Biocentric Worldview

This book is a selection of essays and poems by the Germanphilosopher and psychologist, Ludwig Klages. He was a fierce criticof what he saw as the lack of quality in the modern world, which heheld to be a product of the false ideas and belief systems of ourtimes. For Klages, the world is divided between forces and ideasthat enhance life in all its vigor (such as those of Nietzsche),and those which oppose life by reducing it to mere materialism, andby portraying it as something to be shunned as innately corrupt andevil (such as modern religion). To overcome the life-denyingforces, Klages calls for a return to the pagan view of life, and toa direct relationship between humanity and the natural world, andopposition to the destruction of nature by the agents of progress.He also opposed the distortions and falsehoods which he claimedwere being propagated by psychoanalysis. "Those who confidentlypredict the end of all life and the ultimate doom of the cosmos aremere swindlers, Klages assures us. Those who cannot successfullypredict such mundane trivialities as next season's fashions inhemlines or the trends in popular music five years down the roadcan hardly expect to be taken seriously as prophets who canforetell the ultimate fate of the entire universe!" - From theIntroduction by Joseph D. Pryce Ludwig Klages (1872-1956) hasbecome one of the twentieth century's most unjustly neglectedthinkers. Born in Hanover, Germany, in his youth he was one of thefounders of the Cosmic Circle in Munich, which was centered on theideas and poetry of Stefan George. He went on to become animportant critic of the trends in philosophy, psychology andsociety of his day, and was often praised even by his adversaries.Klages rejected the modern world that he saw in development,calling instead for a renewal of civilization based upon the ideasof ancient Greece and German Romanticism. Klages was alsoresponsible for making the unconscious the focus of modernpsychology, and for introducing such te