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oswald spengler (dict)
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Oswald SpenglerOswald Arnold Gottfried Spengler (Blankenburg am Harz May 29, 1880 – May 8, 1936, Munich) was a German historian and philosopher, although his studies ranged throughout mathematics, science, philosophy, history, and art. He is best known for his book The Decline of the West in which he puts forth a cyclical theory of the rise and decline of civilizations. After Decline was published in 1918, Spengler produced his Prussianism and Socialism in 1920, in which he argued for an organic version of socialism and authoritarianism. He wrote extensively throughout the World War I and interwar period supported of German hegemony in Europe. Spengler voted for the National Socialists in 1932 and hung a swastika flag outside his Munich home, and the National Socialists held Spengler as an intellectual precursor. But Spengler's pessimism about Germany and Europe's future, his refusal to support Nazi ideas of racial superiority, and his anti-Nazi work the Hour of Decision won him ostracism after 1933. Biography Spengler was born into a conservative German family of small bourgeoisie living in the Blankenburg am Harz mountains. In 1911, he moved to Munich where he would live until his death. He led what could be considered an uneventful life. He taught briefly at a practical high school (Realgymnasium). He settled instead on living on his small inheritance and pursuing a scholarly but private lifestyle. He was isolated even from the academic and cultural circles of the time. He continued to attend universities, studying mathematics, natural science, literature, classics, music, and fine arts—he was not a historical specialist but broadly cultured. In 1918, not long before the end of WWI, he would publish the first volume of Decline. This was his first foray as an author. In 1922, he published the second volume. In 1923, Spengler reissued an expanded version of the first publication, now labeled as Volume I. Influence Spengler has, amongst others, influenced Georg Henrik von Wright in his writing about our society. Spengler was a pivotal influence on Francis Parker Yockey, who wrote Imperium as a sequel to The Decline of the West. Yockey called Spengler "The Philosopher of the Twentieth Century." Some also argue that he was a major influence on Samuel P. Huntington's controversial Clash of civilizations theory. In Germany the direction of his works is doubted today since it was also popular with supporters of national socialism. Spengler's works Quotes - Long ago the country bore the country-town and nourished it with her best blood. Now the giant city sucks the country dry, insatiably and incessantly demanding and devouring fresh streams of men, till it wearies and dies in the midst of an almost uninhabited waste of country.
- There is no proletarian, not even a Communist movement, that has not operated in the interests of money, and for the time being permitted by money – and that without the idealists among its leaders having the slightest suspicion of the fact.
- —The Decline of the West
- This is our purpose: to make as meaningful as possible this life that has been bestowed upon us; to live in such a way that we may be proud of ourselves; to act in such a way that some part of us lives on.
Further Reading - Twilight of the Evening Lands: Oswald Spengler - A Half Century Later by John F. Fennelly (New York, Brookdale Press, 1972) ISBN 091265001X
- Biographical Dictionary of the Extreme Right Since 1890 edited by Philip Rees, 1991, ISBN 0130893013
- Prophet of Decline : Spengler on world history and politics by John Farrenkopf (Publisher: Baton Rouge : Louisiana State University Press, 2001) ISBN 0807126535 ISBN 0807127272
- Hughes, H. Stuart. "Preface to the Present Edition." Preface. The Decline of the West. By Oswald Spengler. New York: Oxford UP, 1991. ISBN 0-19-506751-7
External links Spengler, Oswald Spengler, Oswald Spengler, Oswald
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