Troy Southgate: "Oswald Spengler's 'Der Mensch die Technik'"
On the second day of the conference, Troy Southgate opened with a very far-reaching discussion of Oswald Spengler's work “Der Mensch die Technik” (“Man and Technics”), originally published in 1931, and which contains a discussion of Spengler’s view of the role of technology in modern societies.
Spengler argued that contrary to the assumptions of Enlightenment-derived thought, which tends to regard technological development as linear, unbreakable, and optimal, the historical record actually indicates significant periods of technological regression. The most well-known were those which occurred in Egypt following the era of the Great Pyramids, in Western Europe following the collapse of Rome, and in China following its high point in the Middle Ages.