What is the history of the 'Western civilization is in decline' meme?

>which it wont
How will it not?

>never recovered from
nigga it's been 8 years, it's bad but on the timescale of the fate of civilizations, "wealth inequality going up a bit and houses being expensive" is fucking nothing.

How will it?

Hard mode: No picture diagrams that don't cite any sources and have inflammatory caps lock for no good reason

>there are people that post on Veeky Forums without having read spengler

The fate of empires and search for survival, by Sir John Bagot Glubb

Every civilization has that same meme.

I haven't read up on this or anything,

but would I be able to argue an instance at either the assassination of Julius Caesar, or the Ascension of Augustus?
(i.e. Senatorial/Republican worries)

It's literally a meme pushed by right-wingers. (I'm right-wing myself)

Because Islam is dying. Wahhabism is a swan song; the death rattle of a dying force. The Saudi's export terrorism because if they don't it will swell in their own country. Every dollar they give to Wahhabists is another dollar spent further radicalizing their own populace against their own rule. They frantically spend more and more to try and outpace it, but they never can.

And one day they won't be able to, be it because the Israeli's are tired of them existing, or the US decides Turkey is a better ally, or because Iran finally becomes the dominant power it dreams of becoming, or because some mythical pan-Western nationalist alliance decides to stop putting up with the Saudi's whole "overgrown manchild playing with daddy's money" thing.

And when that happens the only force actually holding together the Islamic religion - from a theological perspective as opposed to a bunch of atheists who have a shared cultural and historical tradition and legacy - collapses because Iran sure as shit isn't going to put up with the dribble the Saudi's have been spewing, the SEA Muslims would give Islam up in a hearbeat if it'd profit them, and Pakistan is full of incompetent loons.

>Saudi Arabia
>the only force actually holding together the Islamic religion
topkek

>the richest and most deeply entrenched in the global economy Muslim state will simply whither away and lose influence because reasons

It's the modern version of heraclitus/plato crying about change because it makes them feel uncomfortable but less excusable.

History is not a continuous improvement.

Western Europe had a huge decline once, that culminated with the fall of Rome. Chinese history is all about their Empire rising and falling.

In the late 1960's there was some moral decline. People got more promiscuous, drug use increased, etc. And it is not a conservative meme of people "wanting to go back to the old days that never existed". The American soldiers that spend 8 years locked in Vietnam couldn't recognize their own country when they came back.

Western Civilization in this case should be understood to mean the time period beginning with the early modern era up to the present day. This contrast to the previous civilizations of Europe. Medieval, Roman, Hellenistic, etc.

The idea of the decline has nothing to do with material wealth and everything to do with moral, spiritual and intellectual wealth which has been rapidly declining since the 1960s.

>Because Islam is dying.

Not that I disagree with you but you have far more people in the West who even in an Orientalistic sense care about the non-western world than the Other way around

For example You don't see say Japanese media trying to explain why Germay's Birth rate is declining the way Japan's Birth Rate has gotten

Note to self, never forget how retarded nonwhites are

>a meme

if you compare the West with what it was a 100 years ago you can't tell me that it hasn't declined in influence and power

But they don't believe in it enough to not come here

They come to our land for material wealth, not because we aren't declining. It isn't about GDP.

if you think that collapse and decline are memes, you cant, by definition, be a "right-winger"

basically OP, Oswald Spengler wrote a book.
People pretended to have read the book and went on autistic rants that had nothing to do with what Spengler pictured.

The end

It's been around for at least 2700 years.

Back in ancient Greece, Hesiod wrote about a past golden age that had declined to the shitty present-day world.

That's a little different. Hesiods system has to do with metaphysical cycles like the Kali Yuga.

The Golden age described by Hesiod was literally the equivalent of the Edenic Age in Abramhamic mythology.

Every civilization goes through a lifecycle where it's power and influence wanes before it dies and becomes something else entirely

The modern Western world, born from the liberal ideals of the French Revolution, has seen its time in the sun slowely but surely fade as places like China and India once again start reasserting their dominance. There's nothing that can be done to avoid this fate, only delay it. It's inevitable

Ancient Greece had completely different values and ideals compared to modern day Western Europe. I wouldn't consider them part of the "Western World" in the present sense.

it has, especially culturally

Duh, because 100 years ago it was riding an unsustainable lead caused by technological and societal advantages unparalleled in human history. Did you expect those to be maintained or compounded in the future?

What the fuck is 'Western civilisation'

You guys can't say 'muh hellenic roots', most Southeast Asian countries, Korea and Japan all have national history heavily influenced by ancient Chinese classics the same way the Greeks influenced all the European countries, are we gonna categorise everyone in NEAsia and SEAsia as 'Chinese' now

Different Western nations have different interests and different futures

Countries like Poland are undergoing good growth with positive birthrates, but they're not German so it doesn't matter I guess.

>are we gonna categorise everyone in NEAsia and SEAsia as 'Chinese' now
Yes, why not? They all are the same.

Thailand and Japan are not the same

Spain and Russia are not the same

Let's stop saying (arbritrarily umbrella) civilisation pls

% of global wealth decreasing
% of global population decreasing

Plus there's the question of whether or not the West even has an identity. Racial equality and multiculturalism are both mainstream; the concept of a preeminent native race/culture is socially unacceptable. By any estimation, the West is declining in relevance and shpws no sign of being able (or even willing) to halt this death spiral.

This

Theories of civilizational collapse have been around since the first great collapse of civilization, the Bronze age collapse. They predate western culture entirely as this user points out, that even in its earliest embryonic stages, a belief in the incipient collapse of civilization has been ingrained into the western mindset.

People thought that they were living in the end times during the height of the Roman Republic, the height of pax romana, even in 1000 AD people were prostrating themselves in a panic over fear that the end times would take place exactly 1,000 years after the life time of Christ. Throughout the 19th and 20th century apocalypse cults waxed and waned in popularity and yet life had a way of going on.

Me and my neighbour have different interests and functions, can you guys pls stop saying countries exist

Over the course of history, most civilisations *have* collapsed. You can't just say "here are some cherrypicked examples where X was wrong, so X must be wrong in this case".

Its hardly a new thing to hold the idea that the "West" is in decline, following WW1 that was a distinctly popular belief, and yet here we are, a hundred years later…

Same thing for Britain, the British are always complaining that they're a society that is in decline, about to become a third world country, and yet, a century and a half after they started voicing such fears, they're still here.

Western civilization and Western countries are more resilient than we give them credit for. You could view it as "Western civilization in decline", or you could view that the entire world has been Westernized to the extent - well, for countries that are making strides at least - that naturally the regions which are "westernized" are catching up. How we define the concept of what it means to be Western is important, which is why I use scare quotes around "West", as its an ideal which can change so quickly in its territorial and ideological content.

During the Cold War we wouldn't consider the Soviet bloc as being "Western" - no, propaganda made it explicitly clear, it was the West vs. the East. They were eastern, we were western. In the present day, would we consider them being removed from "Western civilization", when both Romania and Bulgaria are in the EU?

The borders and meaning of what it means to be Western change hugely, to an extent it is only in decline as much as we think it to be in decline. When the rest of the world has largely adopted our political and economic philosophy except for backwards shitholes in the Middle East, I'm unconvinced that we're in decline. Transition is a better wording.

Poland has one of the lowest birth rates in Europe, it is at 1.32 TFR.

A broken clock is right twice a day, and since the failure of the first large scale civilizations during the transition between the bronze and iron ages, there hasn't been a catastrophic "collapse" of its kind since. Even the so called "collapse" of iron age societies were more of a gradual, multi-generational shift towards decentralized societies and since then, Western civilization has continued without interruption, just like Chinese civilization has existed since 200 BC and even when things were dire, such as warring periods like the three kingdoms period or during the An Lushan Rebellion, it eventually bounced back stronger than ever.

>Its hardly a new thing to hold the idea that the "West" is in decline, following WW1 that was a distinctly popular belief, and yet here we are, a hundred years later…

Yes, here we are, significantly declined. I honestly don't know what to say to somebody who denies that Europe had a greater share of global power in 1916.

By what standard? Because we're no longer the only developed region on the planet? Because we no longer export cruelty on an international scale? Because nations no longer wage unapologetic profit-wars on one another?

Europe might not, but I'd say Europe's ideals are even more influential than they were a hundred years ago. Nobody relevant rejects European ideals of organizing the economy and most aren't able to really propose any alternative politically that hold out long-run, so Europe has won the ideological battle. How does that constitute decline, when everybody else only competes by adopting and becoming European themselves?

> You guys can't say 'muh hellenic roots', most Southeast Asian countries, Korea and Japan all have national history heavily influenced by ancient Chinese classics the same way the Greeks influenced all the European countries, are we gonna categorise everyone in NEAsia and SEAsia as 'Chinese' now

Actually Japan, Korea, China and north Vietnam make up what's known as the Sino-sphere precisely because of their Chinese heritage.

>By what standard?
By any standard that represents European prestige and culture.

>By any standard that represents European prestige and culture.
Could you try being any more vague?

Rate of technological achievement? it's accelerating. GDP? They're absurdly higher today than they were before WWI. Quality of life? When was the last time someone you knew died of the Spanish Flu? Military capacity? Our military can rapidly project force anywhere in the world. Is it because we no longer live in a world where almost everyone who isn't "western" is a dirt poor peasant farmer?

Every culture experiences faster than normal growth when they industrialize because factory wage-earners have a better quality of life than subsistence farmers. That was as true for England in the 1820's as it was for America in the 1880's and Soviet Russia in the 1930's. But expecting that kind of growth to continue forever even if we replicate the regulatory environment is simply wishful thinking.

> Rate of technological achievement? it's accelerating. GDP? They're absurdly higher today than they were before WWI.

Spengler noted that civilizations shifting from valuing cultural/spiritual principals to valuing purely technological/material principals is part of the decline.

>Quality of life? When was the last time someone you knew died of the Spanish Flu?

How do you measure quality of life? For example suicide and drug/alcohol addiction is higher than ever among White males in the USA. Obviously their quality of life isn't better regardless of the fact they don't die from Spanish flu.

> Military capacity? Our military can rapidly project force anywhere in the world.

Our over extended military is only a drain on our civilization that enriches a rootless cosmopolitan elite.

>Spengler noted that civilizations shifting from valuing cultural/spiritual principals to valuing purely technological/material principals is part of the decline.
>European politics, philosophy, science and communications were radically reoriented during the course of the “long 18th century” (1685-1815) as part of a movement referred to by its participants as the Age of Reason, or simply the Enlightenment.
This has been going on for centuries. Turns out the scientific method is a hell of a lot more effective at diagnosing illnesses than traditional western mysticism and chemistry is a hell of a lot more useful than alchemy.
>How do you measure quality of life? For example suicide and drug/alcohol addiction is higher than ever among White males in the USA.
But is that indicative of a long term decline or simply a short/intermediate reaction to localized effects like economic downturns and growing wealth disparities?
>Our over extended military is only a drain on our civilization that enriches a rootless cosmopolitan elite.
but this was the case even back then, and in this age of nuclear weapons and quickly communicating guerrilla networks, carving up the world using colonialism and naked conquest isn't feasible any more.

>This has been going on for centuries.

Spengler thought the West has been declining for centuries and this is part of the process.

> Turns out the scientific method is a hell of a lot more effective at diagnosing illnesses than traditional western mysticism and chemistry is a hell of a lot more useful than alchemy.

This is borderline irrelevant when discussing something as multifaceted as civilizational decline. The Western Worlds rapid advancement of medical science (thanks to European ingenuity) is good and entirely unique but it isn't what makes a civilization great or strong. I'd hope you wouldn't judge every civilization based primarily on their command of material sciences.

> But is that indicative of a long term decline or simply a short/intermediate reaction to localized effects like economic downturns and growing wealth disparities?

I really couldn't say.

> but this was the case even back then,

In the past European empires at least received some degree of wealth or prestige from military pursuits. They also had more autonomy against non-state actors.

and in this age of nuclear weapons and quickly communicating guerrilla networks, carving up the world using colonialism and naked conquest isn't feasible any more.

I agree, which is why we are moving towards large supranational unions. Although you should keep in mind this was induced by two World Wars and a shift in European global hegemony to the USA and USSR which had no intent of leaving their former rivals with any colonies. Things could have gone differently.

Islam will find a second life in Europe, America, and Canada
The West is much too tolerant to stand in its way

Civilization has always been decline, since the fifth century BC Greeks. It picked up a bit in the Victorian Era but ancient Greece has always been considered the peak.

Islam is in decline on the political front, with the last Islamic Empire falling almost 100 years ago. Islam needs to have political control to become a majority (See: Islamic History). It may stay in power in countries it is already established in, but as long as they don't have political control they are pretty powerless. The scary thing is that some groups may become powerful politically because they may outbreed to get a majority. The best deterrent to Islam is Christian Nationalsism of any kind.

anyone else got some good essays about civilization in decline?

archive.org/stream/ReligioPoetae#page/n125/mode/2up

>somebody disagrees with you on the internet
>THIS IS IT, WESTERN CIVILIZATION IS FUCKING DECLINING, THE HUMAN RACE IS FUCKED

this is what is happening.

>peak
>not even Christian

>Countries like Poland are undergoing good growth with positive birthrates, but they're not German so it doesn't matter I guess.

I'm Polish and that's horseshit. We are heading towards a demographic catastrophe in 20 years unless we let in more migrants. Fortunately, we take migrants from more sensible locations than Western Europe did.

Take a look at what is happening in Europe and what has be happening for the last two decades.

People always think the world will end in their lifetime, that's why older people are so cynical and hate on everything.

Pro-tip: the world will continue when you're underground, just try to accept it.

How do you mean?

this isn't about some catastrophical event where humanity is wiped out, it's about cultural decadence, culture can change vastly over 1 lifetime, especially since the 20th century

>commonwealth member emigrates to commonwealth country.
>this means the west is dying.

You are a big fool

>By any standard that represents European prestige and culture.
>europe is far better regarded in the present day third world than it was a hundred years ago.
>european ideals influence third world movements
>european prestige is worse.

PAKISTAN IS THE SWORD OF ISLAM YOU KUFFAR.

People have a tendency to remember the good stuff and think that life was better when they were young. It's human nature. If you began with the Greeks you would know that even ancient Athenians had nostalgia and thought the current youngsters were rude and lazy, and not at all as polite and hard working as they were.

When this general sentiment of the human soul is applied as a narrative in history making. You get "Greek/Roman/Christian/European/White/Western civilization in decline" mumbo jumbo.

This

>even ancient Athenians had nostalgia and thought the current youngsters were rude and lazy, and not at all as polite and hard working as they were.

That was a fake quote created in the late 60's in response to people who complained about hippies.

The difference is a key element of Western Civilization is European (white)/Christian identity and tradition. When China and India Civilization declined, they kept their identity. Western civilization declines and this identity is lost with the influx of third world migration.

You mean like how China was ruled for centuries by Manchurians who forced them to adopt foreign haircuts and to adopt their rural isolationist mentality which ultimately paralyzed China right as they were on the verge of industrialization and world hegemony?

There's another possibility, and it's that all cultures are transitional by nature, and the reason you perceive the west as "declining" is because it is transitioning into a form that is unfamiliar to you.

Hell, it wasn't that long ago that people thought America was going to hell in a hand-basket because Catholic immigrants from Ireland, Germany, and Italy who were more loyal to the Pope in Rome were swarming over here in their potato boats and bringing all the beer drinking rowdiness and mafia violence. But life just went on.

Your ignorance on this subject is astounding. Spengler's book has nothing to do with "nostalgia." Something that would be obvious to anyone who reads more than its title.

You two clearly haven't read anything about Spengler's book beyond the title and should post your anti-White soapboxing somewhere it'd actually be relevant to the discussion.

Irish, Germans and Italians were white and integrated nicely though. In Europe the immigrants aren't integrating whatsoever.

It has been declining in those aspects since long before the 1960s

No, hence the decline

From where?

>integrated nicely
over a long period of time.

[Chorus]
All religions make me wanna throw up
All religions make me sick
All religions make me wanna throw up
All religions suck
They all claim that they have the truth
That'll set you free
Just give 'em all your money and they'll set you free
Free for a fee

They all claim that they have 'the Answer'
When they don't even know the Question
They're just a bunch of liars
They just want your money
They just want your consciousness

[Chorus]
All religions suck
All religions make me wanna throw up
All religions suck
All religions make me wanna BELCH

They really make me sick
They really make me sick
They really make me sick
They really make me sick
They really make me sick
They really make me ILL

If God can vomit up the land, I'd like to see him give a shit

> were white

No they weren't "white" white, remember white back then was more restrictive bub. Irish Italians and Germans had a ton of bad shit attached to each of them that many people made up reasons for.

> integrated nicely though

Over long period of time and plenty of strife and discrimination. Not to mention the riots and the attack of immigrants.

>In Europe the immigrants aren't integrating whatsoever.

Very different scenario also Euros are super hard to please.

You say, 'God loves you. Come and buy the Good News'
Then you buy the president and swimming pools
If Jesus don't save 'til we're lining your pockets
God must be dead if you're alive

Circus-tent con-men and Southern belle bunnies
Milk your emotions then they steal your money
It's the new dark ages with the fascists toting bibles
Cheap nostalgia for the Salem Witch Trials

Stodgy ayatollahs in their dobble-knit ties
Burn lots of books so they can feed you their lies
Masturbating with a flag and a bible
God must be dead if you're alive

Blow it out your ass, Jerry Falwell
Blow it out your ass, Jesse Helms
Blow it out your ass, Ronald Reagan

>don't complain that the structure is collapsing until it has already collapsed

>There are people in this thread who think Romans and Greeks were ""westerners""

>'Western civilization is in decline' meme
It comes from malnourished pessimism a la Spengler/Evola/Schopenhauer, in the same way Žižek still believes in "the ultimate triumph of communism", in much the same way that the Asians still believe in "Eastern philosophies", or or minorities believe, despite all evidence to the contrary, that they are not inferior. This is the effect of the Western locomotive. Those it doesn't physically obliterate, it freaks out into denial.

As for the limited ressentiment kind of racism, seen in Japan for example, this they refute themselves. Who's sitting in chairs, sleeping in beds, and using spoons and forks? Are we the ones wearing kimonos or are they wearing suits? What do they teach in Japanese universities? Why are there even universities in Japan at all? Who has imported thousands of the other's words into their language? Who has the cultural inferiority complex — and deserves to have it?

And note that this goes also for every other reactionary group ever: from hippies to /pol/itical ideologues to real criminals. It's part of the richness and greatness of Western civilization that it can tolerate the existence of so many millions of losers and retards, while still forging full steam ahead with its goal — the creation of the Overman — without skipping a single beat. The degenerates call this steamroller effect of our culture — the marginalization of all groups not contributing to our culture's goal, and their reduction to clown- and freak-show status by our media — "social alienation", "materialism", "globalization", "desensitization", "degeneration", "decline" or any number of other nasty names; while between us it is known as simply "power".

What a bunch of bullshit.

It's built into Christian theology that we are sinful and degenerate and will only be saved when Christ returns. That's why the sentiment "things are generally getting better" was so revolutionary in the "Enlightenment" and why it triggers conservative folks to this day.

>It comes from malnourished pessimism a la Spengler/Evola/Schopenhauer
>pessimism
Acknowledging that everything dies eventually isn't pessimism, it's realism.

Deliciously rare

youtu.be/yQXNgCfAMjs

I can't tell if this is a satire of a teen who just skimmed over Nietzsche's wikipedia page or another /pol/ chump being serious.

It's because they have oil money, dipshit. When the desire for oil dries up, the only thing they have to boast is a vast fucking desert and a super gaudy city.

It's been there since the very beginning of western civilization. Don't believe the temporal exceptionalist faggots on /pol/

Clowns.

Acknowledging that everything dies eventually doesn't prove something in particular is currently declining (unless you are going for platitudes). Using that kind of logic stems from pessimism most likely.

>the richest and most deeply entrenched in the global economy Muslim state will simply whither away and lose influence because reasons

They fought the frackers and the frackers won.

seekingalpha.com/article/4002894-saudi-arabia-still-hemorrhaging-financial-reserves

Who? Spengler separates Greco/Roman civilization from western, as he should.

> Very different scenario also Euros are super hard to please.

Europeans view raping women , raping children and being ugly lazy dark skinned foreigners as displeasing.