In a January 2023 press release, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis called for legislation to “ensure Florida’s public universities and colleges are grounded in the history and philosophy of Western Civilization…” Some of DeSantis’ ideas were then incorporated in to Florida Senate Bill 266, which passed the legislature and was signed into law by DeSantis in May 2023. What DeSantis’ views and the Florida law ignore is that a university education cannot be complete or true if the curriculum emphasizes only “Western Civilization.”
Take another example, this one from literature. What could be more quintessential about the literature of “Western Civilization” than the work of Shakespeare? The sonnet structure that Shakespeare used for most of his poems developed in Sicily during the 13th century CE. It was highly influenced by the ghazal, a poetic form created in neighboring Arab lands, a form that dates from the five centuries earlier than the sonnet. Not only that, rhymed poetry like the sonnet didn’t even exist in “Western Civilization” until the Middle Ages—Homer and Virgil didn’t write in rhyme. Western European poets borrowed rhyme from Arabic poetry, and from the verses of the Qu’ran, when Muslim civilization was flourishing in Spain.
Don’t even get me started on Shakespeare and the ridiculous set of laws that conservatives have enacted or proposed to limit drag shows. Do the reactionaries advocating that censorship realize that every female character in a Shakespeare play was performed in the Bard’s time by a man in drag, from Juliet to Cordelia to Queen Gertrude? If you really want to talk about “Western Civilization,” you can’t possibly discuss it without talking about the importance of female impersonators.
Another example: the democratic system in the United States, presumably a feature of “Western Civilization” that DeSantis believes in, was highly influenced by the organizing principles of the Iroquois Confederacy, which date back to the 12th century. To explain American democracy without that context is misleading and untrue.
Not only is it wrong intellectually to view “Western Civilization” in a vacuum, it is also extremely limiting for students. Why should students not learn about many of the world’s religions, philosophies, and cultures, and grow to appreciate the best in each tradition? If those in the West want to understand their own culture in three dimensions, one great way to do that is to step outside it and see it from the standpoint of other societies.
The current right-wing obsession with “Western Civilization” has little to do with education and truthfulness, and everything to do with race. By “Western Civilization,” politicians like DeSantis really mean White culture. The phrase “Western Civilization” serves as a dog-whistle to inform reactionary Caucasians that their interests and culture will be favored under a Republican administration. Not only that, the campaign of reactionaries in the United States and elsewhere to favor “Western Civilization” is scarily reminiscent of the Nazis banning culture that they considered “decadent,” namely any art not created by Aryans.
The Republicans and their allies outside the United States are hawking a myth. “Western Civilization,” like all civilizations, has great strengths and weaknesses, but it cannot have meaning and depth without understanding it in the context of world culture. Why deprive students of the full spectrum of global history and philosophy? By expanding the latitudes and longitudes of our knowledge, we only deepen our understanding of all cultures. And that should be the goal of a university education.
