Physiognomy Analysis – Spengler & Evola
I am almost done with the first volume of Decline of the West by Oswald Spengler. I will elaborate on it at length in the next episode of The Greatest Podcast. As for now, I just have to note the following:
Spengler is, for lack of a better way to put it, quite hostile to the Classical (Apollonian) Soul. Usually, when people are hostile to the Classical World (i.e. Ancient Greece and Rome) and to the European Middle Ages, they are often in a poor physical shape.
Right enough, Spengler suffered from a heart condition. He was even exempt from service during WW1.
A few words about his physiognomy – highly intelligent, but also bitter, brooding, sceptical. Not life-affirming, not high-thumos. Someone not keen on praising others.
Contrast this against Evola. In Evola we see a man of action as well as contemplation – a man in good physical condition. An accomplished mountaineer and mage. Evola served in WW1. In his eyes we see timeless wisdom.
Physiognomy aside, Spengler was wrong in making a distinction between the Classical (Apollonian) and the Western (Faustian) Soul.
They are the same Soul and the highest aim of this Soul is glory (a yearning for infinity would merely be an expression of the yearning for glory).
This Soul is named the Aryan Soul. For the Aryan Soul, there is nothing better than glory and nothing worse than shame.
Achilles, Alexander, the Roman Emperors, the Norman conquerors, Gustav Adolf the Great, Frederick the Great, Napoleon – the list goes on. The same spirit imbued all of them.
As Dominique Venner (in The Shock of History) so eloquently put it in regard to the Iliad:
“Of the need for glory that pulls men up to the height of the gods.”
Spengler was wrong in making a distinction between the Classical and the Western in another way as well.
We now know (thanks to archaeogenetics) that there is a continuation of blood stretching back into the mists of time. As I have noted before, Europeans are (simply put) made up of three population groups: Western Hunter-Gatherers, Anatolian Neolithic Farmers, and Aryans (often referred to as Indo-Europeans or Western Steppe-Herders).
Biospiritually speaking, the Aryan component is the most interesting one – Evola understood this with perfect clarity.
This Aryan spirit has been present in Europe since the the Aryans merged with the Early European Farmers (EEF = a combination of Anatolian Neolithic Farmers and Western Hunter-Gatherers). We could actually go further back in time than this but that will be for another time.
The Aryan spirit can (among other ways) materialise in the form of Divine Heroes and in the form of Imperium. Examples of the former are Alexander and Theodoric. Examples of the latter are the Roman Empire and the Holy Roman Empire of the Middle Ages.
Thus, there is no break between the Classical and the Western. They are one and there is a continuity of blood and spirit connecting them. Indeed, connecting all of Europe.
Another observation that I thought to share in order to illustrate a difference between Spengler and Evola is the following:
Spengler erroneously states that yellow and red are “the colours of the crowd, of children, of women, and of savages.”
Evola correctly notes that red is a regal colour. It is also worth noting that yellow is a colour of power – it is connected to the Solar Principle as well as to the Solar Plexus Chakra (which is connected to a man’s Will-To-Power).
Spengler also makes a great mistake in grouping the Iranian together with the Arabian under the title of Magian.
Evola correctly understood the ancient Iranians as an Aryan nation. We now know (again thanks to archaeogenetics) that the ancient Iranians came from Europe.
All that being said, Spengler was a genius and a great thinker. As already noted, I will discuss his work at length later on. I will, of course, discuss his theory of the cycles of civilisations – and what it means for us Sons and Daughters of Europe at this particular moment in time.
Onwards!
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