Boundaries of Western Civilization?

[Adamek]

Samuel Huntington had a few things to say about this in his “Clash of civlizations”. And, of course, there was Plato with his “Republic” and his dialogues. And there were a few fellows in between. They all had some vague ideas about both, the concept of democracy and the idea of Western Civilization.

And to the folks who claim that there is no such thing as “Western civilization”, I suggest that using their logic, one could conclude that there is no such thing as “is”, not to mention the concept of “there”.

 

[AlNg]

Do you think Orthodox Slavic countries and South America are a part of Western Civilization?

Partly, yes. But it is not the same. For example, both Croatia and Serbia are slavic countries. Both trace their history to the 7th- century southwards migration of Slavs. Their language has been called the Serbo-Croat language by many linguists who say that any difference between the two languages is not that they are two different languages, but they are two dialects of the same language - something like Canadian French and Parisian French or American English and British English. But they have been bitter enemies. So what is the major difference between Croatia and Serbia. It is that one is Roman Catholic while the other is Eastern Orthodox. Croatians brutally massacred Serbs in WWII and in 1992 with the breakup of Yugoslavia, the Serbs returned the favor. So can the Croatian Serbian border be thought of as a boundary of western civilization? Probably more as a boundary due to religious differences. In Ukraine there is a similar problem. the ukrainian Greek Catholics do not want alliance with Russia and there is even a mural in a Catholic Church depicting Putin burning in hell. Whereas in the Eastern ukraine, there is alliance with Moscow and the Russian Orthodox church. So there is a war between the western Catholic part of Ukraine and the eastern Russian Orthodox part.

 

[BlueKumul]

Political relations are not set in stone. 40 years ago, Croatia and Serbia or Russia and Ukraine were united in one state. We don’t know what happens to Russia after Putin’s death. Will people like Navalny take over? Or fascists/neoreactionaries?

 

[BartholomewB]

but they are two dialects of the same language - something like Canadian French and Parisian French or American English and British English

I think they’re much closer than that. Croatian is written in the Roman alphabet and Serbian in Cyrillic, but I was told that in speech they’re almost identical. There are one or two words that are different (along the lines of American “pants” and British “trousers”) but there is no recognizable difference in accent or pronunciation.