It has been one hundred years since Spengler first enlightened us with his philosophy of history, a biological philosophy of peoples and the future. He rightly predicted the solidification of the creative Faustian culture into a dead Faustian civilisation, which is no longer capable of generating new ideas. Technology progresses at a rapid rate - chronologically each culture has developed technology at faster and faster rates, as technique builds upon itself and can be used by adjacent and subsequent cultures to build upon itself - but there are no new longer any real, cultural or philosophical ideas. “Post-modern” ideas are weak and energy-less. I don’t like the term post-modernity. We have actually been living in ultra-modernity in the West since the end of the 19th century and start of the 20th century (certainly by the start of the Great War ultra modernity was well underway and by the end of the Second World War it had solidified and was complete). The end of the Second World War confirmed the solidification on the Faustian civilisation, ultra-modernity.

But something happened that Spengler did not predict. All previous cultural forms have been spatially located. They might have spanned millions of square miles, but they always had a border region, a periphery, and beyond that, space for nascent cultural forms to develop naturally. Nascent cultures such as the early Faustian in the 9th -11th century developed “independently” away from the Mediterranean and Middle Eastern centre of the ossifying Magian Culture. It grafted Magian ideas and images onto itself, but it developed out of virgin soil. All the great world historical cultural forms Spengler identified followed this pattern, because there was space for them to grow.

By the turn of the 21st century, the Faustian civilisation has encompassed the entire globe. Other cultural forms have been crushed beneath it’s technological might. There is therefore no space for new cultural forms to spawn from their own virgin soil. It is as if the Faustian civilisation is a semi-permeable, anti-weed blanket, that has covered everything. There is no edge for natural flourishing and bio-cultural growth and development.

Spengler predicted that a world historical cultural form would develop out of Russia and the Eurasian steppe, with its boundless mystical plains and apocalyptic, messianic cultural form (recognisable in great Russian philosophy, literature, culture from the 18th century). “Russia is the land of the future… the mission of Russia begins when that of the West ends.” In a pre-global Faustian world, this culture would have been able to develop on it’s own soil, doubtlessly grafting onto itself Faustian ideas and images, but developing from a new branch in new soil. But now, if it is to develop, it must do so from underneath the suffocating weight of the Faustian blanket.

Ultra-modernity does two things that Spengler didn’t predict. One, it removes the virgin soil beyond the periphery, which no longer exists, forcing nascent cultures to develop physically within itself (if not spiritually within itself, the new culture by definition will be spiritually distinct and separate with no direct Faustian heritage. It must be a new branch). And two, and maybe as a consequence of one, the power of its spatial extent and technical might has a strong corrosive effect on any nascent cultures that must develop within its physical borders.

People have assumed that post-modernity is a very new thing, a complete break from the past. In a sense this is too much, as Spengler predicted the ossification and hegemony of the Faustian civilisation, so everything that happened since its arrival is perfectly natural and normal (except technically it looks significantly more advanced, but this is not fundamental to Spengler’s philosophy). Even the fact that Faustian civilisation is universal is not such a huge break from history. It is the first civilisation to span the globe, but that just means there is no periphery and no virgin soil. Faustian civilisation has ossified and is culturally complete and is culturally spent, exactly as predicted. So in that sense, everything is normal.

The sense in which the current situation is not normal, and the sense where “post-modernity is a very new thing” does not go far enough, is in the realisation that new cultural forms have nowhere physically free from which to develop.

It is important also to distinguish between the Faustian cultural form (and its associated culture and not civilisation) and technique. Each cultural form gives rise to a particular direction of technical development, as well as the particular direction of its philosophical and cultural development, but there is also overarching technique which any culture can graft onto itself and work with. E.g. the Indian cultural form that gave birth to the mathematical concept of zero, which is antithetical to the Faustian cultural form of infinity and infinite growth and expansion, but this technical instrument was able to be developed within the Faustian culture, much further than it was able to develop in less technically mature cultures and civilisations.

The more civilisations were spatially and technically distinct, the easier it was to separate technique from cultural force. But now that the Faustian form is in the civilisational stage, with such a powerful technique, it is hard to see what the Faustian civilisation is other than the pure triumph of technique over culture - maybe that’s what all civilisations are? Eventually the technique possessed by the culture, however much or little it has been externally influenced, becomes more powerful than the culture itself. For example, the Magian culture ossified into advanced legal technique (which it developed much further than material technique and where it is still more advanced than Faustian legal technique) once it was out of cultural energy. I am not sure if this victory of technique over culture is unique to the Faustian civilisation or not, but I expect that this is not unique.

My little project is an attempt to develop a philosophy of peoples, a philosophy of the future, a philosophy of ultra-modernity, and to understand and predict the effects of globally and technically hegemonic Faustian civilisation, which in a sense is in a new regime of cultural development (that regime being the lack of a physical civilisational border), and in another sense can be understood and interpreted as a continuation of the old regime of cultural birth, development, cultural flourishing, civilisational ossification, and eventually death.

“Optimism is cowardice”, which is a very funny but overused self-defeatist quote, has no place in my philosophy. Optimism for the Faustian cultural form or the Faustian culture is not cowardice or bravery. It is simply ridiculous. In terms of looking for nascent cultures developing under this blanket of Faustian civilisation, optimism is not cowardice or bravery. Optimism will be our guiding light regardless of its moral or psychological condition.