In this case it's a low bar. Plenty of people sail over it.Huxley wrote:You forgot to mention your modesty.Ibrahim wrote:Oh my moral and intellectual superiority to Spengler is old news
I.e. people behave the way he behaves/thinks they should behave.I'm not sure how a culture can resemble a person,Ibrahim wrote:The general thrust of his entire pseudo-intellectual body of rants is, as Typhoon sagely put it, that certain cultures will continue to exist and thrive insofar as they resemble Spengler.
He wrote about the pending Christianization of China several times. Plus, they teach their kids to play the cello.and I don't see Spengler calling for mass conversions to Orthodox Judaism. He does want people to share his belief in a loving God, and he deplores what he sees as the West's rejection of God. He seems to be fairly sanguine about non-Judeo-Christian China and India, however.
I agree that he's not subtle, which is why it should be a simple matter to furnish a quote - really, just one quote would be enough - clearly showing Spengler's "preference ... for everybody who is not with the Spengler program to die off."Ibrahim wrote:Maybe you need to re-read the period between, oh, the early 2000's to the present. He's not exactly subtle.
Spengler has pretensions of being taken seriously, so he was slightly more subtle about his intent than a e.g a white supremacist website. Consequently there are no specific quotes to that effect. He often predicts they will die off, and boasts that most of the cultures that are dying off are worthless. I'm inferring his preference for that outcome based on his libel that all groups that don't meet his standards are "pagans" and "most aren't worth a Master's thesis" etc. His tribalism is pretty crass and transparent.
Are you seriously telling me that Spengler doesn't write about breeding? Hasn't positively droned on about it for a decade? I was not referring to this article specifically re: breeding, but it's one of the main props to his (post-LaRouche) life's work.Finding subtexts is fun, but I'd rather stick to the actual content of the article as stated in plain English.Ibrahim wrote:Again, you're not paying attention to the subtext. Spengler's theology is tribal triumphalism. A Godly nation will breed like rabbits (Africa and Muslim nations excepted) and be economically prosperous.
This article says nothing about breeding
Spengler is wrong about this as well. German productivity, and thus compensation for demographic decline, is and will be due to automation. The economic "losers" also have plenty of immigrants.Germany will thrive in spite of its demographic problems (it will plug the gap with immigrants).
Again, I refer you to the previous decade.And what is this about "Godly nations"? Where does Spengler even mention God?
Right, but one produced Bach, and so gets a pass from Spenglerman. Also, he hates Picasso. Strike two.Isn't Germany pretty much as godless as Spain, if not more so?
It fits into his broader narrative, even if they are not central to this particular essay. It conforms to his general suck-up, kick-down ethos.The whole issue of religion and demography is irrelevant in this context. It's an article about the sharply different economic statuses and futures of two equally godless European nations. Why is that so hard for you to accept?
Sad.Been reading Spengler for longer than you have, in all likelihood.Ibrahim wrote:Trust me, I've served my time reading Spengler's essays. If he's your new hero then you're a few years late. He jumped the shark just about the time he shed the pseudonym to collect a paycheck for a job from which he was fired shortly thereafter.
Ah, well you needn't worry then. In this case I'm entirely correct.I'm not going to the mat for anyone. It's just that I feel compelled to point out that what you're saying doesn't make any sense. "Someone is WRONG on the Internet" and all that.Ibrahim wrote:You don't need to tell me things. I'll tell you things, like the fact that you're going to the mat for a propagandist hack.
In Spengler's sick mind Europe is entirely suspect because they don't discriminate against Muslims generally, and Palestinians in particular, enough. Perhaps you were on his old forum right after the Breivik shootings in Norway, where he and his inner circle were arguing that Norway was suffering the karmic consequences for backing Palestine at the UN? Or perhaps you remember when he was still on the "Eurabia" bandwagon, arguing for halts to Muslim immigration to Europe. In fact perhaps you missed the entire tone of every forum he's ever been on, which involved systematic dehumanization and historical revisionism directed at Arabs and blacks? This has been present on every forum he's ever "resided" on, with his most egregious fans never disciplined. Meanwhile many on this forum were banned from Spengler forums for expressing basic objections to that program of overt racist propaganda.Is there any issue which is not, in your mind, connected to racism? "They aren't racist and Godly enough for his tastes" - what does that even mean? I thought Spengler's whole point about Europe was that it lost its way when the vision of universal Christian empire was replaced by national self-idolatry (hint, racism).Ibrahim wrote:He loathes Europe generally and claps when anything bad happens to them, because they aren't racist and Godly enough for his tastes.
Oh, and it never ceases to amuse me when people claim that I consider everything to be racist any time I point out obvious racism or other forms of prejudice and bias. Pardon me for being too provincial.
Attacking and dismantling racist propaganda is fun to me. I think defending it is the really odd passtime.Well, he was the head of debt research at Bank of America, so he's probably qualified to discuss a bit more than 18th-century German music, like for example finance and economics, but whatever. It's interesting to me that you would devote so much time and energy to commenting on the articles of someone you consider to be an ignorant, racist hack.Ibrahim wrote:Though he does have a soft spot for dear old Germany, since their music circa 1720 is the only subject he's actually remotely qualified to discuss.
As to Spengler also knowing something about economics, that doesn't exactly justify his decade of essays on demographics, history, and theology, all of which is a huge embarrassment of falsehood and propaganda. So that leaves banking as a credential, which isn't what it used to be post 2008.
Again, you're confused. You don't let me do things. Especially right after "taking back" precisely the statement I was commenting on, what arguing my comments are invalid in the same paragraph.Slob? Interesting. Anyway, "hard-working" was a misnomer, and I take it back. Obviously, I'm not claiming, nor do I think Spengler is claiming, that no Spaniards work hard. I know this is precisely what you'd like to think Spengler is claiming, so you can demolish his argument effortlessly by pointing out the startling fact that some Spaniards do, indeed, work hard. I won't let you do that.Ibrahim wrote:As for being hard working? Well, I'll pass that along to Spain's dishwashers and miners. I know there is a morality tale in there somewhere, if only some ex-Larouchite slob could just explain it to those lazy Spaniards.
Sounds like every other developed nation post-2008.As I understand it, Spengler's argument is simply that the following factors:
-profligate spending and borrowing
-state dependency
-soaring labor costs
-massive construction bubble
This one is quite funny. Apparently ever nation on Earth needs to dominate a key industry.-lack of ambition to dominate the world in any key industries
I only "impute" to him what he's been writing about for over ten years. The people he attracts, and who subsequently defend his drivel, move casually between defending his central theses and denying he's making them in the first place, depending on the context.Now, as an economic ignoramus, I'm not qualified to defend this argument point by point. All I can say is that this is Spengler's argument - not some nonsense about godliness, racism, or whatever other preoccupation you feel the bizarre need to impute to him.