We hear about “Western Involvement”, “Western
Values”, and “Western Interests” in the media. People say that the West is the best, or that
the West is in decline. Some country is either Westernising or hates
the West's way of life. The West is the countries with democracies
and free markets right? Or countries that are part of Western Civilisation? Then what about Latin America, are they Western? What does “The West” even mean and what
exactly is Western Civilisation. Let’s find out -ROLL INTRO- To understand what Western Civilisation is,
we’ll have to look at it’s 5000 history. Which I am going to try and summarise in a
few minutes. I’ll start with the Greeks, who are considered
the traditional founders of Western Civilisation and the people that gave “The West” a
lot of it’s central values such as citizen participation in government, the disciplines
of science, philosophy, and history, and the basis for Western architecture. The Greeks or at least each Greek city state
had an identity based on these ideas. Except Sparta whose identity was based on
death and sweet abs. People such as Homer, Socrates, and Hippocrates
are all titans in the fields of Western literature, philosophy, and medicine. They essentially kick started it. Now don’t get me wrong, an ancient Greek
would be considered alien today if we met one. But the idea that Western Civilisation descends
from the Greeks is as important an idea to “The West” as an actual direct link. Obviously modern Western Civilisation isn’t
the same as ancient Greek culture, later Westerners chose what they wanted to adopt and what to
abandon. No one in the modern West is sacrificing goats
to the gods or taking slaves just because the Greeks did it. The origins of the east-west division has
roots in Ancient Greece, specifically in the Persian Wars. It is this conflict that we see the beginning
of the liberty loving masculine West v despotic, decadent, and feminine East trope. A trope that we still see on-screen today. One of the most important things Greece did
for “the West” was influenced Rome. Rome gave the future West the foundations
for its governments, languages, and law. The Roman law code was the basis for the legal
systems of most of Europe and its colonies up until the 18th and 19th centuries. Rome provided the later West with an identity
firstly through its Empire and then through it’s Church. Christianity held “the West” together
after Rome faded and would mold it’s identity up until the 19th century. Christianity became the religion of Rome after
the Emperor Constantine adopted it. But just as importantly in the history of
the West is something else Constantine did. And that was establishing the city of Constantinople. You see, the Roman empire had a cultural divide. The West spoke Latin and the East spoke Greek. So, the Romans began thinking with a Latins
v Greeks mindset. The Latins saw the Greeks as more effeminate
and decadent compared to how manly and tough they were, which added to the East v West
idea. Which is funny because the ancient Greeks
thought the same in relation to themselves to the Persians. The Roman Empire eventually divided along
these lines. The Western half faded away during the 5th
century and the Eastern or Byzantine half lasted another 1000 years. In 1054 the Western and Eastern Churches split
from each other in an event known as the Great Schism. I won’t go into detail because the Great
Schism will be a video itself. But the important take away is that after
1054 the Catholic Church separated from the Eastern Orthodox Church. A pope sat in Rome and a Patriarch sat in
Constantinople. The Eastern Roman Empire would eventually
spread Orthodox Christianity into the Levant, the Balkans, and importantly they converted
the Rus. This schism in combination with the Islamic
conquests that began 3 centuries previously gave the West’s it’s own identity. They were West Christendom. They may not have liked each other but they
knew that they hated the Eastern heathens and Muslims even more. Constantinople would fall to the Ottomans
in 1453 and afterwards the Greek, Roman, and Islamic knowledge that they had accumulated
and preserved was brought back to Europe by scholars and traders. The Renaissance with all it’s fancy naked
statues got into full swing. The West began to re-import Western Civilisation,
with all the additions the Byzantines, Muslims, and others had made to it. This rebirth of Western culture came along
just before the discovery of the New World. So the Europeans, now confident that their
ideas and culture were superior began to colonise the New World. This is the beginning of the spread of “The
West” and also the reason why the West is such a hard term to quantify today. By colonising and imposing their culture on
other nations the West ended up in the Northern, Southern, and Eastern parts of the world. Which is confusing for a group the identifies
as a position on the compass. If you’d like to learn how the West managed
to conquer so much then click that little I in the top right corner to go to a great
video by Grant Hurst. During the Enlightenment the Western idea
of the nation-state developed. During this era European imperialism was brought
to Africa and Asia. As Westerners translated “Eastern” languages
and interacted with the East more a kind of “Orientalism” began depicting the East
as an irrational, psychologically weak, and feminized, Other, which was negatively contrasted
the West’s idea of itself as rational, psychologically strong, and masculine. The nation-state concept was imposed on places
where it didn’t make sense, resulting in odd perfectly straight borders. The enlightenment dulled the idea of West
Christendom and birth the secular West. This is when the West actually began calling
itself the West and also using that term to describe previous cultures, like the Greeks
and Romans. Skipping forward slightly. After the 2nd world war the West lost its
colonial power mostly. The world entered the Cold War. Which was an easy conflict to paint in the
terms of East v West. Communism v Capitalism. The Western identity solidified during this
period. Who was Western and who wasn't, was clear. But after the Cold War ended I think the term
“The West” lost its solid meaning. But it still continued to be used. So what does “The West” mean today? How do you define it? Here are the usual Economic, Political, and
Cultural definitions Economically the West is usually developed
countries with strong economies and high incomes. Here it’s used interchangeably with First
world. Politically it’s countries with democratic
governments and free citizens. Here it’s used interchangeably with Free
world Culturally it’s countries with roots in
Europe or the Greco-Roman-Judean tradition and was built upon by the ideals of the Enlightenment. Usually referred to as Western Civilisation. But these definitions aren’t great for actually
defining the West. For example let’s look at Latin America. Latin America much like the United States
and Canada are inheritors of Western Civilisation through their European colonisers. Latin America however is rarely included when
people speak about “The West”. They speak Latin languages and while there
are some Latin American countries such as Bolivia, Paraguay, and Guatemala that have
a much stronger native influence they are still heavily influenced by the culture of
their colonisers. If you look at a Human Development Index map
you can see that many Latin American states are in the high to very-high range, especially
Argentina and Chile and Uruguay. Their political institutions and governments
are based on the same principles as European ones. Democratic governments are the norm in Latin
America and most rank just below the US and Europe on the Democracy index. Latin America is definitely a part of Western
Civilisation and should be included in “The West”. You can try applying those 3 criteria to other
nations too, like Japan, Turkey, and nations that were previously behind the Iron Curtain. And that brings me to my final point, criticisms
of the term “The West”. An issue with the term “The West”, other
than its vagueness, Is that it implies confrontation. West of where? Different than where? Edward Said claimed that “the West” was
just a construct used by Europeans to justify an opposition to the East, which could then
justify colonialism. “the West” usually defines itself by what
it’s not. It wasn’t the Persians. It wasn’t the Greeks or Orthodox. It wasn’t Islamic or Chinese or Indian. It wasn’t Russian or Communist. And now it’s not Islamic, again. The notion of an Eastern other has played
a central role in constructing a Western identity, and helped to define the West as its contrasting
image. Which nowadays doesn’t make sense because
cultures and societies are mixing and learning from each other on an unprecedented scale. The West and the East need each other as our
economies and societies would collapse without the other. “Western Civilisation” as a term is just
an attempt to record the history of a cultural unit in a easily understandable and linear
fashion. But “The West” as a term is simply used
to refer to a blurry area of the map in people’s mind. Which is why it is useful for the news or
for politicians, it’s just vague enough to appear to mean something. So when you hear someone refer to the decline
of “The West” or how a group of people hate the West. Think, “what are they referring to? What West? Is all of Europe, the Americas, Australia,
and New Zealand all in decline? Have people stopped reading Plato? Do these people that hate the West simply
hate whoever they see as their enemy or do they actually hate all of the places that
might be in “the West”. Even Liechtenstein. Can you really hate Liechtenstein?” The purpose of this video isn’t to demand
that we begin using different terms for anything. But it can be useful to know where certain
terms came from and why they continue to be used. Kipling said that East is East and West is
West and never the twain shall meet. Except that they have and now both are different
and better than before. Thanks for watching. This video was made in collaboration with
Grant Hurst. If you’d like to learn about how The West
managed to colonise so much of the world then check out his video. The link is in the description. I hope you enjoyed this video and if you’d
like to see more click subscribe. You can follow me on all me on Reddit, Twitter,
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