The Biocentric Worldview

This book is a selection of essays and poems by the German philosopher and psychologist, Ludwig Klages. He was a fierce critic of what he saw as the lack of quality in the modern world, which he held to be a product of the false ideas and belief systems of our times. For Klages, the world is divided between forces and ideas that enhance life in all its vigor (such as those of Nietzsche), and those which oppose life by reducing it to mere materialism, and by portraying it as something to be shunned as innately corrupt and evil (such as modern religion). To overcome the life-denying forces, Klages calls for a return to the pagan view of life, and to a direct relationship between humanity and the natural world, and opposition to the destruction of nature by the agents of progress. He also opposed the distortions and falsehoods which he claimed were being propagated by psychoanalysis.
“Those who confidently predict the end of all life and the ultimate doom of the cosmos are mere swindlers, Klages assures us. Those who cannot successfully predict such mundane trivialities as next season's fashions in hemlines or the trends in popular music five years down the road can hardly expect to be taken seriously as prophets who can foretell the ultimate fate of the entire universe!” — From the Introduction by Joseph D. Pryce