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The term Western world, the West or the Occident (Latin: occidens -sunset, -west, as distinct from the Orient) can have multiple meanings dependent on its context (e.g., the time period, the region or social situation). Accordingly, the basic definition of what constitutes "the West" varies, expanding and contracting over time, in relation to various historical circumstances.
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The term Western world, the West or the Occident (Latin: occidens -sunset, -west, as distinct from the Orient) can have multiple meanings dependent on its context (e.g., the time period, the region or social situation). Accordingly, the basic definition of what constitutes "the West" varies, expanding and contracting over time, in relation to various historical circumstances. Some historians believe the West originated in the northern and eastern Mediterranean with ancient Greece and ancient Rome. Over time, their associated empires grew first to the east and south, conquering and absorbing many older great civilizations; later, they grew to the north and west to include Western Europe.
Other historians, such as Carroll Quigley (Evolution of Civilizations), contend that Western Civilization was born around 400 AD, after the total collapse of the Western Roman Empire, leaving a vacuum for new ideas to flourish that were impossible in Classical societies. In either view, between the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the Renaissance, the West experienced a period of considerable decline, known as the Middle Ages, which include the Dark Ages and the Crusades. The knowledge of the ancient Western world was preserved during this period due to the survival of the Eastern Roman Empire; it was also greatly expanded by the pre-Islamic Arab world and the concurrent ascendency of the Islamic Golden Age. The importation of both the Ancient and new technology from the Middle East and the Orient to Renaissance Europe represented “one of the largest technology transfers in world history.”
Since the Renaissance, the West evolved beyond the influence of the ancient Greeks, Romans and Muslims due to the Commercial, Scientific, and Industrial Revolutions, and the expansion of the Christian peoples of Western European empires, and particularly the globe-spanning empires of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Since the Age of Discovery and Columbus, the notion of the West expanded to include the Americas, though much of the Americas have considerable pre-Western cultural influence. Australia and New Zealand are considered part of Western culture due to their former status as settler colonies of Western Christian nations. Generally speaking, the current consensus would locate the West, at the very least, in the cultures and peoples of Europe, North America,and Australia. Although nations such as Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, Brazil and New Zealand are heavily Western in the traditional sense of the term, the common element being the omnipresence of Christian culture.
The term "Western World" often includes developed countries in Asia, such as Israel, Japan, Singapore, and South Korea, that have strong economic, political and military ties to Western Europe, NATO or the United States. While these countries also have substantial Western influence and similarities in their cultures, they nonetheless maintain largely different and distinctive cultures, religions (although Christianity is a major religion in South Korea), languages, customs, and worldviews that are products of their own indigenous development, rather than solely Western influences. Japan and South Korea, in particular, are the only Asian members of the OECD and the two leading full democracies in Asia, having a high standard of living and a high level of human development. All of these are amongst the generally accepted political or economic characteristics of Western nations.
There is debate among some as to whether Eastern Europe and Latin America are in separate categories of their own or if they are part of the "West". Culturally Eastern Europe and Latin America are usually more or less accepted into the 'West'. They, however, do not fill the traditional economic and living standard criteria which one associates with "The West".
Western culture
The term "Western culture" is used very broadly to refer to a heritage of social norms, ethical values, traditional customs, religious beliefs, political systems, and specific artifacts and technologies. Specifically, Western culture may imply:
- a Graeco-Roman Classical and Renaissance cultural influence, concerning artistic, philosophic, literary, and legal themes and traditions, 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 democratic values averse to despotism, irrationality and theocracy.
- a Biblical-Christian cultural influence in spiritual thinking, customs and either ethic or moral traditions, around Post-Classical Era.
- Central and Eastern European cultural influences concerning artistic, musical, folkloric, ethic and oral traditions, whose themes have been further developed by Romanticism.
The concept of Western culture is generally linked to the classical definition of the Western world. In this definition, Western culture is the set of literary, scientific, political, artistic and philosophical principles which set it apart from other civilizations. Much of this set of traditions and knowledge is collected in the Western canon.
The term has come to apply to countries whose history is strongly marked by Western European immigration or settlement, such as the Americas, and Australasia, and is not restricted to Western Europe.
Some tendencies that define modern Western societies are the existence of political pluralism, prominent subcultures or countercultures (such as New Age movements), increasing cultural syncretism resulting from globalization and human migration.
Historical divisions
The origins of the word "West" in terms of geopolitical boundaries started in the 1900s. Prior to this, most people would have thoughts about different nations, languages, individuals, and geographical regions, but with no idea of Western nations as we know it today. Many world maps were so crude and inaccurate before the 1800s that geographical and political differences would be harder to measure. Few would have access to good maps and even fewer had access to accurate descriptions of who lived in far away lands. Western thought as we think of it today, is shaped by ideas of the 1900s and 1800s, originating mainly in Europe. What we think of as Western thought today is defined as Greco-Roman and Judeo-Christian culture, the Renaissance, the Enlightenment and colonialism. As a consequence the term "Western thought" is, at times, unhelpful and vague, since it can define separate, though related, sets of traditions and values:
- The Christian moral tradition and respective set of religious values;
- The humanist tradition and set of secular values, often with rationalist, anti-clerical beliefs;
Less acknowledged but equally important was the influence of the Germanic cultures whose people overran eastern Europe beginning in the fifth century AD and effectively became the rulers of Western Europe into the modern age, first in the form of the Goths and the Vandals and later in the form of the Franks who unified the West. In addition, many individuals throughout history do not easily fit into a false dichotomy of East or West.
Hellenic
The Hellenic division between the barbarians and the Greeks contrasted in many societies the Greek-speaking culture of the Greek settlements around the Mediterranean to the surrounding non-Greek cultures. Herodotus considered the Persian Wars of the early 5th century BC a conflict of Europe versus Asia (which he considered to be all land West and East of the Sea of Marmara, respectively). The terms "West" and "East" were not used by any Greek author to describe that conflict. The anachronistic application of those terms to that division entails a stark logical contradiction, given that, when the term West appeared, it was used in opposition to the Greeks and Greek-speaking culture.
Western society is sometimes claimed to trace its cultural origins to both Greek thought and Christian religion, thus following an evolution that began in ancient Greece, continued through the Roman Empire and, with the coming of Christianity (which has its origins in the Middle East), spread throughout Europe.
However, the conquest of the western parts of the Roman Empire by Germanic peoples and the subsequent advent of despotism in the form of dominance by the Western Christian Papacy (which held combined political and spiritual authority, a state of affairs absent from Greek civilization in all its stages), resulted into a rupture of the previously existing ties between the Latin West and Greek thought, including Christian Greek thought. The Great Schism and the Fourth Crusade confirmed this deviation. Hence, the Medieval West is limited to Western Christendom only, as the Greeks and other European peoples not under the authority of the Papacy are not included in it. The clearly Greek-influenced form of Christianity, Orthodoxy, is more linked to Eastern than Western Europe. On the other hand, the Modern West, emerging after the Renaissance as a new civilization, has been influenced by (its own interpretation of) Greek thought, which was preserved in the Roman (Byzantine) Empire during the Medieval West's Dark Ages and transmitted therefrom by emigration of scholars and courtly marriages. The Renaissance in the West emerged partly from currents within the Roman (Byzantine) Empire. Moreover, European peoples not included in Western Christendom such as the Greeks have redefined their relationship to this new, secular, variant of Western civilization, and have increasingly participated in it since then.
Thus the idea of Western society being influenced from (but not being the single evolution of) ancient Greek thought makes sense only for the post-Renaissance period of Western history.
The Roman Empire
Ancient Rome (510 BC-AD 476) was a civilization that grew from a city-state founded on the Italian Peninsula circa the 9th century BC to a massive empire straddling the Mediterranean Sea. In its twelve-century existence, Roman civilization shifted from a monarchy, to a republic, to an autocratic empire. It came to dominate Western Europe, the Balkans and the entire area surrounding the Mediterranean Sea through conquest using the Roman legions and then through cultural assimilation by giving Roman privileges and eventually citizenship to the whole empire. Nonetheless, despite its great legacy, a number of factors led to the eventual decline of the Roman Empire.
The Western Roman Empire eventually broke into several kingdoms in the 5th century due to civil wars, corruption, and devastating Germanic Invasions from such tribes as the Goths, the Franks and the Vandals; the Eastern Roman Empire, governed from Constantinople, is usually referred to as the Byzantine Empire after 476, the traditional date for the "fall of the Western Roman Empire" and for the subsequent onset of the Early Middle Ages. The Eastern Roman Empire survived the fall of the West, and protected Roman legal and cultural traditions combining them with Greek and Christian elements, for another thousand years.
The Roman Empire succeeded the about 500 year-old Roman Republic (510 BC - 1st century BC), which had been weakened by the conflict between Gaius Marius and Sulla and the civil war of Julius Caesar against Pompey and Marcus Brutus. During these struggles hundreds of senators were killed, and the Roman Senate had been refilled with loyalists of the First Triumvirate and later those of the Second Triumvirate.
Several dates are commonly proposed to mark the transition from Republic to Empire, including the date of Julius Caesar's appointment as perpetual roman dictator (44 BC), the victory of Caesar's heir Octavian at the Battle of Actium (September 2, 31 BC), and the Roman Senate's granting to Octavian the honorific Augustus. (January 16, 27 BC). Octavian/Augustus officially proclaimed that he had saved the Roman Republic and carefully disguised his power under republican forms; consuls continued to be elected, tribunes of the plebeians continued to offer legislation, and senators still debated in the Roman Curia. However, it was Octavian who influenced everything and controlled the final decisions, and in final analysis, had the legions to back him up, if it ever became necessary.
Roman expansion began long before the state was changed into an Empire and reached its zenith under emperor Trajan with the conquest of Dacia in AD 106. During this territorial peak the Roman Empire controlled approximately 5 900 000 km˛ (2,300,000 sq.mi.) of land surface. From the time of Caesar to the Fall of the Western Empire, Rome dominated Western Eurasia and the Mediterranean, comprising the majority of its population. Ancient Rome has contributed greatly to the development of law, war, art, literature, architecture, technology and language in the Western world, and its history continues to have a major influence on the world today.
The Roman Empire is where the idea of the "West" began to emerge. Due to Rome's central location at the heart of the Empire, "West" and "East" were terms used to denote provinces west and east of the capital itself. Therefore, Iberia (Spain), Gaul (France), Africa (Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco) and Brittania were all part of the "West", while Greece, Anatolia, Syria, and Egypt were part of the "East." Italy itself was considered central up until the reforms of Diocletian, when the idea of formally dividing the Empire into true Eastern and Western halves was introduced. In 395, the Roman Empire formally split into a Western Roman Empire and an Eastern one, each with their own emperors, capitals, and governments, although ostensibly they still belonged to one formal Empire. The dissolution of the Western half (nominally in 476, but in truth a long process that ended by 500) left only the Eastern Empire alive, and for centuries the East continued to call themselves Eastern Romans, while the West began to think in terms of Latins (those living in the old Western Empire) and Greeks (those inside the Roman remnant to the east).
Christian schism
In the early 4th century, the Roman Emperor Constantine the Great established the city of Constantinople as the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire. The Eastern Empire included lands east of the Adriatic Sea and bordering on the Eastern Mediterranean and parts of the Black Sea. These two divisions of the Eastern and Western Empires were reflected in the administration of the Christian Church, with Rome and Constantinople debating and arguing over whether either city was the capital of Christianity. As the eastern and western churches spread their influence, the line between "East" and "West" can be described as moving, but generally followed a cultural divide that was defined by the existence of the Byzantine empire and the fluctuating power and influence of the church in Rome. Some, including Huntington, theorized that this cultural division still existed during the Cold War as the approximate western boundary of those countries that were allied with the Soviet Union; others have criticized these views on the basis that they confuse the Eastern Roman Empire with Russia, especially considering the fact that the country that had the most historical roots in Byzantium, Greece, was allied with the West during the Cold War.
Under Charlemagne, the Franks established an empire that was recognized as the Holy Roman Empire by the Christian Patriarch of Rome, offending the Roman Emperor in Constantinople. The crowning of the Emperor by the Pope led to the assumption that the highest power was the papal hierarchy, establishing, until the Protestant Reformation, the civilization of Western Christendom. The Latin Rite Christian Church of western and central Europe headed by the Patriarch of Rome split with the eastern, Greek-speaking Patriarchates during the Great Schism. Meanwhile, the extent of each expanded, as Scandinavia, Germany, Britain, and the other non-Christian lands of the northwest were converted by the Western Church, while Russia and much of Eastern Europe were converted by the Eastern Church.
In this context, the Protestant reformation may be viewed as a schism within the Latin Church. Martin Luther, in the wake of precursors, broke with the Pope and with the Emperor, backed by many of the German princes. These changes were adopted by the Scandinavian kings. Later, the commoner Jean Cauvin (John Calvin) assumed the religio-political leadership in Geneva, a former ecclesiastical city whose prior ruler had been the Bishop. The English King later improvised on the Lutheran model, but subsequently many Calvinist doctrines were adopted by popular dissenters, leading to the English Civil War. Both royalists and dissenters colonized North America, eventually resulting in an independent United States of America.
The Colonial "West"
The Reformation and consequent dissolution of Western Christendom as even a theoretical unitary political body, resulted in the Thirty Years War, ending in the Peace of Westphalia, which enshrined the concept of the nation-state and the principle of absolute national sovereignty in international law. These concepts of a world of nation-states, coupled with the ideologies of the Enlightenment, the coming of modernity, the Scientific Revolution, and the Industrial Revolution, produced powerful political and economic institutions that have come to influence (or been imposed upon) most nations of the world today. Historians agree that the Industrial Revolution was one of the most important events in history. The most significant inventions had their origins in
the Western world, primarily Europe and the United States.
This process of influence (and imposition) began with the voyages of discovery, colonization, conquest, and exploitation of Spain and Portugal; it continued with the rise of the Dutch East India Company, and the creation and expansion of the British and French colonial empires. Due to the reach of these empires, Western institutions expanded throughout the world. Even after demands for self-determination from subject peoples within Western empires were met with decolonization, these institutions persisted; one specific example was the requirement that post-colonial societies were made to form nation-states (in the Western tradition), which often created arbitrary boundaries and borders that did not necessarily represent a whole nation, people, or culture, and are often the cause of international conflicts and friction even to this day. Though the overt colonial era has passed, Western nations, as comparatively rich, well-armed, and culturally powerful states, still wield a large degree of influence throughout the world.
Palestinian-American literary critic Edward Said uses the term occident in his discussion of orientalism. According to his binary, the West, or Occident, created a romanticized vision of the East, or Orient, in order to justify colonial and imperialist intentions. This Occident-Orient binary is focused on the Western vision of the East instead of any truths about the East. His theories are rooted in Hegel's Master-Slave dialectic; the Occident would not exist without the Orient and vice versa. Further, Western writers created this irrational, feminine, weak "Other" to contrast with the rational, masculine, strong West because of a need to create a difference between the two that would justify imperialist ambitions. Said influenced Indian-American theorist Homi K. Bhabha.
The Cold War
During the Cold War, a new definition emerged. The Earth was divided into three "worlds". The First World, analogous in this context to what was called the West, was composed of NATO members and other countries aligned with the United States. The Second World was the Eastern bloc in the Soviet sphere of influence, including the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact countries. The Third World consisted of countries unaligned with either, and important members included India and Yugoslavia; some include the People's Republic of China, though this is disputed, as the People's Republic of China was communist, had friendly relations—at certain times—with the Soviet bloc, and had a significant degree of importance in global geopolitics.
There were a number of countries which did not fit comfortably into this neat definition of partition, including Switzerland, Sweden, Austria and the Republic of Ireland, which chose to be neutral. Finland was under the Soviet Union's military sphere of influence (see FCMA treaty) but remained neutral, was not communist, nor was it a member of the Warsaw Pact or Comecon but a member of the EFTA since 1986, and was west of the Iron Curtain. In 1955, when Austria again became a fully independent republic, it did so under the condition that it remain neutral, but as a country to the west of the Iron Curtain, it was in the United States sphere of influence. Spain did not join NATO until 1982, towards the end of the Cold War and after the death of the authoritarian Franco.
Modern definitions
The exact scope of the Western world is somewhat subjective in nature, depending on whether cultural, economic, spiritual or political criteria are employed. In general however these definitions always include the following countries: the countries of Western Europe, South Africa, North, Central, & South America, Australia and New Zealand. These are Western European or Western European-derived nations which enjoy relatively strong economies and stable governments, tolerate free Christian institutions (churches, hospitals, schools), have chosen democracy as a form of governance, favor capitalism and free international trade, and have some form of political and military alliance or cooperation. There is room for debate, as most of the Caribbean may be considered part of the Western World, but Cuba may not be.
Many anthropologists, sociologists and historians oppose "the West and the Rest" in a categorical manner. The same has been done by Malthusian demographers with a sharp distinction between European and non-European family systems. Among anthropologists, this includes Durkheim, Dumont and Lévi-Strauss.
As the term "Western world" does not have a strict international definition, governments do not use the term in legislation of international treaties and instead rely on other definitions.
Cultural
- See: Western Culture.
From a cultural and sociological approach the Western world is defined as including all cultures that are (directly derived from) European cultures, i.e. Europe, the Americas (North and South America), Australia and New Zealand. Together these countries constitute Western society These are generally countries that share similar history, religions, languages, values and traditions. Culturally, many Latin Americans, particularly Argentines, Uruguayans, Chileans and Brazilians, firmly consider themselves Westerners, especially the ruling classes.
In the 20th century, Christianity declined in influence in many western countries, in Western Europe and elsewhere. Secularism (separating religion from politics and science) increased. However, while church attendance is in decline, most Westerners nominally identify themselves as Christians (e.g. 70% in the UK) and occasionally attend church on major occasions. In the United States, Christianity continues to play an important societal role, thus helping to maintain Christianity's important role in Western culture. The official religion of the United Kingdom and some Nordic countries is Christianity, even though the majority of European countries have no official religion. Despite this, Christianity, in its different forms, remains the largest faith in most Western countries. Thus another definition of Occident would include reference to this majority Christian content within the culture.
Political
Countries of the Western world are generally considered to share certain fundamental political ideologies, including those of liberal democracy, the rule of law, human rights and a high degree of gender equality. Additionally countries with strong political and military ties to Western Europe, NATO or the United States, such as Japan, Israel and South Korea can be said to be Western in a political sense at least.
As such, this definition of the term "Western" is not necessarily tied to the geographic sense of the word. A geographically Western nation such as Cuba is sometimes not considered politically Western due to its general rejection of liberal democracy, freedom of the press, and personal liberty. Conversely, some Eastern nations, for example, Japan, India, Israel, Taiwan, South Africa, and South Korea, could be considered politically Western, due to their adoption of indigenous liberal democratic political institutions similar in structure to those of the traditionally Western nations.
Economic
Though the Cold War has ended, and some members of the former Eastern Bloc are making a general movement towards liberal democracy and other values held in common by the traditionally Western states, some former Soviet republics are not considered Western because of the small presence of social and political reform, as well as their obvious cultural, economic and political differences to what is known today as described by the term "the West" (Western Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand). These include the three Transcaucasian republics (Azerbaijan, Georgia, Armenia), as well as Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Belarus and Ukraine.
Although it is inaccurate to do so, the term "Western world" is often interchangeable with the term First World stressing the difference between First World and the Third World or developing countries. The term "The North" has in some contexts replaced earlier usage of the term "the West", particularly in the critical sense, as a more robust demarcation than the terms "West" and "East". The North provides some absolute geographical indicators for the location of wealthy countries, most of which are physically situated in the Northern Hemisphere, although, as most countries are located in the northern hemisphere in general, some have considered this distinction to be equally unhelpful. The thirty countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), which include: the EU (except Romania , Bulgaria and the Baltic states), Norway, Iceland, Switzerland, Canada, the United States, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea and Japan, generally include what used to be called the "first world" or the "developed world", although the OECD includes a few countries, namely Mexico and Turkey, that are not yet fully industrial countries, but newly industrialized countries. The existence of "The North" implies the existence of "The South", and the socio-economic divide between North and South. Although Israel, Singapore, Taiwan and Hong Kong are not members of the OECD, they might also be regarded as "western" or "northern" countries or regions, because their high living standards and their social, economical and political structure are quite similar to those of the OECD member countries.
Other views
A series of scholars of civilization, including Arnold J. Toynbee, Alfred Kroeber and Carroll Quigley have identified and analyzed "Western civilization" as one of the civilizations that have historically existed and still exist today. Toynbee entered into quite an expansive mode, including as candidates those countries or cultures who became so heavily influenced by the West as to adopt these borrowings into their very self-identity; carried to its limit, this would in practice include almost everyone within the West, in one way or another. In particular, Toynbee refers to the intelligentsia formed among the educated elite of countries impacted by the European expansion of centuries past. While often pointedly nationalist, these cultural and political leaders interacted within the West to such an extent as to change both themselves and the West.
Yet more recently, Samuel P. Huntington has taken a far more restricted approach, forging a political science hypothesis he labeled the "The Clash of Civilizations?" in a Foreign Affairs article and a book. According to Huntington's hypothesis, what he calls "conflicts between civilizations" will be the primary tensions of the 21st century world. In this hypothesis, the West is based on religion, as the countries of Western and Central Europe were historically influenced by the two forms of Western Christianity, namely Catholicism and Protestantism. Also, many Anglophone countries share these traits, e.g. Australia and New Zealand, as well as the more heterogeneous United States and Canada. Of course, so does Latin America. Huntington's thesis was influential, but was by no means universally accepted; its supporters say that it explains modern conflicts, such as those in the former Yugoslavia; the thesis' detractors fear that by equating values like democracy with the concept of "Western civilization", it reinforces stereotypes that some perceive as being common within the West about non-traditionally Western societies that some may consider racist or xenophobic; others believe that Huntington ignores the existence of non-Western democracies such as the East Asian, South-Central Asian, and Latin American democracies. As such, these detractors believe that it will serve to provoke and amplify conflict rather than illuminating a way to find an accommodating world order, or in particular cases a commonly agreed solution.
In Huntington's narrow thesis, the historically Eastern Orthodox nations of southeastern and Eastern Europe constitute a distinct "Euro-Asiatic civilization"; although European and mainly Christian (as well as notable Muslim influence and populations, particularly in the Balkans and southern/central Russia), these nations were not, in Huntington's view, shaped by the cultural influences of the Renaissance. The Renaissance did not affect Orthodox Eastern Europe due in part to the proximity of Ottoman domination; though the decisive influence on the Renaissance of Greek émigré scholars should be acknowledged.
Other views might be made regarding Eastern Europe.
Huntington also considered the possibility that South America is a separate civilization from the West, but also mused that it might become a third part (the first two being North America and Europe) of the West in the future.
The theologian and paleontologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin conceived of the West as the set of civilizations descended from the Nile Valley Civilization of Egypt.
The term the "West" may also be used pejoratively by certain tendencies especially critical of the influence of the traditional West, due to the history of some of the members of the traditional West being previously involved, at one time or another, in outright imperialism and colonialism. Some of these critics also claim that the traditional West has continued to engage in what might be viewed as modern implementations of imperialism and colonialism, such as neoliberalism and globalization. (It should be noted that many Westerners who subscribe to a positive view of the traditional West are also very critical of neoliberalism and globalization, for their allegedly negative effects on both the developed and developing world.) Allegedly, definitions of the term "Western world" that some may consider "ethnocentric" are considered by some to be "constructed" around one or another Western culture. The British writer Rudyard Kipling wrote about this contrast: East is East and West is West and never the twain shall meet, expressing that somebody from the West can never understand the Asian cultures as the latter differ too much from the Western cultures. Some may view this alleged incompatibility as a precursor to Huntington's "clash of civilizations" theory.
Paradoxically, today Asia and Africa to varying degrees may be considered quasi-Western. Many East Asians and South Asians and Africans and others associate or even identify with the cosmopolitan cultures and international societies referred to sometimes as Western. Likewise, many in the West identify with a transcultural humanity, a notion often found in visions of the sacred.
See also
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