Western culture refers to the culture that has developed in the Western world. It refers to the heritage of norms, values, customs and sometimes artifacts that the cultures of the Western world share. A Western culture refers to one of many cultures in the Western world.
Brief description
The Western world is a group of countries and cultures of which the composition depends on the definition used. See Western world for an overview of these definitions.
The concept of Western culture is generally linked to the classical definition of Western world. In this definition, Western culture is the set of literary, musical, philosophical and other traditions from Western Europe and countries whose history is strongly marked by Western European immigration or settlement.
The concept of Western culture is better defined than the concept of Western world. The concept of Western world is linked to countries as well as cultures. The concept of Western culture is linked to people. One could argue about the question if South Africa is a Western or Westernised country. Focussing on people, it is clear that part of the South African population is Western and part is not. An increasing number of countries and societies with a predominant Western culture have one or more significant minorities who practice a non-Western culture, either as native people (e.g. Brazil, parts of Australia or the United States) or by immigration (e.g. the US and most of Western Europe).
Foundations
The origins of Western Culture are often cited as ancient Greece, the Roman Empire, and Catholic and Protestant Christianity, and as such, some describe it the "Judeo-Christian culture". However, its source also lies prominently in the Germanic, Slavic and Celtic popular cultures that took part in the formation of the culture of medieval Europe.
Western culture has developed a plethora of literary, musical, philosophical, religious, and other traditions. Important traditions were:
- Scholasticism
- Roman Catholicism
- Protestantism
- Humanism
- Renaissance
- Age of Enlightenment
- Secularisation
Hegemony
It can be said that elements of western culture have had a very influential role on other cultures worldwide. Some people of many cultures, both Westerners and non-Westerners will equate "modernization" with "westernization", but many non-westerners object to the implication that all societies should adopt western traits. Some members of more radical thought communities in the non-Western world have suggested that this potential link is a reason why much of "modernity" should be rejected as intrinsically Western and thus incompatible with their vision of their societies. What is generally uncontested, is that much of the technology and social patterns which make up what is typically defined as "modernization" (e.g. steam engines, internal combustion engines, the scientific method, and others) were developed in the Western world. Whether these technological and social forms are instrinsically part of Western culture, is more difficult to answer. Many would argue that the question cannot be answered by a response from positivistic science and instead is a "value" question which must be answered from a value system (e.g. philosophy, religion, political doctrine). Nonetheless, much of anthropology today has shown the close links between the physical environment and daily activities and the formation of a culture (the findings of cultural ecology, among others). Therefore, the impact of "modernization" and "modern" technology may not merely be "scientific" (that is, physical) but may possibly be closely linked with a certain culture, that of the West, such that without such technology, Western culture today would have been dramatically different from how it is known in actual historical and contemporary times.
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