The Great Tree of Western Civilization

By chance I was recently introduced to the ideas of Oswald Spengler – a German intellectual of the early 20th century whose claim to fame is the two-volume work The Decline of the West. The essential idea of Spengler is that civilizations may be described similarly to organisms, which either thrive, survive, or stagnate and die.

Concurrent with this introduction to Spengler, I had been developing an analogy between the life of the West and the parts of a tree. When I encountered Spengler’s idea of the civilization as an organism, I realized the analogy may be more universal than I first thought. A healthy tree may mimic the life of the West, but an unhealthy tree may just as well serve as a bleak model for those civilizations that ultimately perished.

In this context, I put forward the following simple mental model for Western civilization. The life of the West has three primary phases: its birth, solidification, and spreading, which respectively correspond to a tree’s roots, trunk, and branches.

The Roots of the West

The tree of the West has two primary roots.

One root extends deep into the heart of ancient Greece, into the Homerian age and the pre-Greek cultures of the Myceneans. Christopher Dawson writes in his The Making of Europe (1932), “It is from the Greeks that we derive all that is most distinctive in Western as opposed to Oriental culture – our science and philosophy, our literature and art, our political thought and our conceptions of law and of free political institutions.”

The second root extends further southeast into the heart of Judaism and generally West Asia. While Christianity, which has defined the character of the West for nearly two thousand years, would eventually be recognized as a synthesis of Jewish spirituality and Greek philosophy, it was initially opposed to both its parents in certain aspects. The Jewish people were a first target of evangelization, which in itself creates a certain distance between early Christians and the Jewish people even if only along theological and political lines. On the other hand, the Hellenic influences in the region of the apostles were still strong. While many of the early Christians were well versed in Greek literature, Christians often defined themselves in opposition to the perceived worldly culture of Hellenism.

Smaller roots extend oppositely to the North and South. The northern root infuses the influence of the proto-European tribes of the various Germanic peoples, those of the eastern European steppes, and the Nordic peoples. A progressively smaller but significant offshoot of the Barbarian root reaches far across the tundra of modern day Russia toward Mongolia, representing the influence of the Huns on the European world. The southern root reaches to the vibrant culture of the Egyptians and further east into those of the pre-Islamic Arabs.

Many of the Eastern influences that became westernized – or nearly so – were of a spiritual nature. These include Manichaeism and Gnosticism that ultimately failed to displace the West’s Catholic spirituality and politics. If the Arians had won the day over the Catholics in the early centuries of Christianity, the West might look and feel quite more eastern than it does today, leading to a more homogenized European/Asian supercontinent. Although orthodoxy won the day, fragments of these ideologies continue to resurface throughout the West’s growth.

Dawson describes how modern Europe owes its political nature to the Roman Empire, its spiritual unity to Catholicism, and what he calls our intellectual culture to “Classical Tradition”, with all three factors serving as indispensable elements of European unity. He writes of this third factor, “Thus for nearly two thousand years Europe had been taught in the same school  and by the same masters, so that the schoolboy and undergraduate of the nineteenth century were still reading the same books and conforming their minds to the same standards as their Roman predecessors eighteen hundred years before.” This Classical Tradition of Dawson’s is what Hutchinson and Adler would rebrand half a century later as the “Great Conversation”, which motivated the development of the highly regarded Great Books of the Western World set.

Surprising to many, the last root of Western Civilization is from Islam. The cultural light of the world migrated from the Roman Empire to the new Islamic cultures, which reached their heights 9th and 10th centuries – some of the darkest times for the West. Christendom was during this time threatened gravely by invasions of the Saracens, Vikings, and Magyars. However, even on the cultural front, mainland Europe looked bleak compared to its Islamic neighbors, now spread across Spain, North Africa, and the Middle East. Dawson writes that Medieval Islamic Spain “was the richest and most populous region of Western Europe. Its cities, with their palaces and colleges and public baths, resembled the towns of the Roman Empire rather than the miserable groups of wooden hovels that were growing up in France and Germany under the shelter of an abbey or a feudal stronghold.” Dawson claims the West would not regain civilizational parity with its Islamic neighbors until the 13th century and only surpass it as late as the 15h century. Nevertheless, all the world now owes early Islamic culture for its contributions to mathematics (like the decimal system and Algebra from Al Khwarizmi), astronomy, philosophy (particularly to Avicenna), and the preservation of many works of Greek origin. Islam’s architectural and artistic influences are obvious around much of the Mediterranean cities to this day.

The Trunk of the West

The West’s trunk comprises the long span through the misnamed “dark ages” and the medieval age. The trunk emerges from the continental European soil sometime around its ascendancy in the culture of the Roman Empire.

A young sapling may encounter many dangers to its life in its early stages: drought, disease, high winds, and the subtle danger in undisciplined growth. There was no drought in the early sapliing of Christianity – that was solved by the blood of the martyrs. Disease – such as those the orthodox might call Gnosticism and Arianism – was healed by the Doctors of the early Church, such as the iron-willed Athanasius. The Romans shielded the high winds of invasions that might have stamped out Christianity in a new barbarian or eastern culture.

Lastly, there is the subtle, self-defeating growth of an organism that dies by its own mis-growth, like a snake growing so large it can only eat its tail. More directly to this analogy of trees, some trees grow so unwieldy and imbalanced that they uproot themselves with only the slightest breeze. This is a danger difficult to protect against by the inner genius of any system of beliefs. Politically, we might think of the U.S.S.R. under its system of Communism. On the philosophical level, many might accuse rationalism and skepticism as leading to their own death in Nietzscheism.  As any prolific grower of trees will know, a young sapling is especially prone to orienting itself toward the sun to its own detriment, and so the grower provides a rigid stake to discipline the young tree’s growth.

Likewise, it’s quite possible Christianity, reaching desperately to its “sun” (God), could’ve grown in ways only later found to be unhealthy. The extremes of the desert ascetics may have led to an isolated form of Christianity. Instead, the Roman Empire provided the stake to the young tree of Christianity. Rome instilled order, hierarchy, and concepts of law in Christianity to keep it from unraveling into a looser spirituality like those of many eastern cultures. In a time where communication was more fragmented, any spreading religion might quickly have devolved into a thousand variations, even if there was a will toward a single orthodoxy. To some degree, this did happen through the fragmentation of the early Christians into the orthodox group (Catholics and Orthodox), Nestorians, Monophysites, Arians, etc., but the first remained the majority even across large distances in and around the Roman Empire.  The various early Church councils, the organization of a singularly recognized early text – the Bible, and election of bishops all positioned Christianity to form a coherent and singular trunk. And, even as the stake that Rome supplied to early Christianity was later trampled under the feet of the barbarians, such as the Vandal King Genseric in 455 AD, the Christian sapling still stood.

Most simplistically, the “trunk” of Christianity is geographically on the European continent. The cultural reach of the Roman Empire acted to homogenize many barbarians and similar outlying groups into the Roman – and later Christian – bosom.

The “Dark Ages” might be considered the winter over which the tree of Christianity went relatively quiet. However, in reality this was a great period of solidification which laid the foundation for Christendom. Scholars such as the Cassiodorus would establish monasteries as the centers of preservation for both Christian and classical Greek works. The world owes Cassiodorus’ monastery at Vivarium and its influence great gratitude for the safekeeping and spreading these ancient works which very well could’ve been lost to history.

Also during this time of the Dark Ages, the cultural hegemony had long since left the West, while the Byzantine Empire in Eastern Europe led the culture of the continent and preserved much of the classical works of antiquity.

At the turn of the millennium, the great tree of the West split into two vigorous branches. Political and theological pressures sundered Europe into an East and West that persists in religion and culture to this day. The one, universal Church was now sundered into two: that of the of Catholic West and the Orthodox East.

Through the Medieval period, and most acutely during times such as the Carolingian renaissance, the great branches of the Catholic West and Orthodox East would explode in growth and power. The many kingdoms throughout Europe developed a romantic Medieval culture, imbued with the ideals of chivalry and noble adventures, that would forever inspire art in all its forms.

The Protestant Reformation, led by the ideas of Luther, Zwingli, and Calvin caused another great branching in the tree of Christianity, one orthogonal to both Orthodox and Catholic faiths. This period was one of great turmoil, and to some degree threatened the health of Christianity itself, as violence erupted over central Europe.

The tree of Christianity survived and still thrived through this new branch called Protestantism, while the Renaissance introduced the roots of rationalism established by Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz,  and empiricism established by Hobbes, Locke, Berkley, and Hume. Both rationalism and empiricism dethroned theology as the queen of the sciences, ultimately curbing the growth of Christianity. In the 1900s, Nietzscheism and modern skepticism would declare God as dead, marking the beginning of the decline of Christianity in the West – a period in which we still persist.

The Branches of the West

While the trunk of the Western tree represents a period of ascendancy and solidification of identity, the West’s expansion might evoke images of a tree’s many branches. This expansion of the West occurs through several means, including Christian evangelization, trade, and political colonialism.

From the largest branch called Catholicism extended the first growths of smaller branches beyond the confines of Europe and the Mediterranean. The Orthodox world expanded northwards rapidly, as its influence to the west was checked by Catholicism, and its influence east hemmed by Islam. However, prior to Islam, early branches of Christianity would extend all the way to Kerala, India in 52 A.D by the alleged evangelization of St. Thomas.

The concentration of Christianity and its intersection with the seafaring technologies of the Renaissance led to an outward pressure of culture from the West. Wealth and Christianity motivated exploration, while the development of better navigation tools made long voyages across the open ocean possible.

Spain, Portugal, and France led the the first branches toward the New World. Columbus famously brought his Christianity with him to Hispania and the Americas. This period of exploration would mark the third great period for the West, that of influence far beyond Eurasia.

The Spanish, Portuguese, and French brought their Catholic faith to the natives of the Americas. Catholicism and continued trade led to the westernization of the natives in South and Central America, leading to the Westernized cultures of South America today.

North America would become more westernized largely due to the English colonies founded on the continent’s east coast. The Pilgrims brought their Protestant faith to the native Americans, some of whom had already embraced Catholicism from French and Spanish influences. Horses, hogs, and gunpowder were introduced to the New World for the first time.

The Westernization of the world did not stop at the boundaries of India and the Americas, however. Though India in some ways famously rejected the West through the peaceful protests of Mahatma Ghandi, India emerged much more westernized after British colonialism, ultimately benefiting under its educational and technological influences.  Even more recently, Japan embraced Westernization in the aftermath of World War II. South Korea would follow suit after its civil war split historic Korea into communist (North) and capitalist (South) states.

China, though now considered a power that contrasts the West’s hegemony, has also embraced Western elements through trade, namely its modes of industrialization and pseudo-capitalist economy.

Thus, we find that the branches of the West have, in some way or another, stretched to the farthest corners of the Earth. No culture has influenced the broader world so much as that culture that was birthed by toga-wearing Greek philosophers and scrutinous Rabbis.

The Tree of the West’s Fate

Now we find ourselves past the height of the West, and many now melancholically conclude that the West is dying. In the Spenglerian spirit, the West is but another organism that will eventually meet its end. On the other hand, while the West appears threatened to its core by an undercutting of its religious vitality and sense of meaning, the world itself is at a crossroads. Globalism, a dirty word to many and myself, may be inevitable. The West still stands as a major player in global affairs, and may yet define the super-culture of the future, the world-culture.

The great tree of the West must at this point decide whether to die at the hands of its modern self-defeating philosophies or to remember – as in a distant memory – its source of life and vitality that made it stretch out and touch the four corners of the world. Only by this latter mode will the Western tree grow again.