This is Western Civilization.
My name is Dr. Long; this video addresses
the question – What is Western civilization?
Another term for Western civilization is the
Western world or simply the West.
The West is often contrasted with civilizations
that are considered non-Western, including
India; the Islamic world; Sub-Saharan African
nations; as well as East Asian nations, such
China; Japan; Vietnam; and Korea.
An answer that is often given to the question
of what is Western civilization is that it
is Europe or even simply, Western Europe.
Geographically speaking, Europe is a small
continent projecting out from Asia.
Europe stretches from the Ural Mountains in
Russia to Portugal on the Atlantic coast in
the West.
Yet in many ways, Europe is not geographically
coherent, or united – far from it.
Indeed, Europe contains countries as diverse
as Russia, the Ukraine – in the East; Italy
and Spain in the South; England and France
in the West; and all of these countries have
little in common with each other in terms
of geography and climate – not to mention
culture.
Now in the 19th century, European nations
– such as Great Britain and France increasingly
became global powers and dominated much of
the world, increasing large parts of Africa
and Asia – and as they did so, Europeans
increasingly defined themselves as culturally
and even racially superior to others in Asia
and in Africa, particularly.
Europeans used advances in science, at the
time – including Charles Darwin’s ideas
about evolution, to rationalize those notions
of race and racial hierarchies that put Europeans
at the top.
As scholar Edward Said has argued, in his
famous 1978 book Orientalism – Europeans
in the 19th century also increasingly defined
themselves as superior Westerners over and
against peoples living to the East of Europe,
in Asia, as well as in the Middle East, and
Africa.
For Said, Europeans viewed those living in
the East as exotic, inferior, and as others.
This both distorted their understanding of
those living in Asia, the Middle East, and
Africa as well as Europeans’ understanding
of themselves.
While Europeans in the 19th century increasingly
divided the world into the superior West and
the inferior East, Russian thinkers – known
as Slavophiles – argued that Russia was
not even part of Russian civilization.
Rather, in the 19th century, Slavophiles contended
that Russia and other Slavic peoples, such
as Pols; Czechs; and Serbs had their own distinct
civilization apart from the West, a civilization
defined by Slavic languages and culture; peasant
values; and more traditional churches – such
as the Roman Catholic Church in Poland and
the Russian Orthodox Church in Russia.
The Slavophil movement was an important cultural
movement during the 19th century, holding
pan-Slavic conferences beginning with the
first pan-Slavic conference in Prague in 1848.
The pan-Slavic movement only added to the
idea that Western Europe was somehow different
from the rest of the world.
The idea that Western Europe and Eastern Europe
were very different was given further credence
during the 20th century, beginning with the
Russian Revolution in 1917, which resulted
in a communist government in Russia, with
the Old Russian Empire renamed as the Soviet
Union.
During the Cold War, from 1945 to 1989, the
nations of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union
were all communists.
They were labeled as part of the Eastern Block,
while the democratic and capitalist nations
of Western Europe were referred to as the
West.
Now the first history classes that were labeled
history of Western civilization were actually
taught during the Cold War – particularly
in the United States, and they naturally made
this East-West distinction.
Now while the concept of Western civilization
has had a long and checkered history, if this
concept has any coherence today.
Now the concept of Western civilization is
one of a cultural concept, thus a more meaningful
way to address the question of – what is
Western civilization – is not to simply
focus on questions of Europe but to deal with
questions of different civilizations on a
cultural basis.
If one approaches the issue of Western civilization
from the perspective of culture, one can get
a more coherent definition of Western civilization,
including the historical roots of the West’s
culture today.
A shorthand, cultural answer to the question
of – what is Western civilization – is
that Western civilization is a civilization
whose cultural roots primarily derive from
the nations of Western Europe.
This would obviously include Western European
nations – such as Britain; France; Spain;
Italy; and Germany.
However, it would also include nations far
away from Western Europe that were settled
by Europeans and today have strong European
cultural influences, including language; government;
religion; and so forth.
This means that nations – such as the United
States; Canada; the nations of Latin America;
Australia; and New Zealand are all Western
nations, and again, many of these are very
far away from Western Europe.
Now some might include Russia as a Western
nation, although as I’ve already mentioned,
with the discussion of the Slavophil movement,
many Russians strongly object to being labeled
as Westerners.
Also, some non-Western nations have become
heavily Westernized, a good example of this
is Japan.
The Japanese have adopted everything from
Western industry to business to dress – to
even sports, such as baseball.
Likewise, many people today in India speak
English and are fans of the English sport
of cricket.
Moreover, soccer – or football as it’s
known worldwide, began in Europe and is wildly
popular across the globe today.
Western science and medicine, as well as Western
concepts – such as democracy, also had spread
across the world and had influenced many non-Western
nations.
And these are just a few examples of Westernization
across the world.
Yet Westernization does not mean that non-Western
nations – such as Japan and India – have
completely abandoned their own cultures and
have become Western nations.
So if the idea of Western civilization is
fundamentally cultural, what are the historical
cultural roots of the West?
And what are some basic cultural characteristics
of the West?
Well the West’s culture can be broken into
three main sources.
The first is a civilization of ancient Rome
and Greece, and these indeed were the first
Western civilizations.
Western civilization is widely considered
to have begun with the ancient Greeks.
Ancient Greece was the cradle of Western civilization.
Democracy, or the rule of the people, which
the modern West takes for granted, was an
invention of ancient Athens.
The ancient Greek city-states created the
first literature of the West – for instance,
with Homer’s Iliad and the Odyssey.
The Greeks invented the first Western theater
with playwrights, such as Sophocles and Euripides.
Sports in the Western world began with the
Greeks, especially the Olympic Games.
The Greeks were also noted for their architecture,
the symmetrical columns found in structures
– such as the Parthenon, which was a temple
to Athena in Athens, has served as a model
for buildings in the West ever since.
The ancient Greeks also created philosophy,
with key figures – such as Socrates; Plato;
and Aristotle.
They were also instrumental in the beginning
of Western art.
And finally, Western mathematics and science,
as well as medicine – all had their beginning
with the Greeks.
While the germ theory has become the dominant
theory in medicine since the 1890s, the Hippocratic
Oath, which goes back to the ancient Greeks,
is a product of Greek medicine.
Now as they moved from a republic to an empire,
the Romans conquered the Greeks.
In fact, by the first century CE, the Romans
had built up a huge empire that included today,
large parts of Western Europe; North Africa;
and the Levant.
The Romans greatly admired the Greeks, and
as such they adopted much of Greek culture
themselves.
Now one popular statement that contrasts the
Greeks and Romans is that the Greeks were
thinkers and the Romans were doers.
Now while this is a little simplistic, there’s
also a lot of truth to it.
The Romans were known for their feats of engineering;
for instance, their roads and their aqueducts.
The Romans were also excellent soldiers and
government administrators.
They produced a very coherent code of law;
Roman law, today, still influences many Western
nations.
The Roman Empire, in the West however, collapsed
around 476 CE.
The culture of the ancient world, namely of
ancient Rome and Greece, though has still
influenced the West to this day.
In terms of languages – modern Western languages
– such as English; French; Spanish; Italian;
and German have heavily borrowed many words
from Greek and Latin.
Latin, of course, was the language the Romans
spoke.
Many romance languages – such as French;
Spanish; Italian; Portuguese; and Romanian
are heavily derived from Latin.
Now the second major cultural source of Western
civilization is Christianity.
Christianity is a monotheistic religion that
came out of Judaism.
As a religion, Christianity is centered on
Jesus, a Jewish rabbi, who lived in the first
century in Palestine.
Christians believe that Jesus is the Christ,
the Messiah.
They believe that he was God incarnate, who
rose from the dead after being killed, and
paid the price for sin, for those who believe
in Him.
Christianity began in the Levant, today what
is the Middle East – not Rome or Greece.
Many Christians in the ancient and medieval
period were not Westerners, or they lived
in places that are today no longer considered
part of the Western world – for example,
St. Augustine, who was a bishop and a writer
in the 4th century CE, is widely considered
today to be one of the most important – if
not THE most important – theologians in
the history of the Western church, including
both Roman Catholic and Protestant churches
– yet Augustine wrote in Latin and he was
from North Africa, an area today that is predominantly
Muslim and Arab and is considered outside
the Western world.
In addition, most Christians today are not
Westerners.
China and Sub-Saharan Africa have large and
growing Christian populations today.
Christianity is thus, and has never been exclusively
Western, or even predominantly Western – nor
is it today.
But Christianity has had a huge influence
on the development of Western civilization.
Christianity first began and spread within
the confines of the Roman Empire – moreover,
a key portion of Christian scripture – the
books of the New Testament, were largely written
in Greek, as it was the widely-spoken language
of the day.
The Romans persecuted Christianity sporadically
for the first two- or three-hundred years
of its existence, until the Roman emperor,
Constantine legalized it in 313 CE, and it
later became the official religion of the
Roman Empire under the emperor, Theodosius.
So Christianity has been the dominant religion
in the Western world since the 4th century.
It spread throughout much of Western Europe
during the Middle Ages and beyond to the Americas;
Australia; and other places colonized by European
powers.
Certainly not all Westerners have been Christians
in the past, nor are all Westerners Christians
today.
Still, since the 4th century, Christianity
has influenced many aspects of Western culture
– including holidays; moral assumptions;
literature; art; music; economics; and marriage.
To give a few examples – polygamy has been
largely taboo in Western nations because of
the influence of Christianity, likewise in
terms of holidays – Easter and Christmas
are important holidays in the West.
Much of Western art and classical music by
composers such as J.S.
Bach; Handel; and many others are devoted
to Christian themes.
Many highly prestigious universities in the
Western world today – such as the Sorbonne
in Paris; Oxford and Cambridge in Great Britain;
and Harvard; Yale; and Princeton in the United
States were originally founded by churches
to provide an education for the clergy, all
of these things came about because of the
influence of Christianity.
The notion of linear time, that time moves
on a track with a beginning, a middle, and
an end also comes from Christianity and has
influenced secular ideology, such as Marxism.
Likewise, the concept of equality – that’s
very prominent in politics today, has Christian
origins.
Now the third, and final, source of Western
civilization is the scientific revolution
and the Enlightenment.
The scientific revolution, which began in
the 17th century in astronomy, gave birth
to modern science, and by extension – modern
technology.
Modern science is based on observation and
empirically verifiable evidence; this includes
scientific institutions that conduct research
to advance knowledge of the natural world.
The Enlightenment was greatly influenced by
the scientific revolution.
The Enlightenment was the 17th and 18th century
intellectual movement that emphasized science;
reason; toleration; and the notion that humans
have natural rights.
Enlightenment thinkers – such as John Locke
was prominent in advancing the notion of natural
rights.
Enlightenment thinkers – such as Voltaire
and Montesquieu in France – criticized absolute
monarchy and advocated for more tolerance
and democratic governments.
Adam Smith, a Scottish economist during the
Enlightenment, is likewise considered the
theoretical founder of modern capitalism,
with his arguments for freer trade and less
government control of markets.
Some of the first advocates of women’s equality
– such as Olympe de Gouges in France, also
came out of the Enlightenment.
The Enlightenment also heavily influenced
the American Revolution, and the U.S. Constitution
itself is a product of the Enlightenment,
including the Bill of Rights; so modern politics
in the West is heavily influenced by the Enlightenment.
So if the main roots of Western civilization
or the culture of ancient Roman and Greece;
Christianity; and the scientific revolution
and the Enlightenment – what are some of
the main characteristics of the West today?
A few can be mentioned here – democracy;
individualism; individual rights; freedom
of expression, including freedom of speech
and artistic freedom; freedom of inquiry;
modern industry; agriculture; science and
medicine – all of these things have come
in large part from the modern West.
However – and in conclusion, it’s worth
cautioning against praising the West, too
much, or becoming Eurocentric in our focus,
or even saying that the West isn’t necessarily
superior to other civilization.
It’s worth noting the West has also borrowed
very heavily from other civilizations.
Moreover, Western nations – especially as
they became powerful in the modern era, have
also dominated and exploited non-Western nations
on many occasions.
In the 20thy century, the West played a key
role in the outbreak of several very destructive
wars – such as the First World War and the
Second World War.
Modern totalitarian governments – such as
communism; Nazism; and fascism also all came
out of the West.
Finally, while modern capitalism and industry
have greatly benefitted people, it has also
come at a terrible cost – including poor
treatment of workers and environmental pollution.
The world we live in today is a heavily Westernized
world, and this is both for good and for ill.
Thanks for watching.
Thank you for your time.
