MEETING SPENGLER AT WINTER'S END
Earlier this week I was thinking about this essay prompt I once assigned my students:
“The history of Europe is a history of failure to learn from past mistakes. Discuss.”
I had a bit of time and got to thinking about why Europe has historically been the site of great carnage and invention. And also the home of some of the world’s great colonisers and despoilers. That’s right, it’s time for another nerd rant, this time about philosophy and history. In the unlikely event that any of you are academic philosophers, bear with me here, I am a simple man. If I generalize or make reductions, it is a reflection of the limitations of my understanding, not the works being discussed.
On we go.
Oswald Spengler was a German philosopher of history. In his masterwork The Decline of the West, he outlined his grand theory of history, in which he argued rather convincingly and in great detail, that the civilizations of man are like living organisms, each with its own life cycle.
Civilizations are born, grow up, enjoy a period of maturity, and then decay into senescence - Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter.
In his theory, he stated that each civilization has its origins in the identification (revelation?) of what he called a Prime Symbol – a set of concepts, abstractions and assumptions about reality that become the focal point of a particular people. When it first manifests, it unleashes a torrent of creative energy. This is the Spring phase – a new Culture is coming together. Out of the primordial undifferentiated Many, arose a new One.
New cultural, artistic, literary, philosophical, and perhaps scientific forms often accompany this phase, filled as it is with raw efflorescent energy. In Europe, the Prime Symbol that arose from the 9th century onwards was the idea of Infinite Space and (to a lesser extent) Infinite Time. The construction of the first Gothic cathedral concretized this notion, a yearning for Infinity.
As a Culture grows to maturity, cultural habits and traits are made manifest. In the European-Faustian civilization, this took the form of an overarching desire to explore and conquer as much space and time as possible. Reducing the distance between things, people, and places to nothing. This was the elan vital (vital force) which compelled Faustian man to explore the world ravenously, far beyond the borders of the Ancient Greek and Roman horizons.
It was this Prime Symbol of Infinite Space which inspired Faustian man, and no one else, to develop increasingly instantaneous modes of communication. Annihilating the time and distance between places. Unlocking the power of fossil sunlight to speed the journey between lands and seas.
The Faustian yearning for infinity which saw its birth pangs build the echoing spires of the Gothic cathedral expanded and progressed. Remnants of this insatiable yearning to conquer and annihilate space and time can be seen in the present drive toward space exploration, colonisation and the increasing extension of human life.
If, however, Spengler’s thesis is right, this explains why the history of Europe is filled with so much bloodshed. Every individual, clan, township, city, prince, and king – all were immersed in an intense yearning for infinity. It was a feeling they could not describe and could resist no more than you can describe and resist the electrical currents in your brain.
They desired to conquer as much space as possible, for as long as possible. These Faustian states collided time and time again, battling to satisfy a yearning that had no name but was written in their fates. The Wars of the Roses, the Thirty Years War, the Conquistadors, the Scramble for Empire, the World Wars, the Cold War… Thinking with Spengler, it is apparent that these were caused (in part, if not in whole) by the manifestation of the Faustian Prime Symbol.
This ceaseless conflict we see has been resolved in two different ways by two of the oldest surviving civilizations on Earth: the Indian and Chinese.
The Prime Symbol of Chinese civilisation (and it is an incredibly old, crystallized civilization) is The Path.
Consider the yin-yang. It represents the intermingling duality of Cosmic Order. Man and Woman. Light and Shadow. Sun and Moon. Active and Passive. Chaos and Order. One half represents Chaos and the other half represents Order. There is a small oasis of Order amidst the Chaos, and a small oasis of Chaos amidst the Order. Between the two principles lies a narrow and tenuous Path, always shifting, never the same for long.
Understand: Chinese warlords had been at war for hundreds if not thousands of years. Somehow, China settled into a comfortable stasis with the adoption of Taoism, Confucianism, and the formation of the Imperial Court. Conflict was minimized because every man, woman, and child saw the world as comprised of the interplay between Yin and Yang. To live well, then, was to live legalistically. To live in harmony with Nature and Nature’s Law, was to live in accordance with the Tao, or the Great Way.
The Path even stipulated that the Emperor was beholden to this perilous journey of treading the Path, walking a fine line between the lawful but rigid Order, and the degenerative anarchy of Chaos. Veer too close to either and the Middle Kingdom would fall. This was the Mandate of Heaven.
In contrast, India’s solution to strife was the stratification of her people into the caste system - priests, warriors, merchants, and everyone else. As long as everyone knew their place, showed up and did their jobs, civil and cosmic order could be maintained. This state of affairs served them well enough and the Indian subcontinent enjoyed a period of relative prosperity and peace1 until the arrival of the whites.
Note: That is the key word - cosmic order. There is a harmony and balance to things. I would like to explore this further in a later post.
Another implication of Spengler’s thesis is that once a Culture has reach maturity, it plateaus. It has completed its metamorphosis into a Civilisation. The duration of the summertime of a Culture varies from place to place, but inevitably summer gives way to Autumn. In the Autumn phase there is no longer cultural innovation, only refinement and iteration.
What improvements there are, are gradual. The low-hanging fruit has all been plucked.
The culture itself becomes bloated and encumbered under the weight of its own growing complexity. The simple tonal rhythm of a Henry Purcell or a Gregorian chant give way to Baroque and rococo. We have hit the point of diminishing returns.
After a time, Autumn gives way to Winter. The civilization is now in its terminal stage – it has exhausted all its unique and particular cultural forms. It can maintain novelty, sure, and may still credibly present the FACADE of new literary/artistic/ musical forms, but only by importing cultural tropes from other cultures and civilizations.
The hybridity and “cultural promiscuity” of Western civilisation starting from 1900 indicates that European civilization is well into the decline.
You knew this painting was coming.
A unique feature of the Faustian worldview is that it denies the possibility that other cultures may have their own unique and particular life-histories and trajectories. In the Faustian worldview there is only one acceptable and valid narrative: that we emerged from the darkness of the caves and fumbled about the world until some of us discovered a particular set of truths and axioms about reality.
We have then proceeded to develop our understanding of these natural laws to conquer child mortality, sickness, material privation, and are on track to conquer the stars and bring about a material utopia for all… in the template of the cultural features to which Faustian people (read: Westerners) are accustomed. The notion that some people might resist this agenda, that this might be interpreted as flawed, misguided, or even morally repugnant does not register in the Faustian worldview.
Alternative worldviews came to be seen as primitive, superstitious, generally undeserving of serious consideration. Must be crushed and cast out into the outer dark. No surprise then, the totalizing ideologies of the late 19th and the entire 20th century emerged as the offspring of the Faustian worldview, memetic viruses that imbued their hosts with a yearning to conquer all of time and space in the name of the Third Reich/ Communism/ Socialism/ The Free Market/ The Singularity/ Social Justice, and what have you.
Some of you may protest. “How can you put National Socialism and Social Justice in the same category? Are you literally Hitler?! REEEEEEEEEE”
Cease your foolish talk, you lemon! They are more similar than they are different, in that:
They are children of the Faustian Culture and its totalizing desire to conquer and annihilate space and time. Ideological warfare, properly understood, is really nothing more than a squabble among siblings to be #1.
None of them will work. Not in the long term. Because none of these ideologies born of Faustianism recognize the reality that Decline is already underway, and that it is irreversible and ultimately unstoppable.
The project of the Alt Right and the nascent European movements calling for “restoration” of Western civilization are noble and well-intentioned, guided by a deep and abiding sense that something beautiful and precious is in danger of passing into oblivion. Frustratingly, adopting Spengler’s philosophy of history guarantees there will be no “Western revival”.
There will be no Restoration of the West.
All Faustian Man can do is embrace the reality of this process. Gain an understanding of the process of catabolic collapse – maybe even accelerate it in some cases, or adopt the Reactionary route and try to stave off the final death throes of Faustian civilisation for as long as possible.
It may take 50 or 500 years, but the West will continue to decline and finally pass on. You can reasonably predict that from at some point in the distant future, Europe will cease to be a major player on the world-historical stage… at least for a time.
But here’s the thing: Winter never lasts. One day the sunlight of Spring will shine through the cold and sleeping dormancy of the Western world. A new Culture will arise, incorporating recognizable features of what we now know, but in what form we cannot predict or expect.
Until then,
Stay Solar.
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Some would say that by this time, Indian civilization was mired a great cultural and social stagnation. In my view, jury’s still out on them. I neither praise nor condemn the Europeans.