What are the core values of western culture and how did he form them?

The Chinese nation has a long history, in the long history of mankind, most of the time in prosperity, compared with most of the countries in the world, we can be very proud to tell them that we are a civilization with five thousand years of history of the ancient country. But in modern times, due to various reasons, China's culture has suffered a lot of damage, a lot of rational, traditional and excellent culture has suffered a variety of different degrees of vilification, while some of the learning from the West's advanced experience and values are often artificially distorted. I do not fully agree with copying Western values, but I think we should at least understand, learn from and reflect on them. Below is a list of beliefs and a little analysis of some of the values that are commonly shared in the West:

Rationalism

European rationalism is a philosophical approach based on the theory that recognizes that human reasoning can be used as a source of knowledge. It is generally thought to have arisen with the theories of Descartes, and to have spread primarily across continental Europe between the 17th and 18th centuries.

Typical rationalists believe that humans first instinctively grasp some basic principles, such as the laws of geometry, and that they can subsequently reason the rest of their knowledge on the basis of these. Typical of this view were Spinoza and Leibniz, who in their attempts to solve the cognitive and metaphysical problems posed by Descartes developed the basic methods of rationalism. Both Spinoza and Leibniz believed that in principle all knowledge, including scientific knowledge, could be obtained by mere reasoning, but on the other hand they recognized the reality that human beings are incapable of obtaining knowledge by mere reasoning other than in mathematics.

Descartes' theory is closer to Plato's, in that he believed that only some eternal truths (including the cognitive and metaphysical foundations of mathematics and science) could be attained by mere reasoning, while the rest of knowledge required the help of life experience and the necessary scientific means. More accurately Descartes was a rationalist who valued metaphysics and an empiricist who valued science. Kant started out as a rationalist, but after Hume's "Awakening him from his slumber", he became a combination of rationalist and empiricist.

The "rationalist" now expresses the view that human behavior should be governed by reason (a view shared by European rationalists and similar empiricists). What we now often call "science" can be said to refer in large part to "rationalism".

Individualism

Individualism is a moral, political, and social philosophy that emphasizes individual freedom and the importance of the individual, as well as the "virtue of self-independence" and "personal independence". Individualism revolts against authority and all attempts to control the individual-especially those exerted by the coercive power of the state or "society." Individualism is thus in direct opposition to collectivism, which places the individual in a position of subordination to society or to the ****-symbol. Individualism is often confused with egoism, but in fact individualism is not the same as egoism.

Individualism has a negative connotation in some societies and environments, and is considered to be associated with selfishness. For example, the United States does not have a system of universal health care precisely because of the belief that the individual (not society) should take responsibility for themselves. However, the U.S. system has been widely criticized in Europe and other countries with universal health care systems, who believe that the state should protect individuals from unforeseen health problems. In the United States, health insurance is provided through private contracts, and for those who cannot afford it, the government provides them with free health insurance to enable them to receive basic medical care.

Libertarianism

Libertarianism is an ideology, a philosophy, and a collection of schools of thought in which liberty is the primary political value. More broadly, libertarianism seeks a society that protects the individual's freedom of thought, laws that limit the government's use of power, the idea of guaranteeing free trade, a market economy that supports private enterprise, and a transparent political system that safeguards the rights of minorities. In modern societies, libertarians support free minglordship structured as a ****sum or constitutional monarchy with an open and fair electoral system that gives all citizens equal rights to hold political office. Liberalism rejects many of the earlier dominant political structures, such as the divine right of kings, hereditary systems, and state religion. Liberalism's basic human rights are the right to life, the right to liberty, and the right to property. In many countries, "modern" liberals have departed from the original classical liberalism and have argued that governments should provide a minimum amount of material well-being by extracting taxes. Liberalism took root during the Age of Enlightenment, and the term liberalism now encompasses a wide range of political ideas, with supporters spread across the political spectrum from the left to the right.

Libertarianism favors limiting the power of government. The most extreme anti-centralized libertarians such as Herbert? Spencer, Frederick K. Bassia, and Gustav? Bassia, and Gustav? De? Molinari, are sometimes considered forms of anarchism or free willism. Most libertarians argue that the existence of government is necessary to protect the rights of individuals. More recently libertarianism has begun to clash with those who seek to stabilize society by faith-based values: fundamentalist Islam, for example, rejects libertarianism outright.

Egalitarianism

Egalitarianism is a philosophy that is not about politics, but has been developed separately by political radicals. It includes offshoots of those who support gender equality in response to the shortcomings of feminism, and, like those who support racial equality, in response to affirmative action to prevent racial and sexual discrimination that has a differential treatment component.

Egalitarianism is based on the political claim that all individuals demand equality in society and that all people should be equally guaranteed by society. Social guarantees include legal rights, political rights, civil rights, and so on. At the heart of egalitarianism is the idea that equality must be achieved regardless of race or gender, so that government policy should not favor individuals based on their gender, race, or religious beliefs.

Pu world values

In philosophy, pu world values refer to a collection of limited ideas that are shared by all human beings. pu world values can be categorized as follows:

Activism: In this categorization, conventions are the moral perceptions that determine the rightness or wrongness of a person's actions. People judge whether a certain action is moral or not based on a rule or principle. Activism focuses on distinguishing between right and wrong behavior:

Respect for others: using it as an end rather than a means;

Natural law and human rights: protects a person's birthrights, such as the right to live, the right to procreate, the right to pursue knowledge, and the right to associate with others;

Utilitarianism: promotes the notion of maximizing satisfactions and desires;

Moral egoism: allowing people to retain a limited number of selfish desires;

Justice: promoting the belief in fairness among people and groups;

From the above, we can see that human rights belong to the category of pu worldly values, and therefore I will not analyze them here as a separate subsection.

Democracy literally means rule by the people. There are many different definitions of how a democracy is ruled and what constitutes "the people", but the general principle is that it is ruled by the majority. Democracy is often compared to oligarchies and dictatorships, where political power is highly concentrated in the hands of a few, rather than controlled by the people as in democracy. The term democracy is often used to describe the politics of a country, but the principles of democracy also apply to other areas where there is a dominant behavior.

The beliefs about values in Western culture may be very different from those in China, but I think that "learning from the enemy to control the enemy" and "knowing the enemy and knowing oneself is the key to victory in a hundred battles", as well as the need to eliminate some of the misconceptions and discrimination that Westerners have against us, and also to reflect on the importance of democracy. We also need to eliminate some of the Westerners' misunderstandings and discrimination against us, and at the same time reflect on our own shortcomings in some areas.