Crutchfield

[David Morris]

>From: calbert at tiac.net
>I'm tellin ya, you're gonna wind up with Spengler and "ceasarism".....

OK, I'll bite (but w/o a clue):

http://www.duke.edu/~aparks/Spengler.html

"Spengler, in his Decline of the West makes two central points relevant to 
our concerns: that histories of various cultures--his principal point of 
comparison is Classical (Greek)--can be shown to follow a similar pattern 
and that all aspects of a culture--art, politics, mathematics, science--have 
related underlying principles which differ from culture to culture. He 
reaches conclusions about the current position of Western culture (in the 
1920s) and how one can best live within it.

Spengler views cultures as "organic" by which he means that the follow a 
life pattern, one he names by analogy to seasons. The spring of a culture is 
the time of the origin of its basic principles, the time of the birth of the 
religion of that culture. He believes that all great cultures have behind 
them a great religion. A culture acting "in form" (a comparison to athletes 
who are at the peak of their form) is in its summer, when all aspects can be 
seen as working under the principles at the basis of the culture, and when 
great accomplishments are made--the artifacts of lasting value.

Our culture, as compared to other cultures, is one of directedness and will; 
Spengler refers to it as Faustian. We see our religion as requiring us to 
convert others. Our art has a perspective, a point of view and direction. 
Our music is directed toward a tonal center. Our science is about forces and 
changes. We apply it to change our world. Our mathematics goes beyond the 
static geometry of the Classical world to deal with the calculus of 
tendencies and averages.

All cultures come to a Civilization phase, an autumn when this breaks down. 
Mega-cities are characteristic of this time. Politics is motivated by money, 
and move through Imperialism and the Period of Contending States to 
Caesarism, a period of despots. Science no longer reaches certainties. 
People no longer accept common principles or goals, they fight all rules 
from the past. The arts, rather than working in ways that seem obvious to 
the artists and the people, follow fashions with constant changes of style. 
Later in this culture after a period of atheism, people turn to a religious 
renewal based on the religion developed in the spring of the culture.

Spengler sees our culture as having finished its summer in about 1800--1770 
in literature and with Wagner in music. He views developments in all the 
arts as evidence of decadence. His advice to those living in the 
Civilization phase is to look for the direction of movement and contribute 
positively to it--the Civilization will move in the direction of its 
Destiny, regardless of our choices. We can choose to contribute or to have 
no impact.


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