A...a question?
Alright, calm yourself and answer the question, asshole.WaitYAmIHere wrote:Do you believe that Western civilization is a series of moments, upon which the entire system can turn, or fall?
Or would you say Western civilization is a series of ideal, which would not be undone by any particular moment?
I'm allowed to say neither, right? Because I'm definitely saying neither.
Firstly, there a number of different ways to view history. I happen to belong to the school that sees history as at least somewhat cyclical (mostly because NOBODY LISTENS TO US AND APPRECIATES HISTORY would seem to be the incredibly self-serving subtext of this position). Others, though, see history as the story of great men and women who changed the world through the force of their will and the singularity of their vision, whilst others see history as a story of popular movements, declaring that great things are achieved not through singular genius but the collective genius of the masses (ignoring one of the chiefest truths of mankind, "the masses are asses"). So how someone views history itself could definitely affect how they answer this question.
Secondly, I'd like to say that I'm not sure Western Civilization
can fall, at this time. In previous generations, I would have called it far-fetched, but conceivable; in the modern world, however, I think there is an argument to be made that Western Civilization
is world civilization. Western values are growing in popularity across the globe as the powers of the Far East, China and Japan, slowly westernize. Polls show the people of the Middle East are increasingly in favor of western ideals like free speech and democracy. Short of an apocalyptic event, I'm not certain that the destruction of Western Civilization is even possible.
But, I still really like this question. So I'm going to pretend nothing I just said matters and answer it anyway, because that's what heroes do.
I'm more inclined to say that the history of Western Civilization is defined by ideas and movements and their slow progression than I am to say it's a series of pivotal events. Whilst a number of events could certainly have drastically changed the world today had they gone the other way (Nazis win WWII, the First Crusade is defeated at Antioch, Hannibal takes Rome, Noah's boat springs a leak), I'm not sure most of them would have had a disastrous impact on the fluid and ever-changing concept of Western Civilization. Sure, if Germany wins in WWII, we get a race-based society that looks down on brown people and glorifies one ethnic group over another. But isn't that really just a more extreme version of the world we live in today?
I'm not saying that the world couldn't have been massively different than it turned out today. But I don't think that the world would be completely unrecognisable if a handful of events had taken a different turn. Sometimes, what looks like a big twist would have changed little at all in the long run. Now obviously, if we changed a large number of important historical events, we would likely end up with a new reality that looked almost completely foreign. But that seems to be somewhat outside the scope of this question.