Farrenkopf Spengler.Pdf

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global modernization. Spengler, on the other hand, as an anti-modern- ist thinker, never sought to deny the highly exploitative features of Western imperialism. He attempted to legitimize his own imperialist program for Germany by arguing, in conformance with his extreme his- torical determinism, the inevitability of Western empire-building, but also, by tirelessly asserting the putative, Social Darwinistic nature of international political competition.

Capitalism's collapse?

Turning our attention from imperialism to the related historical phe- nomenon of capitalism, Spengler offers some provocative ideas about the future evolution of capitalism that have hardly been appreciated in the critical literature on his thought.33 He appears to have been influ- enced by Brentano's critical posture toward British classical economic theory and Sombart's historical and cultural approach to understand- ing modern capitalism. Spengler believed that the epoch-making indus- trial revolution was not primarily a consequence of the desire to satisfy universal human material needs as did Smith, Cobden, and Marx, but the product of the psychological idiosyncracies of Western culture. He expressed this idea explicitly in a lecture delivered in 1926, "the impulse for this radical revolution of all economic relationships derived neither from a practical necessity or in any way from the praxis itself, but from a psychological drive, which initially lay entirely outside of the economy."34Capitalism, he declares in The Decline of the West,should be understood as "the objectification of something thoroughly spiritual, the concretization of an idea in a living, historical form."35 Modern capitalism is the mechanistic, materialistic, and utilitarian expression, during the phase of Zivilisation, of the extraordinarily dynamic ethos of Western culture as originally embodied in Germanic-Catholic Chris- tianity. Spengler's ideas on the relation between capitalism and Chris- tianity stand in sharp contrast to those of his acquaintance Weber, with whom he publicly debated in the Munich Rathaus in February, 1920 the philosophy advanced in the first volume of The Decline of the West. While Weber championed the now widely-held, but nonetheless con- troversial idea, that the ethical precepts of Catholicism were antagonis- tic to the rise of the capitalistic ethos, Spengler views the fundament of Germanic-Catholic Christianity as being indispensable to the later emergence of capitalism. The relation between capitalism and religion the latter posits is the reverse of Marx's position, who argued that reli- gion was merely an ideological form superstructurally dependent upon the economic base of society. 403

According to Spengler's bold philosophy of history, the crises that periodically befall modern capitalism will become more acute, con- tributing to the G6tterddmmerung of civilization as we know it. He believed that the intermittently unstable qualities of capitalistic inter- action were permanently rooted in the dynamic, spiritual fundament of Western culture and that this tendency to instability would eventually become dominant and dangerous. Despite his admiration for indus- trialists and the intimate contacts he cultivated with the German busi- ness elite during the Weimar years, Spengler was gripped by the intri- guing idea that the spectacular rise of the modern world economy since the onset of the industrial revolution was "fantastical,""dangerous," and "almost desperate."36 Consequently, neither was capitalism to endure more or less indefinitely as many bourgeois economists sanguinely imagined, nor was it to be supplanted by a superior, socialistic form of industrial civilization in a final, transcendent epoch of social revolution as Marx optimistically prophesied. Spengler maintained that modern capitalism, in the twilight phase of Western Zivilisation, manifested extreme dynamism in materialistic and highly complex form and would become increasingly unstable and ultimately impossible to manage effectively by macroeconomic policies. He rejects the debatable and reassuring tenet of neoclassical economics that capitalism has robust, self-corrective tendencies that will help facilitate its ongoing existence. Spengler formulates the challenging idea, arguably anticipatory of the Great Depression and the current, unfolding crisis of the global economy:

the quantity of work of all cultures grows by a monstrous amount, and so there develops at the beginning of every civilization an intensity of economic activity, which is excessive in its tension and constantly in danger and no- where can be maintained for very long.37

Spengler became aware, over time, of the very considerable limitations of any philosophy of history, including his own, with respect to en- abling one to predetermine major historical developments with speci- ficity. Thus he declines to hazard a prediction of when the modern international economy will collapse. One gains the impression from his writings that he viewed this ultimate crisis of capitalism as a lengthy process, which would reach its conclusion in the early part of the coming millennium. Spengler argued that fierce economic competition emanating from non-Western economies would constitute a key factor in the final breakdown of the global economy.38 He predicted the cata- strophic undermining of the very foundation of the Western economies 404

due to the progressive loss of their international economic competitive- ness. This stunning decline in competitiveness would result from the eventual stagnation of the Western technological and scientific niveau (caused largely by an increasing disinterest among youth and their turning to new life-styles), much lower wage-scales and a stronger work ethic in the non-Western world, and the disastrous diffusion of technol- ogy by the West in the non-Western world ("the betrayal of technics").39

Global ecological crisis

Ecological issues have dramatically grown in importance in inter- national affairs since the 1960s, most recently emerging as the focal point of discussion at the largest gathering in history of the world's leaders at the Earth Summit in Brazil in 1992. Spengler's frequently unappreciated philosophy of history is of relevance here. After putting the finishing touches to The Decline of the West, which focused on advanced civilizations since the agricultural revolution, he immersed himself in the study of prehistory and early civilizational history, thanks in large part to the influence of the gifted and unorthodox ethnologist and cultural philosopher, Leo Frobenius. The boundaries of his histori- cal universe significantly expanded, Spengler came to see all of world history as being far more tragic than he originally believed. It was dominated by an awesome, self-destructive struggle between man and nature since the dawn of prehistory. World history becomes for Spengler the saga of the tragic and hopeless struggle between man, the "inventive beast of prey,"and nature, one that will be waged to its bitter end.4" The human race "plunders" and "poisons" nature in Spengler's view.41Focusing his attention on Western civilization, he observed that it has audaciously challenged the natural world by extracting its secrets in order to facilitate its thoroughgoing exploitation. Thus, it is adjudged to be the most tragic of all civilizations.

The Faustian, West European culture is perhaps not the last, but certainly the mightiest, most passionate, through its inner contrast between compre- hensive intellectualization and deepest, spiritual turmoil, the most tragic of all. It is possible that a feeble straggler comes along yet, somewhere on the plain between the Vistula and the Amur and in the next millennium. But, here is the struggle between nature and man, who through his historical existence has rebelled against her, practically fought to its end.42

Locke, Smith, Kant, Hegel, Ranke, and Marx lacked sensitivity to the dark side of humankind's intensive interaction with the natural world, 405 of which the global ecological crisis in the late twentieth century has profoundly raised our consciousness. Bourgeois and communist expo- nents of the idea of progress alike revelled in the phenomenal ability of the human species to unlock the secrets of nature, to exploit its natural resources, and to harness its energy. Spengler, as the heir in German cultural pessimism to Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, hammers home the thesis of the profound irrationality of modern civilization. Spengler grasps the irrational and extremely dangerous quality of humankind's extraordinary sophisticated, yet ultimately brutal mastery of the envi- ronment. In 1931 he prophetically wrote,

The mechanization of the world has entered into a stage of most dangerous, excessive tension. The face of the earth with its plants, animals and men has been altered. In a few decades most of the great forests have disappeared, have been transformed into newspaper and consequently climatic changes have occured, which threaten the agriculture of entire populations; countless species like the buffalo have been completely or almost completely wiped out, entire races of men like the North American Indians and the Australian aborigines have been brought virtually to a state of extinction.43

Nearing the end of this century, one can easily fill in Spengler's imper- fect sketch of a global ecological crisis with alarming details. The list of environmental concerns is already depressingly long and expands relentlessly - the preservation of biological diversity, the greenhouse effect, acid rain, the death of forests in Europe, desertification, damage to the ozone layer, and the dilemmas of safely disposing of toxic chemi- cals and nuclear wastes.

The demise of the scientific and technological age?

Spengler, who wrote his doctoral dissertation on the pre-Socratic philosopher Heraclitus of Ephesus, the Dark One, conceives of history as being a world of constant flux, of mutability. In contrast to enthu- siasts of modern progress, Spengler regarded Western science and technology as cultural forms subject to the corrosive power of time. The rise of modern science and technology is not merely a reaction to material needs and thus at a certain level rational, as Marx and Weber believed; they are fundamental cultural products of the West and thus transitory, like all forms of culture.

This industrial technology will reach its end with Faustian man and will some day lie demolished and forgotten - railroads and steamships just like once 406

the Roman roads and the Great Wall of China, our enormous cities with their skyscrapers in the same way as the palaces of old Memphis and Baby- lon. The history of this technology is rapidly approaching its ineluctable end. It will be consumed from within like all great forms of any culture.44

There is an additional argument supporting the unconventional thesis of the demise of the scientific and technological age as a result of in- eluctable historical forces, one implicitly contained in Spengler's philosophy. The highly vulnerable, fragile, globally interdependent nexus of scientific and technological processes may very well disappear amid the cataclysmic disintegration of international order. No one, of course, can foresee the evolution of international relations in the 1990s and beyond. However, in contrast to Fukuyama, whose sanguine sce- nario has liberal democracy triumphantly marking the end of the tumul- tuous process of history, I suggest that, tragically, the apocalyptic end of the modern age is a more likely prospect. The inability of the severely economically weakened and debt-ridden United States, the architect of world order in the twentieth century, to help in the construction of a viable, post-Cold War international order; the danger of ethnic strife and chaos erupting in the former Soviet empire as the region struggles with the unprecedented experiment in economic and democratic tran- sition; the acute danger of the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction; the worrisome global economic slowdown and the prob- lem of protectionism; the North-South crisis and the ongoing popula- tion explosion in the Third World; and the ineradicability of cultural, ethnic, and nationalistic conflict in the world underscore the fragility and tenuousness of international order. Moreover, the mind-boggling rapidity with which extremely complicated international political and economic events transpire compels one to question seriously if the world's leaders are equal to the monumental task of managing world order. Our extraordinarily complex and fragile global civilization is at risk; it rests perilously upon the tectonic plates of international politics, which threaten to shift violently and bring it crashing down.

A cataclysmic climax to world history?

Historical pessimists, including Vollgraff, Lasaulx, Gobineau, Burck- hardt, Brooks and Henry Adams, and Spengler himself in his major work, treated the civilizational crisis of the West in the less drastic cate- gories of decline, decadence, sterility, and exhaustion. After completing The Decline of the West, Spengler went on to conceive a catastrophic 407 vision of world history. World history, which in his major work was pic- tured as consisting of a virtually eternal process of essentially auton- omous civilizations undergoing cycles of rise and decline, he later compares in an arresting analogy with an avalanche driven toward a cataclysmic terminus. "It drives something, that began around 5000 B.C., towards the end like an avalanche."45As the tempo of world his- tory accelerates it "assumes tragic dimensions"; "the rolling stone approaches in tearing leaps the abyss."46The three stages of prehistory and the fourth stage of civilizational history in Spengler's topology of world history in his late work reach a dramatic finale in modern times. "We stand today at the climax, there, where the fifth act begins. The final decisions will be reached. The tragedy comes to a close."47 In the deeply tragic historical philosophy he adumbrates after finishing The Decline of the West,48 Spengler retains his basic pattern of civilizational cycles. Yet, the civilizations of world history now combine to form a spiral pattern culminating in a catastrophic climax - the probable end of advanced civilization.

Criticism of Spengler's historical philosophy

Spengler's sensational philosophy of world history, showcased in The Decline of the West,unleashed the most important literary controversy in Germany during the interwar period. His historical philosophy remains vulnerable to extensive criticism. The following list of critical points is an abbreviated one. Firstly, at a general level, any ambitious attempt to press violently the complexities of world history into a methodical, historical-philosophical system, as his did, is not free from considerable errors and flaws. Secondly, his philosophy of history, like that of Hegel and Marx, is deterministic. Croce, with his faith that the West would be saved, took issue with Spengler's denial of an open future to humankind.

Man is intellectuality, for that reason creativity, and carries with him infinite powers, which enable him to face all situations, to overcome and to trans- form them, no matter how difficult or desperate they may appear to be.49

On the other hand, Spengler was arguably correct in insisting that the limitations on human freedom in the overall process of history may very well be greater than is typically presumed to be the case. Thirdly, the completeness of his taxonomy of cultures, to say nothing of what are the spatial and temporal limits of a given culture or civilization, is 408 open to serious question. His indefagitable successor, Toynbee, classi- fied for comparative analysis more than twenty civilizations in his monumental A Study of History. Moreover, Spengler subjects only West European culture, classical antiquity, and the Arab world to in-depth analysis in his major work; the remaining cultures receive comparative- ly little attention. Fourthly, his controversial idea that cultures develop essentially independently from each other exaggerates the element of discontinuity in world history and does not do justice to the existence of considerable scientific and technological progress before 1000 A.D. Fifthly, there exists the contradiction between Spengler's assertion that the essence of earlier cultural phenomena in history was so foreign to Westerners that it could not be fully apprehended or appreciated by them and his graciously performing the role of an authoritative inter- preter, who to the relief of the perplexed Western observer of alien cul- tures, deciphers their cultural symbolism and the meaning of their his- tory.

Turning our attention briefly to the philosophy of world history Spengler developed after publishing his major work, we are struck by its visionary nature and how it anticipates post-World War II anxieties about an apocalyptic end to history. The 1990 Nobel laureate in Liter- ature, Octavio Paz, recently gave eloquent expression to the gnawing anxiety about an apocalyptic terminus to world history, observing,

The crisis, whatever our political and social institutions may be and inde- pendent of our beliefs and opinions, is already upon us, making itself felt in increasingly peremptory and threatening terms. It can even be said, without exaggeration, that the main theme of the last days of this century is not the political organization or reorganization of our societies, but the urgent ques- tion: How are we to ensure the survival of humanity? 50

Spengler, in dramatically changing his philosophy of history after immersing himself in the study of prehistory, has helped to illumine the awful blackness of the tragedy of world history and modernity. Yet his factual knowledge of prehistory is quite dated and erroneous about sig- nificant matters, as tremendous strides in research have been made since his death.

Conclusion

Nothwithstanding the considerable shortcomings of Spengler's theory of history, he has delivered an impressive challenge to historical 409 optimism, whether bouyant as in the case of Marx and Fukuyama, or guarded and tentative, as was the case, most recently, with McNeill.5' Spengler strives to demonstrate, as passionately as historical optimists attempt to deny, that world history is immutably and profoundly tragic. With his insight into the tremendous obstacles frustrating the irrepres- sible dream of humankind to transcend interstate conflict, his path- breaking appreciation of the significance of non-Western cultures, his impassioned advocacy of the universality and inexorability of the phe- nomenon of civilizational decline, and his intriguing argument of the insurmountable irrationality and uncontrollable dynamism of moder Western capitalism, Spengler sketches a compelling vision of the future of Western civilization, one that demands renewed attention in the twilight of the second millennium A.D.

There is a disturbing element of truth in Erich Heller's witty observa- tion that "the history of the West since 1917 looks like the work of children clumsily filling in with lurid colors a design drawn in outlines by Oswald Spengler."52For history has validated as largely realistic Spengler's cyclorama of the crisis of the West - the violent reorganiza- tion of the nation-states of the West under the international hegemony of one power; the increasingly destructive role of money and interest groups in Western democratic polities, the propensity to political apathy among their citizenry, and the mediocrity of their political leadership; the widespread quasi-pacifism of Western populaces; the erosion in moral values; irreversible urban decay; the downward- sloping birth rate of the nations of the West; the revolt of the non- Western world against their former, imperial masters; the intensifying challenge of economic competition from the non-West; and mounting, international economic crisis. Regrettably, the future will probably not hold for us the fervently desired progress of modern civilization. Alter- natively, and contrary to the expectations of various historical opti- mists, modern civilization may quite possibly not even demonstrate the ability to retain the gains of civilizational advance already made and ward off catastrophe on an overpopulated, ecologically overstressed, and economically, politically, and culturally divided planet undergoing extremely rapid change. The tragic decline of the West with the cata- strophic end to civilization as we know it is the provocative, alarming, and eminently plausible conclusion arrived at in the historical reflec- tions of Spengler, the master historical pessimist of the modern West. 410

Notes

1. Francis Fukuyama, "The End of History?" The National Interest 16 (Summer 1989): 3-18 and Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man (New York: Free Press, 1992). 2. Georg G. Iggers, The German Conception of History: The National Tradition of Historical Thought from Herder to the Present, rev. ed. (Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 1983), 4. 3. Oswald Spengler, Der Untergang des Abendlandes: Umrisse einer Morphologie der Weltgeschichte, vol. I., Gestalt und Wirklichkeit [1918], rev. ed. (Munich: C. H. Beck'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1923), 33, 65. All the translations from German into English in this article are the author's. 4. Spengler was galvanized into setting to work on The Decline of the West by the Agadir crisis of 1911, which raised the specter of a general European war. 5. Ernst Breisach, Historiography: Ancient, Medieval, and Modern (Chicago: Univer- sity of Chicago Press, 1983), 320. 6. Friedrich Nietzsche, Sdmtliche Werke.Kritische Studienausgabe, 15 vols. 2d ed., ed. Giorgio Colli and Mazzino Montinari (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1988), vol. VI., Der Antichrist [1895], 171. 7. See H. Stuart Hughes, Oswald Spengler: A Critical Estimate (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1952), 7. 8. Spengler, Der Untergang des Abendlandes, vol. I., 27ff. 9. Oswald Spengler, Preuf3entum und Sozialismus (Munich: C. H. Beck'sche Verlags- buchhandlung, 1920), 79. 10. Oswald Spengler, Der Untergang des Abendlandes: Umrisse einer Morphologie der Weltgeschichte, vol. II., Welthistorische Perspektiven [1922] (Munich: C. H. Beck'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1923), 43. 11. Spengler, Der Untergang des Abendlandes, vol. I., 27ff. 12. Ibid., 147. 13. Hegel argued that each particular national spirit "expresses concretely all sides of its consciousness and aspiration, its entire reality. Its religion, its political constitu- tion, its customs, its legal system, its morality, also its science, art and technical skills, all bear its stamp." Hegel, Philosophie der Geschichte (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1970),87. 14. Spengler, Der Untergang des Abendlandes, vol. II., 41. 15. Spengler, Der Untergang des Abendlandes, vol. I., 235. 16. Ibid., 431. 17. Spengler, Der Untergang des Abendlandes, vol. II., 31. 18. Spengler, Der Untergang des Abendlandes, vol. I., 139. 19. Ibid., 28. 20. Ibid., 143. 21. Ibid., 139. 22. William Dray, "A Vision of World History: Oswald Spengler and the Life-Cycles of Cultures," chapter in Perspectives on History (London: Routledge and K. Paul, 1980), 104. 23. Spengler, Der Untergang des Abendlandes, vol. I., 417ff. 24. J. M. Roberts, The Pelican History of the World (Harmondsworth, England: Penguin Books, 1983), 309. 25. "Indisputable remains [his] service, to have made the breakthrough to the creation of an historical world which embraces the entire globe, an historical universe." 411

Joseph Vogt, Wege zum historischen Universum: Von Ranke bis Toynbee (Stuttgart: W. KohlhammerVerlag, 1961), 73. 26. "Forthe splendidlyclear, highlyintellectual forms of a fast steamer,a steel plant,a precisionmachine, the subtletyand elegance of certainchemical and optical tech- niques I would exchange the whole stylistic plunderingof today's arts and crafts, painting and architectureincluded." Spengler, Der Untergangdes Abendlandes, vol. I., 58. 27. Ibid.,217. 28. Spengler, Der Untergang des Abendlandes, vol. II., 594. 29. Spengler, PreufJentumund Sozialismus, 52. 30. Ibid., 50-51. 31. "After Madrid, Paris, London, follow Berlin and New York." Spengler, Der Unter- gang des Abendlandes, vol. I., 43. The two great alternatives for the concluding eco- nomic and civilizational,imperial form of the West, championedby Germanyand the United States,each possess theirlocus in theirdominant megalopolises. 32. Spenglerdid toy with the idea that the United States instead of Germanymight attainglobal primacy.In the second volumeof TheDecline of the Westhe observed, the "riseof New York to a world city throughthe War of Secession of 1861-1865 is perhaps the most momentous event of the preceding century."Spengler, Der Untergang des Abendlandes, vol. II., 117. 33. The German philosopher Theodor Adorno inaccuratelystated that Spengler's "understandingof economic events remainsthat of a helpless dilettante."H. Stuart Hughes echoes this critique,declaring that "theworkings of the economic process escape him."Theodor W. Adorno, "Zu Oswald Spenglers 70. Geburtstag,"Der Monat 2/20 (May 1950): 125. Hughes, Oswald Spengler, 155. 34. Oswald Spengler, "Das heutige Verhaltnis zwischen Weltwirtschaftund Welt- politik"[1926], in PolitischeSchriften (Munich: C. H. Beck'scheVerlagsbuchhand- lung, 1934), 319. 35. Spengler, Der Untergang des Abendlandes, vol. II., 59. 36. Ibid., 583. 37. Ibid., 594. 38. Oswald Spengler, Der Mensch und die Technik: Beitrag zu einer Philosophie des Lebens [1931] (Munich: C. H. Beck'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1971), 60. 39. Ibid., 56-60. 40. Ibid., 18, 24-25. 41. Ibid., 48, 55. 42. Ibid., 44. 43. Ibid., 54-55. 44. Ibid., 61. 45. Oswald Spengler, Friihzeit der Weltgeschichte: Fragmente aus dem Nachlafi, ed. Anton Mirko Koktanekin collaborationwith Manfred Schroter (Munich:C. H. Beck'scheVerlagsbuchhandlung, 1966), # 147, p. 485. 46. Spengler, Der Mensch und die Technik, 27. 47. Ibid.,52. 48. For a discussionof the transformationof his philosophyof world historyafter the composition of his major work, see John Farrenkopf,"The Transformationof Spengler's Philosophy of World History," Journal of the History of Ideas, 52/3 (July-September1991): 463-485. 49. Benedetto Croce, "OswaldSpengler - Der Untergangdes Abendlandes,"in idem, trans. Julius Schlosser, Randbemerkungen eines Philosophen zum Weltkriege, 1914-1920 (Leipzig:Amalthea Verlag, 1922), 299. 412

50. Octavio Paz, The Other Voice: Essays on Modern Poetry, trans. Helen Lane (New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1991), 157. 51. McNeill observed in the concluding lines of an essay on the shape of the post-Cold War world, "All one can say with confidence is that hitherto human history has been a success story, despite powerful back eddies and recurrent disasters. One can believe, but one cannot know, that the trend will continue, even though, or just because, the problems and possibilities of our age are so enormous." William H. McNeill, "Winds of Change," Foreign Affairs 69/4 (Fall 1990): 175. 52. Erich Heller, "Oswald Spengler and the Predicament of the Historical Imagina- tion," chapter in The Disinherited Mind: Essays in Modern German Literature and Thought, 4th ed. (London: Bowes & Bowes, 1975), 182.