Understanding Western Civilization.
video description
If you are describing something about American civilization, I guess you can be as biased towards the US as you want, but guess what, the US is not Western civilization, it's just part of it, it's not even the OG founder, so looking at western civilization through the eyes of the US which has no say over the actual founders of western civilization (Western Europe) is very strange, in the best case scenario, and completely absurd in the worst.
Western civilization, depending on the definition used, either started all the way back from the Greeks, or it started in Italy during the renaissance. Notice how in no definition of the term did it even came close to starting in the US? Again takes me to the point of how strange it is to discuss this in such an America-centrist point of view. At the time of the Renaissance, Britain was not just NOT the focus in the picture, it wasn't EVEN IN the picture. Britain was the backwaters of Europe, an irrelevant island that had nothing going for it in the 1500s. Again, in both definitions of western civilization, the founders or closest to the founders were Latin countries, more specifically Italy, LATIN America being the successors of the empires that the Latin countries created just reinforces the fact that they're indeed part of the West.
There's no reason to include the US but exclude Latin America from the list. Like no offense, but a toddler seems to have a more consistent logic than you. The US is a country whose land was colonized by a Western European nation and because of it's extended period as a colony and mass migration became integrated into the culture of the motherland. Now Latin America on the other hand is, a collection of countries whose land were colonized by Western European nations and because of their extended period as colonies and mass migration became integrated into the culture of the motherland. Crazy right? Who would have thought that pieces of land in the same continent (or two if you're anglo) discovered and colonized at the same time, by essentially the same cultures would have the exact same history.
And I don't doubt some of your knowledge in history, as I'm sure you know, Spain was the nation that kickstarted the colonization of America. Hence, Spanish colonies were founded prior to any colony founded by Britain, and you can still see it to this day. The FIRST city Europeans ever founded in America was Santa Marta in Colombia. Cities in Latin America have older history and older historical buildings than American cities. Guess where they came from. Europe. Architecture is Spanish, culture is Spanish, Language is Spanish, and also. and this might be shocking. race is Spanish (white. Yeah, most Latin Americans are white, and just like the US there's incredible diversity of other races too, and again JUST LIKE the US, those other races were systemically oppressed, and the effect of that oppression can be seen to this day, where the poorest citizens tend to be black or brown. Why is this relevant? because, being the poorest citizens, they're the ones most likely to migrate to other countries looking for opportunities. THAT'S why most Latinos in the US are mixed, it's simple statistics, of course most of the immigrants in the destination country are gonna be brown or black because those are the ones more statistically likely to emigrate. So that means that the pool of immigrants coming from Latin America don't reflect Latin America as a whole, again, it's simple statistics.
I will say however, that to avoid spewing misleading information like you do in this video, I will put a disclaimer and that is that each country in Latin America had a slightly different history from each other and were used by Spain or Portugal in different ways, so their gradient of being a Western country can be higher or lower than others, same with race. There are some countries in Latin America that are mostly black (Haiti, there are some that are mostly mixed (Nicaragua, and there are some that are mostly white (Argentina. So it really depends what country you're talking about as Latin America is not a monolith.
I can keep pointing more facts to state why Latin America is part of the West, such as the fact that even Europeans (the OG westerners) consider Latin America just as part of the West as the US (Spaniards almost unanimously consider this a fact for example. But to wrap this up, I will just use an anecdote as I've used too many facts already. I would say to some extent of confidence that Latin Americans throughout history has always stayed closer in touch with Europeans than Americans. After independence, The US kinda developed too much pride to keep in touch with the old world as they saw it as not worthy of their attention, George Washington even stated that the US should not meddle with European affairs. Latin America on the other hand, never really lost contact, and had kind of an opposite mentality from the US; Latin Americans kept valuing Europe and seeing it as the sophisticated motherland. This is why many rich Latin Americans would send their children to university in Europe instead of sending them to university in their OWN countries! Cause to them, sending their children to Europe was like sending your American child out of state. Europe, to these rich Latin Americans, wasn't this far away land, it was simply the more sophisticated and richer state of the same civilization that they made part of, Western civilization.
Date: 2022-07-15
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Comments and reviews: 9
Richard
Why the West rose to power
1) Aristotelian philosophy, adopted through the Muslim philosophers, became normalized with the rise of Thomas Aquinas' philosophy. Western Europeans were the first culture to expect Nature to reflect the orderliness of Gods mind, and this gave us the tools to adopt to foreign advances without shame. Our mathematics, physics and astronomy advanced by leaps and bounds and were applied to various things like celestial navigation, the metric system and Rationalism.
2) The Celtic humanism survived among bards and gave a sense of laws, justice and a common mans law and custom that helped continuity in culture, as well as population growth. These Celts helped to preserve much of the ancient culture and philosophy of the Romans, and this drove Western academics to go to the Muslim world to get more of that ancient wisdom.
3) The development of better methods of making charcoal, rotating crops, a yolk for horses and conducting trade in a society of laws came from the influence of monasteries who innovated these things and gave the locals a sense of legal norms via ecclesiastical law. This stabilized Western society to such a degree that it endured many crisis.
4) Most Western government came from the Charlemagne dynasty that sought to restore the Western Roman Empire. This gave enormous stability and reduced competitive claims to power. It also gave Western culture more status, at least in their own minds. In England we had Alfred the Great who developed a Fyrd-Burghal system of defense that took the step of growing power at the local level, and having the local nobility contribute forces in war, and also to ward off raiders which proved wildly successful in defeating the vikings and nearly the Normans also. It also cemented a bottom to top power structure in English society that we have inherited in todays USA.
5) The religious limits to warfare meant we had almost continual warfare with no one really achieving anything resembling Roman levels of empire. And so with constant practice we got pretty good at it, on land and sea. Our military leaders grew to accept a learned officer class and this helped us to attain genuine 'military science'.
6) Our Protestant-Catholic division has produced not only an acceleration of war capability, but it also spurred literacy among the masses. People learned to read so they could have confidence in their beliefs or convert to another faith. This also dyed the use (or misuse) of reason into the culture as a norm instead of being seen as an aberration.
7) Celestial Navigation allowed for Western ships to leave sight of the coast and cross directly from one port to another. This is what Columbus actually developed as a practical method, and by his third Voyage, all his navigation was by the stars. This gave the Western nations and traders the ability to go around the Middle Eastern choke points and go directly to India, Indonesia and the coast of China to trade for spices, jade, porcelain and saltpeter for gunpowder.
8) The discovery of the Americas gave us not only mostly unpopulated rich fertile lands, but also most of the vegetables we now eat and enormously improved our diets. Potatoes, corn, Tomatoes, beans, cocoa, tobacco, etc all come from Americas. The Western nations were enriched by trading these commodities that largely displaced the Eastern trade, and so the West rose in economic power.
Anyway, that is my quick answer, hope you like it.
reply
Why the West rose to power
1) Aristotelian philosophy, adopted through the Muslim philosophers, became normalized with the rise of Thomas Aquinas' philosophy. Western Europeans were the first culture to expect Nature to reflect the orderliness of Gods mind, and this gave us the tools to adopt to foreign advances without shame. Our mathematics, physics and astronomy advanced by leaps and bounds and were applied to various things like celestial navigation, the metric system and Rationalism.
2) The Celtic humanism survived among bards and gave a sense of laws, justice and a common mans law and custom that helped continuity in culture, as well as population growth. These Celts helped to preserve much of the ancient culture and philosophy of the Romans, and this drove Western academics to go to the Muslim world to get more of that ancient wisdom.
3) The development of better methods of making charcoal, rotating crops, a yolk for horses and conducting trade in a society of laws came from the influence of monasteries who innovated these things and gave the locals a sense of legal norms via ecclesiastical law. This stabilized Western society to such a degree that it endured many crisis.
4) Most Western government came from the Charlemagne dynasty that sought to restore the Western Roman Empire. This gave enormous stability and reduced competitive claims to power. It also gave Western culture more status, at least in their own minds. In England we had Alfred the Great who developed a Fyrd-Burghal system of defense that took the step of growing power at the local level, and having the local nobility contribute forces in war, and also to ward off raiders which proved wildly successful in defeating the vikings and nearly the Normans also. It also cemented a bottom to top power structure in English society that we have inherited in todays USA.
5) The religious limits to warfare meant we had almost continual warfare with no one really achieving anything resembling Roman levels of empire. And so with constant practice we got pretty good at it, on land and sea. Our military leaders grew to accept a learned officer class and this helped us to attain genuine 'military science'.
6) Our Protestant-Catholic division has produced not only an acceleration of war capability, but it also spurred literacy among the masses. People learned to read so they could have confidence in their beliefs or convert to another faith. This also dyed the use (or misuse) of reason into the culture as a norm instead of being seen as an aberration.
7) Celestial Navigation allowed for Western ships to leave sight of the coast and cross directly from one port to another. This is what Columbus actually developed as a practical method, and by his third Voyage, all his navigation was by the stars. This gave the Western nations and traders the ability to go around the Middle Eastern choke points and go directly to India, Indonesia and the coast of China to trade for spices, jade, porcelain and saltpeter for gunpowder.
8) The discovery of the Americas gave us not only mostly unpopulated rich fertile lands, but also most of the vegetables we now eat and enormously improved our diets. Potatoes, corn, Tomatoes, beans, cocoa, tobacco, etc all come from Americas. The Western nations were enriched by trading these commodities that largely displaced the Eastern trade, and so the West rose in economic power.
Anyway, that is my quick answer, hope you like it.
reply
Somali
Lol you started wrong in this video, no one immitated western civillization, it is actualy the other way around and a civillizations is human nature and not some western nature lol.
. Use your brains please, thank u, western world tried to be like the rest of the world and they only succeded in thanks to china with is gun powder, the western develeoped much later then mespotiamia, babylonia, ancient egypt, kush, ethiopia, land of punt.
While africa, middle east and asia were a civillizations for thousands of years the west existed pf germanic tribes, huns, vikings. No one immitaded the west but the west joined the rest of the civillized world much later, use your brains instead of repeating white washed theories and every civillization has its technological, scientific advance, ancient egypt, building
mesoptiamia, middle east astronomiy, math, building. Africa metal work ( invented Iron ) every civilization had its one adanvance, the west joined later and tried its best to improve things, it succeded, that is basiclly it, , if the west did not try to improve it someone else would have done it by now, becouse the world was already in a race of improving things.
india and china is ahead of the west put you dont notice it, becouse they dont show off, that is the truth, arrogance is enemy number one for the western world, it will make people lose focuss, then you again behind the rest of the world pretty soon, china is already ahead of the west
reply
Lol you started wrong in this video, no one immitated western civillization, it is actualy the other way around and a civillizations is human nature and not some western nature lol.
. Use your brains please, thank u, western world tried to be like the rest of the world and they only succeded in thanks to china with is gun powder, the western develeoped much later then mespotiamia, babylonia, ancient egypt, kush, ethiopia, land of punt.
While africa, middle east and asia were a civillizations for thousands of years the west existed pf germanic tribes, huns, vikings. No one immitaded the west but the west joined the rest of the civillized world much later, use your brains instead of repeating white washed theories and every civillization has its technological, scientific advance, ancient egypt, building
mesoptiamia, middle east astronomiy, math, building. Africa metal work ( invented Iron ) every civilization had its one adanvance, the west joined later and tried its best to improve things, it succeded, that is basiclly it, , if the west did not try to improve it someone else would have done it by now, becouse the world was already in a race of improving things.
india and china is ahead of the west put you dont notice it, becouse they dont show off, that is the truth, arrogance is enemy number one for the western world, it will make people lose focuss, then you again behind the rest of the world pretty soon, china is already ahead of the west
reply
Donjean
People keep dismissing why the former colonies of colonial empires saw declines in standards of living. Many of those countries had colonial structures, politically, socially and economically that did not allow for an easy transition into an independent system. They also were countries pieced together by European colonial interests or ambitions. Some of these countries were simply never meant to exist, you have entire ethnic groups, religions and financially incompatible areas thrown around together with no care for the people living there.
Not to mention the types of problems the Europeans encourage such as in the Caribbean where countries after gaining independence were coerced into financial loans and deals (allowing in foreign interests and industry) that would cripple local economies.
Aside from that good video.
Although Im not sold on why colonial powers supposedly gained nothing from their colonies, when just the livable land, prestige and material wealth was surely enough for them to brutally exploit the natives of those lands back then.
Plus there are other metrics of measuring growth and wealth other than GDP per capita. it also isnt as if the elites from all those empires didnt become fabulously more influential and wealthy from colonization even if their people didnt.
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People keep dismissing why the former colonies of colonial empires saw declines in standards of living. Many of those countries had colonial structures, politically, socially and economically that did not allow for an easy transition into an independent system. They also were countries pieced together by European colonial interests or ambitions. Some of these countries were simply never meant to exist, you have entire ethnic groups, religions and financially incompatible areas thrown around together with no care for the people living there.
Not to mention the types of problems the Europeans encourage such as in the Caribbean where countries after gaining independence were coerced into financial loans and deals (allowing in foreign interests and industry) that would cripple local economies.
Aside from that good video.
Although Im not sold on why colonial powers supposedly gained nothing from their colonies, when just the livable land, prestige and material wealth was surely enough for them to brutally exploit the natives of those lands back then.
Plus there are other metrics of measuring growth and wealth other than GDP per capita. it also isnt as if the elites from all those empires didnt become fabulously more influential and wealthy from colonization even if their people didnt.
reply
sdlkfjh
The Nazis conducted human experiments that helped medicine to improve. The results of their inhumane experiments are still being used, and it is questionable whether modern medicine would be able to achieve these results if human guinea pigs did not have to suffer to obtain them. The West has done the same. But the price of this rapid progress is the destruction of nature, we are losing about 10 species every day, we lost 100 of native peoples around the world, the destruction of the environment, global warming is slowly but surely turning the world into a desert, the poisoning of nature by plastic and other environmental toxins. The list can be continued. I would prefer to live in a world without all the technology if I could get clean air, clean water. could get, and one should not forget that other nations also had medicine. that would have improved by now. For example, Ibn Sina's Canon of Medicine was mandatory for medical school in Europe for 300 years.
Imagine the West would have depopulated Japan and replaced it with white people, we would have another new-zealand. Now imagine what we lost in America a whole continent where dozens of different peoples lived before they were exterminated by western people. We can not imagine how much human kind lost there.
reply
The Nazis conducted human experiments that helped medicine to improve. The results of their inhumane experiments are still being used, and it is questionable whether modern medicine would be able to achieve these results if human guinea pigs did not have to suffer to obtain them. The West has done the same. But the price of this rapid progress is the destruction of nature, we are losing about 10 species every day, we lost 100 of native peoples around the world, the destruction of the environment, global warming is slowly but surely turning the world into a desert, the poisoning of nature by plastic and other environmental toxins. The list can be continued. I would prefer to live in a world without all the technology if I could get clean air, clean water. could get, and one should not forget that other nations also had medicine. that would have improved by now. For example, Ibn Sina's Canon of Medicine was mandatory for medical school in Europe for 300 years.
Imagine the West would have depopulated Japan and replaced it with white people, we would have another new-zealand. Now imagine what we lost in America a whole continent where dozens of different peoples lived before they were exterminated by western people. We can not imagine how much human kind lost there.
reply
Gandalf
A small caveat: The Norse were not Christian and the treatment of woman in that cultural sphere were not worse than Latin households. Arguably they were even better.
And by the by the things were voting occurred was a Norse cultural entity afaik.
And Scandinavia was not conquered in war by Teutonic Knights. Rather they were gradually converted to Christianity and joined europe - starting with Harald Bluethane and Anskar in Denmark and also the assimilation of the Norse ruling class into the present more sophisticated culture of northern France. It was Soft power style conversions of the norsemen. Not a crusade and land grab.
Sure French and Teutonic knights were great and all but invading say freezing, mountainous and decidedly warlike Norway in 980 AD with an army of knights on horseback so far from their home - with zero support lines possible - would be farcical and suicidal.
Agreed on all the rest and I found the argument for Germanic roots for our present democracy an eye opener.
reply
A small caveat: The Norse were not Christian and the treatment of woman in that cultural sphere were not worse than Latin households. Arguably they were even better.
And by the by the things were voting occurred was a Norse cultural entity afaik.
And Scandinavia was not conquered in war by Teutonic Knights. Rather they were gradually converted to Christianity and joined europe - starting with Harald Bluethane and Anskar in Denmark and also the assimilation of the Norse ruling class into the present more sophisticated culture of northern France. It was Soft power style conversions of the norsemen. Not a crusade and land grab.
Sure French and Teutonic knights were great and all but invading say freezing, mountainous and decidedly warlike Norway in 980 AD with an army of knights on horseback so far from their home - with zero support lines possible - would be farcical and suicidal.
Agreed on all the rest and I found the argument for Germanic roots for our present democracy an eye opener.
reply
click
in India the ruling class were not priests but the warrior class while priests held powerful positions and a lot of influence they usually only acted as advisors to the warrior class kings because they saw administration below them and did not really have the means to get the throne India fell to foreign invaders because all the classes except the warriors and the priests hated each other so they couldn't really cooperate examples of this can be seen as recent as the independence struggle where peasants killed the Indian Landlords and stole their land they saw the landowners not the British as their oppressor plus India was multiple kingdoms who hated each other and not a single large empire for most of history but when there were actual united empires (Mughal, Maurya) they did not lose to foreign invaders.
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in India the ruling class were not priests but the warrior class while priests held powerful positions and a lot of influence they usually only acted as advisors to the warrior class kings because they saw administration below them and did not really have the means to get the throne India fell to foreign invaders because all the classes except the warriors and the priests hated each other so they couldn't really cooperate examples of this can be seen as recent as the independence struggle where peasants killed the Indian Landlords and stole their land they saw the landowners not the British as their oppressor plus India was multiple kingdoms who hated each other and not a single large empire for most of history but when there were actual united empires (Mughal, Maurya) they did not lose to foreign invaders.
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Rasp
Interesting point about democracy not being inherited from Greeks. Well in pre-roman, or better pre-macedon Greece polis democracy (with limited class of free citizens) was a real thing, for Roman oligarchy too - I think it resembles Venice in some way. But, there is a true that after classical Greece, there were not any tendencies towards democracy in next 1000 + years. so in that way it is true - Byzantium even when it was strong and winning would never in wildest imagination turn back to democracy. Medieval parliaments existed also in medieval parts of Europe that were not Germanic, for example Croatian parliament of nobles acted in interregnum as an independent body and selected a new monarch, more than once.
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Interesting point about democracy not being inherited from Greeks. Well in pre-roman, or better pre-macedon Greece polis democracy (with limited class of free citizens) was a real thing, for Roman oligarchy too - I think it resembles Venice in some way. But, there is a true that after classical Greece, there were not any tendencies towards democracy in next 1000 + years. so in that way it is true - Byzantium even when it was strong and winning would never in wildest imagination turn back to democracy. Medieval parliaments existed also in medieval parts of Europe that were not Germanic, for example Croatian parliament of nobles acted in interregnum as an independent body and selected a new monarch, more than once.
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werwar666
25: 40 has a major mistake. The war wasnt simply about the morality of slavery, thats the way its advertised. It was about economic factors. The South had cheap labour to compete with the north, the north relied on industries which could not be handled by slaves so this gave the south an economic advantage. It being better for the salves was a bonus.
If it was truly about morality they wouldnt have done so many other horrible things. There isnt a single war in history that was TRULY about any moral cause
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25: 40 has a major mistake. The war wasnt simply about the morality of slavery, thats the way its advertised. It was about economic factors. The South had cheap labour to compete with the north, the north relied on industries which could not be handled by slaves so this gave the south an economic advantage. It being better for the salves was a bonus.
If it was truly about morality they wouldnt have done so many other horrible things. There isnt a single war in history that was TRULY about any moral cause
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Bunny
I think the biggest thing is just how powerless everybody, EVERYBODY feels now. We created something through our own search for knowledge, but along the way somewhere the west's institutions, governments, science, ect. became beyond our own comprehension. We made nukes, machines which can take a man's life in a split second, massive corporate entities which exhert influence independently of the wants/needs of common people, and so forth. It's honestly terrifying.
reply
I think the biggest thing is just how powerless everybody, EVERYBODY feels now. We created something through our own search for knowledge, but along the way somewhere the west's institutions, governments, science, ect. became beyond our own comprehension. We made nukes, machines which can take a man's life in a split second, massive corporate entities which exhert influence independently of the wants/needs of common people, and so forth. It's honestly terrifying.
reply
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