Adorno on Oswald Spengler

TFW, what is Aufheben?

give me the tl;dr

that the guy who wrote how different ethnic people have different souls, and how euros who have the best souls need to make imperium, aka empire to dominate the world?

Adorno was secretly fascist himself

Not really. Spengler's whole thing was about how all cultures go through a similar process of birth, growth, maturity, and decline. He notes that some cultures have a prime symbol, an idea expressed throughout every aspect of it. Think architecture, music, art, mathematics.

His thoughts on imperium, if I recall correctly, is that it is inevitable and will be the last form of Western culture before it decays and dies. Spengler viewed the empire phase as the end of a civilization.

Can you explain exactly what you mean by this?

Not that guy but I can explain

Enlightenment thinking thinks it can take the ideas of equality, liberty, and fraternity(unity), and blend them seamlessly. The reality is that these are conflicting ideas that are fundamentally at odds with each other.

Ah. So, "the marketplace of ideas" set in the 1700s?

Yeah, pretty much

READ A FUCKING BOOK

THIS

I can't tell you how many "enlightenment" philosophers were like "yeah blacks are basically apes that deserve extermination".

Fuck hegel and all those racist white fucks.

Daily reminder that Adorno and his gang were literally CIA

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no, that's kinda Evola or at least imageboard tier Evola, though he didn't think soul was based on ethnic make up

That doesn't change the fact that enlightenment ideals changed humanity for the better and allowed for western europe to become a technologically superior to its rivals.

Marx philosophical background comes from the enlightenment.
Marx's writings and ideas were based on how capitalism was essentially attacking and would erode the basic of Enlightenment values that allowed for it to grow out of Feudalism.

Here, read a book learn something, it's a lot more nuanced than you think, especially for hegel [pdf related]

They make a good case, reactionary means something, it's not just shorthand for thingsIdon'tlike

How are they all at odds with each other?

It generally belives in "rationality" as some kind of highest principle that will lead humanity to liberation. Basically it makes a god out of this idea of rationality and denies everything that is irrational or falls outside of the utopian Enlightenment narrative a right to exist. Also from a marxist perspective Englightenment political ideas are just naive and ineffective, for example Kant saying in "What is Enlightenment?" that a platform for discussion about society's principles should exist, but as long as the current principles are agreed upon they need to be strictly obeyed. It's antithetical to the idea of revolution.
I also blame Enlightenment ideas for the blend of overly dogmatic materialism marxists tend to adhere to, which i think will stifle the revolution. To understand what I mean, read Sartre's Materialism and Revolution (p198-256 in this collection): archive.org/stream/SartreJeanPaulLiteraryAndPhilosophicalEssaysCollier1962/Sartre, Jean-Paul - Literary and Philosophical Essays (Collier, 1962)#page/n3/mode/2up. I've been memeing this essay to everybody on Zig Forums lately, but there's a reason I'm doing so, this is honestly something every Marxist should read and give some serious consideration.

The thing about Spengler, is that he is useful not just for those who defend Empire, but for those who want to see it end.

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Adorno liked Spengler because Spengler seemed to identify the self destructive impulses of instrumental reason better than any of the liberal theorist he was competing with. scribd.com/document/238772626/Adorno-on-Spengler

Adorno reflects on Spengler here.

Can anyone leave a quick reply to a newfriend about the concept of empire? Im not gonna lie, I am not as familiar with leftist political works as I should be to post here, so I kinda find the concept.. justifiable?
It seems to me that under certain material and historical conditions, imperialism can be perfectly viable. If 'my guys' (people I can easily speak to, organize with, cooperate with, achieve mutual gain easily) can long term profit from a hostile takeover of land and resources from the 'other guys' who can not retaliate because of material and historical circumstances (for example: technological differences), imperialism to me looks like a way to go.

But then again I admit I dont know a lot about leftist political theory.

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From the perspective by which you're evaluating imperialism, it is. No one on the left that I'm aware of denies that it's rational for finance capital to engage in imperialism. The problem is capital in the form of finance capital specifically; imperialism is merely its byproduct.

that kind of justification can be used for any atrocity under the sun

are you retarded?

You aren't necessarily wrong when you say it like that but engaging in empire is longterm over 100 years will cause your empire or "guys" to lose in the end. For Example look at Europe. Most of the west european powers engaged in imperialism of Africa and Asia. This made them alot of money but it came at the cost of the nation. It created new enemies , a loss of traditional culture (as the new ideas, objects, resources) come into your host nation, a abandonment of the host country by the elite class or those who benefit from your Empire and instability in economic production (as most of your industry shifts towards the conquered areas). All of these things would cause massive upheaval in the future when your long and gone and your grandchildren would have to deal with it. An example of this can be found in modern day Europe. The worst case scenario would be a rival superpower emerging from one of these conquered lands and overtaking your nation. Just like how Britain was overtaken by America in the last century.

However, If you found a way to stop the upheaval, you would have to concentrate power for at the highest level of your nation. This would work short term but you would be at the mercy of a small elite group of families running the entire country. For Example, this happened to Rome after it went from being a republic to an Oligarchy. Elite families fought for the title as emperor while parts of the empire fell into disarray. Some of these families worked with "barbarian" hordes and it weakened the technological advantages that Rome had over them. These "barbarians" took the technology and used it to conquer Rome, destroy the empire (in 476 c.e.) and Italy would remain a conglomerate of puppet states until 1870s italian unification.

In short im saying that it weakens the population and "social fabric" of a nation to engaged in Empire

But that would just mean that imperialism was done wrongly, not that the concept itself is bad.
If the imperial force wiped out the natives completely thanks to the material and historical circumstances of having better technology and needing the land and resources, they could seize the land and resources without fear of any retaliation 100 years or x years later.

And if this new land is so good that it creates a new elite that is more powerful than the old elite, old elites could catch on and move and entrench themselves in power in the new land first.

I also do not see a materialistic, non-moral argument against the practice. Taking stuff clearly works. Taking stuff clearly increases your material circumstances, as long as there is no retaliation. If you take stuff, and the victim permanently can not retaliate, if you take in such manner that you are safe from retaliation in the total and absolute sense… I cant think of a materialistic, non-moral argument against the practice.

So imperialism, if done right, and if historical and material circumstances are good, is good (or net beneficial in the context of wanting more stuff).