Western Doesn't Mean White

Western Civilization has nothing to do with being white.

Buffalo Shooting

On Saturday, a teenager drove several hours to a grocery store in Buffalo, New York, and opened fire on a crowd of people. In total, 13 people were shot and tragically 10 people died. There aren’t words that can come close to expressing the grief the victims' families must be feeling or the evilness that leads someone to do such a thing. It’s a painful reminder of the brokenness of our world and the Christian longing for all things to be made right when Jesus redeems all of the created order.

While I can’t find the words to express the magnitude of the evil, the shooter released a 180-page document in which he put words to his motivations and plans. I haven’t read the document, nor do I plan to, but many people have read it to report on it. In the manifesto, the killer believes intensely in the Great Replacement Theory which is the belief that white people are being purposely replaced by non-white immigrants into the country by elites.

The Great Replacement Theory is not to be confused with mere analysis of the changing demographics of the United States. Analysts have been talking about the changing demographics of the United States and the political implications for decades. The Great Replacement Theory goes further and says that these changes are part of a conspiracy to destroy white people and/or “Western civilization.”

In the killer’s words,

“[I decided to] carry out the attack to show to the replacers that as long as the White man lives, our land will never be theirs and they will never be safe from us… It was to spread awareness to my fellow Whites about the real problems the West is facing, and to encourage further attacks that will eventually start the war that will save the Western world, save the White race and allow for humanity to progress into more advanced civilizations.”

From the quotation above, it is clear that to the killer there is no meaningful difference between the white race and the western world. Changing racial demographics is an “attack” on the “Western world” because it means fewer whites and more nonwhites. Connecting Western Civilization to the white race is a common trope among white supremacists, but it is also a frequent criticism of Western Civilization by more progressive “woke” (whatever that word means now) types. In both instances, it demonstrates a profound ignorance of what Western Civilization is.

History of the West

First, definitions are in order. By Western Civilization, I mean (to quote the always-reliable Wikipedia) “the heritage of social norms, ethical values, traditional customs, belief systems, political systems, artifacts and technologies of the Western world.” It is important to note that the term “Western” is not necessarily limited to a specific geographic region anymore. It was originally used by the ancients to juxtapose their location with the people of the east (Asia and Persia in particular), but now the term encompasses geographic regions across the world that have the attributes described above.

Western Civilization traces its foundations back to the ancient civilizations of the Hebrews and Greeks. These two civilizations were established around the same time but had limited interaction with one another. Nonetheless, they each influenced crucial aspects of Western culture. To put it simply, the Hebrews supplied the moral underpinning of the West, while the ancient Greeks’ intense focus on rationality provided the West with its philosophical underpinning.

Then, the Roman Empire came along and instituted a legal system that would become the basis of most of the legal systems in the Western world. Key principles such as property rights, innocent until proven guilty, and checks and balances were important legacies of the Roman Empire. Also, the Roman Empire’s conversion to and promotion of Christianity amplified the moral influence of the Hebraic tradition in the Western world.

The collapse of the Roman Empire started the period of the Middle Ages when the Church’s influence began to increase and the formalized study of theology took on a prominent role. Institutions were established rooted in Christian theology and universities became centers of scholasticism.

World trade began to increase in the Renaissance which led to the European rediscovery of many ancient thinkers that had been preserved by Arabs. Humanism began to shape the European worldview towards a more individualist perspective. The earliest forms of commercial capitalism also began to develop which would grow into the greatest economic system humans have ever known.

As the Renaissance was happening, the Protestant Reformation started on October 31, 1517, when Martin Luther’s 95 Theses were distributed. This event shattered the ubiquity of the Catholic Church which accelerated the European movement towards individualism. It also led to more than a century of religious warfare in Europe that culminated in the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648. This treaty was the foundation for the modern Western understanding of nation-states and religious toleration.

The Scientific Revolution and Enlightenment were quickly “launched” as thinkers across Europe used rationality to study the world and “discover” universal laws. These universal laws would then be used to order the world with the intent of maximizing human flourishing. This meant evaluating the way government, society, economics, and so much more were done. The intellectual defenses of free-market exchange and classical liberalism continued to build as well.

This naturally led to applying this new knowledge in applicable ways through the development of new technology. The Industrial Revolution saw the explosion of technology, economic productivity, population, and urbanization unlike anything else the world had ever seen. The average Western standard of living exploded during this period and the economic dominance of the West was unmatched.

The 20th century saw the West beat out opposing ideologies that threatened to upend its prosperity, primarily fascism and marxism. After WWII, the Western bloc established a rules-based international order and continued to reach unimaginable economic heights.

The Ideal

Critics of Western Civilization will be quick to point out that in the above retelling I leave out the ugly aspects of Western history. I didn’t mention the brutal crusades against the Turks, racially motivated imperialization of other people, Atlantic Slave Trade, or any of the other significantly negative aspects of Western history. This isn’t because I want to “whitewash” Western history; those are significant elements of Western history that should be studied and critiqued. It is important to present an ideal though.

I once saw a tweet where someone said “If studying history always makes you feel proud and happy, you probably aren’t studying history.” I certainly agree with this as there are many parts of history (including Western Civilization) that are disturbing and should evoke shame. However, I also believe the converse is true: If studying history always makes you feel shame and sadness, you probably aren’t studying history.

The retelling of the Western story above is the ideal in the sense that it’s the aspects of Western Civilization that ought to be celebrated. This ideal is one of constant tension. There has always been an intense focus on rationality as the means by which people can come to a consensus regarding what is true. Presently, this takes the shape of the scientific method. At the same time, the West has had a Judeo-Christian moral underpinning that reins in rationality from going too far and maintaining a focus on human flourishing.

Similarly, the Western world has promoted individualism through its political and economic liberalism. Under the law, everybody is treated as an individual, not held guilty for “family sin” and possessing individual rights that can’t be taken. Conversely, everybody is expected to abide by certain Judeo-Christian standards, think the Ten Commandments, that restrain individualism from going amuck. Striving to balance these various tensions of Western culture is the responsibility of each generation.

In all of this, race plays no part. There is nothing “white” about finding the right balance between rationality, individualism, duties, and Judeo-Christian values. Western Europe was the bearer of Western Civilization for centuries because of its historical development, geography, and pure randomness, but never because it had “white people.”

That doesn’t mean that Western Civilization has always acted in accordance with this ideal. Frequently, race was seen as the defining characteristic of what it meant to be civilized, but this was in spite of the Western ideal not because of it. When white supremacists (such as the Buffalo shooter) and progressives (such as the 1619 Project types) associate Western with “white” today, they act in the same ignorance.

God Bless,

Hunter Burnett