The individual's life is of importance to none besides himself: the point is whether he wishes to escape from history or give his life for it. History recks nothing of human logic
Oswald SpenglerRead
In place of a world, there is a city, a point, in which the whole life of broad regions is collecting while the rest dries up. In place of a type-true people, born of and grown on the soil, there is a new sort of nomad, cohering unstably in fluid masses, the parasitical city dweller, traditionless, utterly matter-of-fact, religionless, clever, unfruitful, deeply contemptuous of the countryman and especially that highest form of countryman, the country gentleman.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote reflects on the disconnection and superficiality of urban life compared to the deeper roots found in rural living.
Oswald Spengler critiques the modern urban individual who, unlike traditional country folk, lacks a connection to nature and a sense of tradition. He describes city dwellers as transient and materialistic, suggesting that their lives are unfulfilling and contemptuous of those who remain connected to the land and its values. This commentary serves as a philosophical reflection on the consequences of urbanization and the loss of cultural roots.
Themes
UrbanizationCity LifeTraditionPhilosophyCountryside
In practice
Example use cases
In a debate about urban living versus rural life, this quote could illustrate the superficial nature of life in a city.
More from Oswald Spengler
All quotes →Man makes history; woman is history. The reproduction of the species is feminine: it runs steadily and quietly through all species, animal or human, through all short-lived cultures. It is primary, unchanging, everlasting, maternal, plantlike, and cultureless. If we look back we find that it is synonymous with life itself.
Oswald SpenglerRead
Every Socialist outbreak only blazes new paths for Capitalism.
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If few can stand a long war without deterioration of soul, none can stand a long peace.
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It is the Late city that first defies the land, contradicts Nature in the lines of its silhouette, denies all Nature. It wants to be something different from and higher than Nature. These high-pitched gables, these Baroque cupolas, spires, and pinnacles, neither are, nor desire to be, related with anything in Nature. And then begins the gigantic megalopolis, the city-as-world, which suffers nothing beside itself and sets about annihilating the country picture.
Oswald SpenglerRead
Through money, democracy becomes its own destroyer, after money has destroyed intellect.
Oswald SpenglerRead
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