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The Uniqueness of Western Civilization
This extensively researched book argues that the development of a libertarian culture was an indispensable component of the rise of the West. The roots of the West's superior intellectual and artistic creativity should be traced back to the aristocratic warlike culture of Indo-European speakers. Among the many fascinating topics discussed the ascendancy of multicultural historians and the degradation of European history; China's ecological endowments and imperial windfalls; military revolutions in Europe 1300-1800; the science and chivalry of Henry the Navigator; Judaism and its contribution to Western rationalism; the cultural richness of Max Weber versus the intellectual poverty of Pomeranz, Wong, Goldstone, Goody, and A.G. Frank; change without progress in the East; Hegel's Phenomenology of the [Western] Spirit; Nietzsche and the education of the Homeric Greeks; Kojeve's master-slave dialectic and the Western state of nature; Christian virtues and German aristocratic expansionism.
538 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2011
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December 19, 2021
Preliminary review of a review:
After reading a review of Duchesne's book by Collin Cleary in "North American New Right, Volume Two" (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3...), I am so excited by its ideas that I am going to write down my thoughts here until I read the book fully.
This book has two parts: (1) A critique of cultural relativist historians who deny the uniqueness of the West and (2) an awe-inspiring philosophical exposition (using Nietzsche, Spengler, Hegel, and more) of why the West is unique. I will write about (2) below.
Duchesne sees the uniqueness of the West in its thymotic spirit: its peoples' strive to be recognized for great deeds. This is a Faustian spirit, a spirit for one's name to be sung as one of honor for all ages. But this is just one aspect of the Faustian spirit, which is essentially the drive for infinity, to escape all natural bounds. E.g. we can see this in the desire to make the universe systematically rational (Thales, Aquinas, Newton, et al.), the desire for one to completely master the "natural" desires of one's self (Stoicism, Kant), the desire to conquer all space (European global empires and explorers), and even in the modern egalitarian desire for everyone to be completely free of all genetic and social settings.
But where did this come from? And here Duchesne brings in Hegel. Duchesne has a unique insight that Western philosophers are not talking about human nature (another Faustian generalization to the infinite — which we do not find in other peoples), but about the nature of Western man. From here Duchesne develop's Hegel's master-slave dialectic into a historical happening: the Hegelian master-slave dialectic comes out of the IE warrior ethos (infinite dignity triumphing over the will to live, leading to the recognition of the mind and its ideals). This, then, is development of self-consciousness via the triumph of the ideal of nobility over the will to survive!
And this individual desire to master one's self, master one's foe (for honor), and even master nature herself has been that which makes the West unique. Westerners hate having their self-dignity trampled under dogmatism and hate having their political voice trampled under despotism. They want to be self-determining. E.g. aristocratic warriors in the Nordic sagas, in the Iliad, and in the Middle Ages never slavishly submitted to a king; the king was a "first among equals", with the recognition of all parties of the uniqueness of the self (with its dignity). Think of Achilles being allowed to rebel against Agamemnon's authority until Agamemnon (the king!) himself recognized the harm he did to Achilles's honor. On the other hand, Japanese samurai's took a vow to have complete devotion to their master and would kill themselves if he died!
We see the drive to have mastery over one's foe (in battle or elsewhere) as being another key component of Western history. Some examples: Greek philosophy, drama, and Olympics are essentially individual competitions to attain fame and glory. We see the same competitive nature in medieval philosophical debates (using the syllogistic form of Aristotle as a basis) and in the materialization of that competitive drive for recognition (thymos) in modern business pursuits, from the industrial revolution onwards. We see it again in Western philosophy, with a bunch of individual philosophers creating competitive thought/world-systems, opposing their predecessors (think Spinoza vs. Descartes vs. Leibniz).
We see the drive to master nature in the following: the attempt to expand infinitely wide (seafaring, across a whole ocean and eventually across the planet!) and infinitely high (the invention of flight, mission to the moon); the drive to understand and systematize all of nature, whether that be through Linnaean taxonomy or by finding universal laws (Newton); the drive to overcome the natural limitations of food (Malthus) by improving the soil itself; the drive to give everyone an equal opportunity and to say that all can become equal, no matter their race, sex, religion, class, etc. (and perhaps to shut down voices who say there are natural limits!).
Western man thinks himself a slave if he does not self-determine himself and self-direct himself. And Westerners hate simply accepting something; they must make it rational, it must be understood! The facts must be harmonized and then direct one's own self. And here I come to my own self. One of my biggest dilemmas is this: if I self-determine my beliefs, which then determine actions, how do I select my beliefs? I cannot simply accept them like dogma; they must be rational! I have primarily resorted to biology and logic to found my basic social beliefs, as I cannot think of any science at a "lower" level (e.g. chemistry) to do so. But I have a great responsibility in my hands to choose the right materials to go over, for if I miss crucial data then my beliefs will be mistaken.
Such is the dilemma of all members of the West who have the capability to think for themselves. Such has it always been! (according to Duchesne). And so I realize that my dilemma is a shared one. But I must quest onwards, attempt to understand, attempt to systematize, as I feel the Faustian urge within my soul. What a book! (and I haven't even read it yet!).
I have one last point to make regarding the self-determination of one's self. One can only reach freedom within a set bound, or else you become an amorphous blob who cannot decide where to start and where to end, because once infinity is actually reached, it cannot be acted upon due to of the limitation of the human mind. One is set by the genes, the place, the social environment, and the family which one is born with. And only within this "grounding" can one venture to fully realize one's grounded self. The more you try to change this grounding, the more it will fight back and rebel against your own desires. So whatever you learn, situate and accommodate it to who you are, your "groundedness", as the ideal of the amorphous blob with no background absorbing knowledge in a completely objective way is not possible — but it is only the Faustian nature which could have dreamed it up.
More insights:
One of my favorite philosophical concepts, the Faustian spirit of Western man (Spengler), is derived from the drive to have infinite renown and recognition by the IE warriors, which we can see in the Iliad, Beowulf and in many Norse sagas. It is not only limited to the West from ~1100-2000, as Spengler thought, but is a natural outcome of the IE derived peoples of the world. And even the conquering of other peoples (India, Europe) by the IE warriors is another expression of the Faustian drive for infinity, for not only raising one's dignity to last forever, but to conquer all!
The Faustian drive for infinite self-determination is the root of both the West's greatest triumphs and today's self-destruction. It led to the attempt to create fully rational worldviews and ethics (Aquinas, Kant, Aurelius, et al.) and to the thymotic drive for scientific invention displayed by the West from 1500 to 1950 (that requires individuals going their own way to find the truth). It led to the accelerating change of new art styles, new forms of sculptures, and new forms of music, as the individuality of each of these artist attempted to self-determine their own creation, uninhibited by societal mores and standards. They wanted their names to live on forever as creators of the new but true! As Duchesne points out, in no other place but the West do we find art styles changing so rapidly.
But at the same time, the Faustian urge for complete self-determination leads to the denial of biology and its consequences and to civic nationalism, the desire for the "Creed" to replace all factual matters. It drives the inebriated faux conservatives to have immigration and to have America stay America — to eat the cake and have it too! What people who subscribe to the "Creed" making up a nation do not recognize is that this notion is only derived from a certain people: Western people. In no other nation (China, Middle East, or Africa) do we find nations accepting everyone to immigrate there because they are founded on a "Creed", not on a specific population.
To conclude, I find that this book is the philosophical counterpoint to the biohistories I have been reading so frequently (E.g. MacDonald's books about JQ and the West, Sarraf et al. 2020). It also explored the history of self-consciousness (one of the topics I am most interested in), a complete surprise! I will have to read the full work soon because of my intellectual excitement regarding its ideas.
After reading a review of Duchesne's book by Collin Cleary in "North American New Right, Volume Two" (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3...), I am so excited by its ideas that I am going to write down my thoughts here until I read the book fully.
This book has two parts: (1) A critique of cultural relativist historians who deny the uniqueness of the West and (2) an awe-inspiring philosophical exposition (using Nietzsche, Spengler, Hegel, and more) of why the West is unique. I will write about (2) below.
Duchesne sees the uniqueness of the West in its thymotic spirit: its peoples' strive to be recognized for great deeds. This is a Faustian spirit, a spirit for one's name to be sung as one of honor for all ages. But this is just one aspect of the Faustian spirit, which is essentially the drive for infinity, to escape all natural bounds. E.g. we can see this in the desire to make the universe systematically rational (Thales, Aquinas, Newton, et al.), the desire for one to completely master the "natural" desires of one's self (Stoicism, Kant), the desire to conquer all space (European global empires and explorers), and even in the modern egalitarian desire for everyone to be completely free of all genetic and social settings.
But where did this come from? And here Duchesne brings in Hegel. Duchesne has a unique insight that Western philosophers are not talking about human nature (another Faustian generalization to the infinite — which we do not find in other peoples), but about the nature of Western man. From here Duchesne develop's Hegel's master-slave dialectic into a historical happening: the Hegelian master-slave dialectic comes out of the IE warrior ethos (infinite dignity triumphing over the will to live, leading to the recognition of the mind and its ideals). This, then, is development of self-consciousness via the triumph of the ideal of nobility over the will to survive!
And this individual desire to master one's self, master one's foe (for honor), and even master nature herself has been that which makes the West unique. Westerners hate having their self-dignity trampled under dogmatism and hate having their political voice trampled under despotism. They want to be self-determining. E.g. aristocratic warriors in the Nordic sagas, in the Iliad, and in the Middle Ages never slavishly submitted to a king; the king was a "first among equals", with the recognition of all parties of the uniqueness of the self (with its dignity). Think of Achilles being allowed to rebel against Agamemnon's authority until Agamemnon (the king!) himself recognized the harm he did to Achilles's honor. On the other hand, Japanese samurai's took a vow to have complete devotion to their master and would kill themselves if he died!
We see the drive to have mastery over one's foe (in battle or elsewhere) as being another key component of Western history. Some examples: Greek philosophy, drama, and Olympics are essentially individual competitions to attain fame and glory. We see the same competitive nature in medieval philosophical debates (using the syllogistic form of Aristotle as a basis) and in the materialization of that competitive drive for recognition (thymos) in modern business pursuits, from the industrial revolution onwards. We see it again in Western philosophy, with a bunch of individual philosophers creating competitive thought/world-systems, opposing their predecessors (think Spinoza vs. Descartes vs. Leibniz).
We see the drive to master nature in the following: the attempt to expand infinitely wide (seafaring, across a whole ocean and eventually across the planet!) and infinitely high (the invention of flight, mission to the moon); the drive to understand and systematize all of nature, whether that be through Linnaean taxonomy or by finding universal laws (Newton); the drive to overcome the natural limitations of food (Malthus) by improving the soil itself; the drive to give everyone an equal opportunity and to say that all can become equal, no matter their race, sex, religion, class, etc. (and perhaps to shut down voices who say there are natural limits!).
Western man thinks himself a slave if he does not self-determine himself and self-direct himself. And Westerners hate simply accepting something; they must make it rational, it must be understood! The facts must be harmonized and then direct one's own self. And here I come to my own self. One of my biggest dilemmas is this: if I self-determine my beliefs, which then determine actions, how do I select my beliefs? I cannot simply accept them like dogma; they must be rational! I have primarily resorted to biology and logic to found my basic social beliefs, as I cannot think of any science at a "lower" level (e.g. chemistry) to do so. But I have a great responsibility in my hands to choose the right materials to go over, for if I miss crucial data then my beliefs will be mistaken.
Such is the dilemma of all members of the West who have the capability to think for themselves. Such has it always been! (according to Duchesne). And so I realize that my dilemma is a shared one. But I must quest onwards, attempt to understand, attempt to systematize, as I feel the Faustian urge within my soul. What a book! (and I haven't even read it yet!).
I have one last point to make regarding the self-determination of one's self. One can only reach freedom within a set bound, or else you become an amorphous blob who cannot decide where to start and where to end, because once infinity is actually reached, it cannot be acted upon due to of the limitation of the human mind. One is set by the genes, the place, the social environment, and the family which one is born with. And only within this "grounding" can one venture to fully realize one's grounded self. The more you try to change this grounding, the more it will fight back and rebel against your own desires. So whatever you learn, situate and accommodate it to who you are, your "groundedness", as the ideal of the amorphous blob with no background absorbing knowledge in a completely objective way is not possible — but it is only the Faustian nature which could have dreamed it up.
More insights:
One of my favorite philosophical concepts, the Faustian spirit of Western man (Spengler), is derived from the drive to have infinite renown and recognition by the IE warriors, which we can see in the Iliad, Beowulf and in many Norse sagas. It is not only limited to the West from ~1100-2000, as Spengler thought, but is a natural outcome of the IE derived peoples of the world. And even the conquering of other peoples (India, Europe) by the IE warriors is another expression of the Faustian drive for infinity, for not only raising one's dignity to last forever, but to conquer all!
The Faustian drive for infinite self-determination is the root of both the West's greatest triumphs and today's self-destruction. It led to the attempt to create fully rational worldviews and ethics (Aquinas, Kant, Aurelius, et al.) and to the thymotic drive for scientific invention displayed by the West from 1500 to 1950 (that requires individuals going their own way to find the truth). It led to the accelerating change of new art styles, new forms of sculptures, and new forms of music, as the individuality of each of these artist attempted to self-determine their own creation, uninhibited by societal mores and standards. They wanted their names to live on forever as creators of the new but true! As Duchesne points out, in no other place but the West do we find art styles changing so rapidly.
But at the same time, the Faustian urge for complete self-determination leads to the denial of biology and its consequences and to civic nationalism, the desire for the "Creed" to replace all factual matters. It drives the inebriated faux conservatives to have immigration and to have America stay America — to eat the cake and have it too! What people who subscribe to the "Creed" making up a nation do not recognize is that this notion is only derived from a certain people: Western people. In no other nation (China, Middle East, or Africa) do we find nations accepting everyone to immigrate there because they are founded on a "Creed", not on a specific population.
To conclude, I find that this book is the philosophical counterpoint to the biohistories I have been reading so frequently (E.g. MacDonald's books about JQ and the West, Sarraf et al. 2020). It also explored the history of self-consciousness (one of the topics I am most interested in), a complete surprise! I will have to read the full work soon because of my intellectual excitement regarding its ideas.
June 12, 2019
The best text on Western Civilization I have read so far, and at this point I have read quite a lot. Duchesne expertly hacks away at the slimy Last Men who want to claim that everything great about the west comes from being stolen by colonialism or from "Rationalism". He doesn't go far enough on the latter point. Nonetheless, he identifies with tremendous precision the spirit of the West in the restless barbarians of the Pontic steppe who valued the individual's personal quest for glory above all else. His arguments are crystal-clear and devoid of all pretension.
Highly recommended for all proud Westerners interested in knowing about their own kind.
Highly recommended for all proud Westerners interested in knowing about their own kind.
October 10, 2020
8/10.
Corrective to the 'world history' anti-European school.
Re-rate: 9.5/10. Like The Ordeal of Civility, this work becomes more powerful over time, especially when compared to the other trash that passes as contemporary history.
Corrective to the 'world history' anti-European school.
Re-rate: 9.5/10. Like The Ordeal of Civility, this work becomes more powerful over time, especially when compared to the other trash that passes as contemporary history.
April 14, 2016
Excellent synthesis on the warrior-aristocratic psychology of the West.
January 8, 2026
An effusively researched and passionately argued perspective of the importance of western civilization and its inventions and concepts which it bequeathed unto the broader world civilization. Duchesne, an obviously erudite and well-read academic, references countless books and articles in his construction of the argument that what the west has put forth is unmatched by other cultures. He begins the book by deconstructing the newly orthodox position of “world history” and “social studies” which he claims was fostered by historians subsequent to the first and second world wars as an attempt to deprecate and belittle western insights and accomplishments. Prior to this change, Duchesne posits that people in the west primarily studied “history” not “world history” or “social studies”, and that this study of history was typically focused on the classics, the Greeks, Romans, and European history in general.
About midway through the book, Duchesne shifts his focus toward enumerating what the unique concepts are which the west brought forth, including philosophy, comedy, tragedy, rhetoric, history along with a penchant for deep self-reflection and individualism not exhibited by eastern cultures. He delves into the murky waters of the history of the Indo-Europeans, which supposedly brought the seed of these concepts and ideas into Europe from their point of origin in what is now eastern Ukraine, or thereabouts, including the influential language they spoke, which eventually splintered into the many common European languages spoken today.
I’ve deducted a star due to my relative ignorance of some of the arguments and concepts he brings forth, as I’ve admittedly not read up as much on eastern cultures as he has, and I feel one could easily concoct a contrary position were one to read more from and about eastern accomplishments, or if one were themselves from the east and grew up ensconced in the milieu of eastern culture and practices. Nonetheless, I feel as though Duchesne made many valid points, and if nothing else, he helped me add about 40 new books to my “to-read” shelf, which I count as a win.
About midway through the book, Duchesne shifts his focus toward enumerating what the unique concepts are which the west brought forth, including philosophy, comedy, tragedy, rhetoric, history along with a penchant for deep self-reflection and individualism not exhibited by eastern cultures. He delves into the murky waters of the history of the Indo-Europeans, which supposedly brought the seed of these concepts and ideas into Europe from their point of origin in what is now eastern Ukraine, or thereabouts, including the influential language they spoke, which eventually splintered into the many common European languages spoken today.
I’ve deducted a star due to my relative ignorance of some of the arguments and concepts he brings forth, as I’ve admittedly not read up as much on eastern cultures as he has, and I feel one could easily concoct a contrary position were one to read more from and about eastern accomplishments, or if one were themselves from the east and grew up ensconced in the milieu of eastern culture and practices. Nonetheless, I feel as though Duchesne made many valid points, and if nothing else, he helped me add about 40 new books to my “to-read” shelf, which I count as a win.
April 28, 2022
It would be 5-stars but sometimes the content is too academic and filled with enthomological detail. The Hegelian/Kojevian bias of the author is also a bit of a turn-off. The first chapter reads like a technical report or a Ph.D. dissertation. However, the book goes from worse to better and better.
September 2, 2023
incredible
March 31, 2023
"The Uniqueness of Western Civilization" is a book written by Ricardo Duchesne, first published in 2011. The book is a controversial and influential work of history and sociology that challenges traditional understandings of Western civilization and argues for its distinctiveness.
Duchesne's central argument is that Western civilization is unique in its development of individualism, rationalism, and scientific inquiry. He argues that these characteristics have set the West apart from other civilizations throughout history and have been responsible for its dominance in various spheres of human activity, from technology to politics to culture.
Duchesne also challenges the notion that Western civilization is based on a legacy of colonialism, racism, and exploitation. He argues that such criticisms overlook the positive contributions of the West to human progress, such as the development of modern medicine and the abolition of slavery.
The book has been praised for its scholarly rigor and its ability to provoke debate on important questions about the nature of Western civilization and its place in the world. However, it has also been criticized for its controversial views and its reliance on a selective interpretation of history.
GPT
Duchesne's central argument is that Western civilization is unique in its development of individualism, rationalism, and scientific inquiry. He argues that these characteristics have set the West apart from other civilizations throughout history and have been responsible for its dominance in various spheres of human activity, from technology to politics to culture.
Duchesne also challenges the notion that Western civilization is based on a legacy of colonialism, racism, and exploitation. He argues that such criticisms overlook the positive contributions of the West to human progress, such as the development of modern medicine and the abolition of slavery.
The book has been praised for its scholarly rigor and its ability to provoke debate on important questions about the nature of Western civilization and its place in the world. However, it has also been criticized for its controversial views and its reliance on a selective interpretation of history.
GPT
October 9, 2017
A pretty tough read. Very academic, and very many references in the text. Interesting book though, especially chapter 6.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews