Does Western Civ Exist?

My students are taught a simple list that defines ‘civilization’ as distinct from ‘culture’. All seven of the following developments are requisite in order to qualify:

Art

Religion

Technology

So far, so easy. All cultures have various beliefs, make and practice art, and create man-made tools. The line between ‘tool’ and ‘technology’ is a little blurry, but carrying on:

Social Structure

Stable Food Supply

 These are harder – a stable food supply rules out hunter-gatherers, and insists on pastoralists or farmers. A social structure means different jobs and tasks – more common, perhaps, but it rules out the egalitarian societies. Finally there are the two big disqualifiers:

Government

Written Language

A nomadic group may have a government – a democratic council of elders overseen by a hereditary king, perhaps – or they may not. It is by no means required. ‘Government’ also seems to imply ‘laws’ and not just ‘norms’.

Written language is the real sticking point: Very few cultures developed writing. The Middle East and Egypt were first, then India and China. From these centers all Eurasian and African languages developed. In the Americas only the Maya and later Aztecs had written language. Australia and Polynesia had none.

This definition of seven traits, though, still leaves room for blurry boundaries. For example, the Indus Valley Civilization had writing, but seemingly no government. The Inca, on the flip side, had a massive empire, but no writing – the only nonliterate empire in world history.

 

Given these traits and the potential for blurriness, what is Western Civ – or what was it? People say ‘the West’ doesn’t exist in the era of globalization. In some ways that’s very true. Economically, the West is entangled with the world as a whole, in mind-boggling supply chains. These are made possible by modern technology, which increasingly seems global, too – computers may have been invented in the West, but their use is global. The power of the U.S. dollar influences the stock market in Japan, and USBs, created in Singapore, were once prevalent in European homes. The “developed world” or “first world” economies are hardly exclusive to the historic West. South Korea has a higher standard of living than Portugal. Disparities within the West abound: Chile outshines Bulgaria. New Zealand is more developed than Moldova.

          Politically, things get muddled again. NATO exists to be a counterweight to Russia – but is Russia not part of the West? Turkey, twenty years ago, was applying to be part of the E.U. And does Ukraine get to be a member of the E.U.? Religion gets mixed into this, as well. Europe was predominately Christian and Jewish, with Muslim enclaves. But since at least the 1500s, and perhaps as far back as the Crusades, the Islamic world has been seen as geographically and culturally distinct. Yet, the boundaries are blurry again – Islam is monotheistic, and based on the same faith as Christianity and Judaism. Greece and the Balkans were part of the Ottoman Empire well into the Industrial Revolution of the 1800s. Islam, meanwhile, stretches from Iraq to India to Indonesia – and is hugely popular throughout Africa. Atheism, too, complicates the picture, as much of the West is increasingly secular.

As for social structure, arts, stable food supply – these are clearly intertwined. Hunter-gatherers are a tiny percentage of the population, isolated in places like Papua New Guinea and the Amazon. Everyone else has bought into the global agricultural food chain. Everyone else has complex hierarchies of social strata and differentiation of jobs. The arts are globalized, too, as K-pop bands become popular the world over playing on Western – not traditional Korean –instruments. Bollywood movies are enjoyed in Europe, and American TV shows translated for Vietnamese audiences. Nigeria’s Fela Kuti is nominated for Ohio’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

 

Based on all this complicated intermingling of the other traits, this leaves one final outpost: written language. And it’s here, I think, that some vestige of Western Civ still survives. There are three stages to this story. The first, previously mentioned, is the infrequency of developing writing. Outside of a few areas, most of the world did not develop written language. The Middle East and Egypt spread their language to Europe, geographically proximate to the region, but not further south into Africa – due to the impenetrability in the ancient world of the Sahara barrier. India’s first language went extinct, but a second replaced it, and China developed a script which became the basis for both Korean and Japanese. These Asian centers had their writings migrate and morph down into Southeast Asia, but, again, did not make the leap to Australia or Polynesia. The Mayan language didn’t move outside of their Central American region – despite being part of a continent-spanning trade and cultural network.

The second stage of our story is that of two very different waves of colonization. The reason why The West exists in the Americas, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa, is because those European populations came to stay and settle, and to replace the indigenous cultures they encountered. In those areas, settled between the late 14- and 1700s, the languages of the West came to be the languages of the region. English, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Afrikaans, French. The parts of the globe where these are the *primary* spoken languages, are still seen as Western. From Argentina to Jamaica to Quebec – the Americas became Westernized as they spoke the language, and thus inherited the literature, history, and culture that comes with written transmission.

            The later wave of colonization, which covered the Middle East, South Asia, and most of Africa, did not have this linguistic force. The colonizers remained a veneer atop the existing civilizations and cultures. English, French, and Dutch may have become popular secondary languages – but not what people learned and spoke at home. As opposed to, say, Brazil, which, in this period of 19^th century colonization, was well a part of Portuguese culture, having spoken the language for centuries. Angola and Mozambique – Portuguese colonies that gained 20^th century independence – each have populations where far less than half the people speak the European colonizer’s language at all.

Most countries which got rid of colonization in the 20^th century simply did not stick to their colonial language. Many people in Madagascar, Laos, or Syria may speak French, but the majority do not. Compare that with Haiti, in which a French Creole is the norm. There are exceptions, but usually these are very small and or isolated nations where a European language will help connect them to the world. Fiji is a nice example, Singapore another. Even though they are culturally very disparate from Europe, both maintain French and English, respectively, as their primary languages.

Very simply: for cultural purposes, language helped define the boundaries of Western Civilization from those areas that merely experienced colonial occupation.

 

The third, and final, stage explaining why Western Civ may still exist due to language, is literacy and population. In 1900 there were around 1.2 billion people in the world – and only 12-15% were literate. By 1996 there were 6 billion people, and the literacy rate had reversed – only around 15% were illiterate.

This is the sneaky truth we’ve been dodging: Even “literate” civilizations, like China, India, and Europe, actually boasted very, very few people who could read and write. The Mayan language never spread north or south, because only a vanishingly small number of nobles and priests could write it – and they saved it only for the most important stone inscriptions. Public schooling and mass literacy are very recent concepts, historically, and only enforced in a post-WWII world. In 1952 three-quarters of the U.S. Senate didn’t have a college degree, and nor did the President, Harry S Truman. But Truman was the last to hold that distinction, and today only one Senator in 2025 doesn’t have a college degree (from Oklahoma).

Literacy can, of course, mean just simple writing and reading, as the European monks did in their medieval cloisters: rote recitations and transcription of volumes. But literacy with a cultural impact – poetry, plays, novels – was also hampered in the 20^th century, thanks to political problems. China was the largest country on earth, but under Mao and subsequent rulers there was little to no free speech. Indonesia, the world’s fourth-largest nation, had two lengthy dictatorships repress their freedom of expression from the end of Dutch colonization until the early 21^st century. Sub-Saharan Africa teems with examples: The first half of the century they were under colonial oppression, then dictators took control – and in some places are still in charge. In such circumstances creating a vibrant literary tradition will be nearly impossible. The Middle East and Central Asia (and the rest of the formerly Soviet-controlled bloc) suffered similar hampering due to political forces. By around the mid-20^th century most of the world knew how to read and write – but huge swaths could not do so freely or safely. Obviously places like China, Russia, and Afghanistan are all examples of places still without free expression in 2025.

 

So, when we put all the pieces together, the situation looks something like this: A handful of places developed literacy, and in the first wave of colonization one of those places, Europe, spread that literacy, culture, government (and the rest) to a broader West. By the dawn of the 20^th century most of the world, including the West, was illiterate, but that changed by the century’s end. The stifling effects of colonization and dictatorship also lifted – although only so far. As we’ve become more globalized economically and politically, the West still persists through the linguistic inheritance and the culture that goes with it.

 

Now this is not to say there isn’t sharing. In the Philippines Christianity – a Western hallmark – has become the primary faith. 7.2 million Jews live in Israel, and 7.5 million in the United States. Japan makes movies based on Shakespeare’s plays, and the English, in turn, enjoy eating sushi, teriyaki, and ramen.

That said, regarding the sharing of language and literary culture, there is the major hang-up of translation. Nowadays, in visual media, we consider translation normal. If Disney is going to make a movie for millions of dollars – from Star Wars to animated features to the MCU – they will ensure it is translated into scores of languages, to maximize distribution and profit. Translating the cultural heritage of other countries, though, isn’t so easy. India’s works date back three thousand years at least – and none were translated into English until 1785. China has a literary history going back three thousand years as well. The first work translated to English was compiled in 1841. Mayan texts only go back 1,000 years – but in English we finally got good translations a mere 30 years ago.

Cultural literacy is bound geographically, but, as I hope is now clear, also linguistically. A teacher from America working with students in Malaysia probably sees themselves as a visitor – despite living in Kuala Lumpur, they are still a ‘Westerner’. At least, that is, depending on their heritage – and the assumption they will probably go home after. As many have noted, first- and second-generation immigrants often struggle with their identity for this very reason. An Egyptian woman whose parents moved from Egypt to Canada, may try to erase their “Egyptianness”, may embrace it all the more, or may try to balance it with their “Canadianness.” Indigenous identities in Western societies can be equally complex, as can ethnic and racial descriptors.

So, while you can eat Mexican food in Cambodia, and Ethiopian cuisine in Australia, accessing the literary culture of these communities may be harder to achieve than ordering a tamale or some injera. Those literary communities are still bounded by linguistic heritage.

 

Most Americans, to take an example, are ignorant of the rich history, built over millennia, of Indian philosophy, or even a basic knowledge of the subcontinent’s main sacred texts of Hinduism and Buddhism – despite being worshipped by some 1.5 billion people. Japan’s famous Noh dramas are likely unknown by Greek audiences. The West African epics, like the Sunjata and Mwindo, are not commonplace in Colombia, I suspect. This all may suggest that we are still divided into linguistic civilizational blocs.

Notably, though, these are all examples of Western ignorance. In nations where the colonizers brought their culture, does the same apply? Do Nigerians know King Arthur? Are Malaysians fond of Robin Hood? Does Jordan still teach its pupils Chaucer?

Increasingly, no.

Those countries which had only the veneer of Western colonization are typically not very keen on preserving and transmitting the culture of their former oppressors. A surge of post-colonial emphasis on a pre-colonial identity is the norm. As such, the literary heritages retreat to their former, more geographically-bound, origins. The written word – and the culture it transmits – is keeping civilizational identities alive. Whether that is a good or bad thing is somewhat a matter of perspective.

That said, I am fairly certain that, unless you dedicate your entire life to studying civilizational heritages outside your own, you will remain woefully ignorant of the complexities and depth these legacies have to offer. Which leaves you with two options: Skim a little of each, and get a haphazard taste of their cultures and identities, or, ignore them all together, and have no real sense of their identity. But this latter option (I suspect the option most take) comes at your own peril. Robert McNamara, to take a famous example, thought Vietnam was going to be a puppet of China, due to his view of Ho Chi Minh through a Cold War lens. He didn’t know that Vietnam had historically loathed China for millennia – and would never follow their lead. McNamara's lack of understanding, which he later admitted, cost thousands of lives.

 

Will Western Civ – in some form, with all its complexities – continue? I suspect it will, at least for a short time. Two generations from now, this may not be the case. There are demographic concerns that will affect its continuation. Most of the economically developed world is undergoing a population constriction, which will only make their cultural heritage more fragile. Each generation is tasked with choosing what will be passed down. For three centuries, in the Protestant English-speaking world, from London to San Francisco, Pilgrim’s Progress was an essential text, transmitted faithfully as vital to their identity. That is no longer the case. The bulk of Classical Greek and Roman writings, once the hallmark of a university education in Oxford, Bologna, or the Sorbonne, is still, as then, read by a tiny minority off specialists – literacy and education have increased, but the proliferation of voices has allowed us to study and read people from our own time.

 

Does Western Civ exist? Yes, for now – and it did for an extended period. But whether it survives as populations drop below the replacement rate, as their own past is increasingly not read and transmitted, and the heritages of others are made more available – that seems, increasingly, unlikely.