What are the characteristics of European history and culture?

Characteristics of European history and culture;

The formation of the basic characteristics of western culture is mainly the open marine geographical environment, the democratic politics of slave owners and the full development of slave commodity economy.

Most of the ancient human society was dominated by agriculture, while the commodity production in ancient Greece and Rome was developed, which was unique in the whole ancient world history.

This is related to its specific marine geographical environment.

The development of commodity economy created a powerful industrial and commercial class, overthrew the rule of clan nobles and established democratic politics.

The establishment of this tradition has made the development of history have a strong operating mechanism from the beginning, which has made the country's body full of vitality.

With the development of commodity economy, productivity has developed rapidly.

In this way, the belief of conquering and transforming nature is easy to form.

The content of social life is also rich and colorful, which urges people to broaden their horizons, explore outward, and regard discovering and transforming the world as the highest value of life and the main way to obtain freedom.

The development of productive forces also needs the prosperity of superstructure such as science and culture, so westerners are eager for knowledge and regard it as the highest value category of human culture, so they are not complacent.

They have a tradition of "loving knowledge" and are always fighting for knowledge.

The development of commodity economy and the open marine geographical environment make westerners extroverted, active and adventurous.

They have independent and uninhibited personality, pioneering spirit and changeable thoughts.

The philosophy of Heraclitus, an ancient Greek philosopher, "One cannot step into the same river twice" illustrates this point.

This kind of change and pioneering concept made them enterprising and created many academic thoughts and cultural and artistic fields, such as rationalism, naturalism, empiricism and existentialism.

The democratic politics of slavery in ancient Greece and Rome gave birth to the democratic tradition and scientific spirit in western culture.

They advocate human rights and equality.

This affirmation of individual freedom has developed into a whole of democracy and legal system.

Westerners are determined to make progress in their attitude towards life, but they are also prone to despair and go to extremes.

This is very different from China's traditional culture and national psychology.

Western culture has a long history and experienced a long historical development process. Horizontally, it is vast and colorful, rich and brilliant, and its face is changing rapidly.

The following can only be summarized as follows in terms of its most common characteristics, namely, its individual radicalism, openness and absorption.

There are many reasons for the formation of individual radicalism in western culture.

The first is the development of the western economy. Since ancient Greece, the productivity of western society has developed rapidly, especially after the emergence of the bourgeoisie.

The rapid development of economy has brought great impact and breakthrough to culture.

Since the Renaissance, western cultural concepts have been constantly updated, and the update cycle has become shorter and shorter.

Philosophically, ideas, rationality, super-rationality and human philosophy (Freud's psychoanalysis) come one after another; In literature, classicism, enlightenment, romanticism, realism, surrealism, modernism and so on.

With the alternation of cultural concepts, new schools, high schools and ideological trends are surging, forming a spectacle of western culture changing with each passing day.

In cultural psychology, it is manifested as affirmation of individual personality, value and dignity, respect and advocacy of individual independence.

From the Renaissance to the present, the personality of western culture is mainly reflected in the humanitarian tradition in thought, the free competition in action, the expression of personal feelings in literature and the affirmation of personality value.

In the later characteristics of western culture, individuality did not oppose the natural forces, but took "individuality liberation" as the slogan.

Advocate the rational development of personality and oppose the asceticism that destroys people.

Oppose religious obscurantism by restoring personal nature, curiosity and rationality.

Renaissance is not only a great revolution in the west, but also a great revolution of mankind.

The humanitarianism it advocates is a dawn of human liberation, which indicates that people have a great historical change that depends not on nature but on themselves.

The affirmation of personal dignity and value indicates that people have completely surpassed the backward state of dealing with the natural environment and natural enemies by living in groups and are independent of the forests in the material world.

The embodiment of this personality in western culture marks that western civilization has reached a considerable height and is a great progress of human society.

Secondly, the special character of the western nation is also an important factor in the formation of individual radicalism in western culture.

Westerners have the spirit of martial arts and worship the beauty of strength.

The formation of this national character originated in ancient Greece, and the Greeks had a martial spirit since ancient times.

By the time of the Roman Empire, this martial spirit had turned into a slave war and was popular everywhere.

The fighting spirit of Rome became "chivalry" in the Middle Ages.

The so-called "Xia" is the adventurous spirit of putting all your eggs in one basket.

After the Enlightenment, the "Wild March" movement in Germany showed individual radicalism, which made the development of European culture take on a new look.

The sharp thoughts of the French bourgeois revolution and the gunfire of the Paris Commune uprising all reflect the excited and aggressive cultural psychology of westerners.

They have enough courage and boldness, whether it is wanton destruction or vigorous construction.

In addition to the martial spirit, the national character of westerners also has the characteristics of unrestrained, radical, bold and frank feelings, and is very persistent in the pursuit of truth and freedom.

Romain rolland's motto "Give me liberty or give me death" is very universal and typical, which embodies the integrity of westerners and is in sharp contrast with China's grand strategic mentality of seeking perfection through patience.

Westerners often meet each other with courage and convince others with strength when fighting; China, on the other hand, is a "courtesy before soldiers" and "dedication before breaking the country", and the way of fighting between the East and the West is also very different.

In terms of art, westerners are frank and realistic, pay great attention to pen and ink, and admire the art with strong intuition such as sculpture and oil painting, and admire the artistic expression method that directly expresses the beauty of strength and * * * *.

Traditionally, the mainstream of poetry is to express thoughts and feelings frankly.

This is also a far cry from China's artistic aesthetic standard, which is simple and implicit and interesting.

Since ancient Greece and Rome, in western literary works, works praising heroes, especially love, have shown some fanatical spirit.

Whether it is * * * to vent their hearts or to pursue love in a bohemian way, there is a kind of fanaticism.

This has become a prominent feature of western literature.

At the same time, West Renye Fang prefers the tragedy with strong atmosphere and the comedy plot with strong conflict.

The tragic achievements of ancient Greece, the classical tragedies of Racine and Gao, and the comedies of Moliere all reflect the western national character.

Another feature of western culture is openness and absorption.

This feature is characterized by tolerance, renewal and self-enrichment.

Extended data:

Westerners have a proverb: "If you can learn the best from the worst things, the world will be better.

"This is the common cultural psychology of westerners.

This characteristic of openness and absorption is also inseparable from the geographical environment, historical characteristics and capitalist economic development in the West.

The Greek peninsula has a long coastline and many islands, and the navigation industry and commercial trade have developed rapidly.

Commercial trade promotes cultural exchange and cultural prosperity.

The special history of European countries has also caused the spirit of opening up and absorbing western culture.

In the ancient historical development of European countries, it is common to accept and absorb foreign cultures because of the changes of national boundaries and the frequent migration of nationalities.

European countries are relatively narrow, unlike China, which is vast, self-sufficient and closed to the outside world.

Therefore, the communication between them is inevitable, and with the progress of society, the contact between them is more and more frequent.

The other is the rapid development of western capitalism.

Capitalism itself is full of frequent commodity exchange, capital export and raw material input.

This development of commercial capital promotes the development of production and science and creates favorable conditions for human communication.

This spirit of opening up and absorbing western culture has two powerful pillars: one is the spirit of freedom, and the other is a rational attitude.

Petofi said: "Life is precious, and the price of love is higher; If you are free, you can throw both.

"He regards freedom as important as life, even more important than life.

This view of freedom, reflected in cultural psychology, is to choose good and follow it freely and rationally.

Therefore, westerners naturally and harmoniously absorb the doctrines, theories, thoughts, traditions, customs and even beliefs of their own nation, region and foreign countries.

Christianity was originally a religion from the East. After several reforms, it quickly took root in the spiritual land of the West.

Religion, as the spiritual soul of a nation, is still so, and its absorption of other theories and doctrines can be imagined.

Western scholars, philosophers and scholars have adopted a bold attitude and absorbed all the excellent cultures of other eastern nations.

During the Enlightenment, * * * was formed to learn oriental culture.

Indian Buddhism, China Confucianism and Taoism merged with western culture to a great extent, resulting in western modernist culture. When we study Sartre's existentialism, if we don't understand the influence of Indian Buddhism and China Taoism on western culture, it will be difficult to sort out a logical clue.

It is difficult to understand the Great Leap Forward of Western literature and art without understanding Indian Buddhism and China's Zen theory, and the influence of classical poetry theory on western culture.

The absorption of western culture is also reflected in the mutual absorption of natural science and humanities.

Literature has been ahead of science since the beginning of myth, but the discovery of science has become a solid foundation and springboard for the development of literature.

You can imagine what it would be like today without Copernicus' sun-centered theory, Darwin's theory of evolution, Watt's steam engine, Newton's laws of mechanics, Einstein's theory of relativity, western literature, philosophy and so on.

If we don't study the new atmosphere brought by natural science and social science, and how literature and philosophy can promote scientists' imagination and creativity, how can we study all kinds of complex factors in the process of ideological development?

The fundamental reason is that western scholars, thinkers and writers have freer thoughts. When they absorb nutrients, they extend their roots as far as possible to all places where they can absorb beneficial nutrients.

We should use the vivid, lively and open theoretical system of Marxism and learn from the strengths of the West to develop our culture.