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INSPIRATIONS AND INFLUENCERS (True Influencers, not the social media talentless attention seekers)
Oswald Spengler (1880–1936)
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Last month saw the first anniversary of Donald Trump’s second presidential term in the USA, and as that nation is still the most powerful country in the world, it is therefore fitting that this month’s influencer is the German philosopher of history Oswald Spengler (1880–1936) and in particular his magnum opus Der Untergang des Abendlandes, or as it is known in English, The Decline of the West (1918).
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Spengler's philosophy of history was based on two main assumptions, firstly that cultures are the basic units of history, not epochs or periods (i.e. ‘classical, medieval and modern’ etc), and secondly that cultures are like living organisms, they grow with predictable life cycles of birth, growth, maturity, and death.
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"Cultures are organisms, and world-history is their collective biography”
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Spengler believed that cultures are not linear, but cyclical. They grow, they mature, and eventually die, with the whole process typically lasting about 1,000 years or so.
Spengler was not a Eurocentric thinker, something that was contrary to the intellectual trends of his lifetime in Europe and especially in Germany, he rejected ideas of racial supremacy that were then popular and did not regard Western culture as being exceptional relative to other cultures, something that gives his work a contemporary relevance. Long before the so-called era of “wokeness” Spengler had renounced Western claims to both universality and supremacy. Spengler identified eight Hochkulturen (high cultures) that have existed:
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Babylonian: The Mesopotamian civilization.
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Egyptian: Characterized as a "culture of the road".
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Chinese: Viewed as a long-lasting, distinct, and highly ordered civilization.
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Indian: Focused on a unique, spiritual worldview.
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Mesoamerican (Mayan/Aztec): Identified as a distinct culture, notably separate from the Old World.
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Classical ("Apollonian"): Greek and Roman antiquity, prioritizing the "now" and the physical body.
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Arabian ("Magian"): Encompasses the Middle East, early Christianity, and Islam, sharing a "magical" worldview.
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Western ("Faustian"): The modern European-American culture, defined by infinite striving, technology, and individualism.
Spengler used “Faustian” to describe the soul of Western civilization, something that is defined by an insatiable, restless striving for infinite space, knowledge, and power, that began around the 10th century and is an expansionary force that seeks to overcome all limits, ultimately leading to a "machine-like" civilization. How would the West today function without technology? In the "Faustian bargain" Western man gains power over nature through technology but becomes dependent on it. Elon Musk’s desire to colonise Mars (The Faustian individual “strives to direct the world according to his will”, a very Nietzschean idea) and the Breakthrough Starshot Initiative with its idea of using lasers to propel miniature space probes attached to "lightsails" to reach ultrafast speeds and eventually our nearest star system, Alpha Centauri are examples of the Faustian spirit, but also things that have actually been achieved such as nuclear power (weapons included), the moon landings, and the Large Hadron Collider in Bern, which after spending billions of Euros was able to confirm that the hypothetical Higgs boson was in fact real.
Spengler argued that the Faustian spirit is inherently tragic, driven to conquer, yet fated to exhaust itself. An example of this Faustian spirit is the philosophy of Transhumanism that advocates for the technological enhancement of human physical and cognitive capabilities through genetic engineering, AI, and cybernetics, to overcome physical limitations like disease, aging, and death. It seeks to evolve humanity into "posthuman" beings with vastly superior intelligence and greatly extended lifespans. Enthusiasm for this philosophy is mainly to be found in the American Tech sector.
Spengler applied the seasonal system of spring, summer, autumn and winter to the evolution of cultures.
Spring (Awakening): A period of birth, religious awakening, and raw, powerful creative expression where the culture's soul is formed.
Summer (Maturity/Growth): A stage of intellectual growth, blossoming artistic production, and the definition of a culture's unique identity.
Autumn (Fruition/Harvest): The cultural soul achieves its highest intellectual fulfilment but begins to turn toward sophistication and abstraction, marking the end of its most creative period.
Winter (Decline/Civilization): The final, "petrified" stage where culture matures into civilization. It is characterized by massive world cities, intense cosmopolitanism, sterile intellect, and the loss of original, creative energy. Spengler argued that Western civilization had entered its winter phase.
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So why is Trump’s presidency relevant? Spengler predicted that Western civilization, having entered its "winter" phase, would undergo a 200-yearlong era of "Caesarism" starting around the beginning of the 21st century which he defined as the triumph of personal, authoritarian, and military power over money-driven democracy. This era marks the final stage of civilization, replacing democratic formlessness with raw, dictatorial "will-to-order".
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The era of, “Caesarism” is another manifestation of decline, as authority becomes increasingly concentrated in the hand of one person and the modern institutions of the state begin to disintegrate. In Trump’s first year of his second presidency, he has acted more like a king than a president, he disregards congress who can’t, or often won’t curtail him.
Masked ICE agents shoot dead American citizens with no legal consequences, and the treatment of immigrants (legal or illegal) is similar to what once happened in the Soviet Union and South American dictatorships. Trump admires dictators like Putin and Kim Jong Un, he tried to steal an election that he lost, and might try to stay in power for the rest of his life. He openly talks about annexing Canada as the 51st state and of seizing Greenland from a European ally, something that could end NATO and with it the post war consensus.
The Trump presidency fits with Spengler’s prediction that Western civilization in its final phase would transition from democracy to "Caesarism" around the 21st century. Caesarism is the final, inevitable political form that attempts to restore stability to a decaying civilization (MAGA - Make America Great Again) and represents the terminal, authoritarian phase where political power is concentrated in the hands of individuals, replacing the "dictatorship of money" with a "will-to-order". Trump’s reckless use of tariffs is an attempt to counter the growing power of the BRICS economies with the relative decline of the G7 economies and has been entirely ineffectual.
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According to Spengler the West would experience 200 years of "Caesarism"—an era of authoritarian rule and imperialism, so it is still early days and will be ongoing long after Trump has gone, but Trump is a symptom of Western decline not the cause of it. Spengler did not predict a sudden end, but a long, inevitable descent, which he called a "Twilight of the Gods," following the peak of Western power.
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Oswald Arnold Gottfried Spengler was born on 29 May 1880 in the Duchy of Brunswick, at school he excelled in Classics, Mathematics and the Sciences, and later attended the universities of Munich, Berlin and Halle. After completing his Doctorate (at the second attempt) in 1904 he had an uneventful life as a school teacher until 1910 when following his mother’s death he was able to retire and live off his modest inheritance as a private scholar, although never well off and he was occasionally obliged to work as a tutor to supplement his income. He began writing The Decline of the West in 1911. It was published in 1918 with great success in both Germany and the rest of Europe, making Spengler a prominent intellectual for the last decades of his life; he died in 1936 at the age of 55 of a heart attack in Munich.
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It cannot be said that The Decline of the West is an optimistic book, its prognosis is gloomy, nevertheless it can help us make sense of history and the turbulence of our current era such as why Trump and so many other malignant narcissists are dominating the political and cultural spheres. Spengler believed that despite the onset of winter, we should still make the best use of the time that we are given, and his work contains immense wisdom that can help us to do that, and it encourages us to confront our reality. I will end with a quote from the man himself:
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“Time does not suffer itself to be halted; there is no question of prudent retreat or wise renunciation. Only dreamers believe that there is a way out. Optimism is cowardice. We are born into this time and must bravely follow the path to the destined end. There is no other way. Our duty is to hold on to the lost position, without hope, without rescue, like that 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. That is what it means to be a thoroughbred. The honourable end is the one thing that can not be taken from a man."