Western culture

“ But where works of art can travel, ideas can travel too; and can travel right across the frontiers of race and language and even of religion; meaning at all events by these, the customary observance of each region, and of its endemic population. A few merchants, or craftsmen, or philosophers, work transformations in culture and bring about uniformities, of which language, or cult-edifices give us no indication at all, or at best an aftermath of decadence. ”

“ Western civilisation, or rather Western ideas, and education had brought the natives of the Eastern Empire to such a degree of culture and enlightenment that the subjugated ones realised that they had become the equal of their masters long before the dawn of the twenty-first century. ”

“ The simplification of life, the decrease of "vital" demands, strips the arts and culture of the West of all efficacy and worth. To these men, whose longing was for the inner, spiritual freedom of man, Western progress, with all it connoted, was an abomination. We are not surprised, therefore, to find the Westernizers, the rationalists, strongly arrayed against them. ”

“ With the advent of western civilization a culture pattern is being put together which differs widely from its predecessors.
All civilized peoples seem to have developed from simple beginnings and experimented with broader and more complicated life styles. ”

“ Whatever be the superstructure of social institutions, of arts and sciences, of religion and philosophy, that European men have built upon it, the régime which has made the Western World what it is, from before the dawn of metallurgy until now, has been generically a Bread culture ”

“ As the twentieth century opened, Western civilization was reaping the fruits of a philosophical culture that was rapidly liberating the energies of its populations, and whose influence would soon produce a revolutionary impact throughout the entire world. ”

“ With their love of artistic refinement and elaborate civilization, they look through the shades of broken prisms, and scent perfumes of different compositions, and build up a whole imaginary world of dainty colours and exquisite odours. But who, coming from the West, would ever understand any of these details of an historical past and ancient customs and strange manifestations of national culture? ”

“ Just as sure as history records the existence of an early West—a West where the gun and knife settled men’s heated controversies, a West where, for many years, there was a dearth of woman’s soft voice and tender smile—just so sure are the writings of the Western poets, philosophers and storytellers of this period a vital part of our early American literature. The literature of the West, as with the literature of any country, needs only be a true, sincere, worthy expression of the life it professes to portray. ”

“ THE close of the sixteenth century saw western Europe undergoing a curious and comfortable change. Civilization, with her handmaid, luxury, and her schoolmaster, the printing-press, had seduced the souls of men. ”

“ Sundry sturdy European ideas, transplanted into this western soil, have triumphed over all competitors and thriven so mightily as to react upon all parts of the Old World, some more, some less, and thus to modify the whole course of civilization. ”

“ Yet when the hordes to happy nations rise,
And earth By culture warms the genial skies,
A fairer tint and more majestic grace
Shall flush their features and exalt the race;
While milder arts, with social joys refined,
Inspire new beauties in the growing mind.
Thy followers too, old Europe's noblest pride,
When future gales shall wing them o'er the tide,
A ruddier hue and deeper shade shall gain,
And stalk, in statelier figures, on the plain. ”

“ Attempts are made—well meant, no doubt—to foist that state of culture which the West calls “modern civilization,” or “civilization” pure and simple, upon the reluctant people of the Near and Far East. We are forgetful of the fact that these nations have had a civilization of their own, and that something more important is included in this forcible change than the change of a dress. ”

“ However they may be settled, the great fact will remain essentially the same, that the two continents of this Western Hemisphere shall yet bear up a stupendous social, political, and religious structure, wrought by the American mind, moulded and coloured by the hues of American thought, and animated and united by an American soul. ”

“ One type of manners and customs and modes of living ends here and another type of features and temperament, food and dress, customs and habits begins — we enter Europe. Not only this, but here also is the great centre of that historical admixture of colours, races, civilisations, culture, and customs, which extending over many centuries has led to the birth of modern civilisation. ”

“ In temperament, in feeling, in mind, and even in unreason, they are Western, with an absolute comprehension of all Western modes of thought, even of those which are remote from their historical experience. ”

“ Those ancient civilizations, registered by the stylus of history, were mere gloamings of morning compared with the noontide radiance which now lights up the Western World; and even the more modern nations of Europe, brilliant as they appear, have so many dark spots upon the disk of their enlightenment, that their true glory is really less than that of the waxing Star in the West. ”

“ And we add, as a new and farther limitation, that we shall confine ourselves to the simple and obvious traces of civilization which have come down to us; employing only our own History,—that of civilized Europe, as the existing domain of Culture ”

“ Claiming culture, it is the crudest; asseverating its pre-eminence, it is the basest; denying all outside values and virtue, it is the narrowest. Give me the pure and the open heart of the West country. ”

“ Such conclusions, based on history, are underlined by current experience with the over-ballyhooed, over-priced variant of the life pattern which signs itself western civilization. Dating from the Crusades a thousand years ago, western civilization has been promoted, built up and carried forward by the blood, sweat and tears of credulous, hopeful, eager human beings. ”

“ Early in the twelfth century that movement already shows in its gathering force the promise of the development which was to render Europe the home of art and science, of learning, culture, and civilization. ”

“ It constitutes the key-conception of historical progress, and is the very life of that highest stage of this which we designate and praise by the name of Western Civilisation. It is at the mental summons of this ideal, that the West as a stadium in historic progress emerges from the hoary and impassive East; and the entire history of the West as divergent from the oriental spirit, as the scene of energetic human improvement, the scene of the victory of man over Nature and over his merely natural self, has its controlling and explanatory motive in this ideal alone. ”

“ By an inverse process, the further the spirit of American progress penetrates into Europe, the more completely does it detach the Old World from its past, and, therefore, irritates, grieves, and disgusts the classes which have enough culture to recognise and admire the marvellous arts of that past. ”

“ He allows a place to the crudities and even the vulgarities of common stories as well as to culture-lore. The magic of the East, the love tales of Italy, the wisdom of philosophers, the common stories of the people, all give up their wealth to his gentle touch. ”

“ Western civilization, from its earliest beginnings in foreign business relations and ideological adventures like the Crusades, has spilled across national frontiers in its search for adventure, for experience, for information, for pelf and power. ”

“ The broad and irresistible wave of Western civilization has reached the confines of their vast territories, before long will pour in upon them, and already is slowly, but surely, undermining many an ancient landmark. ”

“ Europe and its wonders—society, with its endearing interchanges of affection—that vast panorama of the arts and of civilization, of the trivial and the sublime, of the beautiful and terrible, that is called the world—came vividly into their thoughts. They felt as a man would feel when dazzled all at once by a spectacle, the splendor of which the eyes and the mind can only withstand by degrees. ”

“ They have their place in the drama of our national life, for better or for worse, and their pursuits and character must be recognized and studied by any one who would comprehend our great Western country. ”

“ If an aristocracy is a desirable thing in America, the West can, in its cities great and small, produce it, and its quality and tone will be found quite similar to the aristocracy of older communities. We of the West are not so callous as our critics would have us appear, and we are only politely tolerant of the persistence with which fiction and the drama are illuminated with characters whose chief purpose is to illustrate the raw vulgarity of Western civilization. ”

“ If, out of deference to history, rather than to the present day, we may grant that Europe represents in the world’s history the effort directed to the perfecting of a lofty culture, artistic, scientific, religious, or philosophic,—there is no doubt175 but that America is to-day becoming Europeanised; is seeking, that is to say, to employ the vast riches which she has accumulated by the intensive exploitation of her territory in the promotion of the progress of art, knowledge, and the religious spirit. ”

“ I like books, as I like art and music, but I somehow feel that our state of society at the West, and indeed our civilization, is not ripe enough to reach a first excellence in any of these high branches of achievement. ”

“ The diaspora of European culture which we are witnessing, the arrival of so many of its bearers, representatives of all categories of science and art, to these shores; their more or less involuntary decision, transformed, however, into an amor fati, to complete their work in the American air of life,—that is something very strange and unprecedented; it opens unexampled possibilities of exchange and equalization and may be supremely helpful in creating the new feeling of humanism of which I spoke. ”

“ In all essential respects they have given the world an intellectual product differing from all others, both in character and form, though of course continually influenced by the other streams of European culture. ”

“ THE aesthetic growth of the West, particularly in literature, is matter of interest. It is as vital to our humanities and our civilization as our financial and commercial sanity. Its growth represents our intellectual status. ”

“ In the same way as we have elected to distinguish the Soul as the possible and the World as the actual, we can now differentiate between possible and actual culture, i.e., culture as an idea in the (general or individual) existence and culture as the body of that idea, as the total of its visible, tangible and comprehensible expressions—acts and opinions, religion and state, arts and sciences, peoples and cities, economic and social forms, speech, laws, customs, characters, facial lines and costumes. ”

“ And now for the first time it is possible to comprehend in full the elemental opposition of the Classical and the Western souls. In the whole panorama of history, innumerable and intense as historical relations are, we find no two things so fundamentally alien to one another as these. ”

“ There were to be seen the masterpieces of art, the refinements of highly cultivated society, the quaint peculiarities of ancient and local custom. My native country was full of youthful promise; Europe was rich in the accumulated treasures of age. ”

“ Western nations, with their growing civilisations, conjured up monsters of benign or baneful influence, or engrafted and expanded the older ideas in a manner suited to their genius and national characteristics. ”

“ The whole artistic development of Western Europe, as well as the history of the world, might have been changed and human progress advanced centuries ahead of time, had the lords of the host perceived the full measure of their opportunity. ”

“ There are, also, histories of culture. History, from a cultural point of view, without paying regard to national boundaries, seeks to unfold the rise and progress of arts and industry, of inventions, of customs, manners, and institutions. It is the history of culture and civilization. History, from the ethnological point of view, would describe the migrations and experiences of the different races of men, and the formation of the various nationalities by these races, through conquest and intermixture. ”

“ No, not the wealthiest, sharpest American who ever lived can possess European culture, by buying little pieces of it here and there, and hanging it up on his wall. By changing the very fibre of your being, that is the only way to become anything that is worth becoming. ”

“ May we take it for granted that western civilization has turned its corner or may we assume that it is still replete with the possibilities of further maneuver, development and expansion? Perhaps the best way to approach the problem would be to ask three questions: What contribution has western civilization made to human nature, to human society and to mother nature, and what further contribution can it make in the foreseeable future? ”

“ The independent energy of the Americans of fifty years ago, whether in the East or among the pioneers of the Western frontier, was not, however crude its manifestations, mere bombastic assertiveness, but the expression of a faith and the expression of strong character. ”

“ Look at any of the important works published during the last twenty years, not only on language, but on literature, mythology, law, religion, and philosophy, and you will see on every page the working of a new spirit. I do not say that the East can ever teach us new things, but it can place before us old things, and leave us to draw from them lessons more strange and startling than anything dreamt of in our philosophy. ”