What is Western Culture?

[Fire Haired14]

Good discussion going. I think there are multiple definitions of Western Culture which are used for different circumstances. For example in discussions about relations between Russia and "The West", "The West"=Liberal, Capitalist, 1st world countries in Western Europe, United States, Australia, a few others.

 

[Angela]

^^
You can't just define western civilization by scientific achievements. That's much too restrictive. Even if you were you seem to be ignoring the achievements of classical Greece.

I'm not going to get into a long winded analysis of democracy. I would just say that in some ways Athenian democracy was also a plutocracy. The fact remains that this was not a development which took place in the east.

Actually, I think the biggest differences between civilizations have to do with world view, ways of thinking about the world. That's what sets the west apart, and that all began with the Greeks. All of western thought is in some ways just an addendum to Plato and Aristotle, and that has affected the development of not only science, but religion, economics and political and social life. Philosophy influences the development of a culture even if most of the members of that culture have never taken a philosophy class or even know the names of any of these philosophers.

I do agree with a comment you made upthread. The west has always been defined by contrast with the east and vice-versa.

 

[Milan.M]

And by what we drag the Greeks in "west".Whatever one will define it.If traditional western view hold that catholic/protestant countries are core of the west clearly Greeks were Orthodox,part of eastern empire,and if someone copied thoughts of Plato or Aristotle in some period of time what that has to do with anything.Greeks taking alphabet for example from Phoenicians or some knowledge from Egyptians didn't made them one of them.Ancient Greeks knew to much about Eastern Mediterranean cultures less I think about Scandinavia.I rather think is more imagination here and how we like to define our world including present day democracy and other things.This things are rather political.

 

[Judith]

Western culture means something different in different contexts. It may simply mean blind commercialism if as a middle eastern cleric you wish to condemn it. Or it can mean western liberal democratic capitalism. What it certainly isn't connected to in any context IMO is ethnicity so African Americans, medieval Spanish Amish etc all are in or out according to the context. The Amish would not wish to be considered part of western consumerism for example. Medieval Spain would not get far in being liberal.

 

[firetown]

When was the term Western Culture first used and in which reference? Definitely not while emperors and dynasties ruled. I would say it has a lot to do with kicking royalty off their thrones and the roaring 20s starting a new era. With the tiny interruption called Great Depression of course, but pretty quickly back on track right after that.

 

[Milan.M]

Have nothing against geographic names but I don't like If they have political,cold war or imperialist connotation and it's west,east,middle.We might need new political terms in future.This are man made boundaries,they were once geographic even in Roman empire,however they defined them.

 

[IronSide]

Western culture started with the renaissance

 

[Vallicanus]

Western culture started with the renaissance

Western culture began with the ancient Greeks who absorbed much from the civilisations of the Fertile Crescent.

I think the Voyages of Discovery, the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution influenced western Civilisation more than the Renaissance which was more of an elite culture.

 

[Pax Augusta]

Western culture began with the ancient Greeks who absorbed much from the civilisations of the Fertile Crescent.

I think the Voyages of Discovery, the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution influenced western Civilisation more than the Renaissance which was more of an elite culture.

The culture has been always an elite thing until in the society emerged and developed a mass culture in the 20th century. Even before the Renaissance it's the Humanism that deeply influenced the Western Civilization. Without the reform and modernization triggered by the Renaissance, there would be no Enlightenment, Industrial Revolution and Voyages of Discovery just as we have known them.

It is a long chain, which starts from the ancient Greece and ends today. But without a single ring in this long chain, Western Culture would be different.

 

[Angela]

The culture has been always an elite thing until in the society emerged and developed a mass culture in the 20th century. Even before the Renaissance it's the Humanism that deeply influenced the Western Civilization. Without the reform and modernization triggered by the Renaissance, there would be no Enlightenment, Industrial Revolution and Voyages of Discovery just as we have known them.

It is a long chain, which starts from the ancient Greece and ends today. But without a single ring in this long chain, Western Culture would be different.

Very well said.

Just as one minor example, how do you have trade and industry without an international banking system, a systematized foreign exchange market, insurance, joint stock companies, double-entry book-keeping, and on and on, all invented at this time. The Renaissance was more than art, architecture, and literature; most importantly, it was a different way of looking at the world, which had revolutionary consequences as it spread through Europe into the Northern and English Renaissance.

 

[Vallicanus]

Very well said.

Just as one minor example, how do you have trade and industry without an international banking system, a systematized foreign exchange market, insurance, joint stock companies, double-entry book-keeping, and on and on, all invented at this time. The Renaissance was more than art, architecture, and literature; most importantly, it was a different way of looking at the world, which had revolutionary consequences as it spread through Europe into the Northern and English Renaissance.

If you really believe that the Italian trading republics were banking and commercial pioneers then you need to read books that show they were merely middlemen for the exchange of ideas (often from China and India) and goods between the Middle East and western Europe, eg

The Eastern Origins of Western Civilization by John M. Hobson (2004).

 

[bicicleur 2]

If you really believe that the Italian trading republics were banking and commercial pioneers then you need to read books that show they were merely middlemen for the exchange of ideas (often from China and India) and goods between the Middle East and western Europe, eg

The Eastern Origins of Western Civilization by John M. Hobson (2004).

that would have been the role played by the Arabs and the Venetians who would do anything to keep their monopoly, even preventing exchange of ideas
but it was not what happened in Tuscany, they started looking for alternate ways

it is symptomatic that the story of the voyages of Marco Polo was not spread from Venice

 

[Pax Augusta]

Just as one minor example, how do you have trade and industry without an international banking system, a systematized foreign exchange market, insurance, joint stock companies, double-entry book-keeping, and on and on, all invented at this time. The Renaissance was more than art, architecture, and literature; most importantly, it was a different way of looking at the world, which had revolutionary consequences as it spread through Europe into the Northern and English Renaissance.

Spread through Europe with the important role of Dutch and Flemish Renaissance, because of trade and commerce in cities like Antwerp and Bruges and the cultural exchange between Italy and Netherlands and Belgium.

If you really believe that the Italian trading republics were banking and commercial pioneers then you need to read books that show they were merely middlemen for the exchange of ideas (often from China and India) and goods between the Middle East and western Europe, eg

The Eastern Origins of Western Civilization by John M. Hobson (2004).

That book is a typical example of historical revisionism that challenges a mainstream theory as the dominant theoretical position in the American/British sphere (that has little to do with the Italian trading republics and even less with the Tuscan Humanism that you wanted to deliberately add for your personal bias). I'm not saying that Hobson's book is a fraud, I'm saying that it's not enough to read a book if you're not able to put the book in the historical theory context which produced the book.

it is symptomatic that the story of the voyages of Marco Polo was not spread from Venice

Well, actually It's claimed that Marco Polo's book was written in a Genoese prison by Rustichello da Pisa, a Tuscan writer who wrote the book under dictation in Old French.

 

[Vallicanus]

that would have been the role played by the Arabs and the Venetians who would do anything to keep their monopoly, even preventing exchange of ideas
but it was not what happened in Tuscany, they started looking for alternate ways

it is symptomatic that the story of the voyages of Marco Polo was not spread from Venice

I do not agree with what you are saying about Tuscan alternatives. Fibonacci of Pisa had to adopt "Arabic" numerals (partly derived from India) to improve Tuscan and indeed western commerce.
Please read Hobson's book.

 

[Vallicanus]

Spread through Europe with the important role of Dutch and Flemish Renaissance, because of trade and commerce in cities like Antwerp and Bruges and the cultural exchange between Italy and Netherlands and Belgium.



That book is a typical example of historical revisionism that challenges a mainstream theory as the dominant theoretical position in the American/British sphere (that has little to do with the Italian trading republics that you wanted to deliberately add for your personal bias). I'm not saying that Hobson's book is a fraud, I'm saying that it's not enough to read a book if you're not able to put the book in the historical theory context which produced the book.

If you actually read the book it points out that the Italian city republics were not innovative but adaptive middlemen with ideas from the Islamic world which actually came from China and India in many cases.

 

[Angela]

If you really believe that the Italian trading republics were banking and commercial pioneers then you need to read books that show they were merely middlemen for the exchange of ideas (often from China and India) and goods between the Middle East and western Europe, eg
The Eastern Origins of Western Civilization by John M. Hobson (2004).

And you need not to mislead people when you cite sources. Nothing in Hobson's book contradicts settled history about the beginnings of capitalism in Europe. Everything builds on everything else. Also, in case you didn't notice, Florence is also not Genova or Venezia. It's wealth was largely based on the wool trade with England, and its banking activities had to do with being, in effect, the national bank of various European "states".

See:
Renaissance Florence, Cradle of Capitalism
http://www.economist.com/node/13484709

The book they are discussing is Richard Goldthwaites, The Economy of Renaissance Florence:
https://www.amazon.com/Economy-Rena...bs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1240881396&sr=8-1

Rational Capitalism in Renaissance Italy:
https://prezi.com/fnl85gww-zpy/capitalism-in-the-renaissance/

http://opensiuc.lib.siu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1007&context=pn_wp

From the above:
"What were the social and institutional factors that led to, and reinforced, theprecocious emergence of Florentine commercial capitalism,3 especially in the domain ofinternational merchant-banking? The dominant stream of answers, emphasized byeconomic historians and by economists, focuses on the invention in late-medieval andRenaissance Italy of a variety of innovative business techniques – bills of exchange,double-entry bookkeeping, partnership contracts, commercial courts."


There's nothing controversial or "nationalistic" about any of this. It is standard European history, as I was taught it in American universities by American professors with no ax of any kind to grind. Here, for example, is an outline for a university class. As you will see, the development of capitalism was indeed in some sense propelled by trade with the east. How does that change the fact that these new forms of economic organization, totally different from anything in the east, developed in these city-states?

See:
http://www.shsu.edu/~his_ncp/266LecN.html

" The capitalistic motive has always existed; however, after the fall of the Roman Empire, western civilization disintegrated and money all but went out of circulation for hundreds of years. At the height of the Crusades in the 12th and 13th centuries, soldiers returning from the Holy Lands not only brought back tales of the great and wonderful Muslim civilization they fought against but they also brought back a taste for earstern trade goods such as spices and silks. The Italian city-states gained notariety both for their work in ferrying the Crusaders from Europe over to Constantinople and the Holy Lands and for coming back on the return voyage loaded with those eastern goods. With the sack of a fellow Christian city, Constantinople, during the Fourth Crusade in 1204, the Venetians gained control over the failing Byzantine Empire for the next 50 years, together with all its wealth and its control over the east-west caravan routes. Thus, the Venetians became the earliest of the Italian city-states to gain the capital neccessary to finance both the Renaissance and overseas expansion"

"During the Renaissance, Italian merchants began to accumulate vast fortunes from east-west trade, they looked for ways to invest their capital."

" They began by lending it to various kings, who were always strapped for cash, so they could raise their own paid armies, thus liberating them from dependence on the feudal nobility for the raising of troops."

They also needed to develop structures and economic systems to make that money "work" for them, and they did.

I thought you had gotten over this sort of reflexive, anti-Italian nonsense, but I guess not. Personal prejudices like this do not advance reasoned discussion. It's also provocative and disruptive, so cut it out.

 

[Vallicanus]

I have Hobson's book and it does not say what you claim,sorry.

 

[Pax Augusta]

I have Hobson's book and it does not say what you claim,sorry.

Whatever, a single book doesn't ever contain the whole picture.

I do not agree with what you are saying about Tuscan alternatives. Fibonacci of Pisa had to adopt "Arabic" numerals (partly derived from India) to improve Tuscan and indeed western commerce.
Please read Hobson's book.

You're acting like a grumpy, but what you're saying doesn't change the whole picture, being none is denying that existence of external cultural contributions.

 

[Vallicanus]

And you need not to mislead people when you cite sources. Nothing in Hobson's book contradicts settled history about the beginnings of capitalism in Europe. Everything builds on everything else. Also, in case you didn't notice, Florence is also not Genova or Venezia. It's wealth was largely based on the wool trade with England, and its banking activities had to do with being, in effect, the national bank of various European "states".

See:
Renaissance Florence, Cradle of Capitalism
http://www.economist.com/node/13484709

The book they are discussing is Richard Goldthwaites, The Economy of Renaissance Florence:
https://www.amazon.com/Economy-Rena...bs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1240881396&sr=8-1

Rational Capitalism in Renaissance Italy:
https://prezi.com/fnl85gww-zpy/capitalism-in-the-renaissance/

http://opensiuc.lib.siu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1007&context=pn_wp

From the above:
"What were the social and institutional factors that led to, and reinforced, theprecocious emergence of Florentine commercial capitalism,3 especially in the domain ofinternational merchant-banking? The dominant stream of answers, emphasized byeconomic historians and by economists, focuses on the invention in late-medieval andRenaissance Italy of a variety of innovative business techniques – bills of exchange,double-entry bookkeeping, partnership contracts, commercial courts."


There's nothing controversial or "nationalistic" about any of this. It is standard European history, as I was taught it in American universities by American professors with no ax of any kind to grind. Here, for example, is an outline for a university class. As you will see, the development of capitalism was indeed in some sense propelled by trade with the east. How does that change the fact that these new forms of economic organization, totally different from anything in the east, developed in these city-states?

See:
http://www.shsu.edu/~his_ncp/266LecN.html

" The capitalistic motive has always existed; however, after the fall of the Roman Empire, western civilization disintegrated and money all but went out of circulation for hundreds of years. At the height of the Crusades in the 12th and 13th centuries, soldiers returning from the Holy Lands not only brought back tales of the great and wonderful Muslim civilization they fought against but they also brought back a taste for earstern trade goods such as spices and silks. The Italian city-states gained notariety both for their work in ferrying the Crusaders from Europe over to Constantinople and the Holy Lands and for coming back on the return voyage loaded with those eastern goods. With the sack of a fellow Christian city, Constantinople, during the Fourth Crusade in 1204, the Venetians gained control over the failing Byzantine Empire for the next 50 years, together with all its wealth and its control over the east-west caravan routes. Thus, the Venetians became the earliest of the Italian city-states to gain the capital neccessary to finance both the Renaissance and overseas expansion"

"During the Renaissance, Italian merchants began to accumulate vast fortunes from east-west trade, they looked for ways to invest their capital."

" They began by lending it to various kings, who were always strapped for cash, so they could raise their own paid armies, thus liberating them from dependence on the feudal nobility for the raising of troops."

They also needed to develop structures and economic systems to make that money "work" for them, and they did.

I thought you had gotten over this sort of reflexive, anti-Italian nonsense, but I guess not. Personal prejudices like this do not advance reasoned discussion. It's also provocative and disruptive, so cut it out.

I have Hobson's book not those Eurocentred, Eurocentric references.

 

[Vallicanus]

Whatever, a single book doesn't ever contain the whole picture.

Well, you can also check read "ReOrient: Global Economy in the Asian Age" by Andre Gunder Frank (1998).