I know this is rather late in the thread to come in, but from what I’ve seen people use “Western Civilization” as a euphemism because they are too polite or not smug enough to say “Civilization”, knowing that the proper antipode to this is “Barbarism”.
People will tolerate you saying that they don’t share in the values or ideology of Western Civilization but they don’t like being called barbarians even when they are.
Really? That’s actually how “people you’ve seen” generally use that term? Wow.
Since we’re onto definitions, let me be sure. When you say “people”, you mean the average joe on the street, the everyday normal people? Or by people, do you actually mean JMeganSnow?
Since I can’t remember the last time I actually used the term “Western Civilization”, you’ll have to guess. If you want examples of people that use the term that way, how about Ayn Rand and Leonard Peikoff? If you take one of their talks/speeches/essays where they use the term and cut out the “Western”, it makes absolutely no difference. Ayn Rand actually talked about primitive savagery and barbarism, which I think was quite daring and courageous of her.
P.S. I prefer to use the terms civilization and barbarism myself, because they include civilized people wherever they may be found and barbarians wherever THEY may be found. If you say “Western Civilization”, you may be inadvertantly implying that all Westerners are civilized, and they are NOT. It’s equivalent to the behavior of any ancient overly-smug people that assigned such antonyms as “Rome” and “barbarians” or “China” and “barbarians”. There are would-be barbarians in any Western nation and civilized people pretty much everywhere.
Since I can’t remember the last time I actually used the term “Western Civilization”, you’ll have to guess. If you want examples of people that use the term that way, how about Ayn Rand and Leonard Peikoff? If you take one of their talks/speeches/essays where they use the term and cut out the “Western”, it makes absolutely no difference. Ayn Rand actually talked about primitive savagery and barbarism, which I think was quite daring and courageous of her.
So, Ayn Rand has actually and specifically said that all “non-Western” civilizations are barbarians? Or are you just extrapolating that because when she generally talked about the Western civilization in all her speeches? Because personally I would have assumed that when she went through the trouble of using the term “Western Civilization”, she means exactly that, precisely and literally – and not as an “euphemism”.
P.S. I prefer to use the terms civilization and barbarism myself, because they include civilized people wherever they may be found and barbarians wherever THEY may be found. If you say “Western Civilization”, you may be inadvertantly implying that all Westerners are civilized, and they are NOT. It’s equivalent to the behavior of any ancient overly-smug people that assigned such antonyms as “Rome” and “barbarians” or “China” and “barbarians”. There are would-be barbarians in any Western nation and civilized people pretty much everywhere.
So by “civilization” I assume you mean a group of people living in a free, rational, capitalistic society (which, by the way, I am not sure if that is the way Rand or anybody else for that matter would necessarily defined it – there can be for instance “rational civilizations” and “non-rational civilizations”, which would both be “civilizations” distinguished by their view on reason). Which would in fact imply that countries such as Japan, Korea, and Taiwan for instance are a “Western civilization” – an implication that a normal English speaker would generally disagree with. Therefore as I’ve explained the term is inadequate because almost no one, especially not residents of those aforementioned countries, actually use the word in the way you mean.
So by “civilization” I assume you mean a group of people living in a free, rational, capitalistic society
No. The
society
you happen to live in has no bearing on whether or not you are a civilized person, and I consider civilization to simply be the sum of all civilized people and their works. “Civilized” for humans is roughly analogous to “housebroken” for pets, but of course it is a great deal more complicated than neglecting to pee on the carpet.
Of course, a number of people use the term “civilization” to mean something along the lines of “presence of amenities”, but I think this is a bad definition because it is completely inessential. I think “environment created by civilized men” is more appropriate.
So, what does “civilized” mean, then? I hit the dictionary on that one and I found this, which is actually not bad.
Showing evidence of moral and intellectual advancement; humane, ethical, and reasonable
In order that I may refer to it – below I have replicated the reply, made by Thales, which caused this thread to split.
Thales posted:
Ouch, that’s like finger nails on a chalk board to me, Moebius. A word (concept) is defined by its referents in reality, and is not a matter of how a population views it. The bridge between the metaphysical and epistemological is the concept “unit”, and “units are things viewed by a consciousness in certain existing relationships.” [iTOE, expanded edition, page 7]
You mean it’s too narrowly defined.
When using “Western Civilization” it’s a sort of rule of thumb way to point to certain Western achievements. When it gets right down to it what we’re really talking about is the dominance of reason in human affairs, and all that comes from that. So in a certain sense it’s very simple. However, the devil is in the details, and deriving and defending the proper methods of reasoning is no simple task.
Because personally I would have assumed that when she went through the trouble of using the term “Western Civilization”, she means exactly that, precisely and literally – and not as an “euphemism”.
But according to you this would be impossible since the term “Western civilization” is not “very literal and specific in its definition”. Ayn Rand is good but I don’t think she could do the impossible.
there can be for instance “rational civilizations” and “non-rational civilizations”, which would both be “civilizations” distinguished by their view on reason).
What JMeganSnow and I are talking about is the proper definition of civilization and without looking at a dictionary I am fairly certain that it must have something to do with being civilized. “Non-rational civilization” is a contradiction in terms. Do you think that a non-rational group of people could form a civilization? Are the terms “rational” and “civilized” somehow dependent on one another? Is there some hierarchy? Do you know what a stolen concept is? “Culture” would be much more appropriate here.
The reason “Western” is superfluous when talking about civilizations in general is that ALL civilizations must either be implicitly or explicitly based on the ideas discovered in the west. To me, the term “Western civilization” must refer to all of civilization, here on earth, developed since the time of Aristotle and most certainly since the time of Locke. It refers to civil civilization (the only kind there is) based on the ideas of the West – and of course this must mean only those ideas of the West which can lead to civilization.
Therefore as I’ve explained the term is inadequate because almost no one, especially not residents of those aforementioned countries, actually use the word in the way you mean.
Again with the nails on the chalkboard. Thales has already addressed this. We are talking about proper definitions here and those come from looking at reality not from the minds of even a million Frenchmen.
Please go back and read the thread that was split from this one. In order to be objective, definitions must point to something in reality. If a definition doesn’t point to its actual referents then it can be dangerous. Like when President Bush talks about “democracy” being the most important thing for Middle East peace. He has no idea what he is talking about and it is a very dangerous idea to think that you can replace one form of tyranny with another and hope civilization will sprout.