[extropy-chat] CULTURE: Did Romans ruin Greek Culture?

Henrique Moraes Machado - HeMM hemm at br.inter.net
Thu Mar 11 12:51:11 UTC 2004


The romans used to absorb part of the culture of the people they invaded. Happened with the greeks and with the egyptians, for example.

-----Mensagem Original----- 
De: <natashavita at earthlink.net>
Para: <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Enviada em: quarta-feira, 10 de março de 2004 15:42
Assunto: [extropy-chat] CULTURE: Did Romans ruin Greek Culture?


| I was just reading a couple of chapters from _The Decline of the West_ by 
| Oswald Spengler.  (Special ed. New York: Knopf, 1939.)  These sepcific
| ideas about culture and civilization are new to me.  Apparently, according
| to Spengler, civilization is the death of culture.
| 
| 
| Chapter 5:  THE PROBLEM OF "CIVILIZATION" [24-27]
| 
| "Looked at in this way, the "Decline of the West" comprises nothing less
| than the problem of Civilization. We have before us one of the fundamental
| questions of all higher history. What is civilization, understood as the
| organic-logical sequel, fulfillment, and finale of a culture?" 
| 
| "So, for the first time, we are enabled to understand the Romans as the
| successors of the Greeks, and light is projected into the deepest secrets
| of the late-Classical period. What, but this, can be the meaning of the
| fact--which can only be disputed by vain phrases--that the Romans were
| barbarians who did not precede but closed a great development? Unspiritual,
| unphilosophical, devoid of art, clannish to the point of brutality, aiming
| relentlessly at tangible successes, they stand between the Hellenic Culture
| and nothingness. An imagination directed purely to practical objects was
| something which is not found a t all in Athens. In a word, Greek
| soul--Roman intellect; and this antithesis is the differentia betwene
| Culture and Civilization. Nor is it only to the Classical it applies. Again
| and again there appears this type of strong-minded, completely
| non-metaphysical man, and in the hands of this type lies the intellectual
| and material destiny of each and every "late" period. Pure Civilization, as
| a historical process, consists in a progressive exhaustion of forms that
| have become inorganic or dead."
| 
| It seems that the Romans were interested in "realitiy."  And mostly
| interested in portraiture and making statues that really looked like a
| particular person, and usually a "famous" person.  The Greeks seemed to be
| more interested in "ideals" and "beautiful man" or "athletic" man.
| 
| However, these chapters from _The Decline of the West_ make it look like
| Romans were a "civilization" and Greeks were a "culture" and civilization
| is the end, the death of culture.




More information about the extropy-chat mailing list