This monotheistic base won out over its polytheistic context largely because of its correlation to the logical singularity of truth itself, which we will explore further when we contemplate rationality below. The religious traditions flowing from the Old and New Testaments represent the monotheistic base from which Western civilization has operated. Along the way we can evaluate why learning Western civilization is so important to our educational goals today, while also addressing some misconceptions that have undermined the perceived value of an education based on Western civilization. I’m using these three concepts to carry a lot of freight, so I will spend the better part of this essay developing what I mean by these. Important to our understanding of Western civilization are three key pillars that make it distinctive in the world: the Judeo-Christian tradition, democracy and rationality. Yet all the seeds of the distinctive culture of the west were present in the ancient context. At the foundation of Western civilization, the Americas were unknown and our current understanding of global politics and economics was incomprehensible. However, Western civilization goes all the way back to the ancient world, grounded in the Middle East and the Mediterranean, from Mesopotamia and Egypt to Greece and Rome. So what do we mean by Western civilization? Today we equate the “West” with Europe (predominantly Western Europe), and its offspring in the New World (especially the United States). Raphael, The School of Athens (1509-1511) fresco
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