Western civilization originated in the Mediterranean, a hybrid civilization that consisted mainly of a fusion of seafaring commerce (the coastal areas of early Greece) and fishing and hunting cultures (western and northern Europe). Western civilization first took ancient Greece and Rome as the matrix, and in the Middle Ages, Christianity as the carrier, and finally unified all of Europe. In modern times, Western civilization has expanded overseas to the Americas, Oceania, and even the world. At present, the United Kingdom and the United States are its typical representatives.
Specific geographical conditions, production methods, and historical origins have created Western civilization to have a special love for the wild spirit represented by lions.
First, the language expression of western lion and beast civilization
(Special note: All english meanings in this article are taken from The New Oxford Dictionary of English, 1998)
1, Western civilization advocates Nature (that is, nature), pursues naturalism, and believes that human beings should obey the "laws of nature". However, most people will not notice that the English word Nature actually has two meanings: one is the true "nature"; the other is "the original state of all things" (The Latin Natura means 'born, natural'), which mainly refers to "the nature of man and animal". Western culture mainly promotes the latter, which is the top priority of understanding Western civilization!
Western civilization believes that man and animal are in the same original primitive state: barbaric and unrestrained, but this is their nature and nature; and this nature is not only indelible, but should also be cherished. The English word in a state of nature, both for "state of nature" and "naked". Since Western civilization accepts the "state of nature", it also recognizes the behavior of "naked". The nudity that often occurs in sports competitions in ancient Greco-Roman drama opera performances is a natural "nature" revealed in the eyes of Western culture.
As for the so-called "state of nature", the "social contract theorists" (such as Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau) emphasized the use of "contract" to regulate the interests and rights of the state and individuals, and they did not limit the meaning of "human nature" in the slightest.
Thus, Naturism (literally: natureism in English; 'naked running' in Chinese) is an expression of "nature" in the West, with no pathological connotations. For example, one day in March 2010, despite the cold weather, in response to the call of the American photographer Tunick, in the square in front of the Sydney Opera House in Australia, as many as 5200 men, women and children appeared naked, spending more than an hour, posing in a variety of shapes, leaving a "natural reunion photo" with the unique mark of Western civilization. According to the photographer's recollection, it only needed more than 2,000 people, but the actual number of people doubled, which was very touching to him.
Nature is not just "naked", but also wild, which Western civilization also appreciates. The appreciation of "the noble savage" in Western literature and art is said to be "a rebellion against the decaying influence of civilized society on human nature", and in essence it is also an admiration for the primitive wildness. The English word Wild West (literally: Wild West) refers to the "early American West", which has long been one of the characteristic American cultures and classic themes of Hollywood movies; its core symbols are: the ubiquitous gunfight, the lawless cowboy.
There are many similar examples, such as the English word the nature of the beast, which means "nature". Here, Western culture directly shares the term "bestiality" with "nature." In the world-famous ancient Greek "Aesop's Fables", the people who are used as metaphors for all kinds of people in the world are all kinds of animals.
According to ancient Roman legend, the ancestors of the Romans survived by a she-wolf, without which there would have been no Roman Empire
The English word Animal spirits (literally: animal spirits) means "vitality or vitality" of man, and man shares the same word as beast. In English, Animal can also refer to people with certain preferences, such as "a lively person" is a regular party animal, and "a political animal" is a political animal.
The English word a natural son literally means "natural son", that is, "a son born of nature (not bound by social rules)"; in fact, it is the Chinese word for "illegitimate son".
However, although Western culture is attached to beasts, it does not treat all beasts equally, and its favorite is the king of beasts--- lion (the lion is the representative of the strong in Aesop's Fables). The English word to lionize somebody (literally: "lion to so-and-so") means "heroic so-and-so". For the weak among animals, Western culture only ridicules and teases. Sheep, for example, are the representatives of the weak in Western culture, and shepherds are often the embodiment of angels. In modern English, sheep are demonized as ignorant, brainless, and virtuous little Raipi; goats suffer similarly and become unlucky "scapegoats."
After the "sheep eating people" "enclosure movement" in the fourteenth century, the peasants in British society who were forced to leave the land poured into the cities, and at the same time, their temperament also changed greatly, from "flock of sheep" to "lions", becoming the backbone of the "Puritans" who caused headaches to the state religion, and also the main force of the "British Revolution" (later, after the failure of the revolution, most of them left the 'New World' and became the core of the early immigrants in the United States).
In addition, the so-called "Renaissance" movement is actually the natural revival of Western civilization, that is, the return of the lion's nature (to be precise, the "Renaissance" movement should be translated as "regeneration movement", because the English word is Renaissance (derived from the Latin word 'regeneration'). Because, after western civilization experienced this "revival", the original "nature" of the ancient Greco-Roman era was soon "regenerated". The performance is as follows:
First, all kinds of nude sculptures and nude paintings that satisfy visual enjoyment have sprung up in the Western world after nearly a thousand years, and even the angels on the frescoes in churches are dressed less and less.
Second, the concept of pursuing "primitive nature" continues to emerge: natural selection, survival of the fittest (in fact, 'survival of the strong over the weak'), "unscrupulous means" (English End Justifies the Means is also known as the 'means of justification of ends'), social Darwinism, "the concept of superman", "God is dead" (Nietzsche) and so on.
Third, in the "Revival Movement", the ruthless ridicule and insults of the entire Protestant world in the West against Roman Catholicism were a major explosion after the "nature" was suppressed for a long time.
In short, Western civilization firmly believes in "the beginning of man, the nature of nature, the nature of the beast", and is proud of it. After the "Renaissance", in the Western society where "nature returned", everyone competed to be a strong lion and spurned the weak sheep, because only lions could get "the first fruit" (the English word the lion's share literally means 'lion's share'). Since then, lions have chased deer and beasts have become the norm of Western civilization. In fact, as far back as the fifth century BC, the ancient Greek philosopher Empedocle (who firmly believed that there is an afterlife after death) expressed the hope that he would be born as a lion in the next life; as recently as the 1990s, Hollywood in the United States was still using the story of the "Lion King" Simba to inspire children.
2, this unique lion complex is widely expressed in the Western world, first of all reflected in the naming tradition. as
There are places named after "lions": among the cities, there are the famous French Lyons (French 'lion'), the northern Spanish city of Leon (Latin lion), the Mexican city of Leon (lion Latin), the Spanish Old Kingdom Leon (Latin 'lion') and so on.
Lion represents man, such as Lion (lion) represents both "lion-like brave man" and "Leo man"; Literary Lion (literally: 'Lion of Literature') represents "great literary hero"; the great Russian writer Tolstoy directly refers to himself as a lion Лев (Lev, Russian 'lion'). There is also a poem named after the lion, called "Lion Body" (also known as the Medieval Leo Body).
Incredibly, as many as thirteen Popes named lions (Leo Leo Latin for 'lion'), from Leo I to Leo XIII. The Papal City is also known as the "Lion City" (Leonine City Latin for 'Lion City', also translated as 'Leo City'). Could it be that lions also know how to "repay grievances with virtue", and lions will also "be beaten on the left side of their faces, and then stretch out their right faces"? According to primitive doctrine, the parishioners were sheep in need of care and protection, while the clergy were "shepherds" (shepherd English for 'sheep'), but now the "shepherd" headquarters is a "lion's den"! It is no wonder that later people referred to medieval Rome as the "root of sin" and was reviled by Western society for hundreds of years; it is no wonder that Martin Luther wanted to rise up and the "Reformation" responded.
There are also lions as nicknames: led by the famous "Lionheart King Richard" (1157--1199), king of medieval England, one of the leading big brothers of the Crusades; another less famous, "William I" (1142--1214), the medieval king of Scotland, also known as "William the Lion King". Since then, the English language has had an adjective lion-hearted (literally: lionheart), which describes a "brave and determined" man.
The image of the lion is much better in Western civilization:
One of the earliest metal currencies of ancient Greece, the Lydian gold and silver coin, was also the image of the lion.
In Edward Gibbon's "History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire", we see that there are two golden lions the size of real lions in the Roman royal palace, and they can still howl.
The Royal Family of England and the Royal Family of Scotland bear the lion as their logo.
MgM, a giant in hollywood film industry, also uses the lion's head as a marker:
Napoleon, who fell to an isolated island, as the Lion King of the Western World, said that the Qing Empire at that time was "a lion that could not wake up", because in his eyes, all the big countries were lions.
Of course, the lion-beast nature is not only reflected in language and speech, but also in other fields, such as architecture is its important carrier.
Second, the architectural expression of Western lion civilization
Imitation is naturally a common hobby of all human civilizations, and Western civilization is no exception. The famous ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus said that art is the imitation of nature. Architecture is the physical carrier of civilization, and the lion is the character embodiment of Western civilization, so it has become the soul of western traditional architecture.
As early as the Mycenaean era, also known as the "Age of Heroes", the lion became an architectural symbol, as known as the Mycenaean "Lion Gate" (located in Asia Minor), it is a half-human, half-beast, very simple shape-like work.
Despite its bluntness, Western architecture has a unique lion soul that stretches on and on.
Next up is the ancient Greek icon hundreds of years later, the Parthenon in Athens:
On the Parthenon, the lion image is abstracted, and the thick columns surrounding it form a vague male lion form, but without concealing the idea of the theme: the mighty momentum, the strong body is combined with the spirit.
At the same time, the lion also provided inspiration for secular architecture, directly inspired the shape of the Arc de Triomphe: four angular columns replaced the limbs of the male lion, and also expressed its unique kingly demeanor. In the Western world, the Arc de Triomphe thus became a common favorite of both victors and conquerors, and was built not only by the Romans, the French, the Germans, and the Russians.
Western civilization entered the age of Christ, and the spirit of Christ combined with the might of the lion to produce Romanesque (also known as Romanesque) architecture, such as the Cathedral of Pisa.
After that, it further evolved, forming the classic ----- Baroque architecture of medieval church architecture.
Note that here, the Greco-Roman era represents the built top of the lion's head, deformed into a "double-headed" or "multi-headed" structure, which may symbolize the spirit of confrontation between theocracy and secular monarchy.
Then came the controversial "Gothic" architecture. Here, people are mainly unable to accept the pointed column structure of its head pointing directly at the sky dome. In fact, this seemingly irrational chaotic form implies the impetuous Western social psychology of the late Middle Ages: the traditional "double giant" (church and traditional monarchy) structure is about to collapse, and a new era of "lion strife" (mass strife) is coming! (Coincidentally, the Gothic was born in France, and the "Revolution" that shook the world broke out in France.) ）
In Gothic architecture, the form of the lion was further mythologized, and its spirit remained unchanged, but there was a shift from "majestic" to "aggressive".
Later, in modern times, the momentum of the lion continued; at the same time, with the advancement of technology, the cross representing the religious will was prominently reflected, which was the high-altitude of architectural form, such as the Eiffel Tower in France and the Empire State Building in the United States.
Here, the symbolic design of the "lion with the cross on the head" represents a new kind of boldness: unstoppable!
To this day, all Western classic architecture has the same soul: the might of the lion, the strength of the lion.
Next, the nature of the lion continued to extend to the Western tradition.
Third, the traditional expression of the nature of lions and beasts
Western civilization not only imitates lions architecturally, but also has the shadow of lions in traditional customs. Plato said that art is not simply imitating nature, nor imitating an idea, but imitating the shadow of an idea.
1, the Western "bow tie" and "tie" culture. The tie of the Western world evolved from the bow tie, and the origin of the bow tie can be traced back to Roman times, and Roman soldiers had the custom of wearing a tie around their necks, for unknown reasons (it is said that Roman soldiers used it to wipe weapons). The author believes that the design concept of the bow tie is most likely from the ancient Roman imitation of the unique mane of the head and neck of the male lion, because for the soldiers, the brave temperament is the most important, and the male lion is undoubtedly the best carrier, so the bow tie form imitates the mane of the male lion, in order to mentally align with the lion.
Similarly, there is the ancient Greek tradition of garland design. Whether worn on the neck or on the head, it is also a flexible imitation of the male lion's mane.
2, the "lawn" tradition of the Western world. Westerners' love of lawns is unique and universal. In the Middle Ages, the upper classes throughout Europe were large landowners, or large estate owners. It is not difficult to imagine that in their own land, whether it is supervising others to cultivate or hunting on horseback, the owner will have a sense of satisfaction that the lion king patrols the territory. Therefore, in modern times, although most of the traditional aristocrats have withdrawn from agriculture, they still cling to large areas of grassland, and even spend huge manpower and material resources to continuously update the lawn varieties and improve the quality.
However, the great lawns of the Western world are fundamentally different from the gardens of the East and the gardens of Central Asia. For example, in the oriental garden, a hundred flowers can bloom, grass and trees can be overgrown, because in the eyes of the master, they are all representatives of vitality; and in the western lawn, the grass is uniform, and the other plants are like loyal slaves, standing up, because in the mind of its western master, grass and trees are not life, the whole lawn is just the territory of the lion, so the big lawn becomes the carrier of the owner's feelings, and the trust is a unique lion king feeling in the West!
3, entertainment and sports in the Western world.
Some people say that to understand a person, you should start from understanding his leisure and entertainment, because often hobbies can reveal a person's true interest and style. The same should be true of understanding a civilization.
We also start with the entertainment of ancient Greco-Roman society. Ancient Greco-Roman culture is a typical lion culture, and its entertainment and sports have a distinct lion and beast wildness.
In the eyes of modern people, boxing, especially professional boxing, is cruel and barbaric; in ancient Greco-Roman society, boxing is "high skill" (the noble art in English), which belongs to the aristocratic sport. Wrestling, athletics, etc. belong to the masses.
Of course, the most popular among the Greco-Roman people at that time was the death-defying struggle (also known as gladiatorial fighting), involving criminals and slaves, and the killing of man and beast (usually lions). The largest arena is the Roman "Arena", which can accommodate up to hundreds of gladiators or humans and beasts. We can't imagine what kind of scene it was! It can be inferred that the male lions waiting for the game in the cage will also be stunned by the sight, because the unique form of "entertainment" of the Romans, both in terms of scale and intensity, is not experienced by the king of the beasts in the steppe.
In addition, the theater performers of ancient Rome sometimes had thrilling scenes of lions and beasts eating live people (of course, the actors who were eaten should be slaves).
Later, Christianity established that this kind of bestial entertainment was outlawed because it was "incompatible with the spirit of religion."
However, the spirit of the lion beast contained in Roman gladiatorial fighting and fighting beasts was not completely lost. In the Middle Ages, bloody bestial fighting became standardized, and the traditional sword-and-sword hand-to-hand combat between men evolved into romantic knightly duels (with witnesses, medical personnel present), and lasted for hundreds of years, attracting countless "heroes" and "talents" to draw swords (or draw guns), including the Russian generation of literary heroes Pushkin.
In addition, the simplified miniature version of the Roman gladiatorial fight continues in Europe until now, that is, the Spanish bullfighting.
Of course, when it comes to sports, the champion city-state of ancient Greece is none other than Sparta. Because every Spartan was born to go through the "preferential elimination", those with poor physique directly threw themselves off the cliff and fell to their deaths. Next, from the age of seven or eight, all children (male and female) are required to begin brutal training, and the barbarism is completely against the standard of the beast, and even beyond the beast.
Since entering the modern era, the animalistic nature of the Western sports world has further faded. However, the lion-beast complex in sports competitions can still be inherited or played in disguise, such as rugby and American football.
Rugby originated in england. It is said that at the beginning, the British were dissatisfied with the rules of ordinary football too much and too fine, thinking that playing football with only two feet could not meet the full play of the "brave nature" of young people; therefore, the old and innovative, ingenious deduction of "light skill, heavy brute force" rugby: the exciting scene of the lions chasing prey on the prairie, in the rugby sport to get an image and anthropomorphic reproduction, rugby violence and lion beast temperament is in line. Therefore, as soon as rugby came out, it became popular in Britain and the United States. To this day, despite the frequent casualties in the game, rugby is still the most popular true "national essence" of American society. In the United Kingdom, the national rugby team is directly called the "British Lion" by the Chinese people, and its players are all "Lions" with unlimited scenery.
Of course, no one who knows anything about rugby can deny that Rugby is the wildest collective sport in the world today.
Finally, let's see how Western lion-beast nature has influenced its culture.
Fourth, the personality expression of the nature of the lion beast
In the character formation of Western civilization, the role of the lion-beast nature can not be ignored, although this manifestation is more abstract and unconscious, but it is deeper. Aristotle said that the highest form of imitation of nature is the idealized transformation of nature. The absorption and transformation of the lion-beast nature of Western civilization is the subconscious manifestation of this tendency.
1, the colonial culture of the Western world.
Colonization is a unique social culture in the West and a human version of the "laws of nature" of lion herd organizations. As a social animal, the lion's unique animal nature determines their unique group rules: both in groups and cannot be infinitely expanded, and to reach a certain size, they must be separated into groups (or the old lion king is driven away by the new lion king, or the newborn lion finds another way out). Otherwise, they will kill each other and endanger the entire group.
The tragic experience of the three generations of Zeus's grandfather is a negative case of the lion's law. Myths (well known in the Greco-Roman world) tell us that Zeus's grandfather, the first king of the ancient Greco-Roman world, named Uranos, was very cruel and absurd; so, unable to bear it, his son Kronos (who was Zeus's father) joined forces with his mother Gaia, castrated his father, and became the second generation of heavenly kings. However, Kronos, who ascended to the throne, was equally cruel and absurd, and as a result, he was pushed off the throne by his son Zeus and expelled from the sacred mountain of Olympia.
Thus, since the "age of heroes" (also known as homer), the Greeks had a tradition of "colonization": a social group (then called a 'city-state') whose members developed to a certain number, had to be left, either actively or passively, to find new land and form new units. So, what should be the reasonable number of inhabitants of a city-state? Plato gives the answer in the Republic: this ideal number is 5040.
Thus, from the surrounding islands of the Aegean Sea began to breed, after hundreds of years of expansion, by the time, the Greek city-states spread almost the entire northern shore of the Mediterranean, Asia Minor, Syria, the North Caucasus, as far as the Black Sea coast, the number reached more than a thousand.
Later, the city-state of Greece was replaced by republican Rome; later, it was replaced by the feudal Middle Ages. However, the colonial complex of Western civilization has never been broken: the medieval Crusades, although the banner of the High East to "retake the Holy Land", were actually a less successful colonial expansion (the Current Knights of Malta are one of the legacies of the 'Crusades').
City-state colonization became history, but the soul of the colony did not die, but was inherited in a new, more anachronistic way, that is, in modern times, the Western world has gradually formed large and small units of local administrative autonomy. And through research, I have found that until now, the size of the grass-roots autonomous units of Western society is very close to the 5040 people defined by Plato.
In the sixteenth century, the Cenozoic lions of the Western world (Portugal, Spain, the Netherlands, Britain, France, etc.) once again brought out the colonial traditions of their ancestors and made them "flourish" into "colonialism". With the help of emerging scientific and technological advantages and industrial forces, the banner of Western colonialism has been planted in all corners of the world, and The "king of kings" of Great Britain has become the number one empire at the level of "the sun never sets".
After World War II, colonialism became a street rat, most of the Western overseas colonial system collapsed, and geographical colonialism was unsustainable. However, the ghost of colonialism in the Western world has not completely dissipated, and once the conditions are ripe, new variants will emerge, such as "cultural colonialism" and "ideological colonialism". The former is represented by American Hollywood culture and Disney culture, and the latter has various "universal, borderless values" in the Western world that "speak year after year and every day".
2, the "pirate character" of the West
In the Western world, "pirates" are an old piece of "stinky tofu": everyone doesn't like it, but everyone loves to eat it. Pirate personality is essentially the personification of the aggressiveness of lion beasts: lions compete for prey and territory in the savannah without thinking, and pirates come ashore to rob homes without excuses.
Not only does Northern Europe have a long tradition of piracy, in fact, at almost every stage of Western civilization, the pirate character is fully expressed. Britain's pre-modern history is a "history of pirate wars", with groups of pirates coming ashore, most of them robbing and then going away, and a few settling in and becoming the masters of the British Isles (today's Anglo-Saxons are the descendants of the robbers of that year). Therefore, the two major political parties in britain in modern times, the Whig Party (the predecessor of the Liberal Party) and the "Tory Party" (the predecessor of the Conservative Party), directly called themselves "horse thieves" (Whig Scottish 'horse thief') and "mountain thief" (Tory Irish 'ringing horse' meaning). The English word gain now means "harvest, fruit", and five hundred years ago its original meaning was equivalent to booty, representing "stolen goods" or "booty". It can be seen that in the eyes of the British ancestors at that time, "snatched" is "harvested".
Take the Trojan War as an example. The central plot of homer's epic is that the Greek city-states of the Aegean islands, in order to punish the Trojan prince who "deceived his wife (referring to Helen)", angrily besieged Troy. And thus deduced a scene of earth-shattering, weeping ghost god epic tragedy, which has attracted people from all over the world in the literary and artistic circles to this day. However, the ancient Greeks' own tragedy, the "Trojan Woman" (author Euripides), tells us that after the "United Nations Army" of the Aegean city-state captured the city of Troy, while exterminating the adult men in the city (the old and weak women and children were all enslaved), while looting the city and setting it on fire, he was courteous to Helen, the "demon" who eloped with people (legend has it that he was one of the countless illegitimate children of The Heavenly King Zeus).
However, as long as you carefully analyze the background at that time, you can reveal the true connotations. First, the city of Troy is located on the main commercial route connecting the East and the West, and it is much richer than the ordinary Greek city-states, which naturally arouses the covetousness of the city-states on the other side of the strait. Second, the Greek city-states at that time were no longer the world of "heroes" who only fought and killed, but a group of "Lion Kings" with commercial acumen. So in essence, the Trojan War is by no means as simple as Shakespeare (in "Troy Rus and Kresida") said: "for a bitch and a king eight", not a "heroic feat" advocated by "Homer's epic", but a robbery in broad daylight, but also a pirate operation "famous for eternity". Later archaeological excavations showed that the city of Troy did exist, and most likely was destroyed by man. From this, it can be judged that "Homer's epic" is a "fig leaf" of Western civilization, and in its pen, the robbers who destroyed the city and the country have become "heroes who have been flowing for thousands of years".
In modern times, pirate culture has kept pace with the times: pirate ships are getting bigger and bigger, the mileage is getting longer and longer, and the organization is becoming more and more rational (such as the Formation of the East India Company between Britain and the Netherlands). Starting from Portugal and Spain, and then funded by the Dutch and English royal families, the "new generation of pirates" in the Western world not only had the ability to break into the New World to snatch gold and silver treasures, slaughter indigenous peoples, and set up guns to coerce ancient civilizations. Later, pirate culture spread excessively throughout the European continent, forming two major pirate groups, igniting two world wars and almost burning the Western world itself.
One of the most recent classic manifestations of "pirate character" was the 2003 Iraq War. Based solely on intelligence services' "credible intelligence" (saying that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction), George W. Bush declared war on Iraq with the British Blair and forcibly occupied Baghdad, hanging Himdam. (It turned out that the original intelligence was not "reliable," and the Americans tossed for a long time without finding a "weapon of mass destruction.") ）
3, the "territorial consciousness" of the lion beast personality.
Lions not only have a unique sense of territory, but also very strong, they not only mark their territory with their own excrement, they will fight to the death in order to compete for territory. Subtly, the lion's "territorial consciousness" has also entered Western society and evolved into different concepts and forms.
The early "territorial consciousness" was mainly presented in the form of material, physical, and the concept of "private property" was its main representative. "Roman law" and "Napoleonic Code" are important embodiments of this concept.
In modern times, especially after the "French Revolution", the "territorial consciousness" of Western society has begun to evolve spiritually (after all, people are spiritual animals), and the consciousness of "spiritual territory" has emerged, proposing concepts such as "individual sovereignty" and "individual freedom". Western society began to feel that not only was the "material territory" (private property) sacred and inviolable, but also that man's "spiritual territory" (individual freedom, individual rights) should also be resolutely defended, and "if it is for the sake of freedom, both can be thrown away." The so-called "social contract theory" advocates that the individual and the state mainly conclude a contract on the "power of public governance", and the attitude of the "social contract theory" to all rights and freedoms belonging to the "personal territory" is that the state has no right to touch, and can only protect it.
Correspondingly, in Western culture, personal home life as a special "private territory" naturally receives special emphasis. The British say, "My home is my castle." Castles need to be defended, and defenses must be armed, so the Americans insisted on not putting down their guns.
4, the animalistic emotions of Western culture.
Since Western civilization gladly accepts the "nature" of the lion beast, it will not reject the expression of animal-like emotions. Similar to the male lion's desire world, there are only females, in the Western emotional culture, the hero's feelings for the opposite sex can surpass all other feelings, "life is precious, love is more expensive."
Although Helen was the trigger of the Trojan War and a watery poplar flower, her unique place in Western culture is still unassailable. Because in Western culture, often the satisfaction of the senses is the first. Thomas More advocated in "Utopia" that young men and women should not wear clothes for mutual inspection, on the grounds that when buying a pony, although the foal is not hanging at all, the buyer must repeatedly test it to prevent being deceived, let alone people?! In his eyes, there is no difference between choosing a mate and buying a horse. Similarly, in the European Middle Ages, there was a legend of "Beauty and the Beast", which was widely circulated and later put on the screen. The theme is that man and beast can not only get along, but also be very happy.
Freud believed that human artistic talents were related to the abnormal encounters and even setbacks of their early sexual consciousness. According to his logic, human beings have no other source of art other than "sexual consciousness". This is another reflection of the concept of "animal desire is human desire" in Western culture.
It is conceivable from this that without religious checks and balances, the lion-beast nature of Western civilization would be brought into play.
Ming Xiangxingyuan ended with a saying: The earth is really big, and china and the West are far away!