Sunday, January 06, 2013
Beyond Spengler
Oswald Spengler (1880-1936) was
brilliant in finding cyclic patterns and similarities between the
rise and fall of various civilizations, but I don't admire Spengler's
complete rejection of the “Idea of Progress.” I think there can
be both cycles and progress, like a winding path up a mountain
which sometimes descends before it rises again. Evolution is the basis for accepting
the idea of progress, life has evolved from the simple to the
complex, and although modern human advances in saving lives has slowed harsh natural selection, progress in evolution continues.
Spengler speaks of a “mysterious
cosmic force” that influences man, but he does not at all tie it to
biology. I define the activation within life of material Tirips or the Will,
which is tied to biology, and is later shaped by evolution.
This is the force that is universal within life and is therefore within distinct civilizations
and cultures. Universal evolution does not suggest only one people
or one civilization, which could be destroyed by one disease or one
disaster. Human evolution has always worked within a variety of people and
cultures, each evolving in there own fashion---we would hope that
their independence could be protected by a defensive federalism, while
cooperating with one another in the overall evolution of human
beings, even evolving into new species out into the cosmos, as Raymond Cattell suggested.
Evolution also answers Spengler's
attempt to define the “Prime Symbol” of each distinct
civilization, eg. Faustian-Western, Apollinian-Greco-Roman,
Magian-Arabian, etc. The real prime symbol is the universal
symbol of evolving life, the activation within life of material Tirips to ascending levels of supermaterial Godhood which activates all life forms, even when each culture and civilization is
uniquely shaped by evolution in its own environment and by its own
genetic traits. Spengler thinks real
unity is more cultural than biological, when the reality is the other
way around, there is a biological origin behind cultural creations
which basically enhance survival and reproduction, and ultimately enhance success in the sacred drive to evolve toward Godhood. As
Wilmot Robertson suggested we could continue to counter Spengler's prediction of
inevitable fall in solving the age old problem of union in America by
forming an ethnopluralism of ethnostates adapted from our
Constitutional separation of powers and states, for
all groups, black, white, brown, yellow, or red,
and then
protect the ethnostates from marauding imperialists, supremacists,
global money grubbers, and social justice warriors, with a defensive federalism.
We can pay attention to the signs and
cycles of the rise and decline of civilizations, which Spengler was brilliant in finding,
such as the deterioration of the roots and traditions of the founders, the fall in birthrates, the
rise of dictatorships, etc. but it is the ongoing evolution of life and in various group selections
on the sacred path to Godhood whichcounters the ominous
pessimism of Spengler.
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