Western-centrism is a product of the development of world history, and it has a deep civilizational foundation as a modern trend of thought. Ancient Greek philosophy created the earliest mode of thinking of Western civilization, influenced by metaphysical thought, and political thought under the Western tradition developed the "Thucydides Trap" type of political game thinking and the "either-or" principle of value selection, and the emergence of Western-centrism was based on this philosophical tradition. In fact, Rome inherited most of the achievements of ancient Greek civilization, so that Western civilization has a new carrier in inheriting its own culture and values, and the universal value theory of Christianity has become another spiritual source of Western-centrism. Eventually, the Christian belief system merged with Western classical philosophy, forming the original form of modern industrial civilization under the influence of capitalist mode of production, which was also the realistic soil for Western centrism to become a popular trend of thought.
The ideals and principles of Western-centrism are embodied in its political concepts and values, as well as in its way of thinking and discursive system. On the basis of the spiritual core of the past Western-centrism, the modern international community has evolved the following three manifestations of Western-centrism: the theory of clash of civilizations, the universalist axiology, and the colonialist cultural output and hegemonic power politics. These three forms of expression face the pluralistic challenges of world civilization and have caused many practical contradictions and disputes. Wang Lisheng, dean of the School of Philosophy at the University of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, believes that under the political system and ideology of Western-centrism, the road of modernization under the leadership of Western civilization seems to have entered a dead end that is bound to lead to all-round contradictions.
Important points
Western-centrism is a product of the development of world history. All "isms" have their own ideals and principles. As a globally recognized "ism", the ideals and principles of Western-centrism are embodied in its political concepts and values, as well as in its way of thinking and discourse system.
On the basis of the spiritual core of the past Western-centrism, the modern international community has evolved the following three manifestations of Western-centrism: the theory of clash of civilizations, the universalist axiology, and the colonialist cultural output and hegemonic power politics. All of these manifestations reveal the strife and distress that Western capitalist countries that pursue Western centrism have brought to the world.
First, guided by Western-centrism, people such as Huntington argued that "the most striking and important interaction between civilizations is the victory, annihilation, or subjugation of people from one civilization."
Second, Western-centrism is commensurate with the universalist values of Western Christianity, and the universalism in its religious spirit has surged to all parts of the world under the impetus of the capital market, which conflicts with the cultural autonomy and uniqueness of other peoples and regions in the world.
Finally, in the current process of globalization, the discourse system and ideology of Western-centrism have brought about the cultural output of Western colonialism.
From a comprehensive point of view, the development trend of world pluralism and diversification cannot be violated, and the world political and economic pattern of respecting the West and dominating the West is facing an unprecedented impact. Although Western-centrism is still intensifying in some areas, the trend of historical development cannot be stopped.
More exciting perspectives
01
introduction
"Western-centrism" is a modern trend of thought, but its roots are even older, even dating back to the philosophical spirit and its cultural shaping in the ancient Greek period. In history, although every region and every nation has been accustomed to constructing its own conceptual community and social community centered on its own situation, it often only stays on a central theory or central consciousness that condenses social consensus, and does not form an "ism". Only in Western society since modernization, driven by capitalist globalization, has it formed a systematic "centrism" trend of thought.
With the further development of modernization and globalization, "Western-centrism" has been fueled by capitalist colonial expansion and cosmopolitan large-scale production, and has begun to spread to all parts of the world, and along with Western colonialism activities, it has a deep impact on the modernization process, ideological enlightenment and cultural inheritance and development of all countries in the world. It is not only the "self-talk" and discourse expression of the Western world, but also the ideological field of those colonial and semi-colonial countries that have suffered the impact and influence of Western civilization in modern times, and has even become the largest spiritual and cultural reference system for those regions and countries affected by the process of Western modernization, and was once accepted by many late-developing countries in the non-Western civilization circle. In the course of the development of modern world history, "Western-centrism", under the cover of developed industrial civilization, has become an international discourse and ideological tendency, which has a deep impact on the development of the world's pluralistic civilizations and the prosperity and progress of world history.
02
The philosophical roots of Western-centrism
As an ideology and ideological concept, Western-centrism does not appear out of thin air, but contains a deep ideological foundation and a unique historical source. To understand Western-centrism, we must first understand the formation mechanism of Western ideology and the deep mechanism of Western spirit, that is, to understand the spiritual core of Western philosophy.
The roots of Western civilization are in ancient Greece, and its philosophical tradition has created the earliest mode of thinking of Western civilization. Thinkers represented by Plato, Aristotle and others have pioneered the metaphysical tradition of Western civilization, the greatest feature of which is the methodological formal logic and epistemological ontological presuppositions. Although metaphysics does not directly produce centrist thought, the metaphysical way of thinking is accustomed to leading everything to an abstract, supreme deterministic existence, and thus to promote a mode of thinking and framework of thought suitable for the formation of centrism in the field of consciousness. For example, in Plato's view, the metaphysical world of ideas is a synthesis of norms, categories, and concepts, with the existence of a rational, complete world governed by the principle of "goodness", seeing "goodness" as the "sun" of the knowable world as "the creator of the visibility of all visible things"; Aristotle's view of reality is the concentrated expression of his metaphysics, in which "substance, in the strictest, most primitive, and fundamental sense, is something that neither describes a subject nor depends on a subject." It is primordial in all senses, and no other category can exist independently of it. Both Plato and Aristotle were the founders of the later Western metaphysical mode of thought, and their common feature is that they regard a certain highest form of abstract existence as the beginning of all things, which is the philosophical representation of Logoscentrism.
In the Middle Ages, Thomas Aquinas and others further combined metaphysical thinking with Christian theology, pointing out that "the primary being is the principle of other beings", thus pushing the meaning of the pursuit of "center" in this metaphysical thought to the extreme. Under the contemplation of metaphysics, Western culture has a very strong either-or characteristic, its antagonism can be seen everywhere, and the pursuit of the "origin" of the world such as atoms and matrices has deeply implanted in their concepts a kind of attachment to the "center" of certainty, that is, everything comes from a central origin that is constantly expanding and diverging outwards, and everything is only the center and origin of this certainty. Metaphysics persistently pursues the inevitable interpretation of laws, destinies, scales, etc., pursues the essential arguments of thought and the world, which complements logocentrism and faces everything in the world in a lawgiver's authoritative manner and posture.
Influenced by metaphysical thought, political thought in the Western tradition has developed a "Thucydides Trap" style of political game thinking and an "either-or" value choice principle. Especially after the West took the lead in opening up the road of capitalist modernization on a global scale, the developed capitalist countries in the West, with the blessing of superior economic and military strength, opened up a world historical process of excessive respect for the universal values they believed in. Specifically, the "identity" of its Western-style civilization rejects the "differences" of other countries, regions and civilizations in the world; the "center" and "self" identified by its metaphysics and religious doctrines exclude other civilizations, and regard civilizations outside the West as "non-central" and "other". In this way, a value concept of freedom, democracy, etc., within the framework of Western-style liberalism and evangelical doctrine, is exported to the maximum. They are eager to construct a value system and conceptual system based on Western-style modernization, in which they seek the universal meaning of existence in human society, in a vain attempt to shape a homogeneous world centered on universal values, and regard this system as the noblest and unquestionable core norm of mankind. For example, Huntington argues that "of all civilizations, only Western civilization has had an excessively significant and sometimes overwhelming influence on other civilizations." This is a typical representative concept of the "centrists" of Western civilization.
In accordance with the Western metaphysical tradition and the gospel spirit of Christian universalism, Western civilization has continuously exported the "fruits" of its own civilization in the pursuit of absolute truth and the flaunting of absolute standards. In the process, their intellectual traditions, forms of consciousness, and values continue to spread to all regions of the world in the form of imposition or implantation. However, this pursuit of "identity" ultimately brings not a fairytale harmonious and complete world, but on the contrary, it is wrapped up in Western colonialism and hegemonism, constantly creating turmoil, contradictions and conflicts around the world. This centrist scheme of the Western world has indiscriminately "dumped its own civilization into the immense destructive forces of constant division and revival, struggle and contradiction, ambiguity and extreme suffering."
03
The historical origin of Western-centrism
In ancient Greece, the starting point of the promotion of truth and the desire for knowledge, the wise men created the deepest centrism and solipsism of Western civilization. As Gilbert and Kuhn put it, all the ancient Greek philosophers did was "an attempt to attain a higher position in the realm of human activity, the position of ruler." This is true of individuals, as is the relationship between city-states and neighboring countries. The Greek political orator Isocrates told the ruler Philip that "persuasion can be used for the Greeks and coercion can be used for the barbarians." His lifelong struggle to build a unified "Greek Empire" has also set off many political waves of "pan-Hellenism". The essence of the "Greek Empire" lies in internal democracy and external colonization, which is the spiritual prototype and political template of the colonialism of the European empire in the future. Aristotle, one of the greatest philosophers of ancient Greece, taught his student Alexander the Great in the same way, proposing arguably the earliest Greek-centered "centrist" political discourse. Aristotle pointed out: "The people of the cold regions are generally full of spirit and enthusiasm, especially in the peoples of Europa, but most of them are clumsy and lack understanding; they can thus maintain their freedom for a long time without cultivating the virtue of governing others, so that their political merits are always not enough." The people of Asia Minor were mostly clever and understanding, but mentally weak. Only the Greek surnames, geographically between two continents, possess both qualities in their disposition. They are both zealous and rational; they are spiritually strong, so they can always be free, and they are highly developed in politics; if the various castes can be unified within a single form of government, they can rule over all the other peoples of the world. ”
Although the consciousness and spiritual germination of Western centrism had emerged in ancient Greece, neither the great city-state of Athens nor the short-lived imperial Macedonia ultimately succeeded in shaping a large political community that lasted and had far-reaching implications. This means that although western civilization in the ancient Greek period harbored centrist ideological illusions, it did not yet have the socio-historical basis for worldwide transmission, and its broader civilizational influence was greatly limited by geography at least before Rome, which did not change qualitatively until the establishment of the Roman Empire. Although Rome was regarded as a "barbarian" for a long time, it actually inherited most of the achievements of ancient Greek civilization, which gave Western civilization a new carrier in inheriting its own culture and values. In fact, "the Roman Empire, like the Greek city-states, in its own way, had a considerable sense of superiority and a gift towards the world beyond its borders." The real beginning of the worldwide influence of Western civilization was Rome, which created a vast empire centered on the Mediterranean Sea, spanning Europe, Asia and Africa, with extraordinary political influence. This also means that Western-centrism has a realistic physical space and a rich objective material basis. In the time of Diocletian, the Roman Empire, as the de facto carrier of Western civilization, began to formally accept the religious doctrines of Christianity, and thus, under the combined force of ancient Greek metaphysics and the missionary spirit of Christian universalism in Rome, Western-centrism had theoretical legitimacy in religious beliefs at the broadest social level.
Since then, on the one hand, the missionaries have begun their missionary activities with universal ideals, centered on the Holy See. On the other hand, the integration of the Christian belief system and Western classical philosophy has produced a large number of famous theological thinkers such as Augustine and Aquinas, who have taken ancient Greek philosophy as the source of thought, and through rational arguments, have made religious beliefs in the secular worldly blessings of rationality, greatly deepening the deep influence of religious spirit on Western civilization, not only initiating the development of Western civilization in later generations, but also officially opening the historical precedent for Western civilization to go to the world and promote its own universalist values. And thus touted the value assumptions of Western-centrism. With the ripening of ideological and material conditions, the Western-centrist concept of superstructure guided the actual political practice of colonialism and further derived a larger colonial expansion. For example, the crusades that held high the banner of missionary Christianity in the Middle Ages were essentially self-centered colonial plunder by European powers. As the famous American political theorist Russell Kirk pointed out, "Through both religious and secular forms, the Jewish understanding of the covenant and the law spread throughout the Western civilized world, and later to some extent to the whole world."
After a long period of medieval theocracy, Western civilization finally formed the original form of modern industrial civilization under the influence of capitalist mode of production, and completed the secularization reform in the modern sense. However, whether it is the Renaissance, the Reformation or the Enlightenment after that, modern Western civilization fundamentally continues the rationalist core of classical metaphysics and the doctrinal spirit of Christian absolute monotheism, and further strengthens the conceptual consciousness of mainstream Western society to pursue "oneness" and oppose "pluralism". In the context of the socialized large-scale production of the industrial revolution, under the logic of capitalist colonization and exploitation, the Western-centrist mode of thinking has been further consolidated and developed, which has been combined with the ideology and value system of capitalism to form a unique global discourse system of "West-oriented" and "West-oriented", creating a distorted historical narrative model firmly based on the material foundation of capitalism and the military foundation of capital power. In this process, Western capitalism, as the main driver of the process of globalization, has become the best winner who "represents" the progress of human civilization under the cover of Western-centrist ideology. This has also brought the sense of superiority of all western peoples to an unprecedented historical height.
Under the influence of capitalism, the consequence of Western centrism is the expansion of capital and the colonization of the western capitalist powers on a global scale. In modern times, in Africa, Australia, North and South America and many parts of Asia, Western colonists can be seen everywhere, colonists wanton plundering of colonial resources, the criminal slave trade, especially the extermination of some indigenous tribes, which confirms marx's statement in Capital: "Capital comes to the world, from head to toe, every pore is dripping with blood and dirty things." In contrast, more and more well-known scholars in the West have begun to openly flaunt the progressiveness, superiority and centrality of Western civilization, such as the French scholar Condorcet's "Outline of the History of the Progress of the Human Spirit" and the European "Father of the Novel" Daniel Defoe's "The Political History of the Devil", which are typical masterpieces of such ideas; and such as the humanist Boudin and the great writer Shakespeare are also typical representatives of the superiority of European culture.
Since the 20th century, the Western-centric view of history of Weber, Jaspers and others has become popular, while the American historian William McNeil's "The Rise of the West - A History of the Human Community" and the British economist Eric Jones's "The Miracle of Europe" are all representative works based on Western-centrism. As far as other regions outside the West are concerned, the vast majority of non-Western countries, in the process of pursuing their own national independence and national liberation in modern times, once put forward the world's developed civilization concept in the West based on social and historical conditions and other reasons. For example, the famous Japanese philosopher Fukuzawa Yukichi once said: "The civilization situation in the modern world should be based on the European countries and the United States as the most civilized countries, Turkey, China, Japan and other Asian countries as semi-civilized countries, and the African and Australian countries can be regarded as barbaric countries." Although some Western historians, such as Toynbee and others, have put forward historical concepts against Western or Eurocentrism, to this day, historians have not been able to fundamentally avoid the "Western-centrism" argument. This is ultimately manifested in the fact that in the past five hundred years, in the worldwide perception of the development of modernization, modernization is almost equivalent to Westernization, which firmly consolidates and strengthens the discourse power of Western-centrism.
After World War II, the United States became the spokesman of the Western world, and Western-centrism increasingly showed consensus and generalization within the capitalist powers, and further exported its values to the world. Under the discourse narrative of Western-centrism, the world's sovereign states can be attributed to the inevitable consequences of not following Western values and rules as long as there are signs of political turmoil, economic backwardness, and cultural instability. For example, major post-war international historical events such as the drastic changes in Eastern Europe, the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the oil crisis are all regarded as inevitable consequences of opposing the liberal economy and democratic politics of Western capitalism. Under this circumstance, the "final conclusion of history" of Fukuyama and others gained a great discursive market, the development model of the West was deified, the development process of countries and civilizations in other regions was forcefully interrupted and denigrated, and the development of modernization was described as a Western-style modernization with universal applicability.
04
The modern form of Western-centrism and its ills
Western-centrism is a product of the development of world history. All "isms" have their own ideals and principles. As a globally recognized "ism", the ideals and principles of Western-centrism are embodied in its political concepts and values, as well as in its way of thinking and discourse system. On the basis of the spiritual core of the past Western-centrism, the modern international community has evolved the following three manifestations of Western-centrism: the theory of clash of civilizations, the universalist axiology, and the colonialist cultural output and hegemonic power politics. All of these manifestations reveal the strife and distress that Western capitalist countries that pursue Western centrism have brought to the world.
First, guided by Western-centrism, people such as Huntington argued that "the most striking and important interaction between civilizations is the victory, annihilation, or subjugation of people from one civilization." This view of the "clash of civilizations" related to the "centrism" of civilization is not unique, and even in the wave of globalization led by Western civilization, the conflict between the world's major civilizations and the stable construction of the world order are generally considered to have a natural contradictory relationship, which is the long-standing "either-or" mode of thinking of Western civilization. Especially as other civilizations developed, discussions similar to the Thucydides Trap were heard in the Western world. In the view of the western traditional civilizationists, if before human beings entered industrial civilization, the conflict between civilizations was still limited by regionality and did not extend to a global scope, then in the 21st century, when industrial globalization and capital globalization are entered, the exchange and collision between civilizations will be more and more expanded into a generalized event on a global scale. In addition to regional contradictions, due to the frequent political, economic, cultural, social, ecological and other aspects of the world brought about by globalization, the focus of the infinite reverie given to the "clash of civilizations" is concentrated between Eastern civilization and Western civilization in a broad sense, and more specifically, between Chinese civilization and Western civilization. Even after industrial civilization, both the East and the West have shown a common pursuit of reality, but it is still impossible to hide the huge differences in traditional value perceptions between the Eastern and Western civilizations. In addition to the conflict between the socialist system upheld by China and the capitalist system upheld by the Western world, the deeper collision also exists between the cultural roots of Chinese civilization and the traditional consciousness of Western civilization. Based on this, the relationship between Western civilization and Chinese civilization has been interpreted by many people with ulterior motives as a worldwide confrontational relationship, and the contradictions and conflicts in various regions have also been understood as regional clashes of civilizations.
Second, Western-centrism is commensurate with the universalist values of Western Christianity, and the universalism in its religious spirit has surged to all parts of the world under the impetus of the capital market, which conflicts with the cultural autonomy and uniqueness of other peoples and regions in the world. The idea of Western centrism itself derives from a universalist value choice, the belief that a world economic and political system that is in fact dominated by the "most correct and excellent" Western civilization is better than the whole of human history developed and eventually pieced together by other civilizations. This concept is deeply rooted in Western civilization's own system of development, especially in its religious traditions, and is further integrated with market-oriented economies and secular politics in today's globalized world. Today, Western civilization is still under the radiation of Christian civilization in a broad sense (Protestantism is widespread in britain, the United States and northern Europe, Catholicism is mainly distributed in southern Europe and Latin America, and Orthodoxy is mainly distributed in Eastern European countries). Especially after the establishment of Protestantism, the capitalist free market and Christianity have produced a deep combination of ethical values, and the centrist value concept and universalist spiritual tradition of Western civilization have continued to spread under the leadership of capitalist colonial expansion and industrial globalization production, which has further promoted the continuous development of the political, economic, social and other aspects of Western civilization towards "Western centrism". In the mainstream ideology of the Western world, the world outside the West has never been regarded as homogeneous with itself, and it often emphasizes the advanced and unique nature of Western civilization itself in the name of universalism, and then equates Western civilization with modern civilization, and uses the advanced nature of modern civilization to compensate for the universality in its religious doctrines, and then extends to its institutional field and top-level design, believing that the Western political system and economic system are universal options that are universal and universal, and at the same time have the most universal superiority. One of the most representative is the Western strategy of democracy. Western-style democracy has become an important political concept and institutional form exported by the West, and with the support of their democratic strategy, many countries and regions in North Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia have staged coups, and the Western capitalist countries led by the United States have given full play to the "superior conditions" of their "long-arm jurisdiction" to implement "democratic assistance" to Ukraine, Georgia, Afghanistan, Yemen, Turkey, Iraq, Egypt, Libya, Honduras and other countries, some of which are cultivating their political agents under the banner of democracy. Others simply foster a military junta in order to implement separatism and do whatever it takes to establish a political system called liberal democracy. The root cause is the actual manifestation and disguised political means of Western centrists who are fascinated by their tradition of religious universalist values.
Finally, in the current process of globalization, the discourse system and ideology of Western-centrism have brought about the cultural output of Western colonialism. The colonial expansion movements of the West in modern times have had a wide impact all over the world, and the colonies of the Western capitalist powers are spread all over the world, and some regions still exist as colonies and vassals of the West even today. In the great wave of decolonization and national liberation movements around the world in the 20th century, some countries, although formally independent and sovereign, were still physically subject to the West. Especially in terms of the mainstream ideology of the country, the West, with its traditional cultural export strategy, still occupies the ideological dominance of many decolonized areas. In fact, this also constitutes a core content of Western-centrism, that is, cultural colonization of the culture and ideology of non-Western countries and regions, and then feeds back and consolidates its own ideological authority with the Western-centrist identity of non-Western regions. Its main purpose is to support its cultural hegemony through its economic hegemony and political hegemony, and in turn to consolidate its economic hegemony and political hegemony's legitimacy. In other words, the trend of Western-centrism has been expressed in a certain sense as the cultural strategy of Western colonialism, which is bound to have a wide impact on those colonized areas that have awakened, and in those areas where the traditional culture is relatively deep, this soft power invasion of colonialism is bound to encounter regional cultural rebound and resistance, and then continue to intensify regional contradictions. At the same time, this is also manifested in the contradiction between Western unilateralism and hegemonic power politics under capitalist globalization and multilateralism and peaceful development among all countries in the world. "Western-centrism" represents and maintains the overall interests of Western capital groups with the Western capitalist system as the core, and at the same time constitutes the ideological basis of the power politics of its hegemonic system. Under this centralism of political systems and ideologies, the path of modernization under the leadership of Western civilization seems to have reached a dead end that is bound to lead to all-round contradictions.
From a comprehensive point of view, the development trend of world pluralism and diversification cannot be violated, and the world political and economic pattern of respecting the West and dominating the West is facing an unprecedented impact. Although Western-centrism is still intensifying in some areas, the trend of historical development cannot be stopped. With the continuous development of countries around the world, more late-developing countries continue to join the road of peaceful development in search of their own independence. Advocating pluralism, opposing unity, advocating multilateralism, opposing unilateralism, advocating common values, opposing universal values, and so on, are all worldwide social consensus that Western centrists have to face. In contrast, the CPC's promotion of building a community with a shared future for mankind has undoubtedly contributed Chinese wisdom, Chinese solutions and Chinese strength to solving major human problems and building a world of lasting peace, universal security, common prosperity, openness, inclusiveness, cleanliness and beauty, and has become an important force in promoting human development and progress.
(This article is a phased result of the major project of the Horse Project of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences "Research on the Original Contribution of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics in the New Era to Marxist Philosophy", project number: 2021mgczd06)
Article source: Academic Frontiers Magazine January 2022 (WeChat has abridged)
Author: Wang Lisheng, Dean of the School of Philosophy, University of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
Editor-in-charge of the original text: Zhao Xinyang
Editor-in-charge of new media: Jia Xiaofen
Vision: Wang Yang
(Image from the Internet)