弗格森认为,西方借以称霸世界的六个杀手锏,已经尽被东方国家掌握。就像抒情诗人最爱歌咏爱情一样,历史学家沉迷于文明衰落论。如果说吉本的《罗马帝国衰亡史》哀叹第一个西方帝国的衰落,那德国哲学家斯宾格勒的《西方的没落》则为第二个西方帝国唱出哀歌。斯宾格勒对历史的贡献不在于他的悲观主义,而在于他看待文明的相对主义态度,他坚持每种文明作为一个整体都应受 Ferguson believes that the six killers Western countries have to dominate the world have all been mastered by the East. Just as the lyrical poets love singing love, historians are addicted to the decline of civilization. If Gibbon’s “History of the Decline of the Roman Empire” lament the decline of the first Western empire, Spengler’s “decline of the West” of the German philosopher sang a lament for the second Western empire. Spengler’s contribution to history does not lie in his pessimism, but in his view of the relativism of civilizations. He insists that every civilization as a whole should be subject to