What is Western Culture?

[Boreas]

There are as much differences between Northern vs Southern Europe as between Western vs Eastern Europe. It all boils down to the ethnic and historic divides between Germanic, Latin/Celtic and Balto-Slavic countries. Even religious divides of the Renaissance follow those ethnic lines.

It is good that, I took your attention about difference in Europe

Yes, there is logic because the Renaissance was a clear break with the past, with Medieval Europe. Europeans started to doubt and reconsider the teachings of the Church and to replace it with rational thinking. When Luther rejected the abuses of the Catholic Church, he was using reason to reject the values of Medieval Europe. Many people imagine the Renaissance to be about fine paintings and sculptures in Tuscany and the Low Countries, but it is a much broader revolution in thinking, a rebirth of ancient Greco-Roman philosophy (against Judeo-Christian dogma) and the start of the scientific revolution (with Copernicus, Galileo, etc.). The Enlightenment is just the culmination of the Renaissance. It is not even a separate historical period.

Clear Break ? This is what people said a century ago :grin:

As I said before, if the Renaissance was the core peices of Western Civilisation, scientific revolution or reform would begin in there. There should be other factors. I don't deny that renaissance which began in Italy, fed the scientific revolution in West, but as I explain, it is not enough.

"It is not even a separate historical period." ???
It was totally subjective issue. Neither you can disprove my idea nor I can do yours with this way.

Sample: What is the begining of modern period?
The Fall of Constantinople in 1453, with the Renaissance period,
The Age of Discovery (especially with the voyages of Christopher Columbus beginning in 1492, but also with Vasco da Gama's discovery of the sea route to the East in 1498), and ending around the French Revolution in 1789.

1453, 1492, 1498 As you see, very subjective.

 

[Maciamo]

Clear Break ? This is what people said a century ago :grin:

What are you talking about?

"It is not even a separate historical period." ???
It was totally subjective issue. Neither you can disprove my idea nor I can do yours with this way.

It is not totally subjective. Historians have standards on which they agree. So it's partially subjective.

Sample: What is the begining of modern period?
The Fall of Constantinople in 1453, with the Renaissance period,
The Age of Discovery (especially with the voyages of Christopher Columbus beginning in 1492, but also with Vasco da Gama's discovery of the sea route to the East in 1498), and ending around the French Revolution in 1789.

1453, 1492, 1498 As you see, very subjective.

Why do you need a fixed date for the start of the Renaissance. That's ridiculous because the Renaissance didn't start at the same time in all regions at once. And it didn't start at the same time for science, philosophy/religion, arts or technologies (gunpowder, printing press, ocean-going ships). The earliest development of what is associated with the Renaissance started with the arts in Tuscany in the late 14th century. It took about 150 years for the Early Renaissance to emerge and spread around Europe. We can say that by the mid 16th century the Renaissance was well under way in most of Europe (but not everywhere). It's important to understand that the ideas of the Renaissance propagated first to major cities, royal courts and the like, and last to the remote countryside. Even in France, which is at the heart of Western Europe and had a particularly flourishing Renaissance culture (Loire Valley Castles, Montaigne, Descartes, School of Fontainebleau, etc.), the ideas of the Renaissance were still largely unknown in rural mountain areas of Auvergne or the Pyrennees as late as the early 20th century, where people had a lifestyle that differed little from their medieval ancestors.

 

[Sile]

Sample: What is the begining of modern period?
The Fall of Constantinople in 1453, with the Renaissance period,
The Age of Discovery (especially with the voyages of Christopher Columbus beginning in 1492, but also with Vasco da Gama's discovery of the sea route to the East in 1498), and ending around the French Revolution in 1789.

1453, 1492, 1498 As you see, very subjective.

IMO, Beginning of modern period can only be from the creation of nationhood ....~1750 - 1780 ............maybe the American revolution period was the start .............

For Europe it would be ~1840 onwards ..............the many many revolutions all across Europe

 

[Boreas]

What are you talking about?

I don't want to find clear date. the point was its subjectivity. As you agreed (partly )

Similary,

You may not see Enligntment as a age/era. But people exist who see it.

IMO, Beginning of modern period can only be from the creation of nationhood ....~1750 - 1780 ............maybe the American revolution period was the start .............


For Europe it would be ~1840 onwards ..............the many many revolutions all across Europe

Another great sample for its subjectivity.

You are pasting the Age of Discovery and put the begining of the Modern period between 1750-1840 which usually called as late-modern period.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_history

 

[Sile]

I don't want to find clear date. the point was its subjectivity. As you agreed (partly )

Similary,

You may not see Enligntment as a age/era. But people exist who see it.




Another great sample for its subjectivity.

You are pasting the Age of Discovery and put the begining of the Modern period between 1750-1840 which usually called as late-modern period.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_history

no not with age of discovery, to be exact it is the end of Church and King system and beginning of nationhood ...................the quicker we eliminate both the better man will be

 

[Seanp]

From a more broad aspect of view Western culture can cover not only Europe but a good portion of the Near East and regions which has been colonized by people of West Eurasian descent. From the Neolithic to the appear of Jesus the core of the Western world was in the Middle East/East Mediterranean regions then this core had moved to Rome/Central Mediterranean including shores of North Africa and Southwest Europe.
Western civilization did born outside Europe, but today the so called West is being associated with Christianity and technological revolution which is not the case in my opinion.

There's no such thing as homogeneous European culture, because without the cultural influence of the Near East it wouldn't be exist as well as there's no strict homogeneous Near Eastern culture
Hellenes, the so called founders of Western civilization just copy pasted most knowledge from Mesopotamia, Egypt and other brother states around the Eastern Mediterranean while the term "Europe" was used by Phoenicians for the first time.
It should be more interesting to see the significant impact of Freemasons on modern European cultural values, because the way we can talk about such thing as Europe as a state and a relatively homogeneous cultural-economical community was created by influential members of certain secret societies as well as the impact made by Judo-Christianity.

 

[Pratt]

The Western Civilization started in Greece, but the Hellenic Civilization started in the Northern Mesopotamia (among the Sumerians/Gutians of Kurdistan)...

Not really

 

[Pratt]

Gutians is the new black... I'm Swiss, if you ask me what is western europe, europe civilization, western civilization, white civilization... I just dont know what to responde... I'm not proud has my ancient swiss pikemen fellas.

“In Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed - they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo Da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love and five hundred years of democracy and peace, and what did they produce? The cuckoo clock!”

―Orson Welles


Just kidding, but not so much.

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[Holdwin7]

Hi! I am Holdwin7 a new member. I see the wisdom of presenting the definition of Western Civilization to give us a clearer picture of what it is - by Angela. I for one have been a student of Western Civilization - The measure of Western Civilization cannot be limited or minimized by using a political divide. It cannot be limited or minimized by one of its historical foundations. Western Civilization with all its imperfections, is the greatest civilization that has ever been on this planet. The extent and influence can be seen in every country; the majority of cities on earth; and the majority of people.