/lit/ - Literature

Still no Cesar in sight

>>15605968
Like Marx

>>15605977
>t. doesn’t know about historical cultural epochs and their relevance to technology

He didn’t accurately predict a fucking thing right

>>15605968
>right-wing "philosophers" write ominous, faux-prophetic works about muh decline and muh kali yuga using kitschy, overtly romantic/martial language without even trying to support their claims
>left-wing philosophers write theses that are rigorously supported and made through reasonable, rational lines of thinking that don't have to rely on manipulative language to be taken seriously.

why is the right like this?

>>15605968
That's not Gramsci.

>>15605968
>Apologize
For what?
>>15606037
>Spengler
>rightwing
You're embarrassing yourself. Leftist liked Spengler. He was pretty much liked by all political spheres.

>According to Spengler, mankind will spend the next and last several hundred years of its existence in a state of Caesarian socialism, when all humans will be synergized into a harmonious and happy totality by a dictator, like an orchestra is synergized into a harmonious totality by its conductor.
So accurate. This is the state we live in.

>>15606223
You’re fucking insane if you don’t think Spengler is right wing. He was part of the Conservative Revolution in the Weimar Republic along with thinkers like Ernst Juenger. Whether leftist “liked” him (whatever that means) doesn’t change the fact he was far right.

>>15606037
Because right-wing ideologies have always focused more on ephemereal things that aren‘t tangible.
Left-wing has always been about materialism and (((scientific))) thinking, so it‘s really up to you to like it or not.

>>15606478
Conservative during turmultuous time in Europe. Like most who see history as cycles, he's pretty much beyond politics. I haven't read Junger, but didn't he write about war, and how combat can be great experience? Which isn't political stand. Also, having conservative stands makes someone rightwing? Shouldn't Lenin and Stalin be rightwing by that standard?

>>15606037
Don't group Spengler with brainlets like Guenon and Evola. Spengler's claims are in fact directly observable and not based on shallow mysticism.

>>15605977
US's Caesar comes in the 2100s-2200s, so yes, the fact that we don't have a Caesar yet is entirely in line with Spengler.

>>15606004
9/11, WWII, Germany not lasting past 1945, US Oil Imperialism in the Middle East, the fall of the British Empire, the rise of China, the collapse of Russia...

>>15606004
Spengler's Future (1993)

An Outline of the Next Seven Centuries of Western History, as Suggested by Comparison with the Life Cycles of Four Other Civilizations

By John J. Reilly

Section Five: A Comedy of Errors (2022-2061)

The three characteristics of this period are disorder at home and embarrassment abroad, climaxed by a season of rigor. Indeed, the end of this phase in a civilization's evolution is often marked by a period of what might be called "realistic Fascism." A hundred years before, the reformation of social life in the interests of the state was driven by romantic notions of world renewal, a blissful conviction that old standards did not apply. The intent is revolutionary. At the end of this period, outwardly similar measures are taken. They are enforced by various authorities throughout the advanced world. This time, however, the intent behind them is purely and consciously conservative. Thinking people come to believe (or at any rate say) there is no realistic alternative to the traditional forms of society and culture as they were believed to have existed in the past. It comes to be an age of faked antiques.

Rome, and to some extent the West, present the extreme opposite example of civilizations whose problems were largely self-caused. In both instances, democracy (in the different senses in which these civilizations defined it) reached the highest levels it ever would. Rome, of course, suffered civil war and social revolution in the sequel. The West, pursuing its own highly idiosyncratic notions of justice and equity, came close to achieving equality of result for all ethnic groups and both genders in the most visible stations of public life. The problem, however, is that any position or institution which is manipulated to this degree soon ceases to be a real center of initiative or influence. Leadership is a fundamentally mysterious quality, not one that can be apportioned out according to legal criteria.

This is the last hurrah of the old-fashioned secret police, the kind who want to stop people from thinking certain things, rather than just making sure they do what they are told. Politics is temporarily closed down as a working institution, though the constitutional forms are maintained. These, indeed, are revived and refurbished to an extraordinary degree. Hereafter, until the end of modern times, politics really is just about power, and ideology consequently withers. For real power struggles, no analysis is needed.

>>15606478
He was just a bestselling pop historian -- the Malcolm Gladwell of his day. His personal politics are more or less irrelevant.

>>15605986
gay communists being gay again

>>15606004
He did predict the fall of the Third Reich.
>In ten years, there will be no third reich.

>>15606750
He wasn’t just “conservative in tumultuous times”. Decline of the West was the background against which his personal politics were put forward in essays like “Prussianism and Socialism”. Spengler was deeply reactionary but he felt that reaction had to be adjusted for modern times, we need a modern Caesar and rejection of mass politics. Juenger mostly wrote about war yes, but the way War provided a space to find meaning in ones life was part of the Conservative Revolution and common to most writers. They rejected the idea the war was just an nihilistic excess and believed it could become a way to form national pride. He also didn’t just confine himself to writing memoirs or fiction, his book “The Worker” was an influential book in his day. You should actually read about the Conservative Revolution instead of posting bullshit you’re embarrassing yourself.

>>15607179
No. Spengler said caesarism was inevitable outcome, and his writings reflect his view of history, in which cycles bring certain inevitabilities. Unless you mean he would have preferred authoritarian Germany to lead the west, instead of American empire of money leading it. Its true that he disliked mass politics and was reactionary, but reactionaries don't really even fit left-right dichotomy.

>>15605977
the democrats/leftwing are creating the conditions for a Caesar you absolute idiot.
City/Civilization/"Truth"/Death is ushering in the fall of Culture/Land/Fact/Life. The cycle is literally repeating itself all over again and you're too stupid to see it.
>durrr, still no Caesar in sight

>>15605968
AHHHHH I want to get off this ride, why did this future have to be happening?

I Literally just finished the Intro for Volume 1 and am impressed by the sheer breadth of his knowledge on so many subjects. He is already my idol and I have only read 50 pages.
Does it get even better?
The passage in the Intro where he talks about the invention of clocks around 1000 AD really blew my fucking mind.
I never thought about it, but ancient man’s perception of time must have been so different from ours that if you were to somehow be in a room with Plato and try to have a discussion with him it would be like talking to an inter dimensional alien

>>15606803
when did he predict any of those

I want to read DotW but I also don't really want to read an ebook that is nearly 1100 pages long.

Is there an epub of the abridged version I am missing or do I need to buckle up and get ready to read 1100 pages by him.

>>15607179
>we need a modern Caesar and rejection of mass politics

i think the next Caesar will be influenced by pic related, not because of the believe in the reactionary ideal but because it benefits him the most in his conquest towards absolute power

>>15608195
There *has* to be an ebook or pdf of the abridged. Otherwise just by a physical copy of the abridged on Amazon.
I’m reading the unabridged, and have heard from many that the Abridged doesn’t do the original justice

>>15605968
that's the guy from breaking bad

>>15607179
>e felt that reaction had to be adjusted for modern times, we need a modern Caesar and rejection of mass politics
To be more accurate he said these things would happen inevitably.

>>15606037
There are good right wing philosophers who remain grounded in realism.

>>15608236
>listening to a chinlet

>>15608999

I swear nobody on here actually reads these meme right wing thinkers and only like them for the titles of their books

>>15606037
Reactionary vs Revolutionary

>inaccurately predicts a slavic/eastern european renaissance
it will be in latin america

>>15608246
when have fans of a book ever EVER said anything else about an abridged version?

>>15608195
There is an abridged version?

>>15608236
>i think the next Caesar will be influenced by pic related

kys imbecile

>>15605977
spenglercucks cant cope with this and proceed to do damagecontrol

>>15605986
spbp

>>15606858
I don't like anyone who uses "the West" in serious discussion

>>15610747
I only use it to contrast with Eastern Europe, but yeah it's overblown as a concept.

>>15609950
why?

Spengler threads on /lit/ always are shit. It seems nobody read him beyond the wiki article or railroads their mind into politics, discarding any statements about culture or how man himself changes.

>>15606993
youre an idiot

>>15610756
Yeah, the original Abendland/occident terminology is much better. Neither find good use in English

>>15608246
>I’m reading the unabridged
I want to read the unabridged but I can’t find an affordable copy. If you’re reading a physical copy where’d you get it? And if you’re reading a pdf care to post it?

>>15606803
>9/11
>US Oil Imperialism in the Middle East
>the collapse of Russia
Wait what?
I've read all of his books and there is nothing of the sort predicting these.
Regarding the last point, Spengler actually thought that Russia would go in the opposite direction, i.e. that it had immense potential to grow out and develop as a new Civilisation. He said Russia was like a sleeping giant that was ready to explode culturally.

>>15607503
Reactionary originated as a term describing those who rejected the social changed which were an outgrowth of the French revolution.
Please direct me to the left-wing person or Marxist who is opposed to the consequences of the French revolution.
Marx even drew a lot of his inspiration from the proto-Marxist who was Rousseau.
Fucking retard.

>>15609787
You're right.
I guarantee not one person here has read Spengler based on these replies.
These people are fucking morons who can't digest more than a paragraph or two of a wikipedia page.

>>15612269
He says in Prussianism and Socialism that Russia will reject the western influence of marxism sooner or later, which of course it did.

>>15612323
That is not the same as predicting "the collapse of Russia."
But yes he did predict that the Soviet Union would reject the foreign Bolshevik (Jewish) elements in favour of a Russified form of Marxism which came about in the form of Stalinism, that is true.

>>15612294
Yes, and to a reactionary, there isn't much to conserve in a world after french revolution. You're throwing around words reactionary and conservative like they're one and the same thing, and saying conservative=rightwing. Again, when sexual revolution in Soviet Union got out of hand, and Lenin and Stalin had to take conservative stand to quell it, a stand that isn't with accordance with revolutionary thought of enlightenment, did they turn into rightwingers?

>>15612323
>Russia will reject the western influence of marxism
Have you actually read the article? His reasoning was completely wrong, he said that it will be the simple peasants, the Moscow, who will defeat Marxism; but IRL it was mostly internal coup supported by the west-loving/liberal fraction of population while Marxism became more of a Russian/Eastern thing and the anti-thesis of what was considered "West" during late 20th century.

>>15606037
>rigorously supported
what is the Materialist Conception of History?

>>15606037
Bascially no one even knows what reason is, mistaking the False Intellect for the True Intellect. You're asleep, read George Gurdjieff and/or Prometheus Rising.

>>15612245
I bought it gently used on Amazon. They’re not cheap, about $45 on amazon but I watched the page until a “very good” condition came up and then ordered it. It’s the Knopf version

>>15608236
"in many ways nonsense is a more effective organizing tool than truth. anyone can believe in the truth. to believe in nonsense is an unforgettable demonstration of loyalty. it serves as a political uniform. and if you have a uniform, you have an army."

??????????????????????????????????????

what the fuck does any of this mean
how do people take any of this seriously
fuckin christ he sounds like a fuckin schizo

>>15605968
>accurately predicts the present state of the west a century in advance
Literally almost every 19th century philosopher foresaw this and in more detail and nuance than some monkey rambling on about "much west."

>>15608195

>I want to read Spengler but I don't want to read a long book.

Read The Hour of Decision. It's short and readable and applies amazingly well to the present day.

>>15613664

>>15605977
Trump, Putin, Xi. Next question please?

>>15612323
>some day Russia will have a different government than it currently has
Amazing prediction, like a modern Nostradamus

>>15614063
none of them are even close retard, you’ve never read Spengler

>>15614063
Trump is more like Gaius Marius and Sulla tbqh and the other two aren't really Caesar since Russia is basically irrelevant and China is a paper dragon who only puts on a show of strength. We're at least 50 years from out modern Caesar.

>>15613730
Man and Technics is only 75 pages too.

>>15613664
I believe he was talking in referance to Goebbels and Orwellianism, it's really hard to quote him without including atleast 3 paragraphs. Don't see how you can't understand this one though

>>15613664
It's Point Dear Make Horse.

Mao and his men are on march, and he looks up at the sky and says "ah, what a lovely red sky, don't you agree?". Anyone who says the sky isn't red is shot. Anyone who says the sky is red is willing to do whatever Mao says. The only reason to disagree with power is because you, at some level, oppose it, which makes you a threat.

If some ugly Hon in a dress comes out and says he's a woman, the only reason to disagree is because you aren't loyal; you aren't a slave. If you're a slave, you know its in your best interest to say the man is a woman. Someone who dreams of being more than a slave will disagree.

>>15614128
>China is a paper dragon
The level of delusion...

http://avery.morrow.name/blog/2014/10/oswald-spenglers-decline-of-the-west-the-100th-anniversary-update/

He got everything right

>>15612245
complete edition: https://archive.org/details/Decline-Of-The-West-Oswald-Spengler/mode/2up

>>15614063
According to Spengler, America, China and Russia aren't Faustian and thus the appearance of "Ceasars" in these countries does not meet Spengler's prediction, which was always about western or "germanic" Europe.

>>15614304
It's an exporting economy and the US is their biggest trading partner. If the US goes down, they go down harder. Not to mention the fact that their population is growing older and there is an active problem with a large discrepancy between fecund males and females due to females being aborted at ridiculous rates and the One Child policy. Not to mention they have to import agricultural goods from the US to feed their population and the farmers in China can't produce the supply needed to satiate the demand and add to that, growing hatred of China in their neighboring countries and their colonies and yes you can see it's only putting on the illusion of strength rather than actually having it.

>>15614389
>It's an exporting economy and the US is their biggest trading partner. If the US goes down, they go down harder.
It’s not 1998 any more anon

>>15614403
Nice counter-argument you got there.

>>15614366
>>15614125
>b-but those examples dont count
cope

>>15614461
They don't, and I say this as someone who really likes DotW.

>>15614389
Are you a mutt? I can´t imagine anyone else being so fucking deluded.

>It's an exporting economy
17% of their GDP

>US is their biggest trading partner.
19% of total exports

>If the US goes down, they go down harder.
17% * 19% = 3% of Chinese GDP is trade with US; it´s not going to kill them.

>One Child policy
Cancelled in 2015, ignoramus

>growing hatred of China
Isn´t growing as fast as hatred of USA.

>Not to mention they have to import agricultural goods from the US to feed their population
Basedbeans are used to feed cattle, not population. Also they can easily just use other country, like Russia.

>it's only putting on the illusion of strength rather than actually having it
As opposed to whom? India? USA? You didn´t even adress the main Chinese weakness, which is lack of nuclear weapons.

>>15614138
Goebbels believed that propaganda should be truthful.

>>15614484
I'll grant you the first three but the rest is still fuckng off:

>Cancelled in 2015, ignoramus
No shit, dullard. It demographic problems rarely fix themselves instantly. If that were the case, then Japan could literally fuck themselves into overpopulation in a month or two. A policy implemented in 1979 is going to affect people for at least a generation or two, probably more since the growing middle class there isn't going to be having more than 2 kids on average.

>Isn´t growing as fast as hatred of USA
Then how come there are anti-Chinese parties in East and West Africa and South East Asia all over the place? Just because you Yuropoors already hate us doesn't mean jackshit because you've always had this hatred for America. I'm taking about the rest of the world, which actively has an axe to grind with China due to essentially colonizing their countries and sending the products and the wealth they generate back to China.

>Also they can easily just use other country, like Russia.
>Frozen wasteland with an economy 1/3 the size of Italy's (which is mostly oil-based)
>Supplying agricultural products
That's not even close to possible. The only country with enough arable land to support China's agricultural needs is the US believe it or not. Canada is in the same boat as Russia climate wise and other countries are just too small and/or tend to be in places that aren't conducive to a farming economy being not self-sufficient but able to transport goods overseas.

I'll also give you the last point too. Whatever.

>>15614594
>It demographic problems rarely fix themselves instantly.
Obviously, I was just pointing out your ingorance.

>I'm taking about the rest of the world, which actively has an axe to grind with China due to essentially colonizing their countries and sending the products and the wealth they generate back to China.
And yet their power is expanding, while their main competitor is losing power.

>Frozen wasteland with an economy 1/3 the size of Italy
Dude, are you doing this on purpose? I knew that mutts are dumb, but not this dumb. Just google "chernozem" or take a look at global wheat production.

>The only country with enough arable land to support China's agricultural needs is the US believe it or not.
I choose "not", because Brasil is production roughly the same amount of basedbeans as US.

>>15614167
that made the point a lot clearer thanks anon

Is Spengler a good read or this Nazi shit?

>>15614499
I know, but some of the things he said was quite nonsensical idealism

>>15612068
This is every /lit/ thread these days. Board is full of fucking morons who don't read and think themselves to be experts on things because they looked it up on Wikipedia. Don't even find much of a point in posting anymore some knuckle dragging moron is always bound to start an argument he can't lose because he doesn't address anything in the posts he replies to.

>>15615164
If you don't want to read something because "muh nazis" don't bother reading anything at all.

>>15607017
stupid frogposter

>>15615340
Nice non answer faggot, try not posting at all next time.

Arktos reprint when

>>15615404
Try fucking blowing your brains out you fucking waste of space.

>>15605968
What did Crowley predict? Was this in 777? What did I miss?

>>15615779
>Crowley
This is Spengler but Crowley predicted a bunch of stuff as well.

>>15615779
who's Crowley?

>>15615805
But was he right?
>>15615807
My boy Aleister. Don't tell me you've forgotten

>>15615841
Onion Peelings is the most accurate thing Crowley has ever written and will continue to be until the last man on earth dies.

>>15615164
He hated the Nazis, he called Hitler a numbskull and they banned his books.

>>15616055
but was a fan of Mussolini

>>15615164
from wikipedia:
"Spengler is regarded as a nationalist and an anti-democrat, and was prominent member of the Conservative Revolution. However, he criticised Nazism due to its excessive racism. Instead, he saw Benito Mussolini, and entrepreneur types like Cecil Rhodes,[3] as embryonic examples of the impending Caesars of Western culture, notwithstanding his stark criticism of Mussolini's imperial adventures.[4]"

"he is also popular with the Islamists, who mobilize his critique of the West."

>>15614366
America is Faustian, and Caesarism has nothing to do with Faustianism. Rome, for example, was Apollonian, and had THE Caesar, and he cites various other examples of other non-Faustian Caesars.

America gets its Caesar in 2100-2200. Why is he not around yet? Because it's only 2020.

>all the brainlets itt discussing spengler when they've only read his wikipedia entry

>>15606993
he was highly involved in german politics. he was friends with von seeckt and acquainted with schacht and stresemann. he also met with a myriad of figures, from goebbels to keynes.

>>15616223
america will get its caesar, a caesar of the calibre of alaric. he will be a mestizo of course, the only people who carry on the visigoth blood and spirit. global white supremacy will be enforced by latinx

>>15606261
taylorist management principles extended into every facet of human life by a technologically-augmented managerial elite who operate with a total surveillance feedback apparatus? yeah that's such a stretch bro

>>15605977
Age of Cesars was obviously the 40s

>>15607509
technically the shift from culture to civilization occurred in the united states (culture as an anglo stronghold within the empire) with the explosion of irish and german immigration. the period from the mexican war to the end of the civil war demarcates the end of the cultural period

>>15608156
debord has a riff that's similar to this regarding circular time (for peasants) and linear time (for kings/priests) and their relationship

>>15616223
>America is Faustian
Not according to Spengler.
>and Caesarism has nothing to do with Faustianism.
The point is that Spengler's predictions about the coming age of Caesarism were only meant to apply to Faustian civilization. Other civs are on different cycles, and Spengler made no predictions regarding them.

>>15616342
>mestizo
He sure as fuck isn't going to use
>latinx

>>15605986
Marx got it wrong, though.

Not that Spengler got it right.

No one actually got it right, except Karl Popper and Nassim Taleb. The truth of the matter is that you can't predict anything (except using the via negativa, antifragility-based and Lindy-based approaches that Taleb presents towards the end of his tome).

Taleb himself is always called 'the man who predicted this and that', which is ironic, because his whole point is that making relevant predictions is nearly impossible, given that we live in the world of the Black Swan.

>>15612245
check your library system and see if they do inter-library loans. also if there's a university of sufficient age near you and they're lax about who goes in the library you might find a copy there

>>15612882
a reactionary tries to arrest social change as an end in itself, the way a progressive tries to cause social change as an end in itself. both are context and imply little continuity with each other, which is why you had reactionaries in the 60's defending a liberal foreign adventure and progressives now arguing for neosegregationist policies

>>15614167
saying the man is a woman is actually the nonsensical opinion by moldbug's own terms evidenced by the locked-rank militancy of true believers

>>15614128
if trump was marius he'd have to be a military man

>>15616465
our favourite arab's philosophy is a product of his tenuous grasp of reality. he has almost no concept of delayed cause and effect.

>>15614167
It's Deer not Dear btw

>>15614484
you're just replacing the soviet union with china, it's a fundamentally different country with a different economy and relationship with the USA. and it's not 1960 anymore either

>>15616546
closer to the gracchi when you consider the reaction he's provoked from the media-industrial complex

>>15612294
perhaps you should stop imagining every political act in the world as relating to some labels from france a quarter millennia ago.

>>15614484
"One has to bear in mind that China’s BRI strategies primarily advance the country’s own economic development, which plays an important role in the Communist Party´s political legitimization. With the era of Chinese high economic growth ending, the enormous domestic demand in the construction and machinery sectors is decreasing. BRI may help China in this economic transition, creating opportunities to export the overcapacity in those sectors to other countries. The infrastructure promoted by BRI also sets the groundwork for exporting some of the manufacturing sites due to growing labor costs in China. Moreover, being a country that relies heavily on exports, there is a great economic incentive to increase purchasing power in other countries, even more against the backdrop of the intensifying trade friction with the United States which has led to tariffs on Chinese products exported to the United States.

Due to the centrality of BRI for its economy, China cannot afford to ignore the increasing number of problems and criticisms related to its implementation. For example, the Myitsone dam project in Myanmar that China has been pushing is on hold because of environmental and social concerns. Malaysia’s Prime Minister Mahathir canceled a railway and two gas pipeline projects over concerns about the terms. Even Pakistan, formally a devoted BRI partner and close political and security partner of China is currently reviewing its cooperation with Beijing. Like Japan in the 1970s, China is in the process of making several concessions indicating its willingness to take more responsibility for the economic, social and environmental impacts of its assistance, thus answering to the external pressures demanding that the country address the recipients’ interests. In the past, many countries in Asia did not have alternatives other than solutions offered by China to satisfy a great demand for infrastructural development. In the early 2010s, China was a pioneer in offering quick, affordable and un-bureaucratic infrastructure. However, the circumstances are changing. Many countries and multilateral organizations are now responding to the demands for infrastructure, providing a growing number of competing alternatives to China’s BRI. In this new competitive environment, China is being pushed to be more responsive to concerns of BRI recipient countries."
https://www.eastwestcenter.org/publications/overestimating-the-power-china%C2%B4s-bri-%E2%80%93-lessons-drawn-japanese-oda-engagement-in-asia

>>15616562
You haven't read him.

Spengler got one thing wrong. He stated all Empires fell from within or from without; but through conflict. The French and British empires did not do that. It was a complicated reason but not how he stated it would be in the winter phase of an empire. This is largely because I doubt when he wrote his works he expected globalisation on such a scale where empires are just not financially worth it compared to just owning companies inside former colonies and maintaining soft power. France learned this, which is why they're No.1 in the world for soft power. They did this to prevent UK being No.1. China is working on catching up.

>>15616846
i dont read basal eurasians, but its undeniable his ideas are shallow due to his limited cognitive capacities

>>15616909
>i dont read
ftfy

>>15616925
i dont waste my time

>>15616964
You clearly don't seeing as you can't even bother to check your syntax and spelling on a literature board.

>>15616984
my syntax was fine. who gives a fuck about spelling? typical pedant! read spengler instead of taliban

>>15617004
>who gives a fuck about spelling?

>>15617017
i dont read this pseud either. you should read real authors not funny youtube twitter man

>>15616873
This, most people in this thread are retards for thinking history will repeat itself 1:1 and I'm sure most them haven't even read Spengler and only read a wiki article. The world has changed in way Spengler could never have imagined.

>>15617017
unironically. it's just a mongolian yurt designing site, anon.

>>15606803
The world will not exist in 2100.

>>15617182
The world stopped existing like a hundred years ago.

>>15616873
>France learned this, which is why they're No.1 in the world for soft power.
by what possible metric are France ahead of the US in soft power

>>15616873
>France learned this, which is why they're No.1 in the world for soft power.
What?