Western Civilization

Western culture, sometimes equated with Western civilization or European civilization, is a term used very broadly to refer to a heritage of social norms, ethical values,traditional customs, religious beliefs, political systems, and specific artifacts and technologies. The term has come to apply to countries whose history is strongly marked by European immigration or settlement, such as the Americas, and Australasia, and is not restricted to Western Europe.

Western culture stems from two sources: 

i) the Classical Period of the Graeco-Roman era and 

ii) the influence of Christianity. 

The artistic, philosophic, literary, and legal themes and traditions; the heritages of especially Latin, Celtic, Germanic, and Hellenic ethnic or linguistic groups; as well as a tradition of rationalism in various spheres of life, developed by Hellenistic philosophy, Scholasticism, Humanisms, the Scientific Revolution and Enlightenment and including in political thought, widespread rational arguments in favour of freethought, human rights, equality and democracy.

Historical records of western culture in its European geographical range begin with Ancient Greece, and then Ancient Rome, Christianization during the European Middle Ages, and reform and modernization starting by Renaissance and globalized by successive European empires that spread the European ways of life and education between the sixteenth and twentieth centuries. European Culture developed with a complex range of philosophy, medieval scholasticism and mysticism, Christian and secular humanism. Rational thinking developed through a long age of change and formation with the experiments of enlightenment, naturalism, romanticism, science, democracy, and socialism. With its global connection, European culture grew with an all-inclusive urge to adopt, adapt, and ultimately influence other trends of culture.

Some tendencies that have come to define modern Western societies are the existence of political pluralism, prominent subcultures or countercultures (such as New Agemovements), and increasing cultural syncretism resulting from globalization and human migration.S

  

       Leonardo da Vinci's Vitruvian Man. A symbol of the

 importance of humanism and empiricism

in Western culture since the Renaissance.

Plato along with Socrates and Aristotle

 were founding members of Western philosophy.

Additional Info: History of Western Civilization

Western culture is neither homogeneous nor unchanging. As with all other cultures it has evolved and gradually changed over time. All generalities about it have their exceptions at some time and place. The organisation and tactics of the Greek Hoplites differed in many ways from the Roman legions. The polis of the Greeks is not the same as the American superpower of the 21st century. The gladiatorial games of the Roman Empire are not identical to present-day football. The art of Pompeii is not the art of Hollywood. Nevertheless, it is possible to follow the evolution and history of the West, and appreciate its similarities and differences, its borrowings from, and contributions to, other cultures of humanity.

Concepts of what is the West arose out of legacies of the Western Roman Empire and the Eastern Roman Empire. Later, ideas of the west were formed by the concepts of Christendom and the Holy Roman Empire. What we think of as Western thought today is generally defined as Greco-Roman and Judeo-Christian culture, and includes the ideals of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment.

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