Man and technology

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Man and technology. Contribution to a philosophy of life is a philosophical work by Oswald Spengler . It was published by C. H. Beck in Munich in 1931 .

The book was preceded by a lecture on culture and technology that Spengler gave on May 6, 1931 at the Deutsches Museum in Munich.

requirements

Man and technology is not a mere reflection on the position of technical processes in the modern world or their culture-related criticism. Rather, Spengler tries to show that the technology of the present arises out of a Faustian life impulse that is deeply rooted in Western thought and that it will perish together with this impulse.

Technology as a life tactic

Essence of technology

Spengler describes it as a mistake to strictly separate a 'true culture' of education, tradition and humanistic values ​​from the sphere of reality, state, economy and politics.

In the spirit of the ideology of progress , according to Spengler, technology is seen as a means to the end of human happiness (idleness and a pleasant lifestyle). But man is not made for such conditions; they would "lead to mass murder and suicide if even partially realized" .

The essence of technology, however, does not reveal itself in the narrowing to the modern machine world. Rather, technology is a life tactic that goes back far into human history and can even be found in animals. The freedom of movement in nature challenged the development of special 'instruments' to cope with life.

Procedure in the struggle for life

For Spengler, technology is not a 'product' or a product, but - dynamically - a process. In the end it serves the war: In the always fighting life a direct “path leads from the original war of early animals to the methods of modern inventors and engineers, and also from the original weapon, the cunning, to the construction of the machine with which today's war against the Nature carried out, nature is outwitted. "

Spengler's opinion on this point comes very close to the then virulent Social Darwinist theories. However, it must be taken into account that Spengler by no means exclusively means the specific armed conflict by 'war' , but rather a general disposition of life to fight, which can also be expressed in other forms (inventive spirit, competition). The replacement of brutal violence by more spiritual means does not dampen the perpetual struggle for life, however, since both, life and struggle, are identical: “This struggle is life, in Nietzsche's sense as a struggle out of the will to power, cruel, relentless , a fight without mercy. "

Technology, life, destiny

World history is not a place of happiness. Rather, people experience a "sudden rise and fall of a few millennia, something completely insignificant in the fate of the earth, but for us, who we were born into it, of tragic size and violence."

Spengler believes that people in the 20th century, with their eyesight, do the inevitable: the decline of culture and thus its technology. We cannot choose the fate of being thrown into world events or hide it through falsely optimistic illusions.

Herbivores and predators

Looting as a principle of life

The life tactics of herbivorous animals differ from those of predators (which Spengler also includes humans). Part of the essence of the latter is preying, a maximum of freedom and thus the need to fight 'independently' to assert oneself or to perish. By their nature, prey animals are defensive, while predators are offensive.

Therefore, according to Spengler, there is also an ' ethic ' of herbivores and one of the predators. Nietzsche's distinction between master morality and slave morality may not have influenced this view insignificantly. Especially since Spengler even concludes: Predators act (and humans think) in categories of power and victory, (...) pride and hate . People today still enjoy killing:

Under the tremendous impression of the free, conscious individual act, which stands out from the uniform, instinctual, mass "doing of the species", the real human soul has now formed itself, very lonely even in comparison to other predatory souls ... the unrestrained feeling of power in the act Faust, everyone's enemy, killing, hating, determined to win or die. This soul is deeper and more suffering than that of any animal. It stands in irreconcilable opposition to the whole world, from which it is separated by its own creativity. It's the soul of a rebel.
The earliest man nestles alone like a bird of prey. If some "families" join together in a pack, it happens in the most loose form. There is still no talk of tribes, let alone peoples. The pack is a random collection of a couple of men who are just not fighting each other, with their wives and their children, without community feeling, in complete freedom, no "we" like a herd of mere specimens of the species.
The soul of this strong lonely is warlike, suspicious, jealous of its own power and booty through and through. She knows the pathos not only of "I" but also of "mine". She knows the intoxication of feeling when the knife cuts into the hostile body, when the smell of blood and groans penetrate the triumphant senses.
Every real "man" even in the cities of later cultures sometimes feels the sleeping glow of this primordial soul within himself. Nothing of the miserable statement that something is "useful", that it "saves work." Even less of the toothless feelings of compassion, reconciliation, and the longing for peace. On the other hand, full pride in being feared, admired, and hated to a large extent because of his strength and happiness, and the urge for revenge on everything, be it living beings or things, which hurt this pride even through his existence.

Specialization in technology

Yet there is a great difference between man’s techniques and those of all other animals. Animal technology is generic , not individual, so it cannot be learned or developed. But human technology takes an interest in its culture .

In this sense, Spengler describes the development from the emergence of humans and their earliest technical tools (human hand, then speaking and business) to cultured people over the past millennia. However, Spengler's descriptions of the early period do not correspond to today's knowledge in all respects. (Statements such as: "Ever since human skeletons began to appear, man has been the way he is today" or "The 'Neanderthal' is seen in every popular assembly" do not stand up to paleoanthropological scrutiny.)

The sense of human technology is the liberation from the compulsory species and the emancipation from the natural conditions. The human soul "advances in increasing alienation from the whole of nature." According to Spengler, this is where art begins to establish itself as an antithesis to nature .

Turn into destruction

Technology in the social association

The will to power of man also takes effect in the constitution of larger associations, organizations, and finally in the state : “The predator man wants to consciously increase his superiority, far beyond the limits of his physical strength. It sacrifices an important trait of its life to its will to greater power. ” In the social association, he surrenders personal freedom in order to increase his feeling of power. The problem of technology falls under the spell of culture.

In the field of technology too, as in nature, there are those who command and obey: entrepreneurs, engineers, inventors on the one hand, and mere partners (or henchmen) in technical progress on the other. Spengler also speaks - somewhat uncomfortably for today's feeling - of the “ subhumans of the big cities, Marxists , writers ” , but without referring to a biological minor race .

Faustian machine culture

Peace, happiness and enjoyment are not the ultimate goal of technology, especially among the gentry. Not even the reduction of work is one of the goals of their development. It is only the triumph over nature and over others that constantly gives rise to new top performances. So the West European-American, according to Spengler, the Faustian culture has fallen victim to technology.

The Faustian will to power has subjugated the entire globe with the help of its machine technology. As Vikings , who are basically still Western Europeans internally, they pursue prey in a monstrous style. The very own terrain of emotional feeling is infinity . This also applies to the expansion of technology and the exploitation of the planet .

Self-destruction

The technical will to power does not care about the consequences. Life is becoming more and more artificial. The psychological tension between those who dispose of them and the rest of the population is growing dangerously. Spengler describes this process as alienation, not unlike the Marxist theorem of the divergence between productive forces and production relations .

Not only the alienation in the mass world of industries , but also the inevitable fate of decay closes the tragedy of the technical development of the West.

Ecological disaster

The Faustian technology finally turns against its creator: "The master of the world becomes the slave of the machine."

Looting of the globe

In the 20th century, the question of raw materials is more urgent than ever . (In Spengler's time it mainly concerned the coal deposits .) In order to secure raw materials, more and more traffic connections have to be generated, colonies kept dependent, and military budgets financed.

The overflowing technology thus has hostile consequences: “In a few decades most of the large forests have disappeared, have been turned into newsprint and thus changes in the climate have occurred that threaten the agriculture of entire populations; (...) Everything organic succumbs to the expanding organization. An artificial world permeates and poisons the natural one. "

Betrayal of technology

However, it would mean misunderstanding Spengler's views if one were to read them as a warning to 'be more environmentally conscious'. Because Spengler is convinced of the fateful inevitability of the technical and ecological collapse.

Even the catastrophic consequences of the unleashed machine cult cannot bring about a rethink. The Faustian technique will go under with the occidental culture. Spengler even believes that the foreign peoples will adopt Western technologies and with their help unleash an economic war against the West itself.

So Spengler calls for steadfastness and castigates the (already rampant in his day) weariness with modern industry as “betrayal of technology” .

Only Spengler's devotion to the thought of fate makes it understandable why he does not want to hold back the path to catastrophe. Basically, it's about leaving the world stage with dignity:

“We were born in this time and must bravely walk the path that is destined to us to an end. There is no other. It is a duty to endure the lost post without hope, without salvation. Persevering like that Roman soldier whose bones were found in front of a gate in Pompeii, who died because they forgot to relieve him when Vesuvius erupted. That is size, that is, race. This honest ending is the only thing that cannot be stolen from people. "

literature

  • Oswald Spengler: Man and Technology C. H. Beck , Munich 1931 (88 pages)
  • Oswald Spengler: Man and technology . In the same: essays . Voltmedia, Paderborn 2007. Series: Words that changed the world. - Together with the essay Antiquity and Occidental Tragedy . ISBN 3-86763-606-0 (there are countless other reprints)
  • Anton Mirko Koktanek: Oswald Spengler in his time . CH Beck, Munich 1968.
  • Detlef Felken : Oswald Spengler. Conservative thinker between empire and dictatorship . Munich 1988.

Web links

Wikiquote: Man and Technology  - Quotes

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ page 33f., Chap. 6th