It is indisputable that the modern world has been dominated by Western civilization, based in Europe and North America. English, itself an amalgam of European languages, is the established norm for international communication, used by air traffic controllers all over the world, for instance. But what is the character of Western civilization? What are the central philosophies behind modern civilization?
Medieval Europe, between 400 and 1500 AD is generally characterized as an age of poverty, ignorance, and superstition. There is some truth to this, although it is an exaggeration, even a caricature.
This changed with the Renaissance, which promoted literacy and culture, supported by growing economic wealth. The Renaissance began in the 1300s in Italy and spread to the rest of Europe. It drew on ancient Greek and Roman philosophers and scientists and stressed reason and the centrality of human beings. (Especially in northern Europe, the movement was called “humanism.”)
The Renaissance movement was reinforced by the Enlightenment in the 1600s and 1700s, which elevated human reason even farther and refined the scientific method.
And that is the foundation of Western civilization. Reason and science led to technological, business, and organizational advances which allowed Europeans to spread their power and influence around the world and gain tremendous wealth and prosperity. Western civilization has also spread education, science, modern medicine, democracy, and human rights. The modern world is based on reason and science.
But, of course, that is not all there is to the story. History does not just flow in one direction. Historical movements often produce counter-movements.
An often overlooked component of the modern world is the Romantic movement, which flourished in the late 1700s and the first half of the 1800s. It was not romance in the sense of love between man and woman but love between man and nature. It was especially propagated through English romantic poets such as William Wordsworth. Scientists approached nature as something to be studied and analyzed and categorized by human reason. Romantics did not approach nature with the mind but with the heart and soul. In contrast to what they saw in the Industrial Revolution (using reason and science to extract wealth from nature, a practical application of the Enlightenment), Romantics wanted to commune with nature. They saw nature as nourishing the human soul. It was a religion in which Nature herself became god. Nature had no Creator but was self-created. (There are overtones in this in the idea of evolution.)
One aspect of Romanticism was “the myth of the noble savage.” Europeans went around the world to bring enlightenment, civilization, education, science, and modern medicine to Indigenous people. Romantics thought that it should be the other way around. Since Native peoples were closer to nature (they lived in the natural world rather than in structures designed by humans), they must be wiser, nobler, purer, and more moral than Europeans. There was some truth to this idea (Inuit knew how better to survive in the Arctic than European explorers, for instance). But the myth was more often developed and promoted by European Romantics who stayed in Europe rather than the explorers who encountered Indigenous people. As philosopher Thomas Hobbes observed, life in a state of nature is often “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” Indigenous people often lived in fear of the spirits who lived in nature and resorted to magic to fight disease, famine, and other problems. All races and nations have strengths and weaknesses, and it is folly to proclaim that one is superior to others.
Like the Enlightenment, the Romantic movement continues to have an impact today.
The modern Environmental movement is often misunderstood. It is seen as the culmination of science and reason. In fact, its roots lie as much in the Romantic movement as in the Enlightenment. That is why so many of its pronouncements and policies are unreasonable. Protecting every tree as sacred will mean that we will have no shelters in which to live. Environmentalists want to replace gasoline-powered cars, which destroy the earth with carbon pollution, with electric cars, which destroy the earth with lithium mining. Environmentalists believe that switching to a green economy will magically lower costs and create jobs. It is an emotional enterprise, not a logically thought-through enterprise. This is not to say that protecting the environment is not a good idea or that there is not some science behind it. But the passionate commitment to environmentalism, often amounting to a religious fervor, has more to do with the heart than the mind.
The environmental movement even has a form of the myth of the noble savage, suggesting that Native people have superior wisdom when it comes to preserving the natural habitat and fighting forest fires.
The Romantic movement also has echoes in homeopathic, naturopathic, and “natural” remedies, often passed down from “ancient wisdom,” and even in the preference for organic foods.
The two movements, the Enlightenment and Romanticism, the appeal to the mind and the heart, continue to propel Western civilization. It might be noted that both of these foundational movements are secular. It is sometimes suggested that Western civilization is Christian in nature. It is true that Christianity has played a significant role in Europe and North America. It has influenced and been influenced by these two powerful secular movements and interacted with them in various ways. But to a considerable extent Christianity has remained apart from the mainstream. Even while many Western leaders claimed an affiliation with Christianity, their actions often said otherwise. While many people in the West have claimed to be Christians, most were nominal Christians rather than truly committed to Jesus. As Jesus said, many are called but few chosen. Christianity is an important current running through the history of Western civilization, but it has generally been a minor current, with fewer committed adherents than the other two movements.
Next Blog: Part Two: The Modern World and Christian Churches
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