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The West is DYING...He saw it 100 years ago — Transcript

by Jack Gordon · 2,676 words · 480 segments · language en · Watch on YouTube

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0:01The West is dying and there's nothing
0:03you can do to stop it.
0:07[music]
0:10Culture, civilizations, and inevitable
0:12decline. That's according to Oswald
0:14Spangler, a German historian who shook
0:16the world with his book Decline of the
0:18West. He said that civilizations don't
0:21rise and fall randomly. They follow a
0:23biological pattern and it's it's as
0:25inevitable as the seasons, as
0:27predictable as the cycle of any
0:28organism. And western civilization
0:30despite all its technological power and
0:32global dominance is entering its final
0:35stage, the [music] winter of its
0:37cultural soul. So here is where Spangler
0:41is very important to our story. He
0:43predicted this decline, but then he
0:45explained exactly what this decline
0:46would look like, who would benefit from
0:48it, and what kind of political
0:50arrangements will emerge when cultures
0:51exhaust their creative possibilities.
0:53and his [music] analysis of how
0:54democracy gives way to what he calls a
0:56Caesarism is playing out in real time
0:58before my and your eyes. The
1:01morphologist of history. So Oswalt
1:04Spangler is sitting in his study in
1:05Munich. He's surrounded by artifacts
1:07from every civilization he can lay his
1:09hands on. Egyptian scriptures, Chinese
1:11paintings, [music] Aztec cotices and
1:13manuscripts. He's looking at these
1:15isolated objects or even examples of
1:17[music] artistic development. He reads
1:20them like a naturalist reads fossils. He
1:22searches [music] for the deep patterns
1:23that reveal how cultures are born, grow,
1:26mature, and die. What Spangler
1:28discovered was that history isn't linear
1:30progress towards some ultimate goal.
1:32It's cyclical, organic, morphological.
1:36Cultures are living beings within their
1:37own souls, their own destinies, their
1:39own inevitable life cycles. And each
1:41culture begins with a unique spiritual
1:43vision that generates [music] from its
1:44art, religion, and political forms. But
1:47each culture will also exhaust its
1:49creative possibilities and hardens into
1:51what Spangler calls a civilization. This
1:54is a mechanical materialist cosmopolitan
1:56phase that marks the beginning of the
1:58end. You can't prove or disprove a
2:01theory like this through any rational
2:02argument. It's kind of like a way of
2:04seeing a morphological intuition that
2:07reveals patterns invisible to
2:09conventional historical thinking. Either
2:11you can see the organic unity that
2:13connects a Gothic cathedral to a
2:14Beethoven symphony to the structure of
2:16German philosophy or you can't. Either
2:19you can recognize the winter signs of
2:21cultural exhaustion in contemporary art
2:23and politics or you will remain trapped
2:26in the illusion of endless progress.
2:27[music]
2:27Spendler has never tried to convince
2:29skeptics through evidence or argument.
2:31What he does is speak to those who who
2:33already sense the decline but lack a
2:35conceptual framework to understand what
2:37they're experiencing like you. Cultures
2:39vers civilizations.
2:41Spangler's critical distinction is
2:43between culture and civilization. A
2:45culture is a living organic entity with
2:48its own unique culture and symbol.
2:50Egyptian culture expressed itself
2:51through the pyramid, the symbol of
2:53eternal unchanging existence. The
2:56classical culture of Greece [music] and
2:57Rome expressed themselves through the
2:59nude statue, a symbol of a perfectly
3:01proportioned and finite [music] body.
3:03The western culture which Spangler
3:05called Foustian expresses itself through
3:07infinite space. [music]
3:09Gothic cathedrals that reach toward the
3:11heaven, mathematical concepts of
3:13infinity and the will to conquer
3:15unlimited territories. Sounds like
3:17Nietze. Each culture created its own
3:19art, its own religion and its own
3:21mathematics. Then its own politics based
3:24on the fundamental symbol and spiritual
3:26vision. During the cultural phase,
3:28everything [music] is organic, creative,
3:29and meaningful. People know who they
3:31are, what they believe and how they fit
3:33into a larger cosmic order. But
3:34eventually these cultures will exhaust
3:37their creative possibilities and
3:38transform [music]
3:39into a civilization. Civilization is
3:42what happens when the cultural soul dies
3:44but the external forms continue. Art
3:46becomes technique, religion, philosophy
3:49and politics becomes administration.
3:51Everything is mechanical, rational and
3:54[music] then cosmopolitan.
3:56Perhaps the clearest sign of this
3:57transition is the emergence of great
3:59cities. He said they drain the
4:01countryside of their population and
4:03their vitality. In the world cities,
4:05people lose their connection to blood
4:07and soil and tradition. Then they become
4:09rootless cosmopolitans focused on money
4:11and comfort and their individual
4:13pleasure rather than on any higher
4:15spiritual purpose. Sound familiar?
4:17According to Spangler, Western culture
4:19began around 1000 AD when the emergence
4:22of Gothic architecture, scholastic
4:24philosophy, and the crusading spirit
4:26birthed. For nearly a thousand years,
4:29this Fouian soul expressed itself
4:31through an unprecedented explosion of
4:33creativity, the Renaissance, the
4:35Reformation, and the scientific
4:36revolution, even the age of exploration
4:39and colonization. But by Spangler's
4:42time, when he was writing after World
4:44War I, the West had already transitioned
4:46what he said from a culture to a
4:48civilization. Our creative phase was
4:49over. And then what remained was a
4:52technological power, but lacking
4:54spiritual direction. We had global
4:56dominance but no cultural meaning and
4:58material prosperity but no purpose. So
5:00the symptoms of this transition are
5:02everywhere. We replace religion with
5:04science and we replace aristocratic
5:06honor with bourgeoa money values and the
5:09replacement of organic communities by
5:11bureaucratic states and art is replaced
5:13by entertainment philosophy by
5:14journalism. Most tellingly is the
5:17replacement of politics by
5:18administration. In a living culture
5:20politics is about fundamental questions
5:22about how humans should live together.
5:24What values should we have to guide
5:26society? What kind of people do we want
5:27to become? But in a dying civilization,
5:30politics is about managing competing
5:32interest groups, optimizing economic
5:34growth, and maintaining social
5:35stability. Democracy has [music] decay.
5:40This is where Spangler's analysis
5:41becomes quite politically explosive.
5:43Democracy isn't a sign of political
5:45progress, but a symptom of cultural
5:47exhaustion. When a culture is alive and
5:49vital, it wouldn't vote on fundamental
5:52values because those values would
5:53already be shared by everyone who
5:55participates in the cultural or
5:57spiritual life. Democracy emerges
5:59precisely when that spiritual unity
6:00between the people break down. When
6:03different groups within the same
6:04civilization no longer share the same
6:06basic assumptions about reality and
6:08meaning and value and religion. So at
6:10that point, politics becomes a
6:11marketplace where different interests
6:13compete for resources and power.
6:15Democracy is fundamentally unstable
6:17because it's based on the fiction that
6:19all opinions are equally valid and that
6:21complex social problems can be solved
6:23through rational debate and majority
6:24vote. When in reality, the masses don't
6:26have the knowledge, the attention span,
6:28or the spiritual development necessary
6:30to make these decisions about their
6:32governance. So, democratic societies
6:33develop what Spangler calls the
6:35dictatorship of money. Real power
6:37doesn't rest with voters or even elected
6:39officials, but in the hands of those who
6:41control the financial and media systems
6:43that shape public opinion. Sounds
6:46familiar? Democracy becomes a theater
6:48where the masses choose between [music]
6:50options that have been pre-seelected by
6:52our oligarchal elites.
6:55Even this pseudodemocratic phase is
6:57temporary. Eventually, the
6:58contradictions become too obvious
6:59[music] to ignore. The system becomes
7:01too corrupt to maintain legitimacy and
7:03conditions ripen for the emergence of
7:05what Spangler calls Caesarism. Caesarism
7:07is Spangler's term for the final
7:08political form that emerges in dying
7:10civilizations. Not traditional monarchy
7:12or aristocracy, which would be in the
7:14cultural phase, and it's not democracy,
7:16which is in the early civilizational
7:17phase, but the rule of strong
7:20individuals who bypass formal
7:22institutions and appeal directly to the
7:24masses through personal charisma and the
7:26promise of order. The historical Caesar
7:28is the prototype, a military leader who
7:30used popular support to overthrow the
7:32Roman Republic and establish his
7:34personal rule. But Spangler sees
7:36Caesarism emerging in every civilization
7:37during its final phase. So Napoleon was
7:39a Caesar and so were the various
7:41military strongmen in the declining
7:42phases of other civilizations. A crucial
7:44point to acknowledge is that Caesarism
7:46isn't an accident or deviation from a
7:48normal political development, but an
7:50inevitable result of democracy's
7:52internal contradictions. When formal
7:54institutions lose legitimacy [music]
7:56and when the money power becomes too
7:57obvious, social conflict will intensify
8:00and eventually beyond what democratic
8:02procedures can manage, then people will
8:04naturally or out of necessity turn to
8:06strong leaders who promise to cut
8:07through the complexity and restore
8:09[music] order. Spangler isn't presenting
8:11this as a good or bad thing, but just
8:13what happens when [music] we enter our
8:15final phase. The Caesars might be brutal
8:18or benevolent or competent or
8:20incompetent, but their [music] emergence
8:22is as inevitable as winter following
8:24autumn. Race and culture.
8:27Now, for Spangler, race was a deeper
8:29biological category. It's a it's a
8:31spiritual one. Each culture creates its
8:33own race through centuries of shared
8:35spiritual development. The people who
8:36participate fully in a culture soul
8:38become racially unified not just through
8:41genetics or blood, but through their
8:43common participation in the culture's
8:45deepest values and symbols. This means
8:47that biological ancestry is less
8:48important than spiritual affinity. A
8:50Japanese person who fully understands
8:52and embodies western classical music is
8:54more racially western in Spangler sense
8:56than a European who has lost all
8:58connection to his own cultural tradition
9:01in spiritual terms. Yet this also means
9:04that multiculturalism in the modern
9:05sense is impossible. How could you
9:08participate meaningfully in multiple
9:10cultures simultaneously if each culture
9:12has an incompatible worldview and a
9:14unique way of experiencing space and
9:16time and meaning? What passes for
9:17multiculturalism in our contemporary
9:19societies is actually the absence of
9:22culture. The cosmopolitan mixing of
9:24different characters in the
9:25civilizational phase. When different
9:27populations with different cultural
9:28backgrounds are forced together in the
9:30same political system, the result is not
9:33cultural enrichment. It's destruction.
9:35The living cultures are degraded into
9:37tourist attractions and ethnic
9:38restaurants, while the shared public
9:40space becomes dominated by the purely
9:42material concerns of economic production
9:44and consumption. Spangler sees a huge
9:46tension between world cities and
9:48countryides. Really, one of the clearest
9:50indicators of civilizational decline. In
9:52the cultural phase, cities and countries
9:54exist in an organic relationship. The
9:56cities serve as centers for the culture
9:58spiritual and intellectual life. While
10:00the countryside provides the blood and
10:01soil that keep culture vital. But during
10:03the civilizational phase, the world
10:05cities become parasites. They drain the
10:07countryside of its best people and
10:09concentrate them into cosmopolitan
10:11environments that cut them off from
10:12their cultural roots. The result is a
10:14spiritual sterility disguised as
10:16sophistication. Then the people who
10:18remain in the countryside, they are
10:20connected to the cultures deeper
10:21resources, but they're lacking the
10:23intellectual and political power to
10:25influence the direction of their
10:26civilization. While at the same time,
10:28the cosmopolitan elites who control
10:30these world cities have all the power
10:32and no spiritual connection that would
10:34cause them to use it effectively. This
10:35creates a political dynamic, and
10:37Spangler sees this playing out in every
10:39dying civilization. It's the tension
10:40between cosmopolitan elites and
10:42provincial population as well as those
10:44who benefit from the civilizational
10:46phase and those who suffer from it.
10:48Really fundamentally between those who
10:50embrace the future and those who
10:52remember the past. So Spangler isn't
10:53anti-technology in a simple sense. He
10:56just thinks it's the relationship
10:57between technology and culture can be
10:59deeply problematic. In the cultural
11:01phase, technology serves these spiritual
11:03purposes. Gothic architecture used
11:06engineering to create spaces for
11:08religious experience. Classical
11:09mathematics serves philosophical
11:11contemplation of eternal forms. But in
11:14the later phase, technology becomes
11:16autonomous. It develops according to its
11:17own logic rather than serving any higher
11:20spiritual purpose. People become
11:21servants of their own technological
11:23systems. They adapt their lives to the
11:24demands of efficiency and optimization
11:27rather than using this technology to
11:28serve their own flourishing. This is
11:30very obvious in the relationship between
11:32human beings and our economic systems.
11:34In a living culture, economic activity
11:36serves our cultural and spiritual goals.
11:39The creation of beautiful objects which
11:41maintains our traditional ways of life
11:43and supports activities that gives our
11:45life meaning. But in our dying
11:46civilization, we serve the economic
11:49activity. People are adapting their
11:51entire lives to the demands of global
11:53markets, systems, and bureaucratic
11:55organizations. This is backwards and
11:57they become what Spangler calls economic
11:59animals which are creatures whose entire
12:01existence is defined by production and
12:03consumption. The return of history.
12:06Lucky for us, Spangler doesn't end with
12:09decline and death. He understands that
12:11the end of one cultural cycle creates
12:13the conditions for new cultural
12:14beginnings. The West may be dying, but
12:18other cultures, particularly Russia and
12:20possibly others in the east, may be
12:22entering their springtime phase.
12:24Moreover, even within our dying
12:26civilization, there are always some
12:27people who maintain connection to deeper
12:29sources of meaning and vitality. These
12:32people must not try to preserve the
12:33civilizational process. That's
12:35impossible. Instead, what we should do
12:37is preserve what's worth preserving and
12:39prepare the ground for whatever comes
12:40next. This requires something Spangler
12:43calls as Prussian socialism. It's not
12:45Marxist and it's not really
12:46collectivism, but it's individuals who
12:48understand their duty within the larger
12:49historical process. So it is collective
12:52but they don't expect to restore the
12:54cultural phase. They maintain order and
12:56excellence during the civilizational
12:57transition. So why should you understand
12:59Spangler for contemporary politics?
13:01Because he provides the most
13:02sophisticated framework for
13:04understanding the relationship between
13:06decline [music]
13:07and politics. Every symptom he
13:09identified in the early 20th century has
13:11intensified. The dominance of money,
13:13hollowing of democracy, and the tension
13:15between cosmopolitan elites and
13:17provincial populations. We now have the
13:19emergence of charismatic leaders who are
13:20bypassing formal procedures. When you
13:23hear people say globalism and
13:25nationalism when they analyze the rise
13:27of populist movements and when they
13:28worry about the breakdown of democratic
13:31norms, they're unconsciously using
13:33Spangler's categories. The globalists
13:35represent the money power and
13:37cosmopolitan civilization that Spangler
13:39called the characteristic of cultural
13:40decline. These nationalists are
13:42representing the attempt to restore some
13:44connection to the blood, soil, and
13:46cultural tradition. But Spangler tells
13:48us that both sides are misunderstanding
13:50what's happening. The globalists think
13:52they're building a better future through
13:53rationalism and technological progress.
13:55The nationalists think that we can
13:57restore our golden past through
13:58political action. But both of these are
14:01trapped in linear thinking and they miss
14:03the cyclical nature of cultural
14:04development. The choice that isn't a
14:07choice.
14:08So from a Spanglerian perspective, the
14:11fundamental political choice isn't
14:13between [music] left and right,
14:14globalism and nationalism or progress to
14:17react to. It's between accepting this
14:19morphological reality of where we are in
14:22our cultural cycle and not being trapped
14:24about illusions for what's possible. If
14:27Spangler is right, the West is going to
14:29experience Caesarism regardless of what
14:31anyone wants or tries to prevent. Sorry.
14:34The question isn't whether this will
14:36happen. It's how does someone like you
14:39maintain honor, dignity, and excellence.
14:42However, that's possible within this
14:44transition. No, you don't need to accept
14:46decline. But understand the difference
14:48between what can be changed and what
14:50can't be changed. You don't want to
14:51fight the inevitable, but you do want to
14:53preserve what's worth preserving. If you
14:55can see the morphological patterns, your
14:57task is to save Western civilization.
14:59You must serve as a trustee for what
15:01these higher values can survive and how
15:04they can preserve future cultural
15:05development. This is Spangler's
15:07contribution to our story. His insight
15:10that political events must be understood
15:12within the larger context [music] of
15:14cultural cycles and specifically that
15:16democracy is a temporary phase in
15:18civilizational development. Thus, a new
15:21emergence of new forms of
15:22authoritarianism is as inevitable as the
15:25changing of the seasons. The question
15:26this raises is profound and disturbing.
15:28If Spangler is right about the
15:30morphology of culture, then what does
15:32this mean for anyone who wants to serve
15:34higher human values during our coming
15:36winter and what kind of preparation is
15:38possible for those who have to live
15:39through this transition from democracy
15:41to Caesarism? Next time, we're going to
15:43look at that and meet someone who took
15:45these insights about decline and use
15:46them to develop a complete theory of
15:48political authority that justifies rule
15:50by whoever can make effective decisions
15:52during the time of crisis and exception.
15:55Thank you.

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