Types of civilizations: East & West

First, let's define the term "civilization". Philosophers and historians put into this word a somewhat different semantic content. Consider the types of civilizations called "societies localized in time and space". Different historians distinguish a different number of local civilizations. The Englishman Arnold Toynbee believed that in the last millennium five civilizations appeared (and are still alive): the Western, the Orthodox (to which the Russia), Muslim, Hindu and Far Eastern (China, Japan, Korea, Southeast Asia). In total in the historical era, he counted thirty-seven civilizations.

The types of civilizations, according to Toynbee, are divided into chains of three elements. All the existing civilizations are the third, last links. For example, our civilization is the last in the chain: the Minoan civilization - the Hellenic - the Orthodox. That is, in his opinion, we live in an era on the eve of a steep change in the global historical trend. True, it is not known when and in what form it will occur.

In the generally accepted popular culture, a simplistic idea of the existence of a Western cultural tradition, which is opposed to the eastern type of civilization, is distinguished by a number of fundamental features. They are, first of all, a different attitude to the individual in society and attitude to property.

This opposition, of course, is vulgar. The main types of civilizations are not limited to the division into the West and the East. Yes, the very definition of Eastern civilization needs clarification. From the point of view of the European philistine, the civilizations of Iran, Kazakhstan and China - this is about the same, differing only in minor details and referring to the eastern type of civilizations. Meanwhile, it is clear to any competent person (not to mention residents of these states) that in the first case we have a classical Muslim Shiite state, in the second case, the culture of nomads of the Great Steppe (the term of Lev Gumilev), subjected to Muslim influence , and in the third - a complex conglomerate, Including Buddhist, Taoist and Confucian components, abundantly flavored with communist ideology.

And modern Europe regarding the notion of "what is good and what is bad" is very different from Europe medieval. The views of Savonarola, Torquemada and the Duke of Richelieu, who became the de facto ruler of France, have nothing in common with today's priorities of the domestic policies of most European states.

All that, according to the European philistine, is now inherent in the Eastern civilizations - collectivism, the low status of the individual in society - was in the old Europe. And it's not that Europe has grown. Just fell a degree of passionarity. The old light was fattened, to a certain extent lazy. Therefore, aliens from the south and east, who are carriers of a different cultural tradition, feel so free in Europe. Something similar can happen in the classical eastern country - Japan, whose constitution was written by the lawyers of the American occupying forces in the hope of instilling a Western value system. But the Japanese still have too much power of tradition. This is an energetic society that can protect itself from outside influence. So different "types of civilizations" have nothing to do with it.