Three Principles That Shaped Modern Western Culture

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Three principles of thoughts that shaped the modern western culture were the ideas of racism, humanism, and nationality. Each of these three principles had a tremendous effect on the western culture, and changed the social norms of the day that went unchallenged. These effects would radically change the how the western culture would perceive race, national pride, and themselves as people. The invention of racism came into prominence through the demanding increase of labor needed in the new word. The biggest problem with owning slaves was the Biblical principle that a Christian couldn’t own another Christian. In the European society, religion played a major role in people’s lives. The general consensus was that everybody was a Christian, therefore, the idea of slavery died out in Europe. While there being a lack of war could mean peace, soldiers who were getting paid to fight were suddenly finding themselves without a job. With resumes fit for war, and being out of a job; ex soldiers saw an opportunity to start over in the new world and be rich. These men would go …show more content…

The great chain of being was a hierarchy system that allowed people to know their place in society. The archy started with God at the top, the next in line were the angels; after the angels it was the pope, and at the end of the list were the common people. Because it was the general consensus that everyone was a Christian, the people were subjected to the teachings of the church. The church had started to become corrupt. They took money from the people, in order that the peasants could shorten their sentence in pergatory. The church started to tell everyone why everything was happening. The church said that since God was in charge, he decided everything.The Bible was in latin, since the common people weren’t educated, they couldn’t read the Bible and had to rely on the church to interpret the Bible. (Western Civ.