Reading the Culture: The future of Western civilization

Reading the Culture

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Is America in decline? What will the new year bring our nation? Niall Ferguson holds chairs in history and business administration at Harvard University and serves as senior research fellow at Oxford and Stanford. His latest analysis of Western culture is Civilization: The West and the Rest.

In 1500, Europe held 5 percent of the world's land and 16 percent of its population. By 1913, Western empires controlled nearly three-fifths of the world's territory and population, and produced 74 percent of global economic output. By 1900, the average American was 73 times wealthier than the average Chinese.

Ferguson documents six factors behind this remarkable ascent. The first is competition. Rivers and mountains divide Europe into people-groups who compete vigorously for land and wealth. China, by contrast, is a monolithic land ruled by harmony-enforcing empires. Competition drove Western nations to make advances that contributed greatly to their global ascent.

The second factor is science. A millennium ago, the Arab world was at the forefront of science and medicine. However, Muslim scholars retrenched over time, insisting that the Qur'an is the only source of knowledge. By contrast, Western culture affirmed a separation of church and state that led to freedom of thought. Scholars increasingly applied science to warfare and rationality to government.

Ferguson's third factor is property. British colonists established systems whereby anyone could own land and any man could vote. Western systems of law and property, democracy among them, eventually displaced or defeated non-Western alternatives.

His fourth factor is medicine. In 1800, average life expectancy at birth was 28.5 years. In 2001, it was 66.6 years. This "health transition" began in Europe in the 1770s; it did not reach Asian countries until the 1890s.

Ferguson's fifth factor is consumption, the creation and export of goods and services that globalized Western culture. The average Briton in 1960 was nearly six times richer than his great-grandfather had been in 1860. Competing models of economic organization have been supplanted or reorganized in light of this movement.

The sixth factor behind the rise of the West is our work ethic. Westerners were the first to combine intensive labor with higher savings rates, leading to sustained capital accumulation. This advance largely was the result of our commitment to biblical morality and the "Protestant work ethic."

Ferguson asserts the rise of the rest is due to their adoption of the six principles that led to the growth of the West. However, he believes the West still is best able to offer the economic, social and political institutions that will unleash human creativity capable of solving our greatest problems.


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So long as we are true to the principles that led to our rise, we will continue to thrive. However, democracy requires morality, which can be sustained only by the transforming work of the Spirit. I pray daily for a great spiritual awakening in our nation. Will you join me?

Jim Denison is president of the Denison Forum on Truth and Culture (www.denisonforum.org) and theologian-in-residence with the Baptist General Convention of Texas.


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