The origins and the influence of the western quest for perfection

Résumé du document

One of the most powerful values of the word 'Occident' is perfection. In order to understand how it became that important, it is necessary to look at how civilizations evolved and what conveys the creation of perfection in our everyday life. Indeed, perfection has had numerous different meanings according to the past population's way of thought through times. First of all, we have to notice that civilizations are surrounded by the quest of perfection. In fact, civilizations are mostly the illustrations of abstraction and homogeneous reality and they highlight people. Before civilizations, there are people and we have to respect individualities even if human beings are mainly influenced by our immediate environment. Secondly, in the western civilization, all Occidentals have not been and are still not up to what their system value expects. Here, we want to point out that it is not because the western world is based on such a value system that westerners are all pure and close to perfection. This is probably because Occidentals questioned the Western civilization that they left their value system in which it proceeded, that they reconsidered themselves in relation to the rest of the world and finally that they stopped to be considered as universal references. Thirdly, Western culture is not born alone but by the contribution of many different civilizations: Greek, Roman, Christian and also Muslim. Saint Thomas d'Aquin is the symbol of this so common heritage of knowledge, experiences and diverse principles. Occidental civilization is not born from exclusion but from mergers. These three steps allow us to avoid any ambiguity which encloses the 'western civilization' expression and fallacious interpretations (Intercollegial Studies Institute, 1996).

Extraits

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[...] The human element of such a magnitude is mind. The essence of this argument is in the spirit of dependence vis-à-vis a transcendent being. By the fact that a person can only depend on one person, Augustine provides access via this route to a truly personal God. A God known only from the experience of the imperfection of the created world could leave the man insensitive, who will be most affected by a God whose existence is known than from his own experience. [...]

[...] The doctrine of good contrasts the imperfection of the mutable and the perfection of the Immutable. The goodness of each thing is relative, which makes it possible to change for good or evil, or better or worse. So far in his evidence, Augustine started from the experience of beings in nature. The spirit turned outwards, towards the world, to discover the positive aspects or imperfections. Yet now we see Augustine initiate a new path: that of the mind that turns to itself to rise to God. [...]

[...] The origins and the influence of the western quest for perfection One of the most powerful values of Occident is the perfection. In order to understand how it became that important, it is necessary to look at how civilization evolved and what conveys the creation of perfection in our everyday life. Indeed, the perfection has had numerous different meaning according to the past population's way of thought through times. First of all, we have to notice that the civilizations, where nowadays happen challenges which are surrounded by the quest of perfection, do not have to be taken as real. [...]

[...] It is the law and the judiciary, the sense of justice, the discovery of the law's property. It is the order by the virtue and bravery (Roman Empire, 2003). Western civilization has this perpetual underlying quest for perfection because it lies on one idea. Indeed, our quick incursion in history allows us to point out a first drawing of what made it success. It emerged and developed by looking for a subtle balance, a fragile conciliation between opposing forces; by combining, for instance, diversity and unity; by respecting nature of the human person. [...]