Why I am … Western

In the most recent post in this series celebrating different aspects of the Christian tradition, I talked about why I identify as ‘Eastern’, how its whole ethos and approach to doing church and theology offers a helpful alternative to the West. But, as the say, you can choose your friends but you can’t choose your family. As much as I have loved the Christian East, I’ve never left the West — and I wouldn’t have been able to even if I wanted to. I grew up in the West, and I remain firmly embedded here. It’s shaped my worldview, my values, and my politics in undeniable ways. So, over the next two posts I’ll be talking about why I am Western. Today I’ll talk about the West as a broad cultural sphere; on Tuesday, I’ll turn specifically to Western Christianity specifically.

As I recently wrote, the West has had a turbulent time the past few hundred years. Starting in the fifteenth century or so, we’ve seen a series of movements and counter-movements that have revolutionized Western thought, and reshaped the whole world, for better and for worse: The Renaissance, the Protestant and the Counter- (or Catholic-) Reformations, the Enlightenment, Scientific and Industrial Revolutions, Rationalism and Romanticism, Democracy and Fascism, Capitalism and Communism, Apartheid and Civil Rights Movements, Modernity and Postmodernism. All of these movements (and more!), with their big, competing, and often contradictory ideas, are equally manifestations of the Western spirit. This is why the West has been both such an easy idea to celebrate historically and such an easy punching bag today. No matter what we like or don’t like about the world, we can attribute it to ‘the West’.

And that makes the West very difficult to talk about.

For our purposes today, I’d like to pull out two aspects of the Western tradition to celebrate: humanism (as traditionally defined) and the arts and sciences. Today, ‘humanist’ often gets thrown around as a near synonym for ‘atheist.’ But that’s an aberration from how it’s been understood historically. Like so many things originating in the Renaissance, humanism began as a reappropriation of Greek and Roman knowledge, in this case its practical philosophy. And in true Renaissance form, it framed these ideals within a general Christian worldview. It was a strong assertion of the value of learning as a tool for moral development, happiness, and personal flourishing. And this is what I mean when I say I celebrate the West’s humanist tradition. It’s not humanity apart from God, but humanity encouraged to flourish. While these values can be seen in the Christian Scriptures, they simply weren’t the focus of theological reflection in Antiquity or the Middle Ages. So, If we value things like democracy, human rights, civil rights, and freedom — and I do — we have the humanists to thank.

Out of Renaissance humanism came the humanities, a broad curriculum of study promoting not only the reception of a canon of literature, but also critical thinking, logic, and ‘natural philosophy,’ the discipline which eventually gave birth to the sciences. Both prongs of this, what today we call the ‘arts’ and the ‘sciences’ (or STEM), are hugely important. (I work for a scientific organization and so I see the strengths and limitations of both — and hence the need for both — every work day!) This is not to say that the arts were a Western creation — from the dawn of time, all humans have engaged in artistic traditions — but that as someone who grew up in the West, and whose parents, grandparents, and ancestors all grew up in the West, it’s the Western expression of the arts that has most influenced me. Similarly, many important scientific discoveries were made outside the West, but I have inherited the West’s Scientific Method and all the amazing insights and advances (and yes, problems) it has produced.

To make a long story short, I am Western because I can’t not be; I’m as thoroughly as embedded in the West as one can be. It’s my cultural home, my starting place. Despite all its wild mood swings, inconsistencies, and competing values — and how often the aspects of the West I hate seem to carry the day — there is much to celebrate in its cultural traditions. Today, I celebrate in particular the humanism which has inspired most of its greatest achievements in the political and cultural spheres, and the intellectual heritage in the arts and sciences.

In the next post in the series, I’ll look at Western Christianity.