Oswald Spengler

I'm reading the decline of the west and was wondering if some of you anons can help me understand something. Spengler writes about how art changed throughout history and that some artists were filled with "The Faustian Spirit". This spirit, as far as I understand it, is the same as the adventurer or the individual who looks out at infinity and wants to know it all (or conquer it all?). In the art world what does the faustian spirit mean? Those who would try to create the next level of art? In the book he says that Wagner was the last musician with the Faustian spirit.

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ikkoku.com/mi/html/guide.html
pastebin.com/rCykseWx
counter-currents.com/2012/06/tragedy-horror-and-the-transcendent/
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Generally the "faustian spirit" is meant to believe in, understand, and acknowledge the deep mysteries of nature and universe. It is a spirit which recognizes the power of myth and its transformative power. This is in contrast with modern "materialist" values which posit that the universe is a collection of objects.

As evola said concerning materialism: When all the mysteries have been explained away by science, all that will remain is the scatological and vulgar.

Its essentially the reason degeneracy exist (metaphysically speaking).

...

Precisely, "artist" went from honoring myth, nature, transformation (eg. Wagner)....to now glorifying the material (ie. pictures of a fags ass with bullwhip sticking out).

Its a sign of a weak and collapsing society

what do you mean the power of myth? Like tradition or specifically that there are myths that are true that we have forgotten?

>Like tradition or specifically that there are myths that are true that we have forgotten

Theres no difference between those. Myth/Tradition is just belief distilled by thousands of years of history.
The problem with Myth is that it is very hard to see from inside your own culture (its why so many leftist appear so stupid, they literally cannot see their own myths. They unironically accept them as complete material reality). For instance, the idea we are "harming the planet" is a current myth. Or that "all men are created equal" or more generally "science". Meanwhile the leftist will look back and stupidly ask "did the ancient greeks really believe that some goddess named Aphrodite existed and she controlled love?"
Of course Aphrodite existed, not in a modern material understanding, but as a living mythology. its like asking "do you believe love and sexual attraction exist?" Obviously the answer is yes. The leftist ascribes this to the modern myth of "science", yet is completely blind that it is also a myth and mistakes that for "reality".

Why is science a myth? Is it because we can not perceive truth ultimately? Does science not give us some kind of guiding light in the world we operate in? Is it simply a myth because people buy what ever the Scientists(the modern clergy) say?

>Why is science a myth?
It's the underpinning narrative that forms how we perceive the world.Everything is viewed from the lens of "science".
>Is it because we can not perceive truth ultimately?
Truth is relative, this is one of the reason multicultural societies are destined to fail.

Pretty much. Imagine if you asked an Ancient Greek: Why did you fall in love with her? The answer would be: because Aphrodite sent cupid and shot me with the arrow of love.
Ask a modern man: Because of Darwinian genetic self-selection and bio-chemical agents in the brain...blah blah blah
This isn't meant to say genes don't exist, or bio-chemistry is a fraud....nor is it meant to say that cupid really shot someone with an arrow.

To be sure: Both are myths - the ancient myth sought to place humans in a hierarchy between the gods and animals. The modern myth (science) ultimately seeks to destroy any heirarchy and claim that everything is cogs in the machine (your love is no different than a dog fucking his bitch). One myth elevates man, the other seeks to destroy. Its why the modern leftist love the mythology of science so much, it lends itself to praising the system over the human. The collective.

Whats the real reason you fell in love? Because nature willed it? Because the life force of the universe wants to keep growing and expanding. God? You can see how the "mythology of science" seeks to replace whatever the truth is with its own belief structure.

Then all things are myths. What point is the Faustian spirit if one can only know falsity?

youtu.be/bHw4MMEnmpc

Very good watch. Every user in this thread should watch it

The Faustian Spirit is an endless yearning. Faust wants to see more, experience more, understand more, conquer more.

Some examples:

Odysseus is told the Sirens sing so beautifully they will lure his crew to their deaths. He therefore tells his men to stuff their ears with wax - but he himself wants to hear the singing, so he gets his men to tie him to the mast. Even if the singing is going to drive him mad he wants to experience it.


Robert Browning wrote a monologue supposedly spoken by a painter called Andrea Del Sarto. He was called the "faultless painter", and technically was better than more famous artists like Raphael, but not considered as good because he was too "safe"; there's no sense of striving in his work. In the poem he himself recognizes this but can't do much about it. At one point he makes the famous observation:

Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp,
Or what's a heaven for?


Gordon Gecko in Wall Street:

"The point is, ladies and gentleman, that greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right, greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms; greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge has marked the upward surge of mankind."

It is a unifying *style* of the whole civilization. To understand it in art, it is helpful to compare it to the contrasting case of the classical style: Faustian oil painting dissolves physical reality into vast, infinite spaces -- classical sculpture perfects the solid form of the human body. Gothic architecture creates vast open spaces (in the cathedral), using forms that are organic and almost tree-like, whereas Greek architecture perfects proportion and uses solid, geometrical forms. Etc.

bumping while i fetch my notes

Faustian art of all kind tends toward portraiture-- it seeks to capture some essence of the individual.
Classical art on seeks to express TYPES-- types of characters and situations, quite the opposite of the Faustian autobiography.
Compare socialism as a philosophy
>we must take care of everyone
To stoicism as a philosophy
>I must master myself.
One expresses the impulse to the infinite, the other expresses the opposite.

Can a post modern artist be Faustian?

Think of the typical jaded ironybro (be it shitbag left or le frog twitter right) whose life is mockery and in-jokes.

'Faustian spirit' is the opposite of that.

Well you've hit upon the right question. But perhaps you're still unintentionally viewing the word "myth" using modern view. Myth is just a distilled belief structure. Modern language sort of redefined myth to be "fairytale", but thats not whats really meant by people who study the ancients. Myth = the summed up belief structure of a culture. Sup Forums has a mythology about it (dubs, newfags, etc).

The question ultimately is: What mythology should you choose to live under? Personally I choose mythologies that reflect the power of humanity, that humans are noble and courageous. That the world is mysterious and transformative and that this is fundamentally a spiritual experience. (ie. Faustian Spirit if you will, although I'm not sure I will use that exact term).

Contrast this modern mythology. Man is nothing special. All is equal. Loving a dog is more noble than loving a child.

But back to your main question: No we can never fully understand the truth (Plato's allegory of the cave). Given that, we must choose a mythology which seeks to approximate the truth. This mythology is the lens which cast the light on our cave wall.

Sort of at best. Post-modernism is just the residue of the destruction of western culture, sadly. It will probably tend to be Faustian in the sense of tending to be more free-flowing, or whatever. But the culture as a living organism is dead, and post-modernism will not be preserved, honored, or carried on in any important way as a thread in a developing civilization, so fuck it.

the relevant paragraph is this one below:

>>Ich will von nun an die Seele der antiken Kultur, welche den sinnlich-gegenwärtigen Einzelkörper zum Idealtypus des Ausgedehnten wählte, die apollinische nennen. Ihr gegenüber stelle ich die faustische Seele, deren Ursymbol der reine grenzenlose Raum und deren »Leib« die abendländische Kultur ist, wie sie mit der Geburt des romanischen Stils im 10. Jahrhundert in den nordischen Ebenen zwischen Elbe und Tajo aufblühte.

tl;dr: the ideals of carpe-diem and individualism and cocaine parties are "apollinisch", the ideals of tranquillity, stability and purity are "faustisch"

...more to come

Not really. Irony is probably the characteristic Faustian mode of late stage cultural decadence. It's still a Faustian expression. The classical counterpart would probably be sensual decadence.

Here's a good emotional appreciation of the Faustian spirit in art.

How should we deal with the fact that we're going to die? Should we try to ignore it? Should we take comfort in universal meaningless? Should we just try to enjoy ourselves?

SING HARDER, says the Faustian spirit.

youtube.com/watch?v=p67d9F9nW2Y

these are other relevant paragraphs re faustism i copied to my notes, but keep in mind this is not a exhaustive list:
>>Alles Faustische will Alleinherrschaft

>>Die Mutter, welche das Kind – die Zukunft – an der Brust trägt: der Marienkult in diesem neuen, faustischen Sinn ist erst in den Jahrhunderten der Gotik erblüht. Seinen höchsten Ausdruck fand er in Raffaels sixtinischer Madonna. Das ist nicht christlich überhaupt, denn das magische Christentum hatte Maria als Theotokos, als Gebärerin Gottes, zu einem ganz anders gefühlten Symbol erhoben.

>>Aber als die faustische Kultur erwachte und eines großen Symbols bedurfte, um ihr Urgefühl für die unendliche Zeit, die Geschichte und die Folge der Geschlechter sinnlich zufassen, da hat sie die Mater dolorosa und nicht den leidenden Erlöser in die Mitte des germanisch-katholischen Christentums der Gotik gesteht, und durch ganze Jahrhunderte blühender Innerlichkeit ist diese Frauengestalt der eigentliche Inbegrifff austischen Weltgefühls und das Ziel aller Dichtung, Kunst und Frömmigkeit gewesen. Noch heute nimmt im Kult und in den Gebeten der katholischen Kirche und vor allem im Gefühl der Gläubigen Jesus den zweiten Platz nach der Madonna ein.

>>die rechnenden Wikinger des frühen Abendlandes, die in der Finanzverwaltung ihrer Normannenstaaten den Grund zu der faustischen, heute über die ganze Welt verbreiteten Art von Geldwirtschaft gelegt haben.

>Personally I choose mythologies that reflect the power of humanity, that humans are noble and courageous. That the world is mysterious and transformative and that this is fundamentally a spiritual experience.

That's how I see it too.

>Can a post modern artist be Faustian?
Post modernism is usually deconstructivist in nature and relishing in the sense of relativity revolving around the self as an individual.
This is a pretty good talk outlining post-modern thought
>inb4 Peterson
He does great work on archetypes
youtube.com/watch?v=f5rUPatnXSE

and the last one:

>>Die Idee eines Herrschers, dessen Machtbereich die ganze geschichtliche Welt, dessen Schicksal das der ganzen Menschheit ist, trat bis jetzt dreimal in Erscheinung, zuerst in der Auffassung des Pharao als des Horus, dann in der gewaltigen chinesischen Vorstellung vom Herrscher der Mitte, dessen Reich tien-hia ist, alles unter dem Himmel Liegende, endlich in frühgotischer Zeit, als Otto d. Gr. 962 aus einem tiefen mystischen Gefühl und Sehnen nach geschichtlicher und räumlicher Unendlichkeit, das damals durch alle Welt ging, den Gedanken eines Heiligen Römischen Reiches Deutscher Nation empfing. Aber vorher schon hatte Papst Nikolaus I. (860), noch ganz in augustinischen, also magischen Gedanken befangen, von einem päpstlichen Gottesstaat geträumt, der über den Fürsten dieser Welt stehen sollte, und seit 1059 ging Gregor VII. mit der vollen Urgewalt seiner faustischen Natur daran, eine päpstliche Weltherrschaft in den Formen eines universalen Lehnsverbandes mit Königen als Vasallen zu verwirklichen.


with all those anyone shall be able to get the clearest picture possible of swengler's concept of faustism

What if one was to use post modernism to destroy post modernism through his art? Would that art be said to be Faustian or garbage?

I think there is a tendency for the Faustian spirit to just rush forward into self-destruction when all else fails. Kek. The very first crusaders to set foot in the middle east were peasants whipped into an idealistic frenzy by a smooth talking monk. They were slaughtered. Now that particular crusade is being reversed, and Europe is riding its ideals into oblivion by inviting destruction in at its hemorrhaging borders.
Needless to say, Spengler would vomit in horror at what has happened to Germany.

You might use some of the tools of post-modernism against itself, although satire has a limited application in my opinion because it can't stand on its own; it only has meaning in relation to the thing it's debunking.

"Faustian" and "garbage" are not an opposed pair. The whole civilization is Faustian, from the height of greatness, through every stage of decline.

Yes, the Faustian nature will always choose action over inaction.

(Basically he is the polar opposite of the Eastern mystic who withdraws into himself and does not attempt to influence the world.)

That means when things go wrong - when there are no worlds to conquer, or no fight that's possible to win - he will usually end up just destroying himself.

I don't understand, then how could Wagner be the last Faustian artist of his age? Wouldn't all artists be Faustian if they were part of that culture?

>when there are no worlds to conquer, or no fight that's possible to win - he will usually end up just destroying himself.

hence the state of the west today?

>SING HARDER, says the Faustian spirit.
Become the ubermensch
youtube.com/watch?v=DapNJOXBx2M

The thing is, post-modernism destroyed what was left of tradition... so now what is there? You can destroy post-modernism, but it is hardly necessary-- its purpose has been fulfilled, and it will fall away naturally. The question now, is what can be created anew. The twentieth century got all its juice from criticism and destruction. Is there any life left in western civilization to sprout new growth? That is the question.

Some artists embody the "spirit of their age" more than others.

Usually the very great artists do so. (Dickens in many ways embodied the spirit of Victorian London. Beethoven embodied the spirit of 18th-19th century Europe.)

This is why people like us flock to Sup Forums and other similar places: We are aware we live in a world where they have stolen our place in the universe. ((They)) have taken a belief structure that had humans on the path of ascension and degraded us to live among earthworms and bacteria.
Its also why ((they)) are pushing the transgender issue so hard. In the biological hierarchy, sex classification is nearly one of the highest classifications possible. There are male / female crickets. There are male / female plants. From a strict classification perspective, a male human has more in common with a male cricket than with female on the other side of the tree (ie. we are joined by being males, whereas species differentiation comes later in the tree). Its why they want to destroy that classification so badly, All must be torn down and made "equal". Its why myth of science itself will eventually fail. When all things are equal, language and knowledge will mean nothing.

> In the art world what does the faustian spirit mean?

You need to see this movie:

Mephisto
with Klaus Maria Brandauer

There's plenty of fights to be had and avenues to explore, the driving fire has been extinguished and the new underlying mythos has identified the wrong fights to engage in.

The critical spirit in art is essentially semitic. White people don't really want it, and when a work of art appears that's serious and sincere, we flock to it.

The last really serious work of art of this sort was the film Star Wars in 1977.

Western society doesn't need to be sick. I don't share all Spengler's pessimism.

We are not going back to that state of being, the noble Faustian one.

I just do not see how and that is tragedy.

Checked, and I agree.
And what Spengler is talking about is the fact that Wagner was the last of the line of the development of Faustian music as such. He would call post-modernism NONcultural. But I doubt he'd disagree that it would have Faustian tendencies.
A superb symbol and expression of Spengler's idea of Faustian impulse is the internet. Perfectly abstract, reaching out everywhere into the unknown... And now things like the internet express the Faustian spirit, where traditional art is dead.

you summed it up well senpai

Unfortunately, you can't go back. The original spirit grows organically, in the stream of living, not self-consciously. It really is like a plant. A thousand year plant. The best we can do is care for it, and see that it isn't used as firewood!

>in the stream of living
Like the generations of man coming and going, living for a while and then sinking back into the earth?

>And now things like the internet express the Faustian spirit, where traditional art is dead.

I have always maintained that when the historians of the future look at the art of the present they will not go to galleries but to Sup Forums and pepe. What art better reflects the spirit of our age? To steal a quote from Jung.
> That is the secret of great art, and of its effect upon us. The creative process, so far as we are able to follow it at all, consists in the unconscious activation of an archetypal image, and in elaborating and shaping this image into the finished work. By giving it shape, the artist translates it into the language of the present, and so makes it possible for us to find our way back to the deepest springs of life. Therein lies the social significance of art: it is constantly at work educating the spirit of the age, conjuring up the forms in which the age is most lacking.

I have hope because it's all to be had. I've moved away from the idea that all Europeans are salvageable, tragic, but realistic. There's plenty of us who will flock together when the time comes to usher in the new age of exceptionalism. I'm heartbroken that the future for the Europeans that survive the 21st century will exist as a diasporic people. What a fate.

Western materialism is just as much Faustian as a Gothic cathedral though. You are mistaking the differences between cultural phases for the differences between cultures. "Faustian" distinguishes western civilization from other civilizations. It is in no way a value-judgment term relating to decadence.
Baroque materialism was the high point of the rational phase of Faustian culture. Now, materialism is just another dead idea in an accumulation of them...

The Faustian spirit of western society is a constant upward striving. This is so much a part of how we think and feel that it's difficult to see, like the fish/water thing.

Many societies, by comparison, were and are quite content to plod along unchanged for millenia - for ever, effectively. (Imperial China, for example, or Ancient Babylon, or Ancient Egypt.)

You are spot on. There is always sections of culture that are "alive". People create spontaneously, un-self-consciously. Meme-making is artistic creation "in form" as Spengler says. It is today's civilization expressing itself. Whereas, say, contemporary poetry is just a sort of empty, insular exercise that doesn't filter into society at all (but compare that to how it fit into society in Shakespeare's day...) All new art in the twentieth century was based on either 1) technology, or 2) black american culture.

Was a typo. Didn't mean "materialism" meant "materialist".
At heart, if you really deep down believe this is all just cogs in the wheel built by the blind watchmaker, there can be no faustian spirit, since there is nothing to transcend.
In order for any sort of faustian sprit to exist, it must as first premise accept that we are primarily living a spiritual experience, hence the desire to transcend / explore. Otherwise, existence is pointless (ie. modern nihilism).

so what would it take to be a great memer of today? Would anybody even ever know who you were?

Well, you are right that a materialist would scoff at Spengler's idea of the Faustian spirit. Spengler, on the other hand, is able to fit the materialist into his ideas. So it is what it is.

Pretty much the only vital, living art form in the 20th century was film.

Sadly, it is so expensive a medium that it's almost entirely a collaborative endeavour.

This means that, more than at any point in history, the individual genius, ahead of or AGAINST his time is shut out of creation altogether.

Do you need to ask? If your meme goes viral, then what more is there?

Well if you listen to the Welles extract on Chartres I posted, actually, internet memelords are very like the people who built cathedrals because they're all anonymous but their work is the glory of their age!

YEAH BABY!

It's interesting. The individual genius didn't come into being until the renaissance, and the contemporary idea is pretty much based on Beethoven to a large extent... Art was one hundred percent collective and non-individualistic in the Gothic cathedral phase as well. Everything comes full circle, just as they say...

>their work is the glory of their age!
Until we get hit with an EMP, all the computers are wiped, and all that is left is myth about these strange wizards on the Internet. On second thought that is not a bad legacy either.

Even though this sounds super gay, I want to be a meme wizard and save the white race and the Faustian spirit.

>Roger Scruton
How did I know you were going to post a Roger Scruton video before even looking at the YouTube link?

So in the end, if that state of being is gone for us forever, than the heart of Western civilization is gone for us as well.

I understand, or I think I understand what Spengler wrote but I think that West died in 20th century and we are all just dancing around its grave.

How does Spengler define Jewish culture?

For Spengler each civilization is a unique, distinct, and self-contained Culture, which expressed one 'idea'. These ideas are the kernel of the religion of the people, and inform their entire worldview, their art, their mathematics, their political organizations, etc.

The Faustian spirit, which corresponds to the civilization that began around 900AD in England, France, West Germany, the Low countries, and Northern Italy, has for its prime symbol something like 'movement into an eternal horizon'. I will list examples that manifest this prime symbol:

-Gothic architecture- the spires reaching into the heavens
-Counterpoint- the merging of individual voices into harmonies that 'transcend' normal intimations of space and time
-The infinitesimal calculus- limits reaching into infinity
-The Mathematical function- a logical representation of pure 'movement' in space
-Perspective Painting- Points drawing towards an infinite horizon
-Shakespearean tragedy- the depiction of a heroic act of will- the deed of a single person
-Early Modern Portraiture- The evocation of a singular 'deed' in a person, a tragic distillation of will
-Socialism- Spengler uses this word to mean the desire to radically assert ones will over the entire society
-European exploration of the new world- this one should be obvious

I'm sure I'm forgetting some examples, but this should paint a picture. Now for Spengler all art is religious art, and as such can only occur during the springtime and summer of a culture. For various arts this means various ages of death. Music died in the 19th century, painting a couple centuries earlier.

We are now firmly in the age of the metropolis, of civilization, of technics, and the Winter of the culture. There is no art, and has been none for some time.

The Faustian spirit came and went, like the Apollonian Greek spirit, and it will never be here on earth again.

This is why we have to recover something lower.

I'm a big fan of text files, and how much personality and artistry people can put into something so simple. And it's something anyone with a computer can do.
ikkoku.com/mi/html/guide.html

These are some great text files that show off what I mean; check out how he used ASCII art to draw character portraits and their names in kanji.

Naa, there has always been interplay between the individual and the collective.

Plenty of great individual creators pre-renaissance. e.g. Homer, Dante.

But I agree that a healthy society provides a support structure for its artists even if they go against trends to some extent.

Rembrandt for example wasn't valued over his contemporaries as much as he should have been, but still, he couldn't have existed in any time or place.

If he'd been born in Nigeria for example he wouldn't have got anywhere.

Same with Beethoven. You need a certain level of musical sophistication in the society to enable one genius to go a bit further.

I disagree. Its never ever ever been easier to functionally be an artist. Buy and iPad, make / edit movie, upload to YouTube (or better Vimeo).
The reason you are seeing such little great art is spiritual collapse, not lack of opportunity.

>How does Spengler define Jewish culture?

irc he said their driving force was the acquisition of material wealth.

I forgot another important example- the Nation-state model of warring West Europe

Beautiful, can you please answer a question for me?

1. How would Spengler define Slavic cultures, what is their "idea"?

There is no hope to save Western Civilization. I don’t intend to blackpill anyone, but we should wait for our societies to collapse and do what we can to assist in their collapse. This means taking action in your own life and putting your worldview into practice to the best of your ability as an individual.

pastebin.com/rCykseWx

counter-currents.com/2012/06/tragedy-horror-and-the-transcendent/
Bowden on a similar subject.

>Why are people proud that Shakespeare is an Englishman? They’re proud that he’s an Englishman whether they’ve opened any of his plays whatsoever at school when they were forced to do them, because he’s felt to embody a national consciousness, and he’s felt to speak for many who didn’t speak, and who couldn’t speak. And a people are proud that they have somebody like him in their national trajectory, whether they’re interested in his work or not.

>Self-pride is very emblematic of an ethnic sense of purpose and also a joie-de-vivre in relation to this life. If you strip that out and take it away from people, they lose something, they lose spirit. They become morbid and depressed. Everyone needs great cultural icons, whether they’re interested in them or not. They are part of the fabric that gives an individual life some sort of meaning.

>Most of it only exists in the past, now. Or exists as a circular moment in time, whereby these great works are reinterpreted in the present.

>But nothing is forever, and I’m quite certain that great works are being written now, are being performed now in the minds of certain individuals, are being conceptualized now, but they don’t have an outlet at this time. The point of groups like the New Right on the Continent, here, and in North America — particularly in California, on the far side of the United States — is to create the mental space whereby greatness can come back into culture. Is to create the mental space for higher works of civilization again.

>It’s not necessarily to provide those works. That’s not its purpose. Its purpose is to provide the space that exists for them. Because if a people cannot affirm itself through great works, it begins to die, whether or not people have any interest in those great works themselves.

Did he not define them as Magian civilization?

It's still not at all easy for one individual to make a great film - not in the sense of a traditional cinematic blockbuster. You need actors, for example.

He thought the Slavic idea, which he usually referred to as being Russian, was something like 'dissolving into ones brothers on a flat plain'.

the Russian culture is in its infancy for Spengler and has no real symbols yet apart from the Church cupola, and the literature of Dostoevsky, who he considered to be a literal Russian Saint.

The history of Russia is for Spengler so far one of complete domination by the Faustian people, with a change beginning when they burned Moscow to spite the invading French.

I think you might be right, although I might be confusing some of Spengler with Nietzsche. I've been reading both genealogy of morals and decline of the west.

>Spengler called the West Faustian because it wagered it's soul for unlimited knowledge. Though in the end the creative energies of Faust become drained, his boundless striving exhausted. Faust's unlimited hopes were thwarted by Mephisto, everything had been an illusion.

youtube.com/watch?v=FsaieZt5vjk

is it worth reading Goethe's Faust?

but in the end Faust was saved by god, because of both his endless striving and because of Gretchen. Does that not fill you with hope? Even here at the end of it all on some strange little message board people are still striving for something great.

All I know is it has to become winter before spring comes again

It's on my To Read list, but not at the top.

I understand this, personally for me Slavic idea was and is profound melancholy.

But that as well seems to be lost to modern Slavs. Materialism and consumerism are our gods now.

Dante initiated the phase that peaked in the renaissance. The IDEA of "The Artist" did not exist until after the renaissance. That is a fact. Between say 1000-1200, western artistic creation was nothing but a collective activity around the cathedral (not including folk art, which stayed in the cottage, naturally). If you were a great artist, that is great, you would be in charge of the architecture, no doubt, and that would be your job and you be esteemed. But you have never heard of the vast majority of them, or know them only as a name recorded briefly.

>but in the end Faust was saved by god

u wot m8

I don't think there's a Spring for us. Maybe some other people, but not for us.

You heard me

Is not the melancholy the plight of the Slavic soul lost in the concrete sterility of late phase Faustian decline? A Faustian world he struggled to adapt to but never really suited him? I think it is!
I like the idea that Russia will rise and give birth to a civilization in the next millenium.

Yes.
youtu.be/Ozb9eigk9yY
Spengler was wrong, as are most of the people here. You cannot be for the Faustian spirit while also opposing postmodernism carte blanche, this is effectively a postmodern perspective, even if reactionary.
The alt-right is thoroughly post-modern, if anything they are more influenced by its tenets than the left is (one can also go back and look to see who influenced the New Right).
There is an external and internal infinity, and in some way I think that postmodernism is the extreme introspective of infinity. Even though I do not agree with it, and do not even like its aesthetic, I think it is a fatal mistake to dismiss it all. One could even argue that more was learned in the postmodern period than from the modern. There are not always events, rebellions, wars, and orgies. Sometimes there is recovery and trying to remember what came over one in these events. Postmodernism occurred at a time when the world seemed to be beyond the human, and the major questions were, 'Can we even continue to act in this world? Am I even human? Has this period of destruction brought an end to even the most remote corners of spirit? Is art and culture even possible among total ruin?'
Seen in this light I think postmodernism offers us something, even if we do not agree with it. And I do not think it is a mistake that post-modern music specifically fell into the religious, opening up a whole new territory of the spiritual. One should thank the post-moderns for this opportunity, as we now have the best music ever written.

The modern world seems to be throwing wrenches in the Spenglerian hypothesis. Maybe not though, after all this is a millenium long process, we can't really know.

Not slavic myself, but I really appreciate some slavic art. This right here is my favorite single piece of music, and it has a lot of that melancholy you mention
youtube.com/watch?v=fB0IHPGuTFo

Saying "we don't know the names of many individual artists from 1000-1200" is a more humble claim than "all art used to be 100% collaborative".
I would say, on the contrary, most art is essentially individualistic, although very often artists have to fit in with whatever framework society gives them.

The French talked about this with their "auteur" theory in film, where they said that many American directors had to express their personal vision in a largely clandestine way, making supposedly formulaic films in the studio structure.

Nothing ever changes.

No, Slavic melancholy is to me essence of Slavic people, our "idea" and our "symbol". It is a state of ephemeral beauty, where all things are understood as passing, and because of that are they beautiful and valuable.

Difficult to express, but various Slavic authors have shined light upon that idea.

I doubt Russia will give birth to new civilization.

There is no art at all left in Faustian civilization, Spengler was clear on that even 100 years ago. You can still be part of the Faustian civilization, but it's not artistic or relgiious anymore, its technology, politics, etc. now.

Post-modernism is nothing but sophism or skepticism, it isn't remotely original.

I have heard that the words to the Polish national anthem express this idea perfectly, although I'm not fluent enough in the language to know for sure.

Apparently there is a line something like "Poland will not perish yet, so long as we believe in her"
and the tenses are such that it's very delicately balanced between "Poland will not fall if we believe in her" and "Poland will fall, but not yet, while we believe in her".

This thread is absolutely fantastic. Truly Patrician gentlemen.

Yes, he did, they were early actors in the Magian civilization. Spengler had no real animus against the Jews at all, and points out how other peoples played similar roles in other civilizations.
The Jews are symbolic for the Faustian spirit. They were a civilization people (urban, hence the money-connection) when Gothic culture was still young and martial. The dynamic is similar (though historically different) between black and white today-- the white being Jew-like.
If the Faustian culture did not have the Jews IT WOULD HAVE HAD TO INVENT THEM. They symbolized the civilizational phase, the absorption into urban finality, the lifting out of the soil, and the life of the brain over the life of body.
The progress from Goth to Jew had to be made no matter what.

I understand what you are saying, but I think you shouldn't confuse the physical process of making art, with its core desire which is transcendence. Its tougher for great film to get noticed now because it exist as a tiny speck in a sea of mediocrity.
50 years ago is was much harder. you needed film, cameras, actors, sets, editing equipment, etc. Now the film / camera are ubiquitous. Editing is free. Sets can be created via CGI fairly easily. Now you really only need actors. In 50 years (or maybe 10), you won't even need actors. The gutter trash of film will explode exponentially.

Look at what happen to music. For the past 20 years literally anyone can create music. Buy sample pack, string loops together, string bass loops together. Sing / auto-tune. There is so much music being created that its all become utterly meaningless because anyone can do it.

"Great art" will always be beyond the limits of what average person can create. The limitation itself is what helps keeps the trash out. If someone had a vision strong enough to triumph over all those limitations, then the odds improved that his vision was driven by greatness.

Democracy is terrible. The collective is mundane and stupid. Listening to talk shows where the average viewer calls in is unbearable. There can be no greatness where all is equal. Hierarchy is natural and should be embraced and struggling to climb past the limitations is what defines greatness.

Actually, it seems to be confirming it. Spengler predicted the era of money-dominance would last from 1800-2000, and then the era of Caesarism would emerge... and lo and behold, right on cue, a profoundly corrupt oligarchical power structure starts unraveling, individual figures are rising up to seize power in the vacuum of values, and people are clamoring for "God emperor"...

This is only reason why I still come to pol, for threads and people like these.

What comes after?

Well, you're just glum chum. Wait a couple centuries and you might cheer up.
I do think I know the feel of what you describe though. I am very attracted to Russian literature, because of that beauty, what I would call spiritual beauty.

I disagree here, I think even the imitators of post modernism in Russia like Pelevin or Makanin, or the man wo wrote Pushkin house I forget his name currently, display their melancholy against the dying culture of the west far more beautifully than even Russian anons are acknowledging. Krautchan used to be the best place to witness the Russian and Slavic wit and melancholy before here, that wojack, polandball, €200 euro a month Choclate all got their start there is telling. They are able to use both our dying institutions (EU and NATO) and dying art to exploit our power and wealth while throwing our absurd suicidal rules back into our face visible in every country from czechia and Poland to Russia, the Jews of Ukraine are the only ones who impose the west on the Slavs, and it has killed the country of Ukraine as such, now half of Ukraine lives in Poland or Russia anyway. Only the feeble and Jews stay, the strong culture has given an exodus.

The modern worlds elite are actually slaves. No one really thinks HRC believes the shit she says. She parrots, fakes, acts to gain favor of the stupid masses.
Its why so many flocked to DJT. He explicitly wasn't slavishly covering his spirit. His emergence is just a symptom of the reawakening of the ideas of noble courageousness. To stand against the disgusting mob of virtue-signaling slaves. HRC is a slave to the plebs and all noble courageous people instinctually understand that.....she is not the power of self, she is the absence of self.