Oswald Spengler: Prophet of the decline or thinker of the future?

Oswald Spengler: Prophet of the decline or thinker of the future?

Halle a.d. Saale, Deutschland - Oswald Spengler (1880–1936) is often seen as a prophet of the decline and forerunner National Socialist worldview. His main work "The Fall of the West" was completed in April 1917 during the First World War and published in 1918. The second volume followed in 1922. Spengler saw the decay as an inevitable component of a cultural cycle and explained that both "culture" and "civilization" are central terms of his theory. While civilization describes the maturity stage of cultures, it is also a sign of expiry for Spengler.

The publication of his work fell together with the German defeat in the First World War, which many Germans experienced as humiliation. This historical context followed a search for reasons for this catastrophe. In this respect, Spengler's argument fits that the West is falling due to its cultural development, exactly during this time. The book developed into the most read non-fiction book of the Weimar Republic, and around 200,000 copies sold up to the 1930s.

the cycle of culture and civilization

Spengler identified four phases of every culture: spring, summer, autumn and winter and viewed the life path of cultures for about a thousand years. He warned of nihilism and asked the youth to educate himself for politics and be active. He believed that the Germans still had to deal with tasks, including the social question. The concept of home also plays an important role in Spengler's theory, but it remains diffuse and could be used to exclude groups.

The Austrian philosopher Peter Strasser explains that the location of the loss in the history of salvation was located in Spengler's history of the history of many German response. However, a central aspect in Spengler's thinking was also his anti-democracy and revolution. He blamed the 1918 November Revolution for Germany's political misery and saw the solution to the existing problems in a dictator.

Spengler's influence and inheritance

In his late work, Spengler tried to overcome the contrast between high cultures and the rest of humanity. His methodology was criticized by scientists as a dilettant, but "the fall of the West" impressed a wide audience because it processed data from various scientific disciplines. It became the starting point for discussions about the decline of western values ​​and democracy.

Strasser observes a renaissance of Spengler's ideas in the new right, which he considers to be questionable. For Spengler, the fall of the West is necessary to make room for "Caesarism", which he saw as a future form of rule. Historical processes only screamed within high cultures, and Spengler predicted the advent of a Russian-Asian high culture after the course of its doom.

In the past few decades, Spengler has been received in the debate about the “End of History” and influenced Samuel P. Huntington's “The Clash of Civilizations”. His work is one of the most successful and controversial since 1918 and still offers food for thought about the development of cultures and their fates.