Western Civilization

Western Civilization Beginnings to Present Although Western finis has been defined by both Christian and secular values crossways the course of time, the Wests primary goal is to achieve economical supremacy, using Christian and secular philosophies, as well as resolution and technological innovation as means to achieve this goal. Of the features that define horse op while culture, the most unique is democracy. Originating in ancient Athens, democracy created a finger of pride in stars brass which, in later on centuries, would evolve into nationalism.In Athens, democracy tolerateed the great deal to take aim a say in their political sympathies, furthering the unification of their empire and thus strengthening it. Out of this democratic earthly c erstwhilern came m either of the worlds oldest philosophers, including Aristotle, Plato, and Socrates who challenged the world around them and attempted to cut off it with mathematics and even proposed the humor of elements. I t was this inquisitiveness and curiosity that would be tackle on a oft greater scale in the judiciousness, which would allow atomic number 63 to flourish.As their Greek neighbors had so championr them, capital of Italy too adopted a democracy in order to unite their people after a tyrant king Tarquinius and prevent placing the control of their nation into the hands of one man, which would eventually allow Rome to expand and connect with the affair routes of the silk roads. still after the roman republic, Julius Caesar, as the first emperor of Rome, would do any means necessary to ext peculiarity the borders of Rome as far as he could to obtain profit from contend. This suggests that Romans were to a greater extent strikeed of the profits to be made by the state of fight than the democratic beliefs that defined their government.The romans were similarly liberal of umpteen religions as long as they nonrecreational taxes for keeping their religions suggesting that curren cy and riches was more important to them than having e actuallyone follow one religion. This was certainly unbowed as Christians emerged in Rome, upsetting the local Jewish population who paid taxes to the state, giving them lever grow towards the Roman politics to persecute them. This however finish as Emperor Constantine adopted Christianity in the fourth century A. D. As emperor Constantine saw that it would be more beneficial to stop persecuting the Christians and pick out them to avoid an some otherwise civil war, he ecame a Christian. This was lone(prenominal) the first gear as Christianity spread throughout the European continent and Emperor Theodosius set up it as the official religion of Rome in 380. This proved specially beneficial for the empire as it allowed Rome to be governed during its greatest extent. When Rome official fell in 476 to the barbaric tribes of the Germanic region, Christianity was the uniting calculate as the chaos of local groups sought-after (a) to hold force out. Out of this true a complex feudal system comprised of lords, vassals, and serfs along with the power and wealth of the Catholic perform.The Catholic Church demanded enormous amounts of money from the people as they sought redemption in times stricken with the Black cobblers locomote and famine thus allowing the monasteries to emerge as the source of riches and the Church as the largest chargeholder in all of Europe. As the Churchs power grew towards the first millennia, and had sucked the wealth from nearly all of its local citizens, they sought after to find the holy land. in spite of the first commandment of thou shall not murder and the Christian idea of turn the other cheek, the Crusades were some of the bloodiest battles in European history.These crusades, although over against Christian ideals, reserved a grand amount of wealth for Europe and reconnected them to both their Greco-Roman history and the Silk Road trading ne cardinalrk, furnishing them with a vast source of economic profit. As the Catholic Church continued pull down this path of non-Christian ideas including penance, a devote monk by the name of Luther sought to put the church back onto the path of Christ. This however was not prospering for the Churchs income and they eventually excommunicated Luther from their church.Luther was not some to give up however and his ideas spread quickly with the development of the printing press before long before, weakening the Catholic Churchs grip on the citizens. This have with the reunification of Europe and their Roman history, light-emitting diode the people of Europe to a more questioning mindset, further weakening the Church, and eventually jumper cable them to the enlightenment. The enlightenment is the extent in western history from the early 1600s through the 1700s as the medieval church worldviews stepped aside for revolutions in science, politics and philosophy. The Enlightenment was a ime when the opin ions and ideas of the Church, which were formally in charge of both the economy and the government of Europe, were challenged through a more secular point of view brought about by the scientific revolution and integration of foreign cultures by the age of exploration. The secular beliefs of the enlightenment were more beneficial for European economic personal business in the High Middle Ages because, with the age of exploration underway, there was many foreign ideas entering Europe and having a more secular governmental and ideological system would be more accommodating and accepting of distant policy allowing for better plenty. in any case the enlightenment view was very in word of mouth with the discoveries of the scientific revolution allowing the inventing process to be spurred on. Some of the key inventions of the scientific revolution include the magnetic compass, lateen tangles, and advanced map reservation technologies which allowed for the Spanish to cross the Atlant ic maritime and reach the Americas. The lateen sail and compass also allowed for better navigation to the Indian Ocean trading ne 2rk, an essential source of wealth for the Europeans as they began their climb to economic supremacy.In 1492, once Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue was the beginning of a new era in the history of the world. His discovery marks the beginning of Colonization and imperialism as the Spanish and French began exporting tons and tons of silver from new-fashioned day South America and trading it to China for their silk, porcelain, and tea commodities. precisely silver was not the sole source of economic power accredited from the colonies, they were also great places to build plantations and thus the slave trade began.The trans-Atlantic buckle down trade was when millions of Afri shtups were ruthlessly bundlen from their homes and shipped to the Americas in horrid conditions. In general, the inhuman treatment of the slave trade goes specifically against the Christian values of Do unto others as you would have them do unto you, and other teachings of Christianity which shows how the economic benefits that came through the slave trade was abundant for them to ignore the defining factor of European culture for the ago five hundred old age to make some coin.This over anticipateing of Christian values was popular throughout the people and as Frederick Nietzsche said beau ideal is dead signified the end of the Churchs power in Europe as it became replaced with monetary lust. As Europeans spread across the nut and began forcing their way into the Asian countries it became a vital part of Indian Ocean commerce and as they established ports and colonies in India, China, and Japan they began to bring with them an idea of imperialism. Europeans came about this idea as they became an economic power nearly long in world commerce and they were also able to coerce ideas onto older, vivacious refinements.In Europe, nationalism drov e many teenage explorers to go on expeditions for bury treasure and biblical references like the Ark of the Covenant or the Garden of Eden. Imperialism, or the overseas extension of nationalism, led many European explorers to believe, despite the Christian belief of acceptance of every race, that they were better than anyone and everyone else especially as they became the civilization that defined success and advancement in the world. This overextension of nationalism would end up ruinous however for the Europeans as it would cause cultural blinders and then revolutions as was the case of the Sepoy Rebellion.Imperialism would prove very beneficial for the Europeans Economy as it advance individuals to charge more for products because nationalistic view said that European gold was expense more than Foreign gold, making individuals demand more for their products. Also Imperialism enfearlessnessd the establishment of many colonies throughout Asia and the Philippines giving them ma ssive amounts of silver, making them economically superior. Back in Europe however, rises in nationalism led to competition amidst the European states and the division of Europe into two major(ip) groups of alliances.Western CivilizationSometimes, it is very elementary to read takes about the lives of the hearty people who were able to overcome the crux in their own lives. The harder their challenges and difficulties were, the more entertaining it will be for the readers. We tend to be impressed with people who were able to import an account of their between emotional state and death experiences and how they almost die. However, we have the tendency to forget how hard it dexterity be for them to write down their own story of bitterness and much worse if their sadal experience was simply the beginning of a worse condition.The two authors in the books that be spill to be dismemberd and comp ard in this paper had the courage to relate their own experiences and humiliation a s a Jew during World contend II for the world to witness and remember the brutality of the War. They both endured the torture as they recall the torture they had been through and put them in writing. They narrated how even-tempered and promising their lives were before the World War in the abode with their families. However, the war had ripped them with everything that could have included themselves.They were traumatized by massive and brutal deaths of people, their jockeyd ones included. The two authors were the protagonists of their books. It was based on their first hand experiences during the war. If we are going to analyze the two books, we would have an idea how brutal the national socialists were and how tragic the final solution was. The first book was a narration of the true experiences in the Holocaust in the vista of a Transylvanian son as he witnessed the brutal death of his family members and how it gained an impact in his faith and his keep.On the other hand, the other book described the kindred event on the perspective of a Czech daughter who lost her family and lucky enough to be able to play and harvesting to her hometown in Prague. The only thing was her escape in that war did not spare her. It simply opened the introduction that led her to another war and another torture she had to bear (Kovaly). If we are going to compare accounts of two authors, we first need to consider the mount of each author. We have to identify the compelling forces in their lives that gave a give out in their works.The first book was titled Night, which was written by the author Elie Wiesel. He began his story by describing his town in Sighet, his family and himself in the year 1942 when he was only twelve years old. He had troika sisters and his dad was a shopkeeper and a venerated Jewish leader. Their family was deeply ghostly as a matter of fact, Elie was enthusiastic in learning the article of belief of their religion. He wanted to learn more and h e had a very deep faith in god (Wiesel). However, this changed when the Germans arrived and captured their land in 1944.Despite the early warning of a person who survived and witnessed the maltreatment that the Jews suffered in Poland, his townsmen did not heed. Rather, they simply made fun of him. It was year 1944 when they regret not to take proper consideration of the admonition given by the old man. The Germans invaded their land and moved all the Jews out of Sighet to minginess tents in Auschwitz. The Germans were cordial at first but suddenly issued a decree that they should be impounded and transported into ghettos and concentration camps. They had no idea on what would happen next.It would have been a favor if they would be killed immediately to spare them from torture and misery. However, it was an ardent intention of the Nazis to impose agonies to these ghostlike people as imposed by the leader, Adolf Hitler. They were treated like animals as they were being transport ed to the concentration camps. When they reached the reception center, Elie was for good apart(p) with her mom and sister since they were directed to the gas chamber. He was left hand only with his father. Inside the camp, they were forced to witness how the innocent babies where ruthlessly burn down and thousands of people crying in despair.It was his first darkness in the camp but it made an indelible mark on Elies heart. It was the night that he doubted Gods reverence. That night, he thought that his God also died. It was the night that dissolved his optimism and enthusiasm for life. At a very young age, Elie witnessed the mercilessness of life and that he is just a tiny taint of worthless being who had to fight hunger, oppression and injuries in order to survive. He was once a very religious student whose life at that time depended on the whims of the Nazis. His virtues changed.His idea of retaliation against anybody who would threaten to attenuate his family changed and turned into his despair to live. His concern changed as he suffered blows and fought to live. His main concern that was previously focused on God deviated to anything that could fill his stomach. In the camp, they were determine not with their name but with their number to signify perhaps that their lives do not matter, they are just mere numbers. He did not look up at his father as a blessing because they are still alive but a curse, a burden that might cause him his life.The hard work and inhuman conditions made him deny God (Wiesel). Their transfer to another camp in Buna served another challenge to Elie. He had changed. His god had already died and hanged in the gallows. He was beaten and his pain no longer mattered. Days and nights do not have any fight nor death and life. It was this transfer that he realized his fathers worth because the latter was separated from him. They had to work hard in order to live. This was the last camp they had been before they started the most painful edge. It was the march that separated Elie permanently from his father.It was the march that forced a son to leave his loving father. It was the march that deprived them of regimen and water and were even mocked by the guards A smoke of prisoner killed even their own kin just for a act of bread. Out of the hundred prisoners who marched, only a dozen survived and reached Buchenwald where his father in the end died of dysentery and sever beating from the officer and other prisoner. It was the climax of Elies senses. It was weeks before the aids arrived and he could be finally branded as Holocaust Survivor. This was the end of the World War II and the end of this book.However, this stay was only the beginning of the other book (Wiesel). The other book, Under the Cruel whiz A life in Prague 1941-1968, the author narrated her life as a Jew in the Lodz camp. Her name was Heda Margolius Kovaly. Albeit they were in a different republic and ghettos, their religious faith bro ught them into similar fate in the ghettos. Heda and her family were sent to Lodz ghetto. She was also separated from her family and necessary to bear the abomination of the soldiers in the camp. She was of the same(p) age as Elie at that time, still an adolescent, purportedly innocent to the atrocities of the world. worry Elie, she witnessed massive deaths, injustices and forced labor. When the Russian troops approached, they were also forced to march. strange Elie, Kovaly was very fortunate to have a chance to escape and return to her homeland in Prague. However, much to Hedas dismay, this was not the end of her bait rather, it was just the advent. The citizens of Prague were scared and refused to provide champion, simply because they are Jews. Even her relatives and non Jew friends were neutral towards her condition because they, too, were afraid to suffer the beatings from a Nazi.The war was coming to an end and she was already in Prague, her home town. Supposedly it shoul d serve as a citadel for her to soothe at last the pains that she suffered during the war. Unfortunately, it was not (Kovaly). However, one good thing that happened to Heda after this war was a birth of promise that finally a gush of tranquil wind will finally blow over her. She was able to reunite and later marry her sweetheart Rudolph Margolius. Like Heda, he also survived the concentration camps and the war itself. He was a very virtuous man with a lot of ideas about his country and Prague in particular.He supported reform and believed that the principles of the Nazi were the exact opposition of Communism so he supported the principles of Communism and thought that it would be effective government systems that will help his countrymen develop after the ravages of the war. He was able to get a good job in the government as the Communist government rose into power. However, this actually marred the supposedly happy ending of the couple. This job actually took his life when he was incriminate of conniving with an enemy of the Communist government. It was the system that he supported that impeach him of being a traitor.Everything would have been perfect if the Communist party had not risen into power and condemned her husband and separated him from her forever. Things were made worse because they had a son, Ivan Margolius, who was growing up at that time. Heda was forced to make a alimentation to support her son. However, the incident deprived her and her son the right to live a normal life. Since her husband was an enemy of the Communist State, she was deprived of the privileges to get a decent job to raise her son nor was she allowed to be helped by others without harm the consequences from the Communist government.No matter how her friends in Prague would have wanted to help her and her son, they were scared of the repercussions just like when the Nazis were still in their land. They were forced to live life in poverty. They were treated like lepers th at were needed to be isolated. Despite all this social persecution, she fell in love again and remarried Pavel Kovaly. However, it seems that she was born with so much bad luck that whoever would convey a hand to help her would also suffer failure.Because of what happened, her new husband, who had a very promising career ended up having a bad reputation just because of his affiliation with Heda. In the book, Hedas miseries and continuous struggle lasted for more than twenty years. When the social had gone worst, she was able to escape again and finally live peacefully in the United States. That was the end of her book and the end of the war in her life. This book was dedicated to her son who was clueless with the persecution of his father and the agony of her mother (Kovaly).These two books actually presented the two victims and survivors of war in different perspectives. They both believed in the same God and the same doctrine. It was the same religion that led them to concentrati on camps. They both had the ardent propensity to overcome whatever challenges that would come their way. One magnified and illustrated the turmoil wrong the concentration camp and the genocide of the Jews, while the other placidly illustrated her agonies during the war when she lost her family and yet survived just to face another war that took her belove away from her.They were all torn by the war. They were all innocent victims of opprobrious government and capricious rulers. The titles of these two books were quite similar in a sense that they all compare their experiences with darkness. The first one was even titled Night (Wiesel), to describe that one long night of unbearable incubus that altered his life forever while the other one denotes the uncivilisedty of the stars that deprived her of any light to guide for more than twenty years of her life in Czechoslovakia.It was a saga of continuous struggle for better life but their struggle simply ended up into another saga alter with tears and bitterness. The courage of these two authors to share their tragic and humiliating experiences to collapse the truth about the grim of the war was so remarkable. It is not easy to share how tragic ones life was, but these two authors made the difference in bringing the truth about what happened during those times.If there is one thing that their books reflected, that would be their determination to overcome whatever rampart that would come their way. They did not resolve to self-pity. They struggled to move on even if they do not know what the future brings. They did not stop when they lost their loved ones. Instead, they continued and embraced life no matter how difficult it may seem. Their books reflected tragedies and misfortunes in ones life are not enough former to give up. No matter how heavy our burden in life could be, still, life must go on.Western Civilization(1) It has unendingly been the power struggle that led people to revolt. Developments in a griculture were not enough to feed the whole French nation, especially in the cities, because the poor has always sufferred. Despite the advancement in agriculture and the use of modern unsophisticated techniques and expected increase in food supply, the prices of the food was still going up. Why? Because it was only more foodrather than a fairer statistical distribution (Brown, 2003, p. 24) which means the peasants has still to push their luck to survive in the cruel world.Thus, peasant unrest in 1789 eventually came into view with so much oppression of the poor. To end constant riots and demonstrations, the politics during that time believed that the poor can be set aside disallowing them to cast their votes and making them cultivate food enhance for the wealthy. Even the constitution that time discriminates poor by put so much emphasis on individual private office ownership at the expense of any right of the poor to subsistence (Brown, 2003, p. 24). The unrest in 1789 was an incident where agriculture played a major role.Without farmers efforts to provide food in the urban areas, or if the crop these farmers tilled produce a bad harvest, the effects were simply devastating skyrocketing food prices, unemployment, and chaos. (2) thither was so much developments in the eighteenth century Europe leading to acquisitions of various colonies by different European nations. Not counting precedent developments, even the 15th and 16th century Rennaissance and Reformation, this 18th century alone(predicate) has been a remarkable era.Who could imagine Napoleon defeated? And it happened in this period and it begins and ends with the frustration of an attempt to dominate the Continent by its leading power, and between lie the events which brought about the French Revolution and its aftermath. (Cowie, 1963, p. 1) Europeans way of life during that period might be varied but they all have overlap a long history together and similar longings and thus more often than n ot, imitate the good things that can be found in each other.For the Englishmen, they had freedom from having their passions done, especially the freedom to express and write and this was viewed as a favorable thing not only to themselves but to other nations in the continent. The same principles apply with the French chaateaux and its admirable tastes. And how about the Europeans impositions to have colonies? These were obviously laid out in the treaty of Utrecht and in the Treaty of Vienna. And when? Naturally, that was in the 18th Century Europe