Summary of Oswald Spengler's Man and Technics

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.

#1 The problem of technics and its relation to culture and history first emerged in the nineteenth century. The eighteenth century, with its fundamental skepticism, had posed the question of the meaning and value of culture. But after Napoleon, the machine-technics of Western Europe grew gigantic, and we had to face the question in earnest.

#2 The aim of mankind is to relieve the individual of as much work as possible and put the burden on the machine. Freedom from the misery of wage-slavery, equality in amusements and comforts, and enjoyment of art are the goals of this cosmopolitanism.

#3 Technics is not to be understood in terms of tools. What matters is not how one fashions things, but the process of using them. The weapon is not the important thing, but the battle. Every machine serves some one process and owes its existence to thought about this process.

#4 The catchword of the last century was progress, which was the belief that history was marching forward towards a goal that men did not clearly define or visualize. But impermanence, birth and passing is the form of all things actual, from the stars to the fleeting concourses on this planet.

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Rafbók: 12 april 2022