Tuesday, May 26, 2020
Cosmopolitans and Provincials
Oswald Spengler (1880-1936), The Decline of the West, tr. Charles Francis Atkinson, Vol. II (London: George Allen Unwin Ltd., 1928), pp. 98-99:
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Finally, there arises the monstrous symbol and vessel of the completely emancipated intellect, the world-city, the centre in which the course of a world-history ends by winding itself up. A handful of gigantic places in each Civilization disfranchises and disvalues the entire motherland of its own Culture under the contemptuous name of "the provinces." The "provinces" are now everything whatsoever — land, town, and city — except these two or three points. There are no longer noblesse and bourgeoisie, freemen and slaves, Hellenes and Barbarians, believers and unbelievers, but only cosmopolitans and provincials. All other contrasts pale before this one, which dominates all events, all habits of life, all views of the world.
