Oswald Spengler: A Critical Estimate

by H. Stuart Hughes

Since its publication in 1918, Oswald Spengler's The Decline of the West has been the object of academic controversy and opprobrium. In their efforts to dispose of it, scholars have resorted to a variety of bitter invective, icy scorn, urbane mockery, or simply pretending that the book is not there. Yet generations of readers have refused to be warned off, finding in Spengler a prophetic voice and a source of profound intellectual excitement. H. Stuart Hughes's Oswald Spengler offers a judicious and objective reading of Spengler's works that admirably fills the gap between hypercritical invective and naïve enthusiasm. This pioneering volume makes clear why Spengler's pessimistic reading of the fate of European civilization continues to resonate with contemporary anxieties.Despite the author's self-imposed intellectual and social isolation, Spengler's work was as Hughes demonstrates, a part of the enormous effort of intellectual reevaluation that has characterized the early twentieth century. Viewing Spengler in the broadest possible perspective, the author places his thought in its cultural relationship to that of such predecessors as Giambattista Vico, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Nikolai Danilevsky and contemporaries including Benedetto Croce, Henri Bergson, and Vilfredo Pareto. A chapter of Hughes's book is devoted to Spengler's influence on later cyclical thinkers such as Arnold Toynbee and Pitirim Sorokin. Another chapter clarifies the essentially antagonistic relationship between his thought and Nazi ideology.Throughout, Hughes is carefully attuned to the complex and often bewildering shifts of Spengler's ideas and manner, providing a unified picture of the sober historian; the lofty seer; the cool, detached observer; and the impassioned participant. In his introduction to this new edition, Hughes comments on the timeliness of Spengler's message with respect to technology and environmental issues and draws some unexpected and fascinating parallels between Spengler's thought and that of Ludwig Wittgenstein. Oswald Spengler offers an illuminating view of the achievements and limitations of one of the most influential and representative figures of the twentieth century. It will be of concern to intellectual historians, philosophers, political scientists, and sociologists.

Genres: History, Philosophy

196 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1962

Reviews

[AC · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book reads like what, essentially, it is. A series of undergraduate lectures from the 50's -- offered by an Ivy-League, tweed-suited, OSS/CIA connected, pompously bourgeoise, 'slightly' radical and donnish (the 'gentleman rebel') Hughes. It is not hagiographic, but he is somewhat sympathetic to Spengler on account of his own apparent hostility towards positivism in historiography and his own tendency towards big-picture simplifications. The best parts of this book, in fact, are those in which he presents (Ch. 2) a clear, thumbnail sketch of the historical temper of the late 19th-early 20th century's political, Romantik modernisms of Nietzsche, Pareto, Sorel, and Bergson -- while reading this I thought it would be an excellent text for some of my less sophisticated students; and his account of World-cycle history in, especially Vico and Danilevsky (the latter being an influence on Putin). His account of Spengler's own system (Ch. 5) can hardly rise above the profound mediocrity of its subject (Spengler's Decline of the West) which, when stripped of its portentious mania -- which so appeals to the undergraduate mind of deracinated bourgeois intellectuals, leaves little residue -- though, admittedly, he view of the 'future' DOES (intuitively grasped) have more than a little resemblence to our present (p. 84f.): the coming Caesarism, the levelling mass-societies of "barrack-cities", and the rise of a new primitivism (think American Mega-Churches).

Usually three-stars means (for me) that the book is junk. But this is a three-star book that many will find it worth reading -- . It's very short, and the last half (Spengler's politics of the '20s and '30s, and his successors and positivist critics) can be safely and quickly skimmed.

The references to two critical articles by R.G. Collingwood are given on p. 96n.14, and there is a very short, but useful account of the Neo-idealism of Croce (to which Collingwood ascribed) at 35f. There is also a good quick review of the 'humanistic Hegelianism' of Jacob Burckhardt at 17ff.

[noblethumos · Rating 5 out of 5]

"H. Stuart Hughes' 'Oswald Spengler: A Critical Estimate,' originally published in 1952, serves as a comprehensive and scholarly evaluation of the German historian and philosopher Oswald Spengler, best known for his work 'The Decline of the West.' Hughes’ book is a significant contribution to the field of intellectual history, offering a nuanced and critical examination of Spengler's ideas and their impact on 20th-century thought.

Hughes meticulously examines Spengler's philosophical and cultural theories, particularly the idea of cultures having life cycles similar to those of biological organisms. This approach allows readers to grasp the complexity and breadth of Spengler's vision, which encompasses history, culture, politics, and art. Hughes successfully contextualizes Spengler within the broader intellectual milieu of his time, illuminating how his pessimistic worldview resonated with the anxieties of the post-World War I era.

One of the strengths of Hughes’ work is its balanced critique. He acknowledges the breadth and originality of Spengler’s thought while also highlighting its flaws and inconsistencies. Hughes points out the deterministic and often vague nature of Spengler's cultural predictions, and how they sometimes verged on fatalism. This critical stance provides a more rounded understanding of Spengler's intellectual legacy.

However, some critics might find Hughes’ approach overly cautious or academic, potentially underplaying the more radical implications of Spengler's thought. Additionally, the book primarily focuses on Spengler’s philosophical ideas, giving less attention to his influence on later thinkers and movements, which could have provided a more comprehensive view of his historical significance.

Oswald Spengler: A Critical Estimate' by H. Stuart Hughes stands as an important work for those seeking to understand the complex and often controversial ideas of Oswald Spengler. Hughes’ meticulous research and balanced analysis make this book a valuable resource for students and scholars of history, philosophy, and cultural studies. While the book may not delve deeply into the broader impact of Spengler's thought, it remains a key text for understanding one of the early 20th century’s most provocative and influential thinkers."

GPT

[Michael David · Rating 5 out of 5]

While looking for a copy of Spengler's Decline of the West, I saw a copy of this book. As I read a few reviews of it, I was rather wary of diving headfirst into the text: multiple people complained of the abstruse, repetitive, and circuitous manner of Spengler's writing, so when the seller of this book accepted a cheaper offer from me, I was grateful. Hughes himself comments that "in its final version, Decline is annoyingly long and repetitious." (p. 66)

It was definitely the correct choice as Hughes insightfully expounded on Spengler's works and dovetailed it with the historical context with which he wrote Decline. More importantly, like a good critic, he lauds Spengler for certain aspects of his works while rationally critiquing his shortcomings. As I have not read the original text yet, I sought an approach with which to read Decline.

Hughes began by presenting the three dominant historical perspectives of Spengler's time, which was the fin-de-siecle 19th century. There was positivism, where historical ideas were constructed based on archaeological and historical evidence and ordered by logic; there was idealism, led by Benedetto Croce, which sought to organize history by themes and images; and there were cyclical historians, who believed in history's ricorsi, which was broached and then developed by Giambattista Vico. These people believed in history being cyclical, or recurrent (although Hughes provides a qualification that Vico viewed history as more of a spiral, as it ascends towards God).

Hughes identifies that Spengler was more of an idealist and his perspective of history was more thematic than evidentiary. More importantly, Hughes identifies in later chapters the lack of accuracy that characterizes positivist treatises. He identifies three cardinal errors in Spengler's analysis of history:

1) Fixed time sequences - in Decline, cultures rise and fall in 1,000 year sequences, and when Spengler errs towards positivism, the errors of his Decline become more manifest.

2) Pseudomorphosis - "an older alien Culture lies so massively over the land that a young Culture cannot get its breath and fails not only to achieve pure and specific expression-forms, but even to develop fully its own self-consciousness. All that wells up from the depths of the young soul is cast in the old moulds, young feelings stiffen in senile works, and instead of rearing itself up in its own creative power, it can only hate the distant power with a hate that grows to be monstrous." This is essentially a claim on morphology that has been consistently disputed by professional historians, as there is a dearth of evidence that show this phenomenon.

3) Unitary, hermetic culture - Spengler denies "cultural interaction" and believed that each culture was unitary. This was also disputed by Meyer in trying to provide a qualified recommendation for Decline, and remains to be debunked by many other historians. Cultural diffusion has been shown across millennia, from the Greco-Roman dynamic to the Mongol influence in Chinese culture.

Spengler was conservative and he exhorted the Germans to return to this aristocratic conservatism. However, he was also a prophet of political reform. In essence, he wished Germans to adopt to the West's decline, but also only recommended one particular method, which was the method most familiar to him. In this dual role, the inconsistencies of Spengler are manifest. Further, Hughes points out in his terminal chapter that the Spengler conflicts with the basic postulates of philosophy, economics, anthropology, politics, and history: most damning to Spengler's belief of money being the primary driver of economic life fails to take into account other rationales, as would further be expounded upon by the bounded rationality of Simon and behavioral economics of Kahneman.

The Decline, among Spengler's other works, should not be undertaken with the scientific method, because it will necessarily fail. Hughes, however, lauds one aspect where Decline triumphs: "as literature, the Decline is without equal in the field of cyclical writing." (p. 162)

Ultimately, because of Hughes' insight and analysis, I have identified one method of approach toward the Decline: reading such a work as literature and imagination will be the most rewarding way. Through other vistas, Decline is imprecise, but as a creative work and a monolithic attempt to explain a phenomenon that was Germany's zeitgeist, Decline becomes worth reading.

[T · Rating 4 out of 5]

“The Decline of the West offers the nearest thing we have to a key to our times but formulates more comprehensively than any other single book the modern malaise that so many feel and few can express. It has become the classic summary of the familiar pessimism of the twentieth-century West with regard to its own historical future.” (165)

This book is an excellent introduction to Spengler’s terse magnum opus, his life, and his thought world. Hughes seems to agree with other critics that Spengler’s other works aren’t very good (especially Man and Technics), and he is comfortable criticising Spengler where he sees Spengler falling short or being obscurantist.

However, Hughes’ appreciation really brings out what was attractive in Spengler’s work. History was becoming dominated by historical materialism, positivism, and the Annales School. Lots of historians, naturally, saw history as progressive - things got increasingly better and more rational. But Spengler saw history as cyclical and denounced mankind as merely another animal.

Spengler wasn’t a nihilist, but rather a Nietzschean. He thought that cycles of history could be commandeered in some sense, the cycles could be developed, but civilisations would still rise and fall inevitably. A Caesar like figure can grasp the epoch. Here we see Spengler’s connection to Elite Theory (and potential overlap with Pareto in particular).

This all seems a bit strange and spiritual for a modern historian. But regardless of Spengler’s whacky method and idiosyncratic style, his work does have a level of ambition and scope that would be exceedingly rare for a contemporary academic historian. Disciplinary boundaries and the ‘publish or perish attitude’ would prevent this book from even being imagined as a viable project. Perhaps it is in this light we should appreciate Spengler…