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An Argument for the Existence of European Culture

  • Writer: AES
    AES
  • Apr 5, 2019
  • 3 min read

You may have heard of the phrase: "European Culture is an Invented Tradition". While the apparent gap between races and cultures begin clashing, and people begin repeating on ideas more frequently, giving them more power, it does not make them true. Especially with meanings of words such as "culture", an argument could be made that though European nations could be of the most recent to develop, this does not undermine their culture in any way.

Throughout history, humankind has always longed to understand themselves and their surroundings, and with this notion rose many thinkers, scholars and philosophers, all of whom trying to decipher the meaning of life as the greater picture, and understand why people are the way they are, and what affects their behavior, decisions and personalities, on the smaller scale.

With time, and many debated ideas, we have come to learn that our life could be categorized into different sections, each separate from each other, however in some way all inter-dependent on one another. These became schools of philosophy, studying the greater meaning of our existence, and psychology, studying our thoughts and character, and sociology, studying how our environment affects who we were, are, and are going to be. Which both brought path to the plethora of arts that many have indulged in today; from composing and performing music, to painting and illustrating ideas in different styles and on different media, to the art of expressing in literary terms and an advancement of writing itself.



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With this being said, we can also distinguish between the different ideas behind self-expression and the way it affects people socially as well as politically, and we could see that there is a relation between how different groups of people live with their surroundings. In sociology we may call different groups as relating to different cultures, and their specific surroundings as their society. 

A particular group or society’s culture consists of beliefs, values, behaviors, objects, arts and other characteristics common to them. Having a culture is important to each state or society. Politically, a state’s culture defines who its people are, where they come from and most importantly what makes them different that other nations, and what gives them most value, you can tell this is true because once speaking of any specific country, you can automatically associate them with what they are known for.

Through culture, people and groups are also able to define themselves, and have a sense of belonging to those they find similar in beliefs and behavior. They can also conform to society's shared values, and contribute to society by using what they find valuable in themselves. Thus, culture includes many societal aspects: language, customs, values, rules, tools, technologies, products, organizations, and institutions.



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The main aspects to find in this definition is that all of these manifestations are considered shared and regarded collective. A culture could not form without a group, and a group could not become a collective one without a culture. Therefore, considering that a society cannot be built without two main columns which are culture and social structure, the now common trend of saying "Europe has no culture of its own" could not be further from the truth.



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It cannot be denied that European countries have been influenced by other nations, however we must come to an understanding that they too were affected by Europe's way of thinking and way of life. Styles of music, modern schools and periods of art and literature mostly have been birthed in the heart of Europe leading outwards. Every society, every country, every nation has its own culture. We cannot simply repeat the things we hear and read online and pass it on as being the truth. Always do your research before claiming anything as a fact, and figure out the true meaning behind words before using them. Otherwise, parroting a claim could work for you in terms of being part of a herd, however it does not make you sound any more knowledgable, especially with it being so far from reality.


Written by: A.E.S.

April, 2019.

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