Characteristics Of Western Civilization

Characteristics of Western Civilization

The term Western culture defines a conception of world and life that is expressed in different ways and it started on a territorial basis by the work of certain social groups, their tendency was to accentuate the differences between neighboring cultures and circumscribe the scope of its development.

Something more was needed to complete the Western civilization as it existed before modern times, and this is the peculiar relationship between government and religion that came with Christianity. Originally, Christianity was completely apolitical, as it spread throughout the Roman Empire as a consolation for those who had lost their national and personal freedom, and Judaism took an attitude of moral condemnation of the rulers of the world. In the days before Constantine, Christianity developed an organization that Christians were still higher than loyalty due to the state. When Rome fell, the Church preserved in a unique synthesis which had proved vital in the civilizations of the Jews, Greeks and Romans. The moral fervor of the Jews became the ethical precepts of Christianity, the Greek love deductive reasoning, theology, the example of imperialism and Roman law, the central government of the Church and the body of canon law.

Western civilization has changed and is changing so rapidly, that many that care for their past are living in what seems a strange world. But this only raises more clear items that have been present to some degree since Roman times, and have always distinguished Europe from India or China. Energy, intolerance and abstract thinking have distinguished the best times in Europe of the best times of the East. In art and literature, the Greeks may have been insurmountable, but its superiority over China is only a matter of degree. Energy and intelligence have said enough, but the intolerance is ...