Author on Redefining Our Understanding of “The West”

AMANPOUR, HOST: Now, the idea and the storied origins of western civilization have shaped most of history and politics as we know it. But our next guest says the traditional from Plato to NATO understanding is misleading. Ancient historian Noise Mac Sweeney explains how it got that way in her new book, “The West.” And she joins Michel Martin now to correct the record.

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MICHEL MARTIN, CONTRIBUTOR: Naoise Mac Sweeney, thank you so much for joining us.

NAOISE MAC SWEENEY, AUTHOR, “THE WEST”: It is lovely to be here. Thank you for the invitation.

MARTIN: You are a classical archaeologist. You are a historian of ancient era. Your book makes two powerful, and I think for some people, provocative arguments. The first is that our general story about the history of western civilization is factually wrong. So, why don’t we just start that and what is this false narrative that we have all been taught?

SWEENEY: Well, the story that I think most people will recognize tells the tale of the origins of the West, the modern West as having its origins, its roots in Ancient Greece and Rome. And from there, the idea is that western civilization is transferred into Central and Northern and Western Europe. And from there, it gets transferred across the Atlantic, especially to North America. So, this is the story of western civilization, and it is all around us. We see it everywhere we turn. But one of the things that I really wanted to debunk in the book is that this is a story which is, it doesn’t match the facts that we have currently. You know, it may have matched the facts that we had at the time the story was first written but, you know, we have more facts now, we know more about the past, and that’s simply not the way culture travels or civilization travels. The real story is much, much, much more complex.

MARTIN: So, why does it persist. Why does it persist as the way we are taught this story?

SWEENEY: Oh, well, OK, that answers — that question is kind of two answers. The first one is, is that the different bits of it are known but we haven’t put it all together. So, we know that Ancient Greek culture and philosophy and learning wasn’t just inherited in Western Europe. We know that it was very important in the medieval Arabic world. We know that Ancient Greek was still used as a language right until the 14th century in Sub-Saharan Africa and Sudan. So, we do know that it’s a much richer set of cultural transmissions. It is just joining it up into one big overarching narrative, which we haven’tquite done. And when you asked why haven’t we done that, why haven’t we rewritten this big narrative, and that’s — I think it’s because it’s being politically expedient for us not to. I think this is a narrative that fulfills a certain political function in western society and it has been very convenient over the centuries to hang onto it because it bolsters western ideas of western supremacy, western identity, and western exceptionalism.

MARTIN: And that is like the second point that you make very explicitly in the book, which is that this narrative, this false narrative has staying power because it’s been useful to those who want to dominate.

SWEENEY: Yes, absolutely. And I think this is not a shock horror moment. All historical narratives do this, right? That is why we tell history the way we do because they may make sense to us and they help us to explain who we are today.

Now, the only trouble is, is that this narrative of western civilization, it does not really explain who we are today in the modern West in the 21st century. I think it worked really well for the 18th and 19th century, when it was a really strong narrative. It began to work less well and well as the 20th century went on its way. But now, we are in the 21st century, the modern West is not the same as the West of 1900. And we need to have different origin stories.

MARTIN: So, here’s the approach that you took in rewriting this narrative for the 21st century was to ground of your story in the lives of 14 historical figures. And obviously, I can’t ask you to describe all 14 of them. But I wanted to ask, if we could put a couple and then, if you could sort of describe your thesis through their lives. So, if you could start with the ancient Greek historian, Herodotus, and how does he complicate our notions about this sort of — the inherent kind of whiteness of western culture and just kind of clear through line.

SWEENEY: Yes, no, absolutely. And I start with him in the book because we often look back to Herodotus, we sometimes call him the father of history. And we often assume that he is the first originator of this clash of civilizations, the West versus the rest kind of narrative. Very famously he wrote — his big magnum opus was called “The Persian Wars,” and it told the story of how an alliance of Greek city states fought against the Persian empire. So, this book is often being read as a clash of civilizations story. But actually, if you delve into, first of all the book, but also Herodotus’ own life, you can see how that it’s just not that simple.

So, Herodotus himself he is born in Halicarnassus, which is modern-day Turkey. He is Greek. He has got a Greek name. But he seems to be at least half indigenous Anatolian as well. So, his father has an indigenous Anatolian name, his other family members who also seemed to be indigenous. So, he’s a kind of a mixed culture kid. He ends up having to leave his home for political reasons. He is essentially a refugee and he winds up in Athens, which is kind of the golden cosmopolis of the moment, and he is trying to make a living as a young writer. And he is doing really well in Athens. But very strangely, at some point, he decides to leave Athens and live out the rest of his days in a small town in Southern Italy.

And, you know, a lot of people have asked over the years why would he do that when he is being — the moment when he’s a great successful writer, why is he leaving? And I think the answer lies in what is happening in Athens at the time. So, Athens is the cultural capital of the Greek world, but it is because it is drawing in wealth and richness and treasure from an empire, an empire of other Greeks. And what — the political rhetoric in Athens at this moment is one of increasing exclusionism, it is one of racial purity and it is — they are definitely trying to make it an uncomfortable environment for migrants to be in. And Herodotus, we can only imagine, must have felt that. And then, when we know this about his life and then we go back to read his book, the history is what we find is not a triumphant story of the Greeks defeating the cowardly eastern Asians, but actually, we see a much more complicated story where different groups of people are interrelated in different ways, where it is almost ridiculous to draw stark lines between people because there are so many interconnections. And actually, what Herodotus seems to be doing throughout the history is rubbishing the ideas of a clash of civilization. He’s mocking it. He’s showing that it does not work and reality. And so, I think we have — a lot of people have misread Herodotus over the centuries because of this.

MARTIN: That’s so fascinating. What about Phillis Wheatley? I was so intrigued to see her included in your work until I read the chapter. So, tell us why you include Phillis Wheatley, this — well, you know, famous to some people enslaved African-American poet. Tell — why does she does — how did she encapsulate your theory?

SWEENEY: Well, I first came across Phillis Wheatley as an early classical scholar. I mean, she is known not just for her poetry but for the very innovative way that she uses classic illusions, especially Latin but also Greek literature.

But to learn about her life, put every — all of this into a very stark context, she obviously was born in West Africa around 1755 and she ends up being enslaved and transported to Boston and there she is — shows a great aptitude for language learning and (INAUDIBLE) in general, and so, she learns Latin and Greek very quickly.

But by the age of 12, she’s publishing poems in newspapers. And as — she is a teenage literary sensation. Almost nobody can believe that this young enslaved girl can produce literary works of this high-caliber. And to read her poetry really shows you the depth of her engagement with the idea of the classical past and the western tradition.

And she is very clever about it. She draws upon it in very sophisticated ways but she also positions herself in a problematic way, too, that inherited classical tradition. She is positive. She has mastered it. But at the same time, she feels excluded by it, and she draws comparisons between herself and African Latin poet, Terence. And as peripheral — both partial (ph) and peripheral to this literary tradition. So, she is really, really interesting figure from this perspective.

And then, you find that even later in her life she wrote very painfully and evocatively about her own experiences being, in her words, snatched from Africa’s happy fancied seat. And writes about how the revolutionary movement in Boston at the time, she’s caught up in the middle of it, how — she questions how this can ever find divine favor while they continue to practice enslavement. And so, she begins to speak out, finds her political voice, you know, as well as having a literary voice. But then, it’s very sad that I (INAUDIBLE) she has a very tragic end, dies in penury. And you do wonder how much of that is linked to her speaking out politically.

MARTIN: And there’s one other person I wanted to ask you about, Tullia d’Aragona, who is a poet, a philosopher, and a famous courtesan of the Italian renaissance. Why did you include her story in the book?

SWEENEY: She is another fantastic literary woman, which I was very excited to begin reading about. And because, again, she undermines what we think of as happening in the renaissance. What we think of as a renaissance as being is a revival, literally a rebirth of classical and western civilization, a rediscovery of the ancient world.

But actually, Tullia’s poetry and also her letters are not like that. They have an awareness of a much wider world. So, she does right with classical illusions. She writes very wittily and in a very sophisticated way, engaging with Plato and Aristotle on questions of philosophy, but she also writes this wonderful epic poem, which like an adventure story about actually an enslaved young man who ends up becoming free and traveling the world to try and find his parents, called Il Meschino, The Wretched One.

And he travels through Asia and he travels through Africa and he travels through to the wilds of Europe and eventually finds his parents back home in Italy, of course. But all of these three continents are described in equally strange and weird and wild ways. And what Tullia shows us is a world which is not divided into Europe and the West and classical culture on the one hand and the monstrous eastern and Africa on the other hand. We have had elements of Christianity in all three continents. We’ve got elements classical Greek and Roman culture in all three continents. And we have elements of barbarity in all three continents as well.

So, I think we have to reassess what we think of as the renaissance world view as a worldview which is much more global perhaps then we might have thought before.

MARTIN: The argument has been made for some time, and it’s been made all around the world, that genius knows no continent. You know, that genius knows no continent. Creativity knows no continents. What is different is, you know, opportunity and access, the ability to express it. And I’m just sort of curious, like, why do the — why should this even be a radical idea at this point in our lives?

SWEENEY: It seems like it’s radical now because I think — I feel, at least, the political discourse in especially in North America and in Europe has become very, very polarized. And we seem to be retrenching ourselves at different ends of the political spectrum and unable to engage in dialogue across the middle.

And so, terms like the West and the western civilization have either become terms for sticking up on a statute pedestal and lionizing and saying that they are untouchable, for one side of the political spectrum. And on the other side of the political spectrum, they’ve almost become dirty words. They are something shameful or something that we like to be denigrated. And both of those things are clearly factitious (ph). They are strawmen. These are two strawmen. And so, if we cannot move past that, if we can’t get a more sophisticated, less two-dimensional strawman view of what western society and what the West currently is, we’re never going to be able to move forward.

MARTIN: But why do you think there’s such an aggressive move now to uphold this specific view of, you know, western civilization? Not just in the United States, but we see this in other, you know, western governments, this desire to kind of narrow the focus of history rather than broaden it. Like, why do you think that is?

SWEENEY: I think it was just because we are at a critical juncture in kind of the balance of power globally where the West is no longer occupying this unrivaled position of dominance, which it has had for the last couple of centuries. We’ve had the recent challenges of, well, Russia, especially with the war in Ukraine, Russian aggression. But perhaps even more importantly is this rise of China, both economically and also politically as well.

Now, wherever you stand on that, whether you think this is a good thing or a bad thing in different parts of the world, it is something which is — means that the world order is changing, that things are changing around the West, not just within China, but also China’s interactions with the rest of the world. And the West, therefore, has to rethink its position and what it fundamentally is. In doing that, there are people who want to step back and retrench and maybe put their hands over their ears and say, it is not happening. The West is what it always was. It can’t change. It’s never going to change. And there are some people who — you know, who see the faults of the West and wants to almost rip it to shreds. But there are also some people in the middle who are seeking to try and understand what the West is now — and it is not what it was 100 years ago, it’s not what it was 150 years ago, it’s not what it was even 20 years ago.

So, the kinds of identity we need in the West now are not the kinds of identity we need at the time that this idea of western civilization was being promoted. We need something else and we need it now.

MARTIN: You say very clearly, that your book is not an attack on the West. Say more about that and why you made a point of saying that.

SWEENEY: I made a point of saying this because there is a school or a political corner which does want to critique the West and western civilization saying that there’s nothing good about it and it is all to denigrated, and acknowledging some of the horrors of the past in western history. And I think we must acknowledge those horrors and we must come face-to-face with them.

But that does not mean to say that the West in the current world is something that you should give up on. Now, I am of the West. I live in the West. I do have a Chinese mother and I have family roots in China. But I am of the West. And there are things which I cherish and value as — which I think are core to a modern 21st century western identity.

And in political debates nowadays around me there are — it’s obvious there are other people who see those things as call to West identity too, and these are principles such as democracy, the rule of law, freedom of speech, freedom of worship, or we could debate which ones we want to include and exclude. But the core values of the West, as I see it and as many people around me seemed to see it, are no longer racial or ethnic in the same ways they were 100 — or at least 70 or even 50 years ago.

And so, this new — this current West, which we’re now living into today is the West that I think we need to seek to understand and which we need to find a new origin therefor.

MARTIN: Naoise Mac Sweeney, thank you so much for speaking with us today.

SWEENEY: Thank you.

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