/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.20953149]

How the fuck is he so well-read? He read literally everything there is.

[Anonymous No.20953152]

He didn't waste his time on 4channel

[Anonymous No.20953157]

>>20953149
Who dat

[Anonymous No.20953176]

In the 20th century, you had to read everything up to Kant by 17 to be taken seriously. Otherwise it was over for you as a philosopher.

[Anonymous No.20953184]

>>20953157
Spengler
>>20953149
He's not, he just gives off the illusion, in reality his reading has big holes in it
Example, in the first chapters of his book he claims that the Indians never had portraiture and that this tells you something deep about their culture, meanwhile the single most popular Indian book which was read and admired by Goethe his idol has a scene in it where the main character paints a portrait

[Anonymous No.20953195]

>>20953184
I think he was talking about plastic arts, not paintings

[Anonymous No.20953223]

>>20953195
Spengler mentions it in context of the ahistorical nature of Indian civilization (which is true enough), right after he claims that the Indian had no individual sense and never attributed a book to a particular author at a particular time (a gross and palpable lie) - and then moves on to claim the lack of portraits as an illustration of this principle
The division between plastic art and painting does not come up at all

[Anonymous No.20953236]

>>20953184
Guenon is the same, he'd certainly read a lot but there's an illusion he had read more than he did. Probably many intellectuals are like this in reality.

[Anonymous No.20953268]

>>20953149
Turns out most people talk about things they don't actually know. It's just that some are better at hiding it than others.

[Anonymous No.20953282]

>>20953223
Nigga, he's talking about the indian civilization that reached its winter, long, long ago.

[Anonymous No.20953327]

>>20953223
>a gross and palpable lie
It's not a lie, that is the basis of hinduism. Every philosopher wrote commentary to the previous texts and we can't attribute who wrote what now. Maybe later they adopted the Western style, but that's not what he's talking about.
Show me an ancient Indian writing where we are 100% certain who the author is.

[Anonymous No.20953378]

>>20953282
He is giving absolute statements supposedly applicable to Indian history in every age
>>20953327
>Show me an ancient Indian writing where we are 100% certain who the author is
Well, to start with, almost every play has the author name himself in the prologue, a great number of the poems include the author and his genealogy, the philosophy has authors saying "Hello I am X and this is my book, I'm gonna be the most famous philosopher ever"
Kalidasa says in a prologue "Yes I am new but just you wait I'm gonna be the best", Bhavabhuti says "Yes my stuff is hard reading but one day there will be a man who appreciates it", the poets are always talking about personal glory, the acquisition of which is supposed to be one of the great ends of poetry
Pic related is a pretty usual example, the author names himself, commends his ability, says how new and cool his play is,

[Anonymous No.20953397]

>>20953378
Cmon now, you're naming examples from the 12th century, when he clearly speaks of ancient times. He compared Egyption tradition with Indian tradition. So clearly he's speaking about Indians at that time.

[Anonymous No.20953407]

>>20953397
These examples are from the 6th, 7th, 8th centuries
>So clearly he's speaking about Indians at that time
Not at all, go back and read the lines, his argument is that the ahistoricity of the Indian spirit manifests as the absence of personality or portrait, the contrast is between Egyptian historicity and Indian ahistoricity

[Anonymous No.20953441]

>>20953407
>These examples are from the 6th, 7th, 8th centuries
Doesn't matter, still too late. His whole point is that he doesn't believe in a ongoing history, so he never denied that Indians had adopted the Western style. It's that at the point of ancient Egypt (the time of dawn of hinduism) the Indians had a completely different tradition.
>the contrast is between Egyptian historicity and Indian ahistoricity
Exactly. He's not comparing ancient Egypt with middle ages India, he's comparing ancient Egypt with ancient India. He doesn't think that India never changed, he even shows differences between Egyptian and Greek philosophy, so you have to deliberetly misread him to think that he said Indian philosphy always was unpersonal.

[Anonymous No.20953456]

>>20953441
>he never denied that Indians had adopted the Western style. It's that at the point of ancient Egypt (the time of dawn of hinduism) the Indians had a completely different tradition
But the authors I mentioned aren't influenced by "the west" or by any foreigners at all, the obsessive focus with personality was a completely native Indian invention
>Exactly. He's not comparing ancient Egypt with middle ages India, he's comparing ancient Egypt with ancient India
He is simply not doing this, he is comparing Egypt, full stop, with India, full stop, he even mentions a 6th century Indian text to illustrate his point

[Anonymous No.20953483]

>>20953456
>But the authors I mentioned aren't influenced by "the west" or by any foreigners at all
Nobody can tell now. Even if it's true, you still can't name examples from ancient Indian texts to prove him wrong. Instead you make up stuff like
>he is comparing Egypt, full stop, with India, full stop
Which goes against his main philosophy, the reason he wrote the books in the first place. You think that he tought Egypt 3000 years ago is the same as Egypt in 1900? Or India 3000 years ago is the same as India in 1900? That would be the consequence of what you said.

I'm out, don't expect an answer. Going to read now, wasted too much time here already.

[Anonymous No.20953525]

>>20953483
>Nobody can tell now
There's no reason to assume any outside influence
>Which goes against his main philosophy, the reason he wrote the books in the first place. You think that he tought Egypt 3000 years ago is the same as Egypt in 1900?
It is in perfect accordance with his philosophy, every culture develops organically based on its original nature, interaction between cultures is impossible, so according to his system the cult of personality in classical period Indian works must proceed directly from the Indian spirit
The reason Egypt is different in 1900 is because it was overtaken by the Classical, Magian, Faustian cultures
Spengler fucked up, simple as

[Anonymous No.20953533]

>>20953149
Pre-internet people had nothing fuck else to do except read, cheat on each other, and start wars.

[Anonymous No.20953609]

>>20953149
Did he read the Akashic records? No? Opinion discarded

[Anonymous No.20954060]

>>20953149
>reads everyone
>still includes mystical mumbo jumbo in with his historical analysis

[Anonymous No.20954411]

>>20953184
Quote it. He never says "they didn't have portraiture".

[Anonymous No.20954775]

sex gifs

[Anonymous No.20954801]

He didnt read, he just referred. This is something you learn in academia. Philosophotards who devote their entire life to try to get an objective understanding of a single thinker never understand that the thinkers themselves treated their own sources much more offhandedly to advance their own thought.

[Anonymous No.20954812]

>>20953157
Anthony Fantano

[Anonymous No.20954839]

>>20954812
Understandable slip-up, they look similar and have similar political views

[Anonymous No.20955034]

He was literally an unmarried math teacher in Germany. What else was he going to do with his time?

[Anonymous No.20955090]

>>20954411
>Indian man forgot everything, but Egyptian man forgot NOTHING. Hence, while the art of portraiture - which is biography in the kernel - was unknown in India, in Egypt it was practically the artist's only theme.
Section IV of the introductory chapter. "The art of portraiture was unknown in India." This follows, according to Spengler, from the "purely ahistorical soul" of the Indians.
But in fact the art of portraiture was known despite the ahistorical nature of the Indians. This means not only that Spengler fucked up his research (and what a fuckup!) but that his analysis of the idea of history must be wrong if it leads him to such a conclusion.

[Anonymous No.20955182]

>>20955090
I don't have my copy of the book in front of me, so I can't take issue with the quote and will trust you've copied it verbatim. Still, it doesn't undermine his point. The Greeks had painted, and probably portraiture as well, but the quintessence of Greek culture was found in sculpture. And he elaborates on exactly this sort of idea in one of the later chapters about the Gothic vs. Renaissance and Renaissance artists. And is it not possible that certain facts were unknown at the time of his writing? I don't see how it undermines the point to point out it that it was more of an exaggeration than a factual statement.

[Anonymous No.20955192]

>>20953149
His Jewish blood gifted him with a high verbal iq.

[Anonymous No.20955228]

>>20955182
It certainly undermines his point on the Indian culture, which is dangerous to his project since the development of culture is known from the comparison of cultures, and because he wrongly imagines that ahistoricity leads to apersonality
Certain facts were certainly not unknown in Spengler's time, since the play Shakuntala, the single most popular work of Indian literature, which was read by his great favourite Goethe, has a scene where the hero looks at a portrait, remarks multiple times on how much it resembles the sitter, and ultimately is deluded to think that the portrait is actually reality - a motif which is actually repeated by subsequent authors, all in perfect refutation of his idea

[Anonymous No.20955863]

>>20953149
He had a team of readers that he consulted. He didn't read a book in his life.
Same way I can go post on /tv/ by just reading reviews of movies and television without ever watching any

[Anonymous No.20955927]

>>20955228
I really don't see how. Whether they had portraiture but didn't handle it as we do or didn't concern themselves with it too much or whether they didn't have it all, seems to make no difference at all in regard to the point being made. A single example of existing portrait means basically nothing.

[Anonymous No.20955940]

>>20955927
>seems to make no difference at all in regard to the point being made
The point is simply that Spengler's reading is patchy and that he makes false deductions from his concepts, that is all
>A single example of existing portrait means basically nothing
As I said before the motif of portraiture comes up in the literature time and time again

[Anonymous No.20956019]

>>20955863
Baseless slander

[Anonymous No.20956653]

>>20953609
Yes.

[Anonymous No.20957385]

>>20953152
Fpbp

[Anonymous No.20957964]

>>20953609
So Steiner was a weeb! Very based.

[Anonymous No.20958200]

>>20955090
something else i noticed about Egypt (though no clue whether it's true or false), is that he says Egypt forgot nothing, but i've read from two other historians that Egyptians had a habit of never writing anything bad that happened to them, only the good stuff.

leaving out half the story doesn't seem conducive to Spengler's statement that they "forgot nothing"

[Anonymous No.20958591]

>>20953378
>He is giving absolute statements supposedly applicable to Indian history in every age
That's so obviously wrong to anyone who knows Spengler. You quite obviously read one chapter at the most. Any culture can produce certain things as matter of incident, as opposed to inner drive and destiny. He literally points this out in reference to the Greek Aeolipile (a steam turbine), as made by Hero of Alexandria, and other Greek inventions eerily similar to industrial-era ones, yet not preceding an Industrial Revolution.
>>20953525
>There's no reason to assume any outside influence
Totally wrong. The Greek invasion of the Persian Empire and then India had a huge cultural impact on the whole east. Greeks actually introduced a lot of sculptural norms which would spread eastward, and were the originators of many depictions of the Buddha in sculpture.
>>20955940
>As I said before the motif of portraiture comes up in the literature time and time again
When and where?
>>20958200
>but i've read from two other historians that Egyptians had a habit of never writing anything bad that happened to them, only the good stuff.
>leaving out half the story doesn't seem conducive to Spengler's statement that they "forgot nothing"
What historians? What actual, firsthand knowledge of Egypt do you have to make such a statement? 'They only recorded the good.' Bullshit, you retard. Explain the sea peoples.

Spengler isn't a reductivist academic historian, and he does write in a Nietzschean fashion. But his statements make perfect sense in context. He's describing deep attitudes of a whole culture.
We know, for instance, that a lot of early Roman history in Caesar's time was a forgery. We also know that most of 'early' Indian literature was entirely anonymous, and that writing (as the kind of literary form as we know it, and not just proto-writing) came very late in Indian culture. The Pali Canon wasn't formalized until centuries after Buddha died. Could you imagine if texts written about Socrates weren't written until 400 years later? That authorship has some legendary attribution, which may or may not be conducive to reality (as the Iliad to Homer), says nothing of how little a literal authorship meant to certain cultures.
This is the kind of worldview of Indians through most of the Vedic period. The fact that we today, with modern historical methods (AKA western ones) can recreate 'world history' says nothing of the kind of historical world picture other cultures might have, without that western influence.

[Anonymous No.20958610]

>>20953378
>Well, to start with, almost every play has the author name himself in the prologue, a great number of the poems include the author and his genealogy, the philosophy has authors saying "Hello I am X and this is my book, I'm gonna be the most famous philosopher ever"
Which ones and when? I bet you're a streetshitter. You guys are so overly defensive, and shit up your own historiography by blocking proper textual criticism.
Funny enough, Kalidasa has a lot of false-attributions which have been picked up by western historians. Western historians who largely created proper Indian historiography, which in of itself would be wed to mythological creations otherwise. This is why the Vedas, and most of the critical Indian philosophical texts, are anonymous or written by Homer-like figures.

By comparison, there is no huge dispute that Parcival was written by Wolfram von Eschenbach, and it's a inane conspiracy theory that Shakespeare's plays were written by somebody else.

[Anonymous No.20959736]

>>20958591
>what other historians?
Algernon Herbert, wrote "Nimrod" in 1826. I think the other guy that said Egyptians don't document anything bad was Will Durant.

>you retard
why are you flipping out so much? I literally said in my post i don't know if it's true or not, only that i'd read it, which i have read it.
Absolutely hate online discussions, everyone pretends like they're the greatest scholars and then continue to behave like street-trash when having a discussion.

[Anonymous No.20959993]

>>20958591
>That's so obviously wrong to anyone who knows Spengler. You quite obviously read one chapter at the most. Any culture can produce certain things as matter of incident, as opposed to inner drive and destiny.
Firstly, completely irrelevant - Spengler is not saying that Indian portraiture was incidental or derived from foreign influence, he flat out denies its existence - go back and read the lines!
Secondly, the cult of personality in the Indian culture is by no means incidental as the Greek or Turkish steam engines were, rather it is a constantly reoccurring theme with a long history, common in the literature, acknowledged by aestheticians, etc., etc.
Thirdly, you claim that I have not read the book! How well-read are you on classical Indian drama or painting?
>Totally wrong. The Greek invasion of the Persian Empire and then India had a huge cultural impact on the whole east
The reason there is no reason to assume Greek influence on Indian drama is because there is no similarity between Greek drama and Indian drama, the genres, devices, techniques, aesthetics are all completely different - the few similarities that exist (for example, that both often use mythological plots, or that both have serious and funny plays) are ones that also exist in numerous other literatures - and because there is already a genesis for drama in the pure Indian context, as a kind of dramatic performance is mentioned in the Rig Veda
Even if we make the wild claim that Sanskrit drama originates from Greece, then whence the zealous insistence of the playwrights to have their name proclaimed at the beginning of every drama? I recall nothing like this in Aeschylus, Sophocles, or Euripides
>When and where?
I shall name three examples, firstly one from the "Dashakumaracharita" of Dandin wherein one of the heroes has a portrait painted in representation of a beautiful person, at which another character expresses admiration at its realism and desire to look like the sitter; secondly the part from Kalidasa already mentioned; thirdly a scene at the beginning of the "Uttararamacharita" of Bhavabhuti a follower of Kalidasa, wherein a character looking at a painted portrait is once again deceived to think it reality
Now it is commonly accepted that 2 or 3 centuries passed between these two authors, yet the latter is obviously using a device and a scene reliant on the ability of paintings to represent real persons derived from the former, is this the sign of an incidental invention?
>We also know that most of 'early' Indian literature was entirely anonymous, and that writing (as the kind of literary form as we know it, and not just proto-writing) came very late in Indian culture
Is this not a pattern seen in other cultures as well? Early literature is anonymous or of dubious attribution, while latter works can be definitely attributed to people - we have no knowledge of the author of Beowulf or the Book of Songs, and yourself compare Homer to Vyasa or Valmiki

[Anonymous No.20959999]

>>20958610
>Which ones and when
The exact lines I was referring to are in the "Malavikagnimitra" of Kalidasa, the "Malatimadhava" of Bhavabhuti, and the "Tattvopaplavasimha" of Jayarasa - the same thing is also done by Harsha, Shudraka, Vishakhadatta, Magha, Jayantabhatta, Murari, etc., etc.
Because India has no history the dating of these authors is obscure but they are generally estimated to have written between the collapse of the Guptas and the invasion of Mahmud of Ghazni
>I bet you're a streetshitter
Am not
>Western historians who largely created proper Indian historiography, which in of itself would be wed to mythological creations otherwise
I know this and hold the same opinion, which is why I agreed earlier on that India is ahistorical, my point of disagreement here is that Spengler misunderstands the consequences of ahistoricity
Don't get me wrong I like Spengler, his analysis of the Western and Classical cultures is very very strong, but elsewhere he fails, and people should be critical of him when he does

[Anonymous No.20960143]

>>20959999
You are missing the forest for the trees with Spengler. You might legitimately have autism

[Anonymous No.20960383]

>>20960143
It may be just one problem but it's a pretty bad one, as I said it reflects badly on his research and his conception of history, and since the cultures are known by referencing each other it weakens the whole edifice
If I had other criticisms I would perhaps say that his idea of the Chinese culture is equally retarded since by making Qin Shi Huangdi into the Caesar figure he is forced to discount most of the data available and so is left making statements like "it certainly was X", "it must have been Y", to me it seems much much more logical to make the Song dynasty the beginning of Civilization since this was when the "great concluding systems" crystallized (Chan Buddhism, Neo-Confucianism, Religious Taoism), literature became novelty-chasing and vulgarized through printing and the introduction of foreign forms, arts like architecture and painting crystallized into the forms that persisted into the Qing, etc., etc.
But even this is small fry, I think his project has serious methodological issues, he seems unsure of whether his work is supposed to be taken as a description of reality, he claims that his history is only the Faustian view of history and not to be taken seriously, but also that history will really honestly play out in this way and that's why you should get into STEM - then there's his debate with Weber where he admitted that he thinks of himself more as a poet than a scientist... Decline of the West is a great work with great problems

[Anonymous No.20960391]

>>20960383
I mean, that *his history is only the Faustian view of history and not to be taken as an objective view which is indeed impossible in his system

[Anonymous No.20960414]

>>20960383
This not true, for the minor errors of scholarship he made are academic in the face of the metaphysics. The morphological aspect and symbolism is what he elucidates, and with this all details are extraneous. Chinese culture is felt as he recognises it is. Your understanding is some objectivist pedantics and thus too parochial.

[Anonymous No.20960451]

>>20960414
Do we not then agree that the book has some brilliant aspects and some poorer ones? Spengler himself says that DotW should inspire young men to take the right path in life and start doing STEM instead of art - if a man wants his book to determine your life choices, you should examine it as pedantically as possible

[Anonymous No.20960452]

>>20953149
I remember Girard distinguished between theorists (of which he took himself to be) and scholars (people who investigate the threads, so to speak). Spengler is clearly the former. He doesn't care about if he's tied every loose knot, as that's a behemoth of a task for any one man to perform. He's more interested in laying out a grand history of the world, a vision and warning that can inspire others to complete the project he started.

tl;dr
>Spengler: source? I made it up!

[Anonymous No.20960508]

>>20960451
It is the biography of the western man, do not treat it like an encyclopaedia or textbook. It is poetry and transcendent. Many books cause men to act, the bible, das kapital, koran, mein kampf. Embrace the second religiousness and become a man of technics.

[Anonymous No.20960518]

>>20960508
Those seem a bit at odds.

[Anonymous No.20960543]

>>20960508
Sorry not gonna live my life based on poetry

[Anonymous No.20961231]

>>20960543
>Sorry not gonna live my life based on poetry

[Anonymous No.20961268]

>>20953149
He didn't waste his time on 4channel

[Anonymous No.20961480]

>>20960391
>and not to be taken as an objective view which is indeed impossible in his system
You're mistaking "objective" for "absolute". Spengler's view is the Faustian one, and every can agree on that. It is objectively the case that Spengler' view is the Faustian one. Just because OTHER Culture-Civilizations have their own views on his theories does not change the objectivity of Spengler's views. A Faustian Man can also agree that, say, a Chinese Man's view is objectively the Chinese Man's view. The lack of an absolute history implies relativism, but not a lack of objectivity.

Relative is the antonym of Absolute, not Objective. The anonym of Objective is Subjective.

[Anonymous No.20961529]

I don't remember it ever being mentioned that he was much of a reader, but I guess it's plausible that he was, given that he likely still had a lot of time to fill after cataloguing and getting his minerals, geodes and rocks ready for display.

[Anonymous No.20961697]

>>20960543
Filtered

[Anonymous No.20961784]

If you think Spengler was into reading, check Erich Auerbach and you'll be blow away.

[Anonymous No.20962868]

>>20961480
I am questioning whether Spengler's account of history is to be taken as a correct description of reality, an issue on which he himself s remarkably uncertain

[Anonymous No.20962889]

>>20953149
Faustian Culture (venturing into the infinite purely because it is there) will be succeeded by Faustian Culture 2 (venturing into the infinite to get away from minorities)

[Anonymous No.20962902]

>>20953157
alister crowley

[Anonymous No.20962904]

>>20959993
>Is this not a pattern seen in other cultures as well? Early literature is anonymous or of dubious attribution, while latter works can be definitely attributed to people - we have no knowledge of the author of Beowulf or the Book of Songs
No, it's not a pattern in every culture. Beowulf for example is from the middle ages, so a time where we know the authors of most books. The examples you named are just outliers, just as we don't know the author of the Kybalion, even though it's a relatively new book. The fact that we know all the authors of ancient Greek texts shows how it was not a pattern for the West.