Reading from pages 16-22

Spengler begins this section with a discussion of chronological delusion, explaining that people from an unusually peaceful era, such as Europe of the late 1800s, are forever biased in their judgment. Such people—such as the decadent Baby Boomers of suburban America—cannot even imagine true hardship, let alone deal with it.

“This peace period from 1870 to 1914, and the memory of it, rendered all White men self-satisfied, covetous, void of understanding, and incapable of bearing misfortune.”

And so a long dead German describes postmodern White America. Below he explains our politics.

“Not a statesman, not a party, hardly even a political thinker is today in a safe enough position to speak the truth. They all lie, they all join in the chorus of the pampered, ignorant crowd who want their tomorrow to be like the good old days…Only look at our leaders today! Once a month their cowardly and dishonest optimism announces the ‘up-branch of the cycle’ and ‘prosperity,’ on the strength of a mere flutter of the stock exchange caused by building-speculations.

“They can no longer bear tragedy, either on stage or in real life. They crave happy endings of insipid novels [now superhero movies], so miserable and weary are they. The coward’s security…is at an end. Life in danger, the real life of history, comes once more into its own.

“People with tired, cowardly, senile souls seek refuge from the age in something which by reason of its miraculous doctrines and customs is better able to rock them into the sleep of oblivion than the Christian churches."

Spengler goes on to extol the virtues of epic poetry from India and Hellas, to Germany throughout the ages in terms of cultivating the human will, which is best forged through a tragic view of life. he then closes with a summation on man's true nature and the consequently cyclic nature of history.

“Man is a beast of prey…which do I insult: man or beast?"

“The dreary train of world-improvers has now come to an end… That is Destiny. We may deny it, but in so doing we deny ourselves.”

Spengler had a rare grasp on humanity as it is in an era when most thinkers were devoting themselves to imagining an improved humanity or lying about its past or present character. We now live in a time dominated by the fantasies and lies that he exposed, to find his clear observations submerged beneath this tide of willful ignorance.