Decline of the West; the Hour of Decision

The Oswald Spengler Collection: Biographical Essay; Extracts From The Decline Of The West; The Hour Of Decision Biographical Essay by Donald Stockton Biographical Essay Extracts From The Decline Of The West Extracts From The Decline Of The West: Introduction Sections from Spengler, The Decline of the West: The Problem Of Civilization Introduction: The Conclusion - Imperialism Architecture and Divinities Imitation and Ornament The History Of Style As An Organism Music And Plastic: The Arts Of Form Popular And Esoteric Character Will To Power Impressionism The Morale Of Dawning Civilization The Great Style: The History Of Style As An Organism Pergamum And Bayreuth: The End Of Art Classical Behaviour Drama And Faustian Character Drama Every Culture Possesses Its Own Ethic Every Science Is Dependent Upon Religion Atheism Origin And Landscape: The Group Of The Higher Cultures Cities And Peoples Reformation Science, Puritanism The Second Religiousness The State Philosophy Of Politics Conclusion Readers notes for The Hour Of Decision: Part One: Germany And World Historical Evolution, London, 1934: This document, prepared for Internet publication, replaces chapter headings with Roman numerals, has alterations whereby internal page references are necessarily rendered into references to other sections, a spelling correction and the replacement of a body reference to a footnote. The Hour Of Decision was composed just after the Nazi revolution, and was banned by Third Reich authority. It assessed the decline of European power and its crisis of culture and civilization, the placement of the then-Russia within the province of a global challenge to Western Civilization, and the roles of capitalism and Marxism in the crisis. The book (guardedly but prophetically) placed deep reservations against the Nazis to make appropriate choices. Dated by the immediate circumstances it describes, the work nonetheless has a general quality which makes it part of the literature of the struggle for a 'European' Cultural Renaissance. The Hour Of Decision: Introduction The Hour Of Decision: Part One The Hour Of Decision: Part Two The Hour Of Decision: Part Three The Hour Of Decision: Part Four Homepage Oswald Spengler's Uneven Legacy by Donald L. Stockton SHORTLY BEFORE the end of the First World War, in the summer of 1918, a sizable volume appeared in bookstores throughout Germany. Bearing the title Der Untergang des Abendlandes (The Decline of the West), and written by an unknown former schoolmaster, the work in a short period of time found a wide audience. The initial printing was completely sold out in a period of six months, and a second and third printing followed. Though primarily read in the nation of Germany, the ominous title and original scholarship that the book presented caused it to spread gradually throughout the Western world. Within the course of two years, the name of Oswald Spengler was on the lips of many, both intellectual and unlearned. Although both the Decline and its author are little-known today, for nearly two decades after its publishing the historical thought contained within the pages of Spengler's first work was included in most discussions of historical thinking, as well as discussions of possible future events. What, then, was the unique nature of The Decline of the West, and why has interest in the work so faded in the intervening time? Further, who was this unknown Oswald Spengler, and how did he originate the highly inventive ideas that made this work so greatly debated? These are the questions that I will attempt to illumine in this essay, in conjunction with some brief discussions of Spengler's more minor works. I will also attempt to define Spengler's influence on later historical thinkers, something I think is important for a true understanding of the author's legacy. Biographical Sketch of Spengler's Early Life ITHINK IT NECESSARY to inform the reader that it is a difficult if not hopeless task to uncover much information about Oswald Spengler's personal life. In searching a library of almost six million items, as well as various other resources, I was only able to find one book in English with any significant biographical information on Spengler -- Oswald Spengler: A Critical Estimate by H. Stuart Hughes. Even that one book was very limited in its information, and yet it was that same work that served as reference not only for the Encyclopedia Britannica, but also for other references that included discussions of Spengler. These facts serve to prompt again the question asked earlier: Why has knowledge of Spengler faded so far from contemporary thinking? I will address that question later in this paper. Born in the summer of 1880 in the small town of Blankenburg, Germany, Spengler was raised by parents of reasonable means. His father was a former mining technician who had become a postal worker, and from him the author of the Decline seems to have received the scientific and mathematical gifts he would later develop. After graduating from a classical high school in Halle, Germany, he followed the typical German practice of attending several universities in turn -- Munich, Berlin, and finally Halle. He returned to Halle in 1901 to complete his doctoral degree. He studied in mathematics and natural sciences, and chose as his thesis topic the fragments of Heraclitus, a somewhat obscure pre-Socratic philosopher, and completed the degree in 1904. Spengler was interested in education, and passed the state teaching examination shortly after completing his doctoral degree. He initially took a position at Saarbrücken, and he taught subsequently in Düsseldorf and Hamburg. After moving up to the Hamburg Realgymnasium (practical high school), Spengler was asked to teach a variety of subjects, from German to history and geography. He was remembered as a fine instructor, with a insightful teaching style, and was well-liked by his students as well as his fellow professors. This was to be his last teaching position, however, as the climate of Hamburg aggravated the severe headaches that he often suffered from. At this point Spengler moved to Munich and there took up residence as a private scholar, living austerely on a small income that he received from inheritance. His financial condition degenerated even further before the outbreak of World War I, as most of the funds in his inheritance were in foreign bonds, and these no longer brought in any interest. He was not called for military service, due to his headaches and an inner-ear ailment, and spent most of the war years living in a dingy slum apartment, eating poorly, and writing down by candlelight many of the concepts that would later appear in the Decline. Spengler was sustained during this time by the conviction that within him the seed of a powerful idea was developing, and that it was only a matter of time before that idea would come to his fruition. The Genesis of The Decline of the West IT WAS DURING THIS TIME in Munich, where Spengler seemed to have reached such a desperate point in his own life's history, that he abruptly formed a new and striking vision of the world's history. At that time the World-War appeared to me both as imminent and also as the inevitable outward manifestation of the historical crisis, and my endeavor was to comprehend it from an examination of the spirit of the preceding centuries -- not years... Thereafter I saw the present -- the approaching World-War -- in a quite other light... I [saw] world-history as a picture of endless formations and transformations, of the marvelous waxing and waning of organic forms. Spengler's natural affinity for science and the natural world led him to form a highly original philosophy of history -- namely, that the existence of a culture mirrors that of a biological organism. Birth, growth, apogee, decay, and death were features that were present in both phenomena, and the rhythms of nature could be found as the underpinnings in the development of individual human cultures. Spengler called this concept "the cyclical morphology of culture" and presented the metaphysical grounds for such a theory in the preface to his Decline of the West, which I will discuss later. Spengler initially wrote what would become the first volume of the Decline in the form of long aphorisms that were essentially detailed reflections on one central concept. He felt that this rather unsystematic way of approaching the investigation would lead to more intuitive and vital understanding. As Spengler wrote in the introduction to the Decline, [My writing] is intuitive and depictive through and through, written in a language which seeks to present objects and relations illustratively instead of offering an army of ranked concepts." Although critics maintain that this technique makes the work fragmentary and uneven in nature, Spengler felt the aphoristic style, which he had adopted from the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, was the most powerful way to reach organic ideas that could not be systematically analyzed. Nietzsche was not the only thinker who had affected Spengler's manner of interpretation, as I will show in the following section. Spengler's Influences BEFORE LAUNCHING INTO A DISCUSSION (or a reading) of the Decline, it is beneficial to have a general frame of the author's major sources for inspiration and insight. Although Spengler is an extremely intuitive historian, often leaving the reader somewhat baffled by broad jumps in thought that he makes in the Decline, he is not without method or precedent. His work is, in some ways, a manifestation of certain intellectual trends that had been present (primarily in German philosophy) for some time. G.W.F. Hegel, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, and Friedrich Nietzsche are often mentioned specifically by Spengler throughout his works as predecessors in thought, and there are a great number of others that are alluded to.

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