i think Spengler has become a kind of anti-consensus-consesus shibboleth for âi think in civilizations and I see systems.â, also ofc coded to be edgy.
the appeal is really obvious, as you get a portable paint by numbers morphology of rise and decline, which can then be applied to almost any political event.
Someone reads Spengler and six weeks later everything is evidence that the West has entered its terminal phase.
Look at how smart and insightful I am! I will name drop Spengler in my geopolitical podcast or Tweet. look at how hetorodox I am đđ
Hodgson and Braudel are far more salient. They make you account for geography, commerce, institutions, intellectual traditions, exchange between different worlds, and the fact that these things move at very different speeds.