By Dr. Bruce Smith ——Bio and Archives--February 21, 2023
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The earliest features of Western Civilization derived from the Bible and from great civilizations of the past. That heritage delivered an age of faith crowned by the great gothic cathedrals of Europe of the 12th and 13th Centuries. In the middle of the Fourteenth Century, however, the arrival of the Plague in southern Europe shook the foundations of Western Civilization. Over the 150 year period that followed, the population of Europe declined by a third or more. The Catholic Church, at the peak of power and prestige after 1000 years of growth was severely weakened, and the Medieval social order was largely destroyed. Over the course of just a few years as it spread northward from Mediterranean port cities, the old ways of understanding how the world worked fell apart.
The Catholic Church had been weakened, but its former strength lived on in memory and tradition. This residual strength clashed with a growing secular and business-based power in cities all across Europe. A commercial economy took root in the Renaissance, spreading over the Western world. If the Church could no longer dictate or control thinking on every subject, it still had its say. Out of this epic clash of minds came the next phase of Western Civilization. Scholars call it The Enlightenment, or the Age of Reason.
After the Age of Faith came the Age of Reason, they say. But just as there was plenty of reasoning going on in the Age of Faith, so there was plenty of faith about in the Age of Reason. Neither excludes the other, but sources of funding may change. Out of the Age of Faith came Augustine’s reasoning about human freedom and faith. When secular scholars looked back to the Romans and Greeks, Church scholars could look back to Paul and the Gospels and also to Augustine. They weren’t starting from scratch. Humans could look to faith but also look to science to establish new knowledge. No longer was it a given that governance was a church function.
Secular states emerged and grew, inventing their own rules along the way. What, in fact, was a proper government? What made government legitimate? From the Classical era there was Greek democracy and government by the people or their representatives, but how and where was it possible to create a new government by the people? Established governments would not just hand over power. More thinking and better understanding of the forces at work would be needed. What of human nature? How did that fit into the picture?
Among the greatest philosophers of freedom was Adam Smith, the Scottish political economist who explained, using a great many words and complex sentences, that free people pursuing their own selfish interests produced a far better result than rulers who thought they knew better than everyone else. Smith unleashed the force of freedom just as the Industrial Revolution began to unleash a magnified productivity. That happy combination boosted the economies and people of the West to such an extent that no contrived system has ever been able to match it.
So one of the major themes of Western Civilization from the new era was human freedom and its manifestations. Freedom of thought and freedom of religion became rallying cries for people denied both. Freedom to own property came to be based on the right to one’s own person. Enlightenment thinkers used these ideas to end centuries of slavery and the slave trade. Freedom and liberation went hand in hand. It was another shining moment in Western Civilization.
Enlightenment thinking led to political experiments in the West. The Enlightenment ideas of constitutionalism, limited power, representative government, and God-given rights developed in the British Isles and beyond, in the Empire. When the moment came to create a new government in the New World, where an old government had been defeated and expelled, Enlightenment thinkers like Franklin, Jefferson, and Madison were ready to meet the challenge.
There were other experiments, however. In France, discontent with bloated secular power brought a different kind of revolution. In the French Revolution we learned that democracy wasn’t the solution to every problem. Giving “reason” free rein allowed those who seized power to do as they wished and create a new dystopian world. The old lessons of the sanctity of life, of the rule of law applied equally to all, and even to government by the people, ignored in the bloodbath of the Terror, shocked even those who had supported the overthrow of the Bourbon monarchy. There had to be limits.
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So the excesses and failures of the French Revolution instructed us, too.
The West has come so far, but wisdom hard won cannot be taken for granted. There are always the dangers of excess and of arrogance. Human nature can be directed into productive channels, but it must be kept there.
We have seen warning signs before. Do any of these sound familiar?
Have we come full circle now with science seen by some as a way to control people rather than liberate them and extend their lives?
Have we observed rulers flaunting the rules of self-government, insisting that they know best and the rest of us must bow to their intentions and obey them?
Do we know some in power who set rules for others but refuse to follow them themselves?
What put us in the situation where we must beg permission from unproductive people before productive people can work?
What happens when governments cannot allow individuals the leeway to act on their own behalf?
What happens when parents cannot be trusted to participate in or direct the education of their own children?
What has happened when the faithful can be prevented from practicing their faiths even in countries where religious freedom had been guaranteed?
There are those today who sniff at the lessons and strengths of Western Civilization. They offer nothing but nihilism and destruction. There is a better way that has brought us this far. Turning our backs on this heritage would be the height of arrogance and folly.
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Dr. Bruce Smith (Inkwell, Hearth and Plow) is a retired professor of history and a lifelong observer of politics and world events. He holds degrees from Indiana University and the University of Notre Dame. In addition to writing, he works as a caretaker and handyman. His non-fiction book The War Comes to Plum Street, about daily life in the 1930s and during World War II, may be ordered from Indiana University Press.