In Decline of the West, Oswald Spengler puts forth a cyclical historical theory. Unlike the progressive/whig theory of history that dominates the modern age, Spengler does not believe the world is ‘just getting better.’ Improvement is not inevitable. All high cultures go in cycles like the seasons. In addition, the knowledge produced within a high culture is historically contingent. It is inevitably a product of the high culture, and only men of the pure facts of history can take a bird’s eye view. Faustian culture, the spirit and culture that drives Western Civilization, is only the most recent cultural organism in the cycle of history.

According to Spengler’s original theory in Decline of the West, there will be new cultures that rise after Western Civilization falls. However, in Man and Technics, Spengler alters his philosophy of history. This essay will demonstrate how Spengler departs from his original cyclical theory of history in Man and Technics.

To understand the differences in Spengler's perspective when writing Man and Technics, one must understand his circumstances at the time of writing. Volume I of Decline was published in 1918, and Volume II in 1922. By 1924, Spengler had given up on a prestigious political appointment and devoted himself to private scholarship. This was the start of the "second phase of Spenglerian thought," according to Gilbert Merlio.

Spengler faced criticism from Leo Frobenius, who claimed Spengler’s view of prehistoric man as underdeveloped in Decline. In turn, he began reassessing his view of prehistory, developing a second philosophy. According to Anton Mirko Koktanek, a Spengler biographer, he did not directly respond to criticisms of Decline, instead opting to develop a new philosophical approach to prehistory in secret. This second philosophy focused on the interaction between cultures and a universal conception of history.

During Germany’s Weimar period, Spengler developed significant prestige after the publication of his magnum opus. He did not want to publicly walk back or revise any of his suppositions. He was seen as a mythic prophet criticizing the Weimar regime. This image was too valuable to give up.

While Spengler was internally changing his perspective on world history, he became a member of the managing committee at the Deutsches Museum. He gave an address at the museum, which the audience expected to be over modern technical developments. Instead, Spengler gave a cursory outlook of his new view on prehistory. This address was expanded into Man and Technics, published in July 1931.

Spengler’s historical theory in Decline is panoramic and cyclical. Man and Technics, on the other hand, gives a far more pessimistic and catastrophic view of history. Cultural history in Decline was tragic, governed by tragic logic, but was "nonetheless ultimately one of awe-inspiring splendor and harmony,” according to Farrenkopf. In Man and Technics, Spengler describes all of human history as profoundly tragic and apocalyptic. There is a sense of finality in the version of Faustian culture presented in the later work. The fall of Faustian culture does not give way to a new cultural cycle like the others did. In late Spengler, historical acceleration leads to cataclysm.

Man and Technics goes over a few broad historical developments and then applies them to modern crises. What are the origins and character of man's technology and science? How do they impact human history and ecology? Amid the modern economic crisis, what are the prospects for the West's preeminent position in technological and economic development?

In Man and Technics, Spengler presents a theory on the evolutionary development of man. He rejected Darwin along the same lines as Nietzsche, arguing that biological change erupted in giant shifts rather than in gradual evolution. He estimated the human race came around 100,000 BC.

Many advances in the view of human evolution have taken place since Spengler's death, which has challenged his assertions about biological development. According to recent evolutionary theory, mankind split off from hominids, departing from the ape line between 6 million and 12 million BC. Mankind underwent many anatomical changes, including skeleton permitting long ambulation, loss of body hair, body cooling system, refined hand, dental modifications, and changes in the size and structure of the brain. Modern biological evidence indicates that these different distinctive traits in man emerged at different times, not at the same time. Although Spengler's assessments of human evolution and prehistory were inadequate according to more recent discoveries, his philosophical outlook is instructive.

The meat of Man and Technics is in Spengler’s assessment of the beast of prey spirit, how it revolts against nature using technics, and how this contributes to a grand historical arc that ultimately results in cataclysm. Spengler inverts Hobbes in his assessment of the state. Social peace emerges so that groups/tribes/cities can defend themselves from outsiders, not because they fear each other, as the Hobbesian understanding maintains. The community is pacified so it can assert itself against the dangerous world.

Farrenkopf argues that there is an unresolved tension on this point: individuals embody the beast of prey but band together to have a cohesive and binding sense of community. This tension was resolved in Plato’s Republic, however. Similarly, Socrates and Glaucon deal with the tension between the superior guardians and the rest of the citizenry. The ideal state in the Republic, like all other states, creates an incentive structure on a mythological/narrative basis to cultivate stewardship among its superior specimens. The irresolution of this tension in Spengler can be forgiven because it is treated as a bygone conclusion in most political philosophy.

Spengler contradicts the Anglo-Utilitarian view of technology. Technology is not meant to increase widespread happiness but instead to satisfy the Faustian striving. This Faustian striving manifests as a constant tension between nature and man as man engages in the Promethean struggle against nature. It is a hopeless and tragic struggle between the beast of prey and mother nature. Man plunders nature and takes advantage of her through modern science and technology, but she is still stronger.

Faustian culture is unlike prior cultures because of the magnitude of its ecological impact. Spengler’s concern for ecology stems from the ongoing concerns Germans had over ecology since the previous century. After 1890, many Germans raised concerns about ecological damage. Many German ecologists of this time thought the solution was simply the preservation of the beauty of the German countryside. But Spengler, recognizing that historical problems are not solved with simple legislative solutions, understood that the coming ecological shift was a graver matter. It was the byproduct of the intense Faustian striving and conquest of nature.

The man of the North, filled with the spirit of the beast of prey, will not reign in his lifestyle to live within his means. High standards of living give rise to artistic, intellectual, and technical achievement. These are not gotten rid of lightly. Furthermore, every technical achievement invites new ones. The striving for greater technics will never end as long as Faustian man is operating.

This invites the cataclysm. Non-Western nations imitate Western technics to shake off colonial domination. As a result, power shifts from the West to Asia as Asian countries pursue technical expansion with no apprehension. Their expansion should not be confused with achievement, though. Technical achievement is a product of the Faustian spirit.

Science and technology are products of Western culture. Being products of culture, they are transitory. When the West falls, so will the worldwide reach of technics. Spengler states that each discovery in technics opens up a litany of new questions. Western man continually sacrifices everything for technics because otherwise, it will reverse course and disintegrate. He is driven forward by spiritual necessity, desiring the victory of technical achievements, not the economic benefits. When the West declines, the Faustian spirit will no longer answer the ever-growing list of technical questions, and the world of Faustian technics will crumble. Outside the West, the same spiritual compulsion does not exist. Technics are weapons to be used in the West and discarded once Faustian man is gone.

Early in his career, Spengler argued that the philosophy of history was historically contingent and that we can only view fractals from our perspective as Westerners. In Man and Technics, he says that world history has matured to the point where we can see the clear facts of history and understand the essence of world history.

Spengler changes his perspective on historical time as well. In Decline, historical time is eternal, with rise and decline having an endless, grand process. In his new perspective, world history is reaching an end-stage. Quickening pace rushes to a climactic end. In Decline, cultures arise aimlessly. In Man and Technics, cultures arise in a sequence that points from south to north.

At the end of Decline, Spengler states:

And so the drama of a high Culture—that wondrous world of deities, arts, thoughts, battles, cities—closes with the return of the pristine facts of the blood eternal that is one and the same as the ever-circling cosmic flow. The bright imaginative Waking-Being submerges itself into the silent service of Being, as the Chinese and Roman empires tell us Time triumphs over Space, and it is Time whose inexorable movement embeds the ephemeral incident of the Culture, on this planet, in the incident of Man— a form wherein the incident life flows on for a time, while behind it all the streaming horizons of geological and stellar histories pile up in the light-world of our eyes.

This is the awe-inspiring splendor and harmony that Farrenkopf describes. Culture is an “ever-circling cosmic flow,” rising and declining again and again. Everything passes away, and then something new comes along. There is a sense of serene repetition in the continual renewal of culture organisms. All of this will pass away, and it is okay because something else will come along, and that will pass away, too.

This sentiment is contradicted in Man and Technics. In the preface, Spengler states that his goal is to provide “a provisional glimpse into the great secret of Man’s destiny.” Spengler is arguing that there is a shared single destiny of mankind, hidden from most observers of history and even hidden from himself when he wrote Decline.

As mentioned before, Man and Technics argues that the progression of cultural birth is from south to north. Realistically, it is unlikely a new high culture could sprout north of European culture. Spengler states, “The Northern countryside, by the severity of the conditions of life in it — the cold, the continuous privation — has forged hard races, with intellects sharpened to the keenest, and the cold fires of an unrestrained passion for fighting, risking, thrusting forward.” This is where the Faustian spirit comes from. It is born out of the harsh and challenging cold. The harshest conditions force the best traits because of relentless selection pressure. A new culture cannot spawn to rival Faustian culture because there is no other northern area that can or will produce a similar beast-of-prey type with the same ruthless will to power.

The Faustian, west-European Culture is probably not the last, but certainly it is the most powerful, the most passionate, and — owing to the inward conflict between its comprehensive intellectuality and its profound spiritual disharmony — the most tragic of them all.

The difference between Faustian culture and all past or potential cultures is a profound gulf. The Faustian spirit has fought hardest against nature and has transformed the world through its technics.

It is possible that some belated straggler may follow it — for instance, a Culture may arise somewhere in the plains between the Vistula and the Amur —during the next millennium. But it is here, in our own, that the struggle between Nature and the Man whose historic destiny has made him pit himself against her is to all intents and purposes ended.

The battle between man and nature ends with Faustian culture, according to Man and Technics. This war stretches back to prehistory and finds its greatest champions in Faustian man. If or when another culture arises, it will not challenge nature in the same way. The fight ends with Faustian culture, and peace terms will be reached.

Because of these passages, Hans Erich Stier recognized Spengler changed his philosophy of history in 1939. Wolf Goetze also noticed a shift in Spengler's philosophy and wrote him about it, but Spengler "stubbornly denied that he had changed his historical philosophy."

Spengler’s insistence that he had not changed his perspective is why I use the word “Retcon” in the title. A retcon is a “retroactive continuity,” most often used when describing how an event in a fictional story contradicts some previous fact. The previous fact must be re-interpreted in light of the contradiction to ensure consistency. Spengler may have been stubborn and prideful, unwilling to admit that he had changed his mind about something in Decline. Alternatively, Decline must be understood with the final destiny of man in Faustian culture in mind. The first interpretation is more likely. Spengler had something to lose in changing his mind. He was an established and respected intellectual and a known critic of the Weimar regime. He was regarded as a prophet. Understandably, he would not admit to changing his philosophy of history.