Spengler's View of World Culture Revisited
Author: Dave Smart

When Oswald Spengler (1880-1936) wrote THE DECLINE OF THE
WEST in 1918, followed by a revision and second volume in
1923, it was taken in high regard by the post-World War I
public, especially in Germany. It's message of gradual,
phased but continuous decline of Western culture and
civilization since about the thirteenth century seemed to
resonate with people at that time.

Basically he compares Western society, which he calls
'Faustian' culture, to classic Greco-Roman society
('Apollonian') and Arabian society ('Magian'), as well as
others. In each of these he sees politico-cultural
characteristics arising from tribal society, which he sees
as having "no State", through eight distinct phases of
statehood, and development of arts, architecture and even
mathematics; finally to dissolve into again tribal society.
Apollonian culture of course completed its phases many
centuries ago, and Magian completed its with the
dissolution of the Ottoman Empire in 1918.But Western
(Faustian) culture is in its sixth phase of "contending
states" since 1815, and Spengler predicted that it would
enter its seventh phase of "Caesarism", or a world
imperium, about 2000.

After World War II Spengler's theories fell into
unpopularity. To his readers, Hitler seemed to be his
'Caesar' and the Third Reich his 'imperium'; but it
catastrophically fell, to be replaced with democratic
institutions in Germany and Japan, and eventually Spain.
And many saw Spengler's Caesarism in Stalin's despotism and
in subsequent history of the Soviet Union, only for that to
suddenly fall. Spengler, having written in German, had
used "untergang" by which he meant 'decline', but it could
also mean 'downfall' and that was the way people in the
post-World War II era took it.

However Spengler's prophetic suggestion that his seventh
phase of 'caesarism' might begin about 2000, along with
9/11 in 2001, motivate us to take another look at his
theory and predictions in the light of recent world events.

World traumatic events tend to signal the transition from
phase to phase in Spengler's model, such as the beginning
of the French Revolution for phase 4 to 5, and possibly
9/11 for phase 6 to 7. But it is the beginning of his
process, the transition from tribal society to phase 1,
that had and has the greatest traumatic effect on the human
psyche, albeit not immediately or catastrophically. In
religion, tribal societies were generally not polytheistic;
they believed in a 'Great Spirit' over all. But in early
statehood large, pampered priesthoods consolidated
political power in many ways; by having people believe in
several gods they would be divided personally and
psychically, and so be easier to manipulate and rule. So
it was in the pagan agricultural societies of classical
times; and in the later Middle Ages - earlier Faustian
times - the Church, albeit preaching one God, consolidated
all the hegemony that the ancient agricultural priesthoods
had. Early statehood in its concepts of governance differed
from tribal societies in many ways; accountability-driven
politics was replaced by agenda-driven politics; consensus
rule, at least at local levels, was replaced by autocratic
rule that sometimes was made to look like majority rule.
Deep-seated social changes happened as art the product of a
community was replaced with art the product of an
individual with his concern with copyright issues; and the
bottom-up socio-political order was replaced with a
top-down order.

Spengler was concerned with cultures and their political
systems, not tribal societies, and tended to look down upon
the latter. He saw the early phases of cultural change,
which he called 'spiritual spring', as filled with a
culture's vitality, vision, and sense of itself, which he
called 'blood'. The later stages were all a decline from
this golden age or spiritual spring. In the fifth stage or
'napoleonism', a new leader creates state structure outside
earlier tradition and outside what is 'self-evident' from a
tribal society point of view. The new structure is
accidental and relies not on maintaining tradition but in
selection of a successor. In the seventh stage or
'caesarism' decline has processed further; governance is
the personal power exercised by a dictator; government is
formless and although there may be traditional
institutions, they are titular and have no real power. The
sixth stage, which we have been in, might take about two
centuries. Called 'contending states', it is characterized
by power of money dominating over power of 'blood';
volunteer armies replace conscription armies; they are used
not for deterrence but for waging war; and gradually
smaller states are disposed of.

We have seen many of these things come to pass in the
twentieth century. In America volunteer armies exist for
the Iraq-Afghanistan war and for the Gulf War before it;
Vietnam was the last war using conscription armies.
Spengler predicted that this would be possible because of
government propaganda through the media, financed by money;
and so it is. Indeed, the media supported by money
interests have become a government propaganda machine in
the true Machiavellian-Orwellian sense of allowing
government to "change the institutions" but having ordinary
people not believe significant changes have been made.
The free-speech and listener-supported media are trying to
counter this but so far their impact has been quite limited.

Spengler maintains that in the seventh phase of culture
there will be an 'imperium' and that force-politics will
dominate over money. How close we are to this remains to
be seen.

At TCM and SPT we maintain values of tribal society such as
consensus politics, accountability-driven politics and
relationships, and art the product of a community. We
believe Spengler's 'spiritual spring' was in fact the
afterglow of tribal society values on the newly-conquered
tribes incorporated into statehood. In the succeeding
phases of statehood, that glow, the vision of values that
Spengler called 'blood', continued to fade, and so provided
the decline he saw.

Living in a declining culture

By "untergang" Spengler meant decline, not catastrophic
downfall. But meaning decline of cultural vision, hopes
and dreams because of government oppression of various
kinds. To tribal society, government was synonymous with
accountability of the leader to everyone in the tribe, and
so the first oppression was being subjugated to a top-down
regime. Decline took place as governance became ever more
oppressive and the visions ever more distant.

What with cyberspace, Twitter and free-speech media, people
today are more able than ever to stand up and resist the
continuing slide of Spengler's cycle of decline. The
values of tribal society include many things that persons
can practice on a daily basis. Accountability-driven
relationships are a logical starting place. We can
identify ways that agenda-driven politics tempt us to form
agenda-driven relationships; we can stand up to that by
making accountability-driven relationships.

To understand what that might look like, note that in
agenda-driven relationships the other person is typically
the OBJECT of the agenda. In accountability-driven
relationships the other person is the SUBJECT - the other
side of the relationship, to what you are accountable for.

As we approach what would be Anne Frank's 80th birthday had
she lived, we can appreciate the way that in her family,
the way they were accountable to one another, enabled her
to maintain great vision even in the environment of the
most extreme oppression of top-down governance.


About the Author:

Dave Smart, the lead coach of Transcendence Coaching and
Mentoring, has had extensive education and experience in
co-active coaching, and has graduated from several mystery
school programs. As such he is intensively familiar with
ways that government and politics intrude upon the quality
of personal relationships. If you experience relationship
difficulties, it may be due to the bad lessons we learn
from politics, and coaching is for you. Check out TCM's
website:
http://www.transcendencecoach.com .