Meaning of Western Culture (What is it, Concept and Definition)

Meaning of Western Culture (What is it, Concept and Definition)
Posted on 23-02-2022

What is Western Culture:

Western culture is known as the universe of values, customs, practices, traditions, religious beliefs, economic system, and political-social organization representative of Western Europe and Western Europe, either because they originated there, or because they were assumed as their own.

The names of Western society, Western civilization, European civilization, and Christian civilization are also used with the same meaning.

By extension, those countries where Western Europe established its hegemony and inherited its languages, socio-political ordering system, religion, legal system, educational model, values ​​and customs are considered part of Western culture or Westernized countries.

Characteristics of western culture

The set of characteristics that are considered distinctive of Western culture are the following:

  • Permanent refers to the culture of Greek antiquity, with an emphasis on rational thought (philosophy, literature, science, politics, and art);
  • Civil-military and administrative heritage of the Roman Empire, with an emphasis on Roman law;
  • Christian religion (Catholic and Protestant);
  • The set of values ​​and customs contributed by Celts, Germans, and Slavs;
  • The pretense of universality in the name of the cultural heritage;
  • The modern development of the national State and capitalism (phenomenon that has occurred in the last two centuries).

From the heritage it received, Western culture reworked the system of social, cultural, and political order towards the forms we know today, of which contradictions are also a part. Thus, it reshapes:

  • The concept of democracy
  • Education ( Western culture develops the concept of university ),
  • scientific research,
  • The concept of the modern state(based on Roman law), among many other aspects.

The controversy around the concept of Western culture

The concept of Western culture is highly controversial as a result of the models of political domination exercised by Western Europe in the world since the 16th century.

Although the political and economic models have varied, they have all had in common the promotion of Western culture as a universal value.

In this sense, it has been denounced that one of the characteristics of Western culture is its ethnocentric character, a paradigm specifically called Eurocentrism.

All these notions are now under review and discussion, especially since the world's decolonization processes began.

 

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