Western culture, sometimes equated with Western civilization, Occidental culture,

the Western world, Western society, and European civilization, is the heritage of social
norms, ethical values, traditional customs, belief systems, political
systems, artifacts and technologies that originated in or are associated with Europe. The term
also applies beyond Europe to countries and cultures whose histories are strongly connected to
Europe by immigration, colonization, or influence. For example, Western culture includes
countries in the Americas and Australasia, whose language and demographic ethnicity majorities
are European. Western culture has its roots in Greco-Roman culture from before 800 B.C.E.
(see Western canon).
Western culture is characterized by a host of artistic, philosophic, literary and legal themes and
traditions. Christianity, including the Roman Catholic Church,[3][4][5] Protestantism[6][7] the Eastern
Orthodox Church, and Oriental Orthodoxy,[8][9] has played a prominent role in the shaping of
Western civilization since at least the 4th century,[10][11][12][13][14] as did Judaism.[15][16][17][18] Before
the Cold War era, the traditional English viewpoint identified Western civilization with the Western
Christian (Catholic–Protestant) countries and culture.[19][1] A cornerstone of Western thought,
beginning in ancient Greece and continuing through the Middle Ages and Renaissance, is the
idea of rationalism in various spheres of life, especially religion, developed by Hellenistic
philosophy, scholasticism and humanism. The Catholic Church was for centuries at the center of
the development of the values, ideas, science, laws and institutions which constitute Western
civilization.[20][21] Empiricism later gave rise to the scientific method, the scientific revolution, and
the Age of Enlightenment.
Influenced by earlier Ancient Near Eastern civilizations,[22][23] Ancient Greece is considered the
birthplace of many elements of Western culture, including the development of
a democratic system of government and major advances in philosophy, science and
mathematics. The expansion of Greek culture into the Hellenistic world of the eastern
Mediterranean led to a synthesis between Greek and Near-Eastern cultures,[24] and major
advances in literature, engineering, and science, and provided the culture for the expansion of
early Christianity and the Greek New Testament.[25][26][27] This period overlapped with and was
followed by Rome, which made key contributions in law, government, engineering and political
organization.[28] The concept of a "West" dates back to the Roman Empire, where there was a
cultural divide between the Greek East and Latin West, a divide that later continued in Medieval
Europe between the Catholic Latin Church west and the "Greek" Eastern Orthodox east.
Western culture continued to develop with the Christianisation of Europe during the Middle Ages,
the reforms triggered by the Renaissance of the 12th century and 13th century under
the influence of the Islamic world via Spain and Sicily (including the transfer of technology from
the East, and Latin translations of Arabic texts on science and philosophy),[29][30][31] and the Italian
Renaissance as Greek scholars fleeing the fall of the Byzantine Empire brought classical
traditions and philosophy.[32] Medieval Christianity is credited with creating the
modern university,[33][34] the modern hospital system,[35] scientific economics,[36][21] natural
law (which would later influence the creation of international law)[37] and numerous other
innovations across all intellectual fields. Christianity played a role in ending practices common
among pagan societies, such as human sacrifice, slavery,[38] infanticide and polygamy.[39] The
globalization by successive European colonial empires spread European ways of life and
European educational methods around the world between the 16th and 20th centuries.[citation
needed]
European culture developed with a complex range of philosophy, medieval scholasticism
and mysticism and Christian and secular humanism.[40][page needed] Rational thinking developed
through a long age of change and formation, with the experiments of the Enlightenment and
breakthroughs in the sciences. Tendencies that have come to define modern
Western societies include the concept of political pluralism, individualism,
prominent subcultures or countercultures (such as New Agemovements) and increasing
cultural syncretism resulting from globalization and human migration.
The West as a geographical area is unclear and undefined. More often a country's ideology is
what will be used to categorize it as a Western society. There is some disagreement about what
nations should or should not be included in the category and at what times. Many parts of
the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire are considered Western today but were considered
Eastern in the past. However, in the past it was also the Eastern Roman Empire that had many
features now seen as "Western," preserving Roman law, which was first codified by Justinian in
the east,[42] as well as the traditions of scholarship around Plato, Aristotle, and Euclid that were
later introduced to Italy during the Renaissance by Greek scholars fleeing the fall
of Constantinople.[43] Thus, the culture identified with East and West itself interchanges with time
and place (from the ancient world to the modern). Geographically, the "West" of today would
include Europe (especially the states that collectively form the European Union) together with
extra-European territories belonging to the English-speaking world, the Hispanidad,
the Lusosphere; and the Francophonie in the wider context. Since the context is highly biased
and context-dependent, there is no agreed definition what the "West" is.
It is difficult to determine which individuals fit into which category and the East–West contrast is
sometimes criticized as relativistic and arbitrary.[44][45][46][page needed] Globalism has spread Western
ideas so widely that almost all modern cultures are, to some extent, influenced by aspects of
Western culture. Stereotyped views of "the West" have been labeled Occidentalism,
paralleling Orientalism—the term for the 19th-century stereotyped views of "the East".
As Europeans discovered the wider world, old concepts adapted. The area that had formerly
been considered the Orient ("the East") became the Near East as the interests of the European
powers interfered with Meiji Japan and Qing China for the first time in the 19th century.[47] Thus
the Sino-Japanese War in 1894–1895 occurred in the Far East while the troubles surrounding
the decline of the Ottoman Empire simultaneously occurred in the Near East.[a]The term Middle
East in the mid-19th century included the territory east of the Ottoman Empire, but West of
China—Greater Persia and Greater India—is now used synonymously with "Near East" in most
languages.