Spengler Revisited: The Decline of the West, 2000-2200 Fifth Annual Conference “Workshops in Political Theory”

Dates: 10-12 September 2008
Call for Papers Deadline: 30 June 2008
Location: Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester, UK
Website: www.hlss.mmu.ac.uk/pap/events/wpt 

Oswald Spengler, in “The Decline of the West,” hailed the future coming of “Caesarism,” a period in which capitalism and democracy will be challenged by, and ultimately defeated at the hands of, exceptional individuals of great mental strength, possessed of a piercing vision, strategic genius, ruthlessness and overwhelming endurance, who mean to gain political power without stooping to the base level of electoral prejudice. This final stage of western civilization will be preceded, according to Spengler, by ideologies, such as Marxism, and political concepts and theories losing their meaning (“and their end comes not from refutation, but from boredom”), a general decline in the political condition of nations and widespread mistrust in democratic institutions, processes and performance, as well as a rekindling of religious sentiment he called the “Second Religiousness.” The “Caesarmen,” he said, will reclaim politics by whatever means necessary and in doing so become once more “the Destiny of an entire people or Culture.”

In a historical and cross-cultural perspective the fact cannot be denied that most democracies failed. Many formerly democratic countries do not have a democratic government now. Many countries have never known democracy. Only western democracies for a short while – maybe to be dated from the fall of Soviet communism to the rise of radical Islam – believed themselves invincible. It may therefore seem expedient to think about political alternatives once more and to study threats to democracy from within and without as well as common modes of failure of democracy across times and cultures. Will people’s disillusion with democratic practices (such as the impact money has on campaigning), mass politics, and the equal inconsequence of everyone’s vote ultimately terminate democracy? Spengler said: “As then sceptre and crown, so now peoples’ rights are paraded for the multitude, and all the more punctiliously the less they really signify.”

This workshop invites papers on any aspect of “The Decline of the West” as well as on non-Spenglerian political theory and philosophy that engages Spengler’s concerns. Spengler expected the final stage of western civilization for the years 2000 to 2200. We have now entered that period and it will be timely to revisit his predictions and see to what extent they have, or have not, come true yet. Within these parameters, it is up to participants how they frame the relevance of Spengler’s thought and concepts to political theory. Questions to be addressed may include, but are not limited to: Will we have to fall back, post democracy, into the abyss of authoritarian despotism, as envisaged by political thinkers and philosophers from Plato and Aristotle to Nietzsche and Spengler? How could the term “Caesarism” be reinterpreted to make sense in our time? Will the “wars” Spengler foresaw for the end time of western civilization still be decided on a battlefield? Has the “Second Religiousness” already begun? Are changes occurring so gradually that we do not notice them? And what, if anything, did Spengler miss in his predictions?

Please send paper proposals to: e.kofmel@sussex.ac.uk  or  erich.kofmel@sciences-po.org by 30 June 2008. Thank you.

Erich Kofmel
Managing Director
Sussex Centre for the Individual and Society (SCIS)
www.scis-calibrate.org