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36 of 36 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A profound critique of modern technological civilization!, November 6, 1998
By A Customer
Spengler wrote "Man and Technics" as a short and accessible supplement to his 'magnum opus', "The Decline of the West". Despite being short this is in fact a truly GREAT book. Spengler examines man's way on earth from the perspective of a philosophical anthropology. In agreement with the other exponents of reactionary modernism in Weimar Germany, Spengler focuses on technology as the critical feature of the Faustian Western Civilization. Spengler uses the Goethian hero in order to disclose to the reader the likely outcome of man's blind worship of instrumental technological reason. At the same time he scorns the West for its imperialism and violation of the life-style of other cultures. Apart from the -mostly accurate - prognoses that it makes, "Man and Technics" reveals a detached view of humanity as if perceived from an Archimedean point of view. Spengler remains a great thinker, rather misunderstood, who ought to be rediscovered by modern intellectuals for his penetrating insight and his uncompromising honesty!
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25 of 30 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Rage Against the Machine?!, August 5, 2003
This review is from: Man and Technics: A Contribution to a Philosophy of Life (Paperback)
The edition of _Man and Technics: A Contribution to a Philosophy of Life_ by Oswald Spengler that I read does not appear to be advertised on this website. It is a small paperback printed in Britain by the European Books Society and features a pen-outline of a burly bald man wearing a suit and holding a cigar (presumably Spengler himself). I found _Man and Technics_ to be a wierd philosophic exposition of the origins of humanity and the organic process of birth, flowering, decay and death that human Cultures inevitably face. The greatest Culture of all is the Western or "Faustian" Culture which far outranks the Classical (Greco-Roman), Arabic, Chinese, Indian, Mexican Cultures. It is something of a manifesto of extreme pessimism regarding the fate of the West and of its people in Europe and America. The Faustian Culture, of which America is a younger shoot, based in Western Europe, began to form around 1000 AD and it is marked by spiritual uncertainty, but an innate ability in Spengler's theme of "Technics." Technics involves the use of the reasoning faculties of the Mind in accordance with the physical use and manipulations of objects by the Hand to make whatever that is outside of man's being in Nature subject to man's will. This provides obvious advantages and also extremely serious disadvantages as well. The more a group of human beings became more machine, material and industry orientated, the more they tried to control Nature--the more Nature will eventually bring about the destruction of the human Culture that builds itself up over time and becomes overgrown, the same as individual plants, animals and plants die--as living organisms. Spengler, in the last page of _Man and Technics_ concludes that there is nothing that can be done to abort the fall of Faustian Civilization, which is ruined by internal decadence, economic competition from without, and the militancy of non-Western peoples who will use Western technology against Europe and America. Spengler regards any notion of optimism about the outcome of human affairs to be cowardly and any hope of utopian salvation to be a flighty dream. The best thing that any man can do in the face of eventual destruction is an honorable end following the choice of Achilles: "Better a short life full of deeds and glory than a long life without content." Spengler, a German philosopher influenced by the works of Nietzsche and contemorary with the National Socialist movement in Germany was a "conservative revoloutionary" opposed to the modern life of artificial material comfort and lack of individuality and spirit. Spengler may be viewed as being "racist," but his outlook on environmental damage was ahead of his time. This book does not, nor is likely to, have a wide audience, but it gives a different view of history in which Cultures and Civilizations are viewed as living organisms which live and die rather than in the liberal/economic interpretations of human affairs currently ascendant in social-political theory. Some of the material is outdated (_Man and Technics_ was written in the 1930s) and innacurate, but remains insightful in an analysis of the fate of the West today.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The great secret of man's history, October 18, 2009
This review is from: Man and Technics: A Contribution to a Philosophy of Life (Paperback)
Read Spengler's work for a graduate class in history.
Oswald Spengler's "Man and Technics" is a work that looks at the development of man in pre-history. A portion of history he did not cover in his previous seminal work "The Decline of the West." Spengler argues that by studying humankind's early development one can deduce the thread of civilization to "the great secret of man's destiny," which is the ultimate decline of Western civilization and the rise of "the eastern race." "The exploited world is beginning to take its revenge on its lords" (102). When one looks at current political and economic events it is hard to disprove Spengler's thesis!
Spengler first observes how humans developed differently from the rest of the animal kingdom. From Nietzsche, who influenced Spengler greatly, he argues that humans share the upper part of the pyramid with other "beasts of prey." Spengler believes our carnivorous instincts are "hardwired" in our DNA, never to change. This idea he says runs counter to Rousseau's idea of humans as "noble savages" who should really spurn these instincts magnified by civilization. It also runs counter to Utilitarian philosophy, or other collectivist philosophies such as Communism.
Spengler finds that mankind sits atop the "beast of prey" pyramid because of two physiological developments, the suppleness of the human hand, and our ability to speak. The hand allows us to make tools, speech allows us to organize society and create government, and culture. With this observation in human development Spengler posits the following. "Technics in man's life is conscious, arbitrary, alterable, personal, inventive. It is learned and improved. Man has become the creator of his tactics of living--that is his grandeur and his doom. And the inner form of this creativeness we call culture" (30-31). Our inventiveness, the Industrial Revolution is, as Spengler argues, mankind's ultimate decline. "The privilege of creation has been wrested from Nature...This is the beginning of man's tragedy--for Nature is stronger of the two" (44). Why is this the beginning of man's tragedy? Spengler argues that, "This petty creator against Nature, this revolutionary in the world of life, has become the slave of his creature. The Culture...The beast of prey, who made others his domestic animals in order to exploit them, has taken himself captive" (69). Thus, Spengler has a pessimistic view of mankind's future.
At the writing of this book, Spengler had just witnessed the most destructive force of man's industry, "The Great War." "The degree of military power is dependent on the intensity of industry" (92). This brings Spengler's work full circle, back to why he argues the West is in decline. He observes that soon after the industrial revolution the Asian race, formerly exploited by the West, emerges as a dominant force. "Within thirty years the Japanese became technicians of the first rank, and in their war against Russia, (the 1905 Russo-Japanese War), they revealed a technical superiority from which their teachers were able to learn many lessons" (101). I think the Chinese are on the verge of fulfilling Spengler's prophecy 100 years later!
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