If last month we talked about the moral history of the West using the example of the "love" survey, this time we will ask ourselves what we mean by the term West in a broader cultural-historical sense.
Although the term is vague in geographical terms, it seems easier to define it as the set of specific ideas and values that the so-called West developed from the beginnings of ancient Greek philosophy and science, through the period of humanism and the Renaissance, to the scientific and philosophical thought of the Enlightenment. So, for example, we believe in the cultural-historical ideal of the West, which offered the rest of the world the values of reason, individual freedom and universal human rights. On the other hand, we know that the historical West has often acted as an imperial power around the world precisely in the name of these same values. Our time therefore opens up a dilemma: in the face of the decline of the West as a historical reality, we should also give up the West as a philosophical ideal.
Če smo pretekli mesec na primeru raziskave »ljubezni« govorili o nravstveni zgodovini Zahoda, se bomo tokrat vprašali, kaj sploh razumemo z izrazom Zahod v širšem kulturnozgodovinskem smislu.
Čeprav je izraz v geografskem smislu nejasen, se zdi, da ga lažje opredelimo kot nabor specifičnih idej in vrednot, ki jih je tako imenovani Zahod razvil od začetkov starogrške filozofije in znanosti, prek obdobja humanizma in renesanse, do znanstvene in filozofske misli razsvetljenstva. Tako na primer verjamemo v kulturnozgodovinski ideal Zahoda, ki je ostalemu svetu ponudil vrednote razuma, svobode posameznika in univerzalnih človekovih pravic. Po drugi strani pa vemo, da je zgodovinski Zahod pogosto prav v imenu teh istih vrednot po svetu deloval kot imperialna sila. Naš čas zato odpira dilemo: ali naj se ob zatonu Zahoda kot zgodovinske realnosti odpovemo tudi Zahodu kot filozofskemu idealu.
