Tamaida Shimera on corona-virus -- The Spengler score

by Tamaida Shimera

"Oswald Arnold Gottfried Spengler was a German historian and philosopher of history whose interests included mathematics, science, and art and their relation to his cyclical theory of history. He is best known for his book The Decline of the West (Der Untergang des Abendlandes) (footnote 1), published in 1918 and 1922, covering all of world history. Spengler's model of history postulates that any culture is a superorganism with a limited and predictable lifespan." (A Direct quote from wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oswald_Spengler ).

A famous quote from the book "The Decline of the West" refers to readers/historians that claim they are unable to se the validity of certain conclusions that Spengler draws from historical facts - conclusions that Spengler sees as obvious and self-evident. He says that a person like that is either a "dupe (footnote 2) , a pedant or a charlatan". I have taken the liberty to create a new characterization of a person unwilling to see the obvious, that I call the "Spengler personality score" or just the "Spengler score". In our current time filled with much disinformation, omissions and outright mendacity (footnote 3) the "Spengler score" is used to characterize how much of the elements of each attribute a person who opposes a self-evident conclusion has. How much of the characteristics of a

1) Dupe - D(footnote 2)

2) Pedant - P

3) Charlatan - C

does the the opposing person (scientist,reader,sociologist,historian,politician,"truthteller") have. Today a prominent factor in a persons non-acceptance of someting that should be obvious is the fear of harm visiting him - financial, work-related or bodily harm. This trait is cowardice and in Spenglers parlance of types: A Coward. So I take the freedom to add this trait to the list i.e

4) Coward - Co

So in this Spengler system a denier of the obvious could characterized as (D:++,P:+,C:-,Co:+)

This would be a person that is quite gullible (D:++), inflexible in his thinking(P:+), not a deliberate liar(C:-) - (negative charlatan-factor) and lastly moderately cowardly(Co:+).

Another denier of the obvious could characterized as (D:-,P:-,C:+++,Co:-)

This person would be characterized as an inveterate liar and deceiver -no less.

The reasoning behind the classification is subjective (as is all assessments of a personality) and based on the observers/interlocutors perceptions but I think the classification, The Spengler score, is non the less useful.