Toynbee's transcendence reaction and Spengler's 2nd Religiosity

 Q to Microsoft Copilot AI:

Please go into further detail about Oswald Spengler's notion of Caesarism in <<The Decline of the West>> in its relation to a recurrency of blatantly draconian policy and the limits of growth.

A from Microsoft Copilot AI:

"Caesarism often manifests as a concentration of power in the hands of a strong leader who bypasses democratic norms and institutions.

Draconian policies, characterized by their severity and harshness, can be associated with Caesarist regimes. These policies prioritize stability and control over individual freedoms.

Examples of draconian measures include mass surveillance, censorship, restrictions on civil liberties, and authoritarian crackdowns.

In a Caesarist system, such policies may be justified as necessary for maintaining order, but they often come at the cost of citizens’ rights and autonomy.

Limits of Growth and Caesarism:

Caesarism can emerge during periods of societal stress, decline, or crisis. When a civilization faces challenges, there is a tendency to seek strong leadership.

The limits of growth play a crucial role here. As societies encounter resource scarcity, environmental degradation, or economic instability, the allure of a powerful leader promising stability becomes more appealing.

However, Caesarism itself can exacerbate these limits. Concentrated power may hinder innovation, suppress dissent, and stifle adaptive responses to changing circumstances.

The very authoritarianism that promises order can inhibit the flexibility needed to address complex challenges effectively.

Caesarism Without Caesar:

Antonio Gramsci, an Italian Marxist theorist, introduced the idea of “Caesarism without Caesar.” This concept suggests that a group or coalition, rather than an individual, can implement Caesarist policies".

My comments: The AI reaches the correct conclusion that I am looking not for an individual Caesar but a collective one. As I said, it can continue helping out around the house.

The reason why AI can continue helping out is that coming to that conclusion is very sophisticated. It is definitely beyond the capacity of most human beings to thus abruptly grasp and reach the best fit of Spengler's model to our situation. 

Speaking of Spengler, the other major feature of the final phase of Western civilization is the 2nd Religiosity. He speaks about the authentic transcendence by living faith in what sound like quite disparaging terms which chillingly miss the presence of God's love but give us fascinating indications all the same:

"But it is not the religious pastimes of educated and literary-soaked cliques, still less is it the intellect, that gives rise to the second religiousness. Its source is the naïve belief that arises, unremarked but spontaneous, among the masses that there is some sort of mystic constitution of actuality (as to which formal proofs are presently regards as tiresome word-jugglery), and an equally naïve heart-need reverently responding to the myth by means of a cult" (Oswald Spengler).

Education and literature may be part of the transcendence reaction to the decline of a civilization; a use of language one means for you to understand in relation to Arnold Toynbee's thought about transcendence in the twilight of a civilization and Spengler's 2nd Religiosity. They may be a part of this transcendence, but if so then they will be alien to the supposed standard bearers of education and literature; and if educated and literary, this "heart-need" will be repugnant to collective institutions pertaining to these. For the collective institutions of education and literature will be hostile to transcendence; but education and literature as distinct from decadent institutions is not in itself hostile to transcendence. 

One has explained to people accustomed to philosophical examinations of life and religion that the presence of God is no more interrogated than the problem of other minds is applied to one's husband or wife or friends. 

The presence of God in relation to that "heart-need" (to which Spengler apparently refers from without) is a living relationship as convincing in its reality as the problem of other minds is ignored in the living relationship with one's life partner or friends. 

In other words, Spengler is correct to zero in with "as to which formal proofs are presently regarded as tiresome word-jugglery". One consistently teaches that the formal proofs for the existence of God are of no value at all unless perhaps for some few people as a weapon to shatter the icy falsehoods enchaining their minds and undercutting the growth of their hearts.

To sum up, the "heart-need" is indeed as central as Spengler claims; and it does eschew formal proofs as wearisome irrelevancies. And it is spontaneous and from the masses even if it partakes of quality education and literary culture. The part he basically gets wrong is the profound effect on someone's life of meeting Innocence in person, the Divine Human, face to face, with an anything-but-naive "heart-need". It is very much that, a "heart-need". It is the heart's recognition that it too may become innocence in person by way of that Innocence which it has met with awed acknowledgment that joy can be alive. 

"You rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory" (1 Peter 1:8), that is what the Apostle writes. I cannot think of anything less naive than to have a direct experience of transcendent love and to order one's life and such of the world is as in humane reach on the basis of it.