The Essence Western Civilization

"Tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento
hae tibi erunt arte, pacisque imponere morem,
parcere subiectis et debellare superbos."


"For you to rule the masses, Romans, remember
This is you mission: to impose peace,
respect the defeated and disarm the splendid."

Aeneid Book VI 851-853


These three lines written two thousand years ago, still accurately depict the essence of western civilization. The civilization as one of power, peace, restraint, and moderation. All of these characteristics together summarise western civilization.

Power is central to western civilization. To prove this point simply look at the largest nations of all time: British Empire, The USSR, French Empire, The Romans, Alexander's Macedonia, and so on. A vast majority of nations are western nations. Even in this day and age, the west still embarks on quests to acquire greater power. Over the last few hundred years, it has been always been a western nation that has dominated the world. Starting with the era of exploration, the Spanish and Portuguese divided the world between themselves in the Treaty of Todesillas. They divided the world into half, for each nation to control. A little more than a hundred and fifty years later, the Dutch simply replaced the Spanish and Portuguese as the leading colonizer of the world. The French in turn replaced them who were eventually replaced by the British. We live in a world where a relatively new nation dominates the world, The United States of America.

America follows the same trends as its European predecessors. Although actual conquest might be shunned in today's world, control is still possible. Throughout the Cold War the United States established puppet states throughout the world. The war in Iraq and Afghanistan is simply another confirmations of this control in today's world. If the average westerner is asked who the greatest leaders were of their nations, they probably mention: Napoleon, Bismarck, Disraeli, Regan, William of Orange, Julius Caesar or Alexander the Great. What makes each of these individuals similar is the fact that they made their nation a powerful one, and helped their nation occupy more land, or control more people.

The west is does not encourage complete warfare either. War is necessary solely for control, nothing else. Peace is the ideal. This conflicts completely with certain nonwestern figures like Ghengis Khan or Attila the Hun, both of whom waged war for sport almost an had no restraint in invasions. To understand this idea better, let's take a look at the predecessors of western civilization, the Romans. Rome built a mighty empire spanning across the Mediterranean Sea. They waged war to expand their empire, but they valued peace and stability more than any war. Augustus Caesar who intiated the period of peace, the Pax Romana is greatly revered in Roman civilization.

Western Civilization is one of moderation. If one looks at a political History of England, America or most other western nations, for the most part these nations are rather moderate. The United States with her short history is easy to prove this point with. The USA has always been moderate, not giving too many freedoms too quickly, yet not being too stingy in depriving rights either. America is blessed as being probably the only nation which has never has a dictatorial regime. America even in her more liberal eras or her more conservative eras, has always been moderate, abiding by the moderate road, between two extremes. When Hippies advocated free love and an end to the war, there was still a large republican population that made sure to put up the bumper sticker "America love it or leave it" on their cars. In fact that extreme liberalism of the sixties led to a more conservative era in the seventies, when Nixon came to power, basically a Le Chatlier between two extremes to ensure balance in the United States.

Western Civilization is also about competition, nevertheless respect for one's opponent. Capitalism, probably the most revolutionary of all western innovations is all about competition. Who can make the most money or produce the best products. Capitalism is like a sport and CEOs are like the atheletes while the rest of us observe the match and vote for the athelete we like more. A majority of competitive sports are from the west, Football, Baseball, Basketball, Tennis ans many others all have their origins in many Western nations. In addition to the innovation of the sport, Western Nations lead the world in the Olympics. Tiny nations like the Netherlands or the Czech Republic amass more medals than far larger nations like India or Indonesia. The reason these small European nations can win so much is because they have the competitive spirit, which is not found to the same extent in most Eastern Nations (maybe with the exception of China).

It is nearly impossible to summarise the essence of western civilization into a few lines but Virgil came awfully close in doing so two thousand years ago. Western Civilization is one of power, peace, moderation, and competition. It is these three factors in the western mentality that allowed them to dominate the world from the days of Alexander to the modern era. The tiny European continent (along with the United States) second to last in terms of size dominated nearly the whole world by the late eighteen hundreds, due to this spirit of Western Civilization.