# Spengler's Theory of History **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 26, 2010, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spenglers-theory-of-history/530474 "2010-02-26T02:27:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2010, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spenglers-theory-of-history/530474/1 "2010-02-26T02:27:24Z")
Relevant Wikipedia articles: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oswald\_Spengler](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oswald_Spengler) [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The\_Decline\_of\_the\_West](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Decline_of_the_West) [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spengler’s\_civilization\_model](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spengler's_civilization_model) Basically Oswald Spengler argues that like all other civilizations Western civilization will go through the cycle rise, glory, and fall. According to Spengler (writing in the 1910s) the next century would see a series of wars which would result in one power becoming dominant in the West-he believed it would be Germany but it turned out to the be the United States of America. Now according to the model in the next century America will end up forming a world empire covering most of the world which will ossify and eventually decay and fall creating a new civilization. I think Spengler’s track record so far has been quite accurate but he did not see one thing-space colonization which I believe will keep civilization vigourous for far longer. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2010, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spenglers-theory-of-history/530474/2 "2010-02-26T02:51:27Z")
All general theories of history suffer from lack of sufficient data. For instance, Spengler’s post-dates the Industrial Revolution, which undeniably changed a great deal, if not everything, about the basic conditions of human life, and in completely unprecedented ways. How do we know that pre-industrial history is any reliable guide to the course of history in industrial civilizations? ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2010, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spenglers-theory-of-history/530474/3 "2010-02-26T03:07:08Z")
I can predict that Microsoft will grow big, overcrowded with bureaucracy, and eventually die. Some new company will rise and takes its place as the most profitable company in the world. Seeing a cyclical cycle in history ignores the fact that it’s still useless for making predictions. _Eventually_ some country is going to become number one. _Eventually_ that country will fall. If neither the US nor Germany nor any other country had become the biggy on schedule, no one would pay attention to the theory. The other several dozen people who postulated a new world power not arising for another 100, 200, 400, or 1000 years were forgotten because they didn’t hit the right number. The one guy who guessed a cyclical schedule that matched up with the future gets remembered. Rome didn’t just collapse one day. One can argue that it still exists in the Vatican, or that it continued on until ~1200, [in the Middle-East](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byzantine_Empire). That rather screws with his timing, either way. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2010, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spenglers-theory-of-history/530474/4 "2010-02-26T03:13:04Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > I can predict that Microsoft will grow big, overcrowded with bureaucracy, and eventually die. Some new company will rise and takes its place as the most profitable company in the world. > > Seeing a cyclical cycle in history ignores the fact that it’s still useless for making predictions. _Eventually_ some country is going to become number one. _Eventually_ that country will fall. If neither the US nor Germany nor any other country had become the biggy on schedule, no one would pay attention to the theory. The other several dozen people who postulated a new world power not arising for another 100, 200, 400, or 1000 years were forgotten because they didn’t hit the right number. The one guy who guessed a cyclical schedule that matched up with the future gets remembered. > > Rome didn’t just collapse one day. One can argue that it still exists in the Vatican, or that it continued on until ~1200, [in the Middle-East](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byzantine_Empire). That rather screws with his timing, either way. Spengler did address the Byzantines-according to him they were not part of Classical civilization but rather Magian (Persian-Islamic) but maintained a Classical facade. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2010, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spenglers-theory-of-history/530474/5 "2010-02-26T03:22:29Z")
> [@Curtis LeMay](#): > > Spengler did address the Byzantines-according to him they were not part of Classical civilization but rather Magian (Persian-Islamic) but maintained a Classical facade. Either way it’s still bunk. Everything has a start, a peak, and an end. What schedule that goes by is based on the systems in place to get good leadership and luck. Genghis Khan’s empire fizzled out almost instantaneously after his death, Rome died slowly over the period of nearly a thousand years. Saying that there would be any sort of mystical reasoning behind this is presupposing some almighty planner or some sort of inherent feedback mechanism built into humanity. The first option is silly, and the second option doesn’t explain the difference between Rome and the Mongolian Empire, nor why China has been able to continue, more-or-less for millenia. Unless you can think of a cause, you’re just finding patterns in radio noise. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2010, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spenglers-theory-of-history/530474/6 "2010-02-26T03:27:46Z")
Someday, we may have a real predictive science of history, like psychohistory in Isaac Asimov’s [Foundation series](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundation_series), or like cliology in Michael Flynn’s [_In the Country of the Blind,_](http://www.amazon.com/Country-Blind-Michael-Flynn/dp/076534498X) or like Marxism purported to be. But one historical prediction I can make with great confidence is that that day is a long way off. For one thing, every major technological advance would change the terms of the equations; and technological advances are unpredictable even by engineers. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2010, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spenglers-theory-of-history/530474/7 "2010-02-26T03:33:45Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > Either way it’s still bunk. Everything has a start, a peak, and an end. What schedule that goes by is based on the systems in place to get good leadership and luck. Genghis Khan’s empire fizzled out almost instantaneously after his death, Rome died slowly over the period of nearly a thousand years. Saying that there would be any sort of mystical reasoning behind this is presupposing some almighty planner or some sort of inherent feedback mechanism built into humanity. The first option is silly, and the second option doesn’t explain the difference between Rome and the Mongolian Empire, nor why China has been able to continue, more-or-less for millenia. Unless you can think of a cause, you’re just finding patterns in radio noise. Mongolia was not a real civilization while Rome was. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2010, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spenglers-theory-of-history/530474/8 "2010-02-26T03:43:38Z")
> [@Curtis LeMay](#): > > Mongolia was not a real civilization while Rome was. Mongolia was culturally parasitic on China, Rome was culturally parasitic on Greece. ---
**Author:** ![PBear42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ecccb3/32.png) [@PBear42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PBear42)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2010, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spenglers-theory-of-history/530474/9 "2010-02-26T03:51:05Z")
"Now according to the model in the next century America will end up forming a world empire covering most of the world … " Really? That’s either an ideosyncratic definition of empire or a miss as big as a mile, imho. Biggest gorilla, no doubt, at least militarily. But empire? ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2010, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spenglers-theory-of-history/530474/10 "2010-02-26T04:06:49Z")
> [@Curtis LeMay](#): > > Mongolia was not a real civilization while Rome was. Everything in the world can be hand-waved away if you want to. If you’re going to do whatever it takes to look at history in a way to prove Spengler, you’re going to come out saying you won the debate and proved everyone wrong. If you really want a battle though, go through and find every single nation, city-state, or fiefdom through history, find their start point and end point, and tell me if there’s any patterns in that data. I’ll bet you right now that you’ll get everything from groups that lasted a day to groups that lasted for thousands of years, and everything in between. And again, unless there’s something which would cause any particular cyclical schedule, then there is no cyclical schedule. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2010, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spenglers-theory-of-history/530474/11 "2010-02-26T04:14:47Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > Everything in the world can be hand-waved away if you want to. That’s the **other** problem with general theories of history. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2010, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spenglers-theory-of-history/530474/12 "2010-02-27T03:51:43Z")
> [@PBear42](#): > > "Now according to the model in the next century America will end up forming a world empire covering most of the world … " Really? That’s either an ideosyncratic definition of empire or a miss as big as a mile, imho. Biggest gorilla, no doubt, at least militarily. But empire? By empire it could easily mean an economic union along with the dominance of American “culture”.