A Historical and Philosophical Examination of the Myth of the Continuity of European Civilization

2024-01-15

Outside the headquarters of the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France, there is a huge statue of a girl named Europa riding on the back of a bull. The Greek island of Crete presented this statue as a gift to the European Parliament, aiming to illustrate the status of the Minoan civilization on Crete as the origin of European civilization. This statue depicts a Greek mythological story, in which the main god Zeus fell in love with Europa, the daughter of the Phoenician king who was playing by the sea. He transformed into a very strong cow to attract her attention and carried her across the sea to the island of Crete. Europa gave birth to three sons for Zeus on the island, one of whom was named Minos and later became the king of Crete. Thus, the Minoan civilization became the starting point of European civilization, and Europe was named after Europa. However, in ancient Greek mythology, the Europa only represented the starting point of Greek civilization, and even only explained that Minos was the earliest ruler of Crete. However, linking it to European civilization is a narrative discourse of the 19th century, which means that the connection between the Minis civilization of Crete and the origin of Europe is clearly a modern product. From a historical perspective, ancient Greek civilization is an important leap in the development history of human civilization, and its philosophical ideas still inspire people's wise thinking to this day; The Roman Empire once established an empire spanning three continents of Europe, Asia, and Africa, and its social and legal system left an indelible mark in the history of human development. Greek and Roman civilizations undoubtedly had a significant impact on later generations, with the first having a direct impact on the Pan Mediterranean region such as the Mesopotamia, Anatolia, Egypt, Levant, Persia, and other regions, particularly during the Hellenistic period. Later, it was the gradual influence of Greek and Roman civilizations on the entire Europe. Initially, the expansion of the Roman Empire brought the influence of civilization all the way to the southern part of Great Britain. Later, before the Renaissance, Europe rediscovered the value of the achievements of Greek civilization from the Arabs. In space, on the one hand, Greece and Rome are situated within the maritime network of West Asia and North Africa, which serve as the "Near East"; On the other hand, Greece and Rome are adjacent to Western Europe and Northern Europe. As a result, with the rise of Western Europe and the rise of Atlantic civilization, Westerners have highlighted the direct connection between Greece and Rome, West Asia, and North Africa by obscuring them, thus constructing a narrative or myth of Western civilization continuity and consistency from Greece and Rome to the present, with Anglo Saxon as the core. This narrative myth has several academic paths or scripts: firstly, it expands the differences and fragmentation between the Greek and Roman civilizations and other Mediterranean civilizations such as West Asia and North Africa. This description is ubiquitous in modern European historical works, as if the Greek and Roman classical civilizations were "flying peaks," which are vastly different from the civilizations of West Asia and North Africa. The second is to weaken the direct correlation between Greek and Roman civilization and other Mediterranean civilizations in West Asia and North Africa, especially to weaken the inheritance of Greek and Roman civilization to West Asia and North Africa civilization, and to obscure the influence of West Asia and North Africa civilization on Greek and Roman civilization. The author suggests that artificial intelligence

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