A Brief History of Western Society

The following is a dumbed down culture sketch I composed for an Anthropology and Language class:

The Beginning

The Universe was born from an infinitely hot, infinitely dense singularity which exploded some 14 billion years ago. From this explosion, known as the Big Bang, all matter comes. Within three minutes of this event, the fundamental elements were born. A billion years later, the first stars and galaxies formed. Our sun was born five billion years ago and the earth, five hundred million years after that (“Origins”). Nearly four billion years ago, life first appeared on planet earth. In a process called evolution life progresses from simple, single celled organisms to more complex organisms over large periods of time. A half a billion years ago the first fish swam in the oceans around the same time plants first colonized land. Fifty million years later and animal life could be found on land. The earliest mammals roamed the earth alongside dinosaurs as early as two hundred million years ago. Hominids, the humanlike primates that are our direct ancestors, split from our nearest relatives around five million years ago. Finally, within the last five hundred thousand years, modern man came into being in the heart of Africa and over the last forty thousand years, has colonized the world (Gould 25).

History

Western society can trace its origins back to the development of hydraulic agriculture in the major river valleys of the Middle East some five thousand years ago. The success of irrigation practices led to a doubling in the world population in the two thousand years that followed (Mazouyer and Roudart 25). Additionally, more efficient agricultural practices meant fewer individuals could supply food for a greater number of people. This increased efficiency allowed for the invention and practice of many occupations other than agriculture (Peters-Golden 22)). A direct consequence of this was the socio-cultural evolution of man through increased complexities of language, culture, and political and economic systems. The advent of irrigation could be considered a mass crossing of the “First Rubicon.” Once this event occurred, the world could not go back.

From Mesopotamia, the practice, as well as the culture and language spread west. This is best evidenced by the existence of a common ancestor to nearly all Indo-European languages. In 1926 archaeologist V. Gordon Child provided evidence for this common language by compiling a list of common words shared between vastly different Indo-European languages (such as Celtic and Sanskrit). In all, he found sixty six nouns in common including fifteen involving the practice of agriculture, indicating that this mother language came from an agricultural society (Brody 145). Colin Renfrew, in an earlier work had speculated that this would be the case and commented on the spread of agriculture by saying:

The new economy of farming allowed the population in each area to rise, over just a few centuries from perhaps 0.1 person per square kilometere to something like 5 or 10… this would gradually result in the peopleing of the whole of Europe by a farming population, the descendants of the first European farmers…in that case we would expect the language of those first farmers…to be carried across the whole of Europe (150).

It is however, worth noting that irrigation was not a unique discovery of the ancient Mesopotamia but was also practiced in China, India, Southeast Asia, and in the Americas where it similarly spread. So why then was it Europe that came to dominate the world politically, economically, and culturally? The advent of the animal drawn plow and the practice of fallowing (Mazouyer and Roudart 25).

These further increases in agricultural efficiency led to even larger increases in population. In just a century during the Middle Ages the European population tripled (Mazouyer and Roudart 25). These population explosions led to additional socio-cultural evolution and increased political complexity. With large populations and surpluses of food, large and complex political systems were required to manage resources and economies.

Eventually, technological and agricultural developments in Europe combined to create populations that could not be sustained on the resources of the region. This resource deficiency led to colonialism which established Western culture as the dominant culture in the world and created a social schism between Westerners and the rest of the world. Other cultures that stood in the way of the Western machine, whether they be hunter gatherers, pastoralists, small scale agriculturalists, or even major civilizations were forced to either conform or to be destroyed.

Today, further technological increases in agriculture, industrialization, and medicine have led to even more dramatic increases in population. Over the last century alone the world population has more than quadrupled from around 1.5 billion to nearly 7 billion (United States). While colonialism has technically come to an end, globalization is now the dominating force of the world. Globalization allows for goods, food, ideas, and culture to be shared around the world as if people living across oceans were neighbors. This results in a global economy and the homogenization of culture. People are given incentives to put their culture, language, and individual identity aside and to learn English and either grow crops that are of value in some first world country or labor to manufacture products of global worth.

Political System

Modern Western society is composed of a number of individual states which are interdependent of each other. These states vary minorly in individual characteristics such as financial systems, religions, and customs, but the forces of globalization require relative homogeneity.

While each individual state may have its own system of government. The Western world has a rough system in place that establishes control over the constituent states. Actual organizations, such as the United Nations and the World Trade Organization, exist which attempt to set rules and provide consequences for the violation of those rules. These organizations however, lack the power to truly enforce these rules as most states show more allegiance to their own interests than they do these global organizations. In lieu of a more formal global government, the majority of the political power on the global level is in the hands of the corporations and states which control vital resources. As the primary source of energy for the Western world, oil is a valuable resource that can be wielded by the countries that possess it to exert international power. Similarly, the production of food is being consolidated into the hands of a few powerful corporations. Multi-national companies like Monsanto are able to wield more and more power as they control increasing amounts of the market share of many of the world’s major food staples.

Economic System

The global economy of the Western world is a large, complex organism that operates beyond the control of individuals. Specialization has become a fixture in the global market as more and more people and countries specialize in producing one particular crop or product that will maximize their profits.

With agriculture being the main source of food in the world and agricultural practices becoming increasingly efficient, less and less people are directly responsible for producing their own food. This allows individuals to contribute to society in other areas such as the manufacturing of goods or in the service industry. For their labors they are compensated in the unit of currency used by their respective state, the value of which is rooted in the faith of the people rather than in material worth.

In Western society, generalized recipricocity is rarely practiced except perhaps among individuals on a small scale. While redistribution of wealth has historically been attempted in the Western world, it has been unsuccessful and is rarely practiced any longer. Rather it is the market principle of capitalism which dominates Western economies.

Social System

The majority of Western sub-cultures are patrileneal with the last name of the father being passed on to the son and the wife taking the last name of the husband. In historic European society, eldest sons were often the sole inheritors of their father’s possessions; this practice however, is no longer widespread.

The Western world has a roughly open-class social system where the main tool for achieving social mobility is money, though other factors are certainly present. While anyone of any race or sex can achieve social mobility given enough money, the opportunities to earn money are far from equal. It may be true that women and minorities aren’t as socially limited as they have been in the past, they are still very much limited by these historical prejudices. However, the greatest opposition in achieving money, and therefore social mobility, is lack of money. As an example, an individual born in a third world country has a nearly non-existent chance at earning the kind of money that would allow for social mobility, regardless of work ethic. On the other hand, someone born to a wealthy family in a first world country has an excellent chance of maintaining their wealth. In this regard, the wealth you are born into is the largest factor in achieving social mobility. The same is true of states; it is much easier for those with money and power to maintain it, such as most traditional Western states, than it is for third world countries to attain it. For many in this Western world the deck is stacked against them.

Religion

Westerners hold an anthropocentric worldview. This worldview finds its roots in the creation myth that is the basis for a family of traditional religions (called Abrahamic) that were widely popular in Europe for around fifteen hundred years. In this myth, an all knowing, all powerful god creates man and tells him, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth” (Holy Bible, Genesis 1.28)

Though the Western worldview finds its roots in this story, these religions have been gradually losing their influence since the Enlightenment due to the increasing influence of science. Though these religions are still practiced by a large portion of people, science has replaced these systems of belief as the ultimate explanation of reality.

One of the most significant elements of the religion of science is the belief in progress. Progress is the idea that more technology, more efficient agriculture, and better medicine all lead to a better world. This idea that socio-cultural evolution always yields positive results has been a widely held belief for thousands of years. Whereas historically Westerners believed their fate lay in the hands of a deity who created man in his image, they now believe that the laws of science alone govern their fate and through progress man can gain control.

Brody, Hugh. The Other Side of Eden: Hunters, Farmers, and the Shaping of the World. New York: North Point Press, 2001.

Gould, Stephen Jay, ed. The Book of Life: An Illustrated History of the Evolution of Life on Earth. Hong Kong: W. W. Norton & Company, 2001.

Holy Bible: A New American Standard Translation. La Habra: Lockman Foundation. 1995.

Mazoyer, Marcel, and Laurence Roudart. A History of World Agriculture: From the Neolithic Age to the Current Crisis. London: Earthscan, 2006.

Origins: History of the Universe. Jul. 2004. NOVA, Public Broadcasting Service. <http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/origins/universe.html>

Peters Golden, Holly. Culture Sketches: Case Studies in Anthropology. New York: McGraw Hill, 2006.

Renfrew, Colin. Archaeology and Language. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987.

United States. Census Bureau. Historical Estimates of World Population. 16 Oct. 2008. <http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/worldhis.html>