European Civilization 13 ( Characteristics of Modern European Civilization 2 )

4. Industrialism and Cosmopolitanism

 

It is said that the breakthrough of European civilization was due to the Industrial Revolution and the invention of democracy. The Industrial Revolution enhanced the power of efficiency: the second principle (the principle of improving living standards), which changed the concept of military power up to that point. This military power eventually gave birth to nuclear weapons, which made destructive all-out wars ineffective. In the context of Western civilization, it could be said that the emergence of these weapons negated the utility of war. (Other civilizations, operating with very different motives, may have taken different approaches to nuclear weapons.) This is because weapons are also an extension of politics. For this reason, economy emerged as the main element of efficiency. However, being economic is not the only overall power of a civilization, as can be seen from the tenacity of Britain. Perhaps America will not lose its hegemony so easily, and will continue to survive tenaciously. This is because America knows that after the war, Britain had a great influence on the American media and political world and survived. America may recover, but it is likely to decline relatively. Civilization is basically formed by human values and spiritual and material vitality. However, America is a country that has absorbed people from various parts of the world, so the conditions may be different. In any case, if America were to decline, it would be likely that America would hang on to the next hegemonic country, which would be China or India. And considering its ties with Britain, the fact that it can speak English, and its geographical location, India is a very likely candidate. Behind China's flashy performance, America has been quietly and submissively playing second fiddle to Germany, and the two countries are in a similar position. India is also a country that can have universal ideals like America (see Indian Civilization in the second exhibition room). Perhaps India may be already playing the same role in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as Japan did in the Korean War and the Vietnam War.

 

I've digressed a little, but another factor that led to the rapid development of European civilization was democracy, but why was it such a rapid development? Freedom exists only with individualism and human rights, and democracy was established as a system to guarantee this. It encouraged people to voluntarily participate in politics, and became an active form of politics that sought to realize the free will of each citizen. It was completely different from the social structures that had been forced into existence by rulers throughout history, and this dramatically increased the power of the social structural force: the third principle (the principle of community development).

 

The strengthening of efficiency through the Industrial Revolution: the power of the second principle (principle of improving living standards), and the strengthening of social structure through democracy: the power of the third principle (principle of developing communities) led to the rise of the British Empire and France. Democracy has a purifying power, so the social structure force of Britain and France also increased. So why were Britain and France overtaken by the German Empire and the United States? It is not hard to understand, as the United States is also the birthplace of democracy. But Germany was not a democratic country.

 

One of the drawbacks of democracy is that it is difficult to quickly adjust vested interests; it takes time. This is often accompanied by confusion due to information disruption and political strife, but Germany has successfully increased efficiency by focusing on bureaucracy. However, in Germany's case, even if they achieved early success, they had problems such as clinging to success stories and not being able to exert their purification power. This is a problem that is common to Japan, but it may be said that the efficiency and social structural power based on democracy as a collection of people with free ideas was not necessarily something that could be said about Germany, or Japan.

 

One of the factors that shook Europe may be the cosmopolitan capitalism that was built on industrialism. The Industrial Revolution produced new technologies and new products one after another, which created new demand and created an environment for cosmopolitans to invest and make profits. This expanded European civilization itself and led to the colonization of other civilizations, but the efficiency and social structural power within the European civilization sphere became uncontrollable. Against this backdrop, domestic circumstances in each country, class struggle and colonialism (social imperialism) in England and rigid militarism in Germany, combined to eventually lead to two world wars. There was also a problem that is relevant to the present day, in that the adjustment between the real economy and finance was not necessarily ideal.

 

5. Military

 

The reason why European civilization is so military is probably because it experienced repeated invasions by other tribes. In the past, most of the cities in European civilization were surrounded by walls, and in many cases, cities were born from these walls. Another factor was the establishment of cities due to the increase in agricultural productivity in the Middle Ages. However, it seems certain that Europe was a weak place for a long time, given the history of the movement of nomadic tribes (it was spared because it was in the far west), and European civilization was cornered by the advance of the Ottoman Turks in the 15th century (their response was to conquer the Atlantic Ocean), but the improvement of weapons and transportation capabilities (also efficiency) that came with the Industrial Revolution in England put an end to this situation. Also, in the process of getting to that point, weapons had been improved to a certain extent, which seems to have led to Russia's expansion in Eurasia.

 

European civilization also challenged the once advanced civilization, Islamic civilization. This was attributed to the invasion of the Byzantine Empire by the Seljuk Turks, but it was also due to the desire of Italian cities connected with the Pope to expand their Mediterranean trade sphere, and although it was an aggressive military action, the multiple Crusades may have been an aspect of Europe's vitality and military inclinations overlapping. For a long time, Europe had built up a military culture (aristocracy) from a defensive perspective, but when the position of the Europeans was reversed with Islamic civilization and Byzantium, they seized the opportunity to go on the offensive, which may also be considered a military aspect.

 

After the collapse of medieval society, European civilization was constantly renewing its axis of conflict, which was compounded by military elements, leading to repeated wars. This created competition within European civilization, leading to evolution in all fields from the 17th to the 20th centuries, but ultimately this military worldview led to the bankruptcy of European civilization itself. However, this was not the end of the military worldview, which continued even after World War II in the form of the Cold War, but perhaps because they had witnessed the collapse of European civilization, the United States and Russia, who were also constituents of European civilization, were able to end the Cold War by subordinated the military to politics.

 

In European civilization, great opposing axes such as Catholicism and Protestantism, absolute monarchy and the bourgeoisie, capitalism and socialism appeared as if they were evolving, and this in itself was also an evolution of civilization itself, but it may have been that military tendencies were added to this and the benefits were lost through war . Also, even if the idea of socialism was ideally the right direction, it may have been problematic in that the means to realize it had not yet been clarified or created. The fact that the Russian experiment became a model (and influenced China as well) may have seemed to suggest that socialism was disqualified at the start.

 

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