Post by Hypso The Musky Rat-Kangaroo on Mar 5, 2018 11:30:35 GMT -4
I often times see this term thrown around, escpecially by white nationalists. It seems in their definition, "western civilization" means the Anglo sphere. For others it means all of Europe. For others they use the term as a synonym for "modern". Some tend to define "western civilization" as cultures that have originated from Christendom(Western European civilization). Some tend to define it by it being cultures that hold "western values" such as in their case secularism, education and advancement in things. This sort of confuses me? Because I see so many people throw this term around in an egotistic way yet it isn't properly defined. Most people speculate that western tradition orginiated in Greece, but that actual "civilization" part orginiated in Mesopotamia. For the case that mesopotamian spread civilization to the "west" and Greece spread the tradition to the "west". A lot of these people also talk about how the Islamic civilization is the most anti-western civilization out there, but didn't the Islamic civilization have its influence from Greece and Mesopotamia? Even my western civilization class taught about the Islamic civilization as a "western civilization" because they considered it a "heir to Rome" along with Christendom and Byzantium. Heck even some of these guys don't consider Byzantium a "western civilization" let alone the Islamic one. What about the other ancient near eastern civilizations that I was taught in western civ class? Are they also western? It seems that the term "western civilization" was created in the 19th century to boost the ego of a narcissistic people. They use it as a synonym for "superior civilization". They also often use at as a synonym for "modern" and that only "western civilization" can be modern. For instance. Non-Anglo countries that are modern today like Singapore and Japan are sometimes considered "western" and that they're a copy of the "West". If you look closer. These countries don't really have anything western about them. You can speculate that it's because their government and education system is "western" because they borrowed some things from those countries. But what does that mean anyway? As if "western" countries didn't borrow other things from other civilizations. I want to hear your opinions about it so please share.