamprecht pushed concept of "universal history" and an theory of "psychogenesis" underlying it. Lamprecht thus formalized a theory that the historical development of national consciousness could be divided into "cultural ages"... ''which might sound familiar''. And just like Spengler, Lamprecht also had his [[prophecies]] on how "the phenomena of decadence at the end of the 19th century" was result of overextended culture and overdeveloped technology, which will lead to the doom of the industrial nations... Not unlike what Spengler espouses in ''The Decline of the West'' and ''Man and Technics''.

Another noted influence is {{wpl|Otto Seeck}}, who in 1895 began a book series titled ''History of the Decline of the Ancient World''.<ref>Jackson, R., Howe, N. (2008). The Graying of the Great Powers: Demography and Geopolitics in the 21st Century. Center for Strategic and International Studies. Page 27</ref> Much like Spengler's Decline of the West, Seeck's work too contains woo, though here its a mix of late antiquity history with [[social Darwinism]]. Although at the time when it was made, Seeck's ''History of the Decline of the Ancient World'' series was considered to be the most comprehensive, source-based presentation of late antiquity in Germany. Though these days, it is grossly outdated, with Seeck's assessments of late antiquity having been debunked.<ref>Stefan Lorenz: Otto Seeck und die Spätantike. Historia. Band 55, 2006, Pages 228–243.</ref>

Also as noted by György Lukács, Spengler's idea of socialism appears to formed by writings of {{wpl|Max Scheler}} and {{wpl|Werner Sombart}}, which are known to have been formed by World War I propaganda/nationalism, coming from an pro-Germany/anti-England angle.

Philosophically, Spengler contributed little beyond being a low-grade epigone of [[Nietzsche]] and {{wpl|Wilhelm Dilthey|Dilthey}} with touch Goethe. György Lukács points out that Spengler is yet another in line of Nietzsche clones/German Vitalism/historicism thinkers, being a new low in "philosophical level" compared to his predecessors. Lukács remarks that Spengler is merely important in that he marks the point where German Vitalism movement starts to transmutate into outright [[fascist]] philosophy, effectively paving the way for the "[[Nazi]] ideologue trio" of {{wpl|Alfred Baeumler}}, {{wpl|Ernst Krieck}} and [[Alfred Rosenberg]].

===Socialism===
{{see also|Hitler and socialism}}
{{cquote|From a strictly technical viewpoint, socialism is the principle of public service. In the final analysis every worker has the status not of a businessman, but of a public servant, as does every employer. There are public servants of industry, commerce, traffic, and the military.|||Oswald Spengler<ref name="Essays1967">Spengler, O. (1967). [https://www.google.com/books/edition/Selected_Essays/JCFoAAAAMAAJ Selected Essays]. H. Regnery Company.</ref>{{rp|101}}}} 
Now, even a deaf, blind, and dumb person is able to determine that Spengler's interpretation “[[socialism]]” is a second-hand embarrassment inducing misread. However, there is a method to the madness, as the whole thing stems from the interwar-period {{wpl|Conservative Revolution}}, that Spengler was part of. Although they had various factions throwing ideas to the wall, with there being agreements and disagreements, one that all agreed on, was to "[[Spin|correct]]" the idea of socialism. The parameters of what socialism today is (and was back then), was to them merely Marxist "socialist revisionism." The conservative revolution instead crafted their own socialism, in which "socialism" instead invoked "Frontgemeinschaft" (sort of front-line camaraderie of German soldiers during the WWI) for the end goal of creating "[[herd mentality|Volksgemeinschaft]]" (national community / social cohesion). The conservative revolution thinkers had some concepts for this, with Spengler's being '''"Prussian Socialism"''' (with '''"Socialism of the blood"''' being another one used by Conservative Revolution).<ref>Colla, M. (2023). Prussia in the Historical Culture of the German Democratic Republic: Communists and Kings. Oxford University Press. Page 91-92. ISBN: 9780192865908</ref><ref>Hoffmann, P. (1990). Germans Against Nazism: Nonconformity, Opposition and Resistance in the Third Reich. Bloomsbury Academic. ISBN: 9780854966882. Pages 137-138, 228</ref>

Circa 1810s, the term ''socialism'' initially described the philosophy of {{wpl|Henri de Saint-Simon}} and his Saint-Simonians movement (whom Karl Marx would later refer to as "Utopian Socialists"). And by 1840s, the term socialism began to be appropriated by the working class movements, even though it encompassed various different meanings to them, from generic opposition against laissez-faire capitalism to the systematic communism of classical Marxism and anything in between. Indeed, even Marxism, despite [[Marx]]'s book being the [[Communist Manifesto]], was primarily referred to as socialism or social democratic, since "communism" at the time was primarily associated with militancy in France and Germany. It was not until [[Lenin]] and the [[Bolshevik Revolution]], that there was a hard split between Communism and Socialism. By the last third of the 19th century, [[democratic socialist]] parties started to get foothold in politics. With it being 1899 when the [[Australian Labor Party]] became the first socialist party to get elected to form a government in the Colony of Queensland, even though it lasted merely a week.<ref>{{cite book|last=Blainey|first=Geoffrey|title=A shorter history of Australia|publisher=Vintage|year=2000|location=Milsons Point, N.S.W. P|isbn=978-1-74051-033-2|page=[https://archive.org/details/shorterhistoryof0000blai/page/263 263]|url=https://archive.org/details/shorterhistoryof0000blai/page/263}}</ref> 

Although Spengler had received his education in early 1900s, before the [[Bolshevik Revolution|1917 Russian Revolution]] and with ''Prussianism and Socialism'' released 1919, György Lukács points to this being another case where Spengler utilized German Vitalism's irrationalist relativism to just defy what had been well established by 1919.

Per Lukács; what Spengler expounds in his ''"Prussianism and Socialism"'', again using his 'morphology', that every civilization has had its form of socialism, such as beliefs of {{wpl|Zeno of Citium}}, [[Buddhism]], etc.; and that present-day socialism ''should'' be the Faustian form of those manifestations. Spengler proclaims that in Prussianism, he has discovered "real" socialism; those of an military officer, civil servant and worker. And that the enemy was not capitalism, but England. These sort of ideas were explored already in {{wpl|Max Scheler}}'s WWI pamphlets and {{wpl|Werner Sombart}}'s 1915 book ''"Händler und Helden"'' (Traders and Heroes), meaning Spengler is essentially parroting WWI propaganda.
{{quotebox|Prussians and Englishmen represent two major types in the development of civilization. There are 'two moral imperatives of a contrasting kind, slowly evolved from the [[Viking]] spirit and the code of the {{wpl|Knights of the Teutonic Order}}. The one group carried the Germanic idea within them, the others felt it over them : personal independence and supra-personal commonalty. Today they are called individualism and socialism. ' [[Karl Marx]] and working-class socialism have only complicated this question and are being thrust aside by the fateful logic of world-history. The victor will be 'Prussian socialism ', the 'socialism' founded by {{wpl|Frederick William I of Prussia|Friedrich Wilhelm I}} . The true Internationale will also be built on this basis : 'A genuine Internationale is possible only through the triumph of the idea of a single race above all others . The genuine Internationale is imperialism. ' The worker, in this 'socialism ', becomes an economic officer, and the entrepreneur a responsible administrative official. The German working class will be bound to realize that only this 'socialism' has real possibilities. No ideology is needed, only 'a brave skepticism, a class of socialistic master-natures'.}}

Lukács also draws comparisons with Spengler and [[Nietzsche]]'s opposition to socialism. That; ''"[Nietzsche] had made a direct, frontal assault on socialism - of which he knew little. Of course it cannot be claimed that Spengler was any better acquainted with socialist literature, but his mode of attack was different, a dodging of the issue and a demagogic ruse: socialism, he conceded, would triumph - but the 'genuine article ' was Prussianism."''

And no, Spengler was ''not'' a fan of the conventional socialism, or really anything left of [[reactionary]] politics. Historian Ishay Landa in his 2012 book ''"The Apprentice's Sorcerer: Liberal Tradition and Fascism"'', outlines that Spengler<ref group=note>As Spengler had detailed in ''Prussianism and Socialism''</ref> was strongly against [[egalitarianism]], and [[Trade union|labour rights]], and instead championed very [[imperialist]] and [[elite]]-driven economy. Spengler essentially expected the working-class people to "work a whole lot, for the absolute minimum" and them "being happy about it."<ref>Landa, Ishay (2012). The Apprentice's Sorcerer: Liberal Tradition and Fascism. Haymarket Books. pp. 60–65.</ref> Per Spengler:<ref name="Hour1934"/>{{rp|92-93}}
{{quotebox|“[[Equal rights]]" are contrary to nature, are an indication of the departure from type of ageing societies, are the beginning of their irrevocable decline. It is a piece of intellectual stupidity to want to substitute something else for the social structure that has grown up through the centuries and is fortified by tradition. There is no substituting anything else for Life. After Life there is only Death.}}

===Caesarism===
[[File:Mussolini e Petacci a Piazzale Loreto, 1945.jpg|right|thumb|250px|[[Mussolini]] (second from the left) [[Sarcasm|busy being the ideal "Caesar" of the post-democratic Faustian Empire, as Spengler prophecized]].]]
One of the best known concepts originating from Spengler is "Caesarism" - which he tends to flip-flop around, regarding if its a good thing or a bad thing. Before the Germans lost WWI, Spengler [[wishful thinking|had hope]] that the war would end in German Empire becoming the modern day Rome, "Imperium Germanicum", [[Dictatorship|which would take command]] of Euro-American "Faustian Culture" in order [[genocide|to rid it of decay]] and [[Alt-right_glossary#Make_America_Great_Again|make it great again]], thus ushering "world peace." However, as the Germans lost the war, Spengler became more pessimistic about Ceasarism, declaring it to be a kind of "failure state" of culture volume 1 of the Decline of the West. Regardless, he has expressed conflicted admiration towards the "Caesar"-like dictators of the 1920s and 1930s.<ref>Lewis, Ben (2022); Chapter 5 "Spengler's Prussian Socialism".</ref><ref>Klemperer, K. v. (2001). German Incertitudes, 1914-1945: The Stones and the Cathedral. Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN: 9780313000492. Page 35-36.</ref><ref>Cacciatore, F. M. (2005). Indagini su Oswald Spengler. Rubbettino. (in Italian) p.77-78. ISBN: 9788849813753</ref><ref>{{cite book |editor1=Gert Sørensen |editor2=Karl Christian Lammers|editor3= Lars K. Bruun|date=2013 |title= European Self-Reflection Between Politics and Religion: The Crisis of Europe in the 20th Century|url= https://www.google.com/books/edition/European_Self_Reflection_Between_Politic/bDy3CKpNciQC|chapter= 4. "Reconstruction or Decline? The Concept of Europe and Its Political Implications in the Works of Ernst Troeltsch and Oswald Spengler" by Adam Paulsen|quote= The end of it all will then be one empire under one ruler. But who will this ruler be? Spengler is certain of the answer to this question: 'The Roman being, with the most stringent sense of facts, lack of genius, barbaric, disciplined, practical, Protestant, Prussian, will, to those of us who are left to comparisons, be the key to understanding our own future' (Spengler, 2003, p. 36). Prussian is Roman and Roman is Prussian. In morphological terms, the Prussian and Roman virtues are simultaneous. It can hardly be stated more directly that a Prussian-Protestant Imperium Germanicum will consummate Western culture in the same way that Imperium Romanum consummated ancient culture.|publisher=  Palgrave Macmillan |isbn=9781137315113}}</ref>

While he had belief that [[argument from desire|some form of Ceasarism was soon to appear]], with [[Adolf Hitler]] and [[Benito Mussolini]] connected to his "visions", [[reality|none of them really ended up living up to his hopes]]. Despite being under the Nazi sphere of influence - and the whole Nazi Germany losing World War II thing - Spengler considered [[Adolf Hitler]] to be the most unsuitable man to be "Caesar" of Germany. Though there is certain irony to this, as Nazis essentially took all the conservative revolution's ideas - that Spengler was part of - and turned them into something workable... As long as they worked.

Meanwhile, he saw the likes of [[Benito Mussolini]] and [[Cecil Rhodes]] (who had already died before Spengler made it big) as being more exemplary "Caesarism", and the Fascist Italy as a better "prototype of a coming era".<ref name="DeclineV1xV2"/>{{rp|37 (Vol.1)}}<ref> Detlef Felken im Nachwort zur Beckschen Ausgabe des Werks, C.H. Beck, München 1994, p. 1204 </ref> As the outcome of World War II indicates (and having expressed "disappointment" with Mussolini's conquests), Spengler's delusions regarding Mussolini and Fascist Italy was a big wet rag -- {{wpl|Death_of_Benito_Mussolini#Piazzale_Loreto|left to dry out at the streets of Piazzale Loreto, Milan.}}

Even Spengler's idea of [[Julius Caesar]]-like figure being ruler the great epoch he envisioned leaned on [[wishful thinking]]. If a dictator like him tried to spearhead the giant empire of entire European-American sphere (sorry; FAUSTIAN CULTURE), especially in post-Enlightenment setting, he would not have had the ability to maintain that much power. While Julius Caesar appeared that have popular support and high degree of military success, he did not have the universal approval for it. If he did, he would never had been assassinated.

There is also one fundamental problem; history ''is'' written by winners. That is, there are academic studies on historiography that scrutinize Julius Caesar, regarding whatever he had said and/or written being actually true. Although Caesar's work being one of the oldest, most complete primary sources for historical reconstruction, it is believed that Caesar had written these from [[propaganda|a political point]], to [[Marketing|build his image]] amongst [[Fun:Sucker|Roman populous]].<ref>Canfora, L. (2007). Julius Caesar: The Life and Times of the People's Dictator. Berkeley: University of California Press. pp. 10–11</ref> Meaning Spengler had uncritically assumed that the exaggerated narrative of Julius Caesar was unquestionably true, and in his eagerness stuck with it, which may have contributed to Spengler constantly running afoul with [[reality]].

===Spengler's grasp of politics (or lack thereof)===
Spengler was a anti-[[democratic]] [[nationalist]] who believed in a strongly [[authoritarian]] state.<ref>Lewis, Ben (2022). Page 99.</ref> Although Spengler clearly has vile political beliefs, debunking them is easy, on the basis that ''Spengler's own actions'' spoke plenty loud about the unfeasibility of his own beliefs. While rich in fanciful ideas, Spengler's understanding of actual reality in politics was terrible. Indeed, him dabbling in politics in the 1920s and 1930s could be nicely described as a "series of self-owns." As stated prior, his politicking with Reichswehr General Hans von Seeckt went super bad, which lead to Spengler being labelled as a opportunistic [[pundit]].<ref>Lewis, Ben (2022).</ref><ref>Craig, Gordon Alexander (1978). Germany, 1866-1945. Page 490</ref>

Per Barbara Beßlich - German literary scholar and (an actual) historian on German culture - Spengler had the intent to try direct "Caesarism", [[Wishful thinking|which he believed was coming]], in the direction he wanted; to “instrumentalise it nationalistically”.<ref name="BarbaraB2002"> Barbara Beßlich: Faszination des Verfalls. Thomas Mann und Oswald Spengler. Akademie Verlag, Berlin 2002, ISBN 3-05-003773-3, Page 40.</ref> However, like with a mad doctor in a cliché ridden horror flick, it went just as well. Not realizing his limitations, despite already having experienced setbacks with the whole General von Seeckt campaign, Spengler attempted to assert his dominance over the Nazis. But somehow not putting 1+1 together, that if you are in a [[dictatorship]] where ''might makes right'', his talk of a big game ran into Hitler and co. having the freedom to whatever, and had their fanatical paramilitary units to stuff Spengler into the locker like a snooty twit he was.

Although Spengler was opposed to Hitler's brand of authoritarianism, it still needs to be underscored that Spengler was ''not against'' authoritarianism in general nor was his intent to safeguard democracy by any measure.

===National mysticism and other culture-history nonsense===
{{cquote|We do not seek to alter and improve, but to destroy. [...] The true [[Political internationals|International]] is [[imperialism]], domination of Faustian civilization, i.e., of the whole earth, by a single formative principle, not by appeasement and compromise but by conquest and annihilation.|||Oswald Spengler<ref name="Essays1967">Spengler, O. (1967). [https://www.google.com/books/edition/Selected_Essays/JCFoAAAAMAAJ Selected Essays]. H. Regnery Company.</ref>{{rp|93,112}}}} 

In Spengler's ''The Decline of the West'', he identifies eight higher cultures, those being; Babylonian, Egyptian, Chinese, Indian, Meso-American (Maya/Aztec), classical (Greco-Roman), Arabic and finally the Western/European-American/Faustian culture. He regards these "culture units" as more important than race or eugenics, as long as Germany's the one directing the Faustian one. Why Faust is selected - besides Spengler being a Goethe fan - can be inferred to be [[loaded language]] regarding counter-[[enlightenment]].

As György Lukács noted,<ref group=note>See "Spengler's how and why"</ref> as Spengler considered that everything was relative due to his [[Relativist fallacy|subjectivist]]-[[Vitalism|vitalistic]] view of history and all rest of the science, nothing he says really holds up to scrutiny.

In terms of [[racism]], Spengler's xenophobia was not ipso facto derived from [[biological]]/[[eugenic]] factors, but due to hostility towards other [[culture]]s that presented a threat to Germany as a imperialist superpower. Per Sebastian Rosenberger analyzing ''The Decline of the West'', he points to while Spengler rejecting [[racialism|biological racial theories]] as crude and mechanistic, he instead tried to establish a "geophysical-agrarian" concept of race, which displeased the [[Völkisch movement]] and the Nazis. Spengler's world of ideas is therefore not ethnic in the sense of being racist and exclusionary. His criticism of civilization, which labeled big city life, [[western]] [[democracy]], socialism, [[rationalism]] and modern ways of life as indications of cultural decline, can only be described as [[racialist]] in a broader sense.<ref name="Rosenberger1"/> In a way, he viewed technologically undeveloped peoples and cultures in a way, superior to ones that are developed, claiming that "colored races", who hate European [[imperialism]], might one day conquer the "exhausted Faustian man". While sort of respectful to other races, he still emphasized that his own Germanic race needed to have superiority over others.<ref name="OHAGAN1">O'Hagan, Jacinta. Conceptualizing the West in International Relations: From Spengler to Said., Palgrave, 2002.</ref>
{{quotebox|Although racial distinctions are critical to Spengler's schema of civilizations, this does not make him a racialist in the sense of believing in a hierarchy of the races. He dismissed notions of innate racial superiority, or of there being a master race. However, in his later work he did argue that the West was in the process of committing racial suicide through policies such as population control and the employment of medical science to sustain.<ref name="OHAGAN1"/>}}

===Technology bad===
Spengler’s take on science and technology is a perfect cocktail of historical determinism and [[pseudoscientific]] pretension. He argued that science is not a "universal truth-seeking enterprise", but rather a cultural artifact, with the methods and concepts of each civilization reflecting its “soul.” In the West, this produced the Faustian obsession with infinity, abstraction, and domination over nature, which Spengler interpreted as both genius and harbinger of decline. Modern technology, for him, was less a tool and more a ''symptom of [[spiritual]] decay'': every new invention, from the {{wpl|steam engine}} to {{wpl|telegraph|the telegraph,}} wasn’t progress - it was a sign that the culture’s vitality was being siphoned off into mechanics.<ref>Spengler, Oswald. Man and Technics. 1931.</ref><ref>Kidd, Ian James. “Oswald Spengler, Technology, and Human Nature.” The European Legacy, 2012.</ref>

Numbers, physics, even causality itself were subject to what he called “historical relativity”, meaning that there are multiple kinds of mathematics and science depending on which civilization you ask... a notion that, while hilariously wrong, fits neatly into his vitalist, life-cycle view of history. His fascination with Goethean science, with its holistic and phenomenological approach, was the model for his historical “intuition over empiricism” method; just as one discerns the soul of a civilization, one observes nature not with instruments and experiments but with cultural sympathy and visionary flair. In short, Spengler treated science not as a map of reality, but as a mirror of the culture producing it, and if that culture was doomed, then so too was its understanding of the world.<ref>Petropoulos, Jonathan. “Science and Decline: Spengler’s Morphology of Knowledge.” History and Philosophy of Science, 2008.</ref>

==Current reputation==
{{cquote|Today we have a good opportunity for victory. Nothing is guaranteed, but the combination of Spengler, [[Strauss-Howe]], and {{wpl|Sam Francis (writer)|Sam Francis}} reminds us that the post-bourgeois proletariat and the conservative {{wpl|Generation Z}} have a good chance to take over Faustian civilisation, and to create a system based on ascetic, heroic, and solidaric values.|||Joakim Andersen (''Rising from the Ruins'') conveying how Spengler is typically used in modern alt-right discourse<ref>{{cite book |author=Hermansson, Patrik, et al. |date= 2020|title= The International Alt-Right: Fascism for the 21st Century?|url= https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_International_Alt_Right/43fNDwAAQBAJ|publisher= Taylor & Francis |page= 14|isbn=9780429627095 |access-date=December 6, 2025}}</ref>}}

Despite the influence and international fame he enjoyed between the world wars, his work fell into obscurity after the [[Second World War]]. Being full of shit, having been instrumental in dissolving the democracy of Weimar Republic and having been rejected by Nazis, Spengler's audience was reduced to strictly niche level. 

... This niche being conservative doomsaying of societal collapse. The counter-culture of the 1960s set off panic in the western hemisphere, with reactionary movement mounting to retaliate. One such example would come from {{wpl|James Burnham}} and his book ''Suicide of the West'' (1964) which synthezised the ideas of Spengler (as well as another over-ambitious doofus Arnold J. Toynbee), in which he analyzed "the decline" of Western civilization through a geopolitical lens -- comparing 1914 and 1964 and "observing" a shrinking of Western control over territory and population due to decolonization and other factors. He attributed this decline to the decay of religion, excessive materialism, and liberalism, which he called “the ideology of Western suicide,” as it undermines belief in Western superiority. Burnham warned that liberal doctrines legitimize social disorder and in his {{wpl|National Review}} columns, he criticized the 1960s [[New Left]], arguing that riots and civil disobedience were tools to "dismantle civilization". He contended that liberalism rationalizes such upheaval by emphasizing individual conscience and social grievances.<ref name="Sempa2022">{{cite web |last= Sempa |first= Francis P.|date= January 23, 2022|title=Spengler, Toynbee, Burnham, and the Decline of the West |url=https://kirkcenter.org/essays/spengler-toynbee-burnham-and-the-decline-of-the-west/ |website=The Russell Kirk Center|access-date=December 7, 2025}}</ref>

Spengler experienced a revival in late 2000s/early 2010s in the proximity of the the 2007-2009 [[Great Recession]]. The financial crisis plunged countries into economic woes, creating circumstances not unlike interwar Germany. As people started to point fingers at [[liberalism]] and modernity, along with the rise of [[Populism#Right-wing|right-wing populism]], somewhere along the way, people rediscovered Oswald Spengler and his work.<ref name="WilsonK1">{{cite web |url=https://www.currentaffairs.org/news/2024/04/why-the-right-constantly-panics-over-societal-decadence |title=  Why the Right Constantly Panics Over Societal ‘Decadence’ |last= Wilson|first= K. |date= April 1, 2024 |website= Current Affairs |access-date= October 13, 2024}}</ref><ref>Engels, David (2019).</ref>

Seeing the post-Great Recession world comparable to the "Winter of culture" that Spengler proposed, an ever increasing amount of right-wing loonies started to see this as a sign that [[Alt-right_glossary#Western_civilization|Western civilization]] had started its last stage, ''despite this same shit essentially having happened during interwar period already''. Either way, as did [[Nazis]] before them, the [[far-right]] (in particular the ethno-[[nationalist]]s and "[[Alt-right_glossary#Dissident_right|dissident right]]") took to Spengler's guidance regarding "purifying itself and restoring its spiritual values ​​and original lineage" to start combating the proverbial ''decline of the western culture''. And by the looks of it, this "decline" is mostly associated with [[The Great Replacement|the great replacement]], "cultural suicide" ([[multiculturalism]]), and "decadence" ([[Hollywood values|"Liberal Elite"]]) and other nebulous issues you can point the [[Alt-right_glossary#Woke|woke]] stick at.<ref name="Riker1">[https://www.google.com/books/edition/Beyond_the_River_of_Woke/3GkcEQAAQBAJ Beyond the River of Woke: A Guide to Reclaiming Reality. (n.d.). (n.p.): Conrad Riker. Chapter 16]</ref>

In Spengler's ''Man and Technics'',<ref group=note>Even though Karl Lamprecht had made [[plagiarism|similar claims before him]].</ref> he proposed that technological development essentially keeps sapping human vitality the further it goes. And in the process, it will render generations and thus cultures into spiritless [[zombies]]. This too has been appropriated into the [[manosphere]], with the book reading much like modern right-wingers' indictments of "tech-savvy [[Fun:Millennials|millennials]] having been reduced into [[video game]]-playing [[soy boy]]s" and calling return to [[good old days]], "when men were men".

Not only that, Spengler's ideas, especially that of "Caesarism", has likely contributed to the modern right's flirtations with [[authoritarianism]]. Spengler postulated that Caesarism serves as a final phase of modernity that would succeed [[democracy]], after its collapse. [[Right-wing]] "[[strongman]]" politicians such as of [[Vladimir Putin]], [[Recep Tayyip Erdoğan]] and [[Donald Trump]] have been labelled as being "Caesarist".<ref>{{cite news|title=Trump, Poutine, Erdogan: le désir d'autorité a un précédent: Jules César |language=fr |trans-title=Trump, Putin, Erdogan, Caesars of the 21st century |first=Christian-Georges |last=Schwentzel  |work=Slate |date=24 January 2017 |url=http://www.slate.fr/story/134945/trump-poutine-erdogan-cesar-xxi-siecle |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170126071044/http://www.slate.fr/story/134945/trump-poutine-erdogan-cesar-xxi-siecle |archive-date=26 January 2017 |access-date=13 June 2022 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|first=Christian-Georges |last=Schwentzel|title=La Fabrique des Chefs, d'Akhenaton à Donald Trump |language=fr |trans-title=The Fabric of Leaders, from Akhenaten to Donald Trump |location=Paris |publisher=Vendémiaire |date=2017 |isbn=978-2-36358-252-2 |pages=160–164}}</ref> In October 2023, the term "[[Republicans|Red]] Caesarism", which calls for establishing a dictatorship to sort out America's problems, began to perpetuate amongst the fringes of American conservatives, especially those close to the {{wpl|Claremont Institute||.}}.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Wilson |first1=Jason |title='Red Caesarism' is rightwing code – and some Republicans are listening |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/01/red-caesar-authoritarianism-republicans-extreme-right |work=The Guardian |date=October 1, 2023}}</ref>

Curiously, Spengler is popular with some [[Islamist]]s as well, who latch onto the book's culture critique of Continental Europe and feeding to anti-Western sentiment.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Calvert |first=John |url= |title=Islamism : a documentary and reference guide |date=2008 |publisher=Greenwood Press |isbn=978-0-313-33856-4 |location=Westport, Conn. |page=38}}</ref>

===Prickly fanbase===
Much like the man himself, Spengler's reception has often been characterized by a notably defensive and protective fan base. Admirers frequently approach ''The Decline of the West'' as a cultural and philosophical diagnosis rather than a work of empirical history, valuing its expressive and [[existential]] qualities over methodological rigor.<ref>{{cite web |last=Sullivan |first=Donald |date=2023 |title=Rise of Cultural Relativism Revises Historiography |url= https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/literature-and-writing/rise-cultural-relativism-revises-historiography|website=EBSCO Knowledge Advantage |access-date=January 5, 2026}}</ref><ref> Hughes, H. Stuart (1991)</ref>

Meaning that if you critique his method, fans hear: "Your sense that the world is decaying is illegitimate." His defenders already [[Persecution complex|consider themselves embattled]], usually believing that mainstream academia is “liberal-progressivist”, their representative thinker is dismissed for ideological reasons and critics [[Argument from ignorance|"don’t get it"]] because they demand empirical proof.<ref> Hughes, H. Stuart (1991)</ref>

Critics of Spengler’s work are occasionally met with pushback that [[Framing|reframes]] the text as poetic or philosophical rather than historical, often invoking comparisons to [[Nietzsche]] to shield it from empirical critique (read: [[Postmodernism#Losurdo_and_.22hermeneutics_of_innocence.22|Hermeneutics of Innocence]]). Some defenders also emphasize that his rejection of [[positivist]] historiography renders his claims inherently unfalsifiable, a point that simultaneously insulates his ideas from refutation and limits their verifiability.<ref>Adorno, Theodor W. (1950). Spengler nach dem Untergang. Reprinted in Prisms (MIT Press) and in Gesammelte Schriften, Band 10.</ref> Spengler's defenders are also prone to [[shifting the goalposts]], as when factual or methodological criticisms land, fans often pivot thusly:

{|class="wikitable sortable" style="width:100%;"
|-
!style="width:50%"|Criticism
!style="width:50%"|Typical Pushback
|-
|[[Unfalsifiable]]
|"He wasn’t trying to be scientific."
|-
|Selective analogies
|"History isn’t a science anyway."
|-
|Bad predictions
|"You’re taking metaphors literally."
|-
|Ideologically loaded
|"All history is ideological."
|}
Thus this makes debating them very frustrating, because the criteria of evaluation keep changing.

In contemporary discourse, Spengler has been adopted by commentators and ideological communities concerned with perceived cultural decline, which can heighten the emotional intensity of responses to criticism. This combination of ideological investment, rhetorical strategies, and the literary character of his work has contributed to a particularly persistent and reactive readership.<ref>Engels, David (2019).</ref>

==Relationships==
===People who ate Spengler's horseshit, have admitted it and liked it===
* [[Oswald Mosley]]<ref>{{cite book|last1=Richard|first1=Thurlow|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MlKitAEACAAJ|title=Fascism in Britain: Oswald Mosley's Blackshirts to the National Front|publisher=I. B. Tauris|year=2006|isbn=978-1860643378|name-list-style=and|page=28}}</ref>
* {{wpl|Carl Schmitt}}: One of the key ideologues of the Weimar Republic Conservative Revolution.<ref>{{cite book |last=  Balakrishnan  |first= Gopal |date=2020 |title=The Enemy: An Intellectual Portrait of Carl Schmitt |quote= Although Schmitt's perspective on political developments was coloured by the view from Greifswald, national defeat, civil war and economic collapse had generated an apocalyptic atmosphere in broad swathes of German society. Oswald Spengler's book The Decline of the West had capitalized on this mood, and became a major success. The idea that modern European society was experiencing the end of an era in world history comes across in several of Schmitt's writings. Schmitt would often use various. 'epochal' frames of reference to interpret the significance of a contemporary political problem: depending upon the problem, the age could be defined as beginning in 1848, in the early modern centuries of civil and religious warfare, or even at the onset of the Christian era in history. The idea that the Christian era in history was coming to an end is a theme upon which Schmitt could draw to give his political diagnoses an eschatological focus and intensity. Although this is not a mere literary affectation, the occasional resort to this theme is highly characteristic of his deep intellectual style... This style took shape in a very receptive intellectual context. Out of the upheavals of war and revolution had emerged an often startling new theological language which challenged the secular schemes of historical interpretation inherited from the nineteenth century.|publisher=Verso |isbn=9781789607956}}</ref>
* [[Francis Parker Yockey]]: outright identifies himself as "neo-Spenglerian" and at the start of his book, ''{{wpl|Imperium: The Philosophy of History and Politics|"Imperium: The Philosophy of History and Politics"}}'', he states he made it as a sequel to Spengler's The Decline of the West.<ref>Coogan, Kevin (1999). Dreamer of the day: Francis Parker Yockey and the Postwar Fascist International. Brooklyn, New York: Autonomedia. ISBN 1-57027-039-2.</ref><ref>Lee, Martin A. (2000). The Beast Reawakens: Fascism's Resurgence from Hitler's Spymasters to Today's Neo-Nazi Groups and Right-Wing Extremists. New York. pp. 94–98, 157. ISBN 978-1-135-28124-3. OCLC 858861623.</ref><ref>Mulhall, Joe (2020). British Fascism After the Holocaust: From the Birth of Denial to the Notting Hill Riots 1939–1958. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 9780429840258. p. 111</ref>
* [[Julius Evola]] (who is famously cited by [[Steve Bannon]])<ref>{{cite web |url=https://jacobin.com/2022/12/fascism-far-right-evola-bannon-bronze-age-pervert |title= How Julius Evola Became the Internet’s Favorite Fascist|last= Jones |first=Morgan |date= 12.07.2022|website= Jacobin|publisher= |access-date= October 13, 2024|quote=The fascist writer Julius Evola is loved by monologuing YouTubers, Greece’s far-right Golden Dawn party, and Steve Bannon. The hallmark of his work is a rejection of modernity, and his popularity is owed to the persistence of antidemocratic ideas on the Right.[...] Evola is often discussed alongside Oswald Spengler, the German philosopher who gained intellectual notoriety in the interwar years across Europe. Both he and Evola figure in the small group whose work the historian Mark Sedgwick terms the “required reading for today’s intellectual radical right.” Spengler’s best-known work is The Decline of the West, published in two parts in 1918 and 1922, a book Evola was to translate into Italian in the 1950s.}}</ref>
* [[Joseph Campbell]]: Has outright stated so in ''{{wpl|Myths to Live By|"Myths to Live by"}}''.<ref>{{cite book |last=Campbell |first=Joseph |title=Myths to Live By |publisher=Bantam Books |year=1972 |page=[https://archive.org/details/mythstoliveby00camp_0/page/84 84] |isbn=0-553-27088-5 |url=https://archive.org/details/mythstoliveby00camp_0/page/84 }}</ref>
* {{wpl|James Burnham}}: respected and was influenced by Spengler intellectually, though he used Spengler’s ideas as a springboard rather than a doctrine to follow completely. Burnham's last book being titled ''Suicide of the West'' is a clear riff on Spengler's ''Decline of the West''.<ref name="Sempa2022"/>
* {{wpl|Russell Kirk}}: read Spengler, engaged with him in his major works, and considered him a significant figure in 20th-century conservative or proto-conservative thought. Though Kirk admired Spengler’s cultural insights, Kirk rejected Spengler's determinism, anti-universalism, and pessimistic fatalism.
* [[Max Hermansen]]
* {{wpl|William S. Burroughs}}
* [[Pat Buchanan]]: apparently! He wrote a book titled {{wpl|The Death of the West|"The Death of the West"}}, and it is believed to be nod to Spengler's magnum opus. It very much reads like a post-Reagan counterpart of The Decline of the West.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.stewartsynopsis.com/death_by_blackness_files/Deathofthewest.htm|title=Death of the West - Pat Buchanan|website=www.stewartsynopsis.com|access-date=2016-05-07|archive-date=2017-11-12|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171112083158/http://www.stewartsynopsis.com/death_by_blackness_files/Deathofthewest.htm|url-status=dead}}</ref>
* {{wpl|Henry Miller}}<ref>Männiste, Indrek, "Henry Miller: The Inhuman Artist: A Philosophical Inquiry". Bloomsbury Publishing, 2013. Page 10. ISBN:9781623562083</ref><ref>Nesbit, Thomas. Henry Miller and Religion., Taylor & Francis, 2012. Page 35. ISBN:9781135913656</ref><ref> Henry Miller: New Perspectives., Bloomsbury Publishing, 2015. Page 150. ISBN:9781628921250</ref><ref>Miller, H. (1964). Henry Miller on Writing. New Directions. Page 103-104.</ref>

===Frenemies===
* [[Adolf Hitler]]: Spengler and Hitler had a contentious relationship, with Spengler saying bad things about Hitler and then getting his books banned. Nevertheless, Hitler still [[Useful idiot|"respected" Spengler enough to not have him killed]].<ref>Lukacs, John. The Hitler of History. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2011. Pages 115, 227, 267. ISBN: 9780307765611</ref>
* [[Theodor W. Adorno]]: Has bit of a love-hate relationship with Spengler, famously attempting to "turn (Spengler's) reactionary ideas toward progressive ends".
* {{wpl|Alfred Baeumler}}: Despite Baeumler's existence being essentially enabled by Spengler, he would throw his mentor under the bus following the release of ''The Hour of Decision''.<ref name="Blamires2006"/>
* [[Alfred Rosenberg]]<ref>Cecil, R. (1972). The Myth of the Master Race: Alfred Rosenberg and Nazi Ideology. Batsford. ISBN: 9780713411218</ref> {{rp|102}}
* [[Martin Heidegger]]: like Rosenberg, Heidegger tried to get Spengler aboard the Führer train, but when Spengler refused, Heidegger began talking behind Spengler's back.

===Enemies and critics===
Due to his pissy behavior and the fact some people ended up being tricked into reading his book through, Spengler has a fair share of people wanting a piece of him:
* {{wpl|Ernst Troeltsch|}}: Pretty much the first person to state that ''The Decline of the West'' will be appropriated by evil assholes. Turns out he was better at "educated guesses" than Spengler was.<ref>Adair-Toteff, C. (2021). Ernst Troeltsch and the Spirit of Modern Culture: A Social-Political Investigation. Germany: De Gruyter.</ref>
* {{wpl|Robert Musil}}: Along with Troeltsch, Musil was one of Spengler's early critics.<ref>Robert Musil, “Mind and Experience: Notes for Readers Who Have Eluded the Decline of the West,” 1921</ref><ref>Thiher, Allen. Understanding Robert Musil., Page 167, University of South Carolina Press, 2009.</ref>
* {{wpl|Harry von Kessler|}}<ref>Craig, Gordon Alexander (1978), page 490</ref>
* {{wpl|Thomas Mann|}}: He was initially fan of Spengler's work, but got sick of him, calling Spengler "Nietzche's clever ape" and a "hyena".<ref>Lewis, Ben (2022).</ref>
* General {{wpl|Hans von Seeckt}}: Although Spengler tried engineer his political ascent around 1923-1924, his time with Spengler resulted him saying afterwards that Spengler "should have gone down ''with'' the west!"<ref>Craig, Gordon Alexander (1978). Germany, 1866-1945. Page 490</ref>
* Sir [[Karl Popper]]: although his book {{wpl|The Open Society and Its Enemies|}} was primarily dedicated to tearing a new asshole on [[Plato]] and [[Karl Marx]], he dedicated a few pages on explaining why Spengler was a goddamn idiot. Stating that in his opinion, Spengler's ''Decline of the West'' was to be "not taken seriously". His main point: Spengler tries to predict history despite of the fact that it's impossible to tell what science will discover/invent in the future.<ref name="Popper1">{{cite book |last= Popper|first=Karl |date= 1945|title= The Open Society and Its Enemies
|publisher= Taylor & Francis|page=545 |isbn=9781136700323}}</ref>
* {{wpl|György Lukács}}: Marxist theorist who included him in his book, The Destruction of Reason, which studied the philosophical irrationalism and how it lead to Nazism. He dedicated an entire chapter to him and debunking Spengler's methodology of [[bullshit]].<ref name="Lukacs1"/>
* {{wpl|Max Horkheimer}} (of [[Frankfurt School]]): dismissed Spengler as a "Lebensphilosophie populist" and an affront to that philosophy.
* {{wpl|Franz Borkenau}}: Had published multiple essays that are critical of Spengler.<ref>Falco, Raphael. Cultural Genealogy: An Essay on Early Modern Myth., Taylor & Francis, 2016.</ref> Borkenau also placed Spengler along with [[Georges Sorel]] and {{wpl|Vilfredo Pareto}} as the major three philosophers of fascism.<ref>BORKENAU, Franz, "Sorel, Pareto, Spengler: Three Fascist Philosophers." In "Horizon" Vol. V. No. 30 (June, 1942). </ref>
* [[Leo Strauss]]: If you are too anti-democratic and [[reactionary]] for ''this'' guy, then you have done something real bad.<ref>The Cambridge Companion to Leo Strauss. (2009). Cambridge University Press. Page 2, 171, 178-180</ref>

==See also==
*[[Julius Caesar]]
*[[Rudolf Steiner]]
*[[Houston Stewart Chamberlain]]: racialist, pseudo-historical crank, whose writing bears similarity to Spengler's, as well as being an influence on Nazis.
*[[C.S. Lewis]]: if somebody brings up Spengler's "Man and Technics", then somebody else is bound to bring up Lewis' "Abolition of Man".

==Notes==
{{reflist|group=note|2}}

==References==
===Sources===
* {{Cite book|last=Engels|first=David|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=W0SCDwAAQBAJ|title=Key Thinkers of the Radical Right: Behind the New Threat to Liberal Democracy|date=2019|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-087760-6|editor-last=Sedgwick|editor-first=Mark|pages=3–21|language=en|chapter=Oswald Spengler and the Decline of the West}}
* {{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=l__lhQxYWdYC|title=Oswald Spengler|last=Hughes|first=H. Stuart|date=1991|publisher=Transaction Publishers|isbn=978-1-4128-3034-8}}
* {{cite book |last= Lewis|first=Ben |date=2022 |title=Oswald Spengler and the Politics of Decline |publisher= Berghahn Books |isbn=9781800735750}}
* {{cite book|last= Lukács|first=György |date= 1981|orig-date= 1953|title= The Destruction of Reason |publisher=Humanities Press |isbn=9780391022478|url= http://archive.org/details/the-destruction-of-reason-by-gyorgy-lukacs}}
* {{cite book |last= Craig |first= Gordon Alexander |date=1978 |title=Germany, 1866-1945 |url= https://www.google.com/books/edition/Germany_1866_1945/mbP-PWnoHnIC |publisher= Oxford University Press|isbn=9780198221135}}
* {{cite web |url=https://campuspress.yale.edu/modernismlab/oswald-spengler/ |title= Oswald Spengler|last=  Pfeifer|first= Annie |website=Modernism Lab |publisher=Yale University |access-date=October 13, 2024}}
* {{cite web |last1=Dreher |first1=Carl |title=Spengler and the Third Reich |url=https://www.vqronline.org/essay/spengler-and-third-reich |website=VQR |access-date=7 February 2023 |archive-date=7 February 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230207131601/https://www.vqronline.org/essay/spengler-and-third-reich |url-status=live }}
* {{cite book |last1= Claeys |first1= Gregory|title= Encyclopedia of Modern Political Thought|date=2013|url=https://www.google.com/books/edition/Encyclopedia_of_Modern_Political_Thought/1qjlCAAAQBAJ |publisher= SAGE Publications |isbn=9781506308364}}

===Citations===
{{reflist|2|80%}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Spengler, Oswald}}
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Categories: Anti-intellectualism, Authoritarianism, Authors, Conservatism, Crank magnetism, Declinists, European history, Far-right politics, Fascism, German politics, Germany, Great Depression, Great Replacement conspiracy theorists, Internalized discrimination, Nationalism, Philosophers, Pseudohistory promoters, Racists, Right-wing activists, Shysters, War on science