Human nature and Western civilization - Essay Example

Download file to see previous pages... No one can call a place West. Civilization - what does it mean? Around three hundred years ago European intellectuals, inspired by the astonishing cultural changes they had witnessed over the previous century, began to develop the concept of “civilization” as a way of describing the differences they perceived between their manner of understanding the world and that of other peoples. These intellectuals were convinced that their fellow Europeans had recently discovered the one true way of understanding nature, including human nature, and that they had done so by liberating themselves from the prejudices, superstitions and dogmatic ignorance of those that had preceded them. The label “civilization” was born in this context as a term of collective description connoting the “advanced” beliefs, practices, and cultural habits which the Europeans had acquired. For Europeans “civilization” was the benefit they had received from the intellectual upheavals which had overturned medieval barbarism and ignorance. Similarly, when Europeans began to travel around the globe on their many voyages of discovery and conquest, they carried their notion of “civilization” with them, using it to describe the differences they saw between their manner of viewing things and those of the people they encountered. The idea of “Western Civilization” was thus born when Europeans began to employ the new concept of “civilization” to contrast the European approach to life and nature (which they believed to be the one, true, “modern” way of viewing things) with that of non-Europeans. In this respect, the concept of “Western Civilization” emerged in...
The essay focuses on human nature and Western civilization and their terms. Take for example, human nature. What's human nature? Is it different from human behavior? . Human nature is affected by both genetic and experiential factors. People develop just the way they are because of the social circumstances they were born in and in the context of their genetic potential. How about civilization? What does it mean? The label “civilization” was born in this context as a term of collective description connoting the “advanced” beliefs, practices, and cultural habits which the Europeans had acquired. For Europeans “civilization” was the benefit they had received from the intellectual upheavals which had overturned medieval barbarism and ignorance. Similarly, when Europeans began to travel around the globe on their many voyages of discovery and conquest, they carried their notion of “civilization” with them, using it to describe the differences they saw between their manner of viewing things and those of the people they encountered. The essay's conclusion focuses on this point. One handles emotions by society and genetic predisposition as mentioned. In the end though, we can determine that power struggle and that desire to be the leader of the pack still governs the motivations of people in the course of human history. May it be from the deep dirges of history or with different forms of government, humans will be humans and will continue to have the same weaknesses, just different manifestations as dictated by time. ...Download file to see next pagesRead More