European Culture: From

1000 BCE to TikTok

Week 1: Religion & Philosophy

Emma van Driessum, Roberto Barroso, Umran Yugruk &

Dave van Ginhoven
Today’s Music
What Was That?

• I had planned on using ‘Faith’ today but it was too on the

nose & I already used George Michael
• Do I have to ask if you know this guy?
• George Harrison (1943-2001) was in a little group called
the Beatles before going solo
• “My Sweet Lord” was on his very philosophical third solo
album All Things Must Pass
• The lyrics have religious overtones
• Harrison was preaching (pun intended) for an end to
religious divisions and pleading for unity
• By blending Jewish/Christian tradition with Hindu gods &
the style of Krishna Consciousness
• It’s probably Harrison’s biggest solo song AND…
2
My Sweet Lord
This Song Speaks to Us on Multiple Levels

• Harrison lived in a UK that was only beginning to get truly multi-cultural

• With Christians, Jews, Hindus and Muslims living together
• Today, his hope for cultural cohesion may be even more necessary
• More on this later
• The song also reminds us of Europe’s cultural legacy around the world
• It was performed at the ‘Concert for Bangladesh’ in 1971 – the first
superstar charity concert for the people of what was East Pakistan
• Raising money for people struggling with the effects of a natural disaster
and a war for independence from Pakistan that left millions displaced
• Itself the long-term result of Britain's 1947 Partition of India, which created
East & West Pakistan
• Bringing back more history that informs European culture & (self) image 3
European Culture: From
1000 BCE to TikTok
Week 1: Religion & Philosophy

Emma van Driessum, Roberto Barroso, Umran Yugruk &

Dave van Ginhoven
Welcome Back
Let’s Quickly Look Back at Where We Are

• Last time, we introduced the course

• We’ve tried to scratch the surface on European culture
• We’ve found that it’s hard to define a single European culture and
that there’s tension between nations and the continent
• As well as a complicated relationship with ‘The New World’
• But we’ve established that there is still shared history and general
trends in the arts and philosophy that are worth exploring
• You were also introduced to the Oral Exam and Reading
Component (sign up if you haven’t….)

5
Things We Talked About
And the Things You Said…

• We asked for your thoughts on how to define European Culture

• Reviewing that will help us introduce today’s topic

6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
What Stands Out?
Commonalities

• Many students mentioned…

• Common History
• Language
• Shared values
• Diversity, multi-culturalism & tolerance
• The Arts
• Religion
• A lot of that will inform our talk today

15
 Moving On
Or Back, Really

• We’re gonna get into this

• We have a LOT to discuss but
relax
• Don’t try to write down too much
– the slides are my prompter
and you’ll have them later
• Let’s take a look at that shared
history if we can
• This short video traces some of
it in the most basic terms

16
What Do You Notice?
What Jumps Out When You Look at Europe’s History?
• One thing that should stand out to you is how often –
and fast – things have changed in Europe
• Borders, allegiances, religions and languages are
always shifting, moving and evolving
• Nothing is as permanent or long-lasting as it seems
• Neither are traditions or our feelings about them

17
It’s Time to Make Some Notes
Go Back to Your Table
• Have a chat with your tablemates materials to…
• Make a list of which historical events/moments/eras were most
important in shaping European culture and/or the
contemporary European Identity

18
That Musical Interlude
Did Anyone Recognise it?

• Even if you didn’t know the song, you know the singer
• Annie Lennox (Scotland) was half of the Eurythmics
• Creators of ‘Sweet Dreams are Made of This’
• ‘Walking on Broken Glass’ was a big hit on Lennox’ solo album
Diva in 1992 & the video is full of historical/cultural references
• Shot to look like 1988’s Dangerous Liaisons (based on a 1782
French novel about pre-revolutionary society shenanigans) and
starring the same lead actor
• With Hugh Laurie (you know him as House) appearing as a
character similar to what he did in Blackadder (1983-1989), a
British historical comedy that still has a cult following
19
Remember This?

20
 The Traditional Narrative
What We Usually Talk About When We Talk About Europe

• The story (HIStory?) usually starts in Ancient Greece

• With much fuss about Socrates, reason & early democratic
principles
• Then comes Rome, establishing a superstate
• Then comes Christianity, which becomes co-ruler & outlasts
Rome, eventually gaining control over culture
• Thus begins a ‘Dark Age’ of limited progress
• Which is disrupted by a ‘rebirth’ of old ideas
• Which leads to an ‘Enlightened return to reason
• “Man’s re-emergence from his self-imposed immaturity”
• Which inspires revolutions - political & scientific
• From the ‘Chain of Being’ to the ballot box
• But faces counter-reactions – romantic & nationalistic
• Which leads to global war & mass murder
21
• Followed by peace, prosperity and the EU
But is that Fair?
Isn’t There More Nuance?

• Ancient Greece wasn’t exactly a democracy

• The Dark Ages did see some progress
• The Church is ALSO responsible for saving a lot
of art and knowledge
• The Enlightened Europeans who created the
social contract also thought it was okay to sign
contracts to purchase other human beings
• The Industrial revolution changed everything, but
maybe not always for the best
• Europe is more peaceful today, but not everyone
shares in its prosperity
22
However…
That Story is Still Important
• This is how Europe typically views its history, for better or for worse
• It’s good to be aware of that history - but it’s also nice to view it from different perspectives
• It can enlighten conversations on contemporary issues about values, cultural identity, diversity, etc.
• Pasta, for example, is essential to Italian identity, right? But it’s not from Italy….

23
Europe Today
Who We Say We Are

• The EU says these are its values & traces

them back to the Enlightenment
• Are they shared European values?
• Are they upheld everywhere in Europe?

24
What Were We Supposed to Be Talking About?
The Manual Says Religion & Philosophy so Let’s Go Back to That

• Let’s go back to (In the) beginning…

• To see how much we have to talk about religion, let’s find out
what you know with a quick quiz (write down your answers)
• What is the oldest religion that is still practiced in Europe today?
• What was the first monotheism (the first to worship 1 god)?
• Who is the father of Judaism, Christianity AND Islam?
• Who brought Christianity to Europe?
• Who effectively made the Catholic church a co-ruler of Europe?
• Who finished their life on house arrest because the church didn’t
like his idea that the Earth revolved around the Sun?

25
Check Your Answers and Learn
Kicking it Old School
• The oldest religion still practiced in Europe today is Hinduism,
which goes back to the Sindu (Indus) River circa 2000 BCE
• The name ‘Hinduism’ is a European invention, BTW
• This complex system of beliefs centres around many gods (or
part of one) guiding people through Samsara (cycle of life,
death and rebirth), making choices and hoping to achieve
Moksha (oneness with all things)
• Together with the Buddha (also from India) they taught us
how to breathe and invented many myths that are later
copied by other faiths
• Hinduism is represented in Britain (because Empire) and the
Netherlands (because Suriname)
26
Check Your Answers and Learn
One at a Time
• The first monotheism was probably…
• Zoroastrianism
• This Persian religion, started by Prophet Zoroaster
between 1700 and 1300 BCE, had 1 god: Ahura Mazda
• It was the biggest religion in the world (probably) when
Christianity’s figurehead was born
• It still exists today in small numbers (125,00 or so) of
Parsi and Irani peoples, most of whom migrated from
Iran or Afghanistan
• Often ending up in British Empire countries
• You all know at least one famous Zoroastrian

27
 Check Your Answers & Learn
I Will Be Your Father Figure, Put Your Tiny Hand in Mine

• Abraham is seen as the father of all three of the main religions affecting Europe
today, though his existence is taken on faith
• As is the fact that he is one of only a few people to ever speak directly with
the god of those religions
• Believed to have been born in Mesopotamia (Iraq) in 1813 BCE and sent to
what is now Israel by
• The scriptures tell us he had two sons
• Ishmael is born to a servant woman and sent away, becoming the father of
the Arab peoples, who would convert to Islam in roughly 630 CE
• Isaac is a gift from god who is almost sacrificed in a key moment for Judaism,
Christianity & Islam
• All 3 believe that you have to make God’s will more important than your
own and have more in common than you might think 28
 Check Your Answers & Learn
This Empire Wasn’t Built in a Day

• Christianity was brought to Europe by Constantine I

• Rome had long conquered the Holy Land and scattered the
Jewish people who lived there across the Mediterranean
• The empire first suppressed this new variant of Judaism but
Constantine legalised it in the Edict of Milan in 313 CE (he
later converted)
• Soon, Christianity would go everywhere Rome went, replacing
(and adopting) other traditions like…
• The Greek & Roman pantheon
• The Norse-Germanic pantheon
• The older gods are fun to study (epscially for Marvel fans) but
no one worskhps them anymore
• Their traditions do live on in European culture, though.
29
Check Your Answers & Learn
This Charming Man

• When Rome fell, Christianity remained

• Catholic in the West, Orthodox in the East
• When Frankish king Charles the Great
(Charlemagne) united several tribes, he had the
Pope crown him as ‘Holy Roman Emporer’
• This helped elevate the already powerful church to
status as a sort of co-ruler
• The church had political AND ideological power…

30
Check Your Answers & Learn
Astronomy Used to Be Controversial
• It was Galileo Galilei who got in trouble for saying that the
Earth was not the centre of the universe
• He learned a hard lesson …
• The church held rigid control over what people could think or
say for centuries
• But also preserved literature, art & learning
• People would begin questioning the church during the
Renaissance
• Then some rebellious theologians break away to form their
own PROTESTant churches
• Setting the stage for cultural changes & conflicts that still
affect the identity of different European countries
• Later, the Enlightenment would (try to) relegate religion to
the background, with mixed results
31
Christianity’s Influence on Europe Today
It’s Kinda Everywhere
• Much of Europe’s history is affected by religious thinking
and/or religious conflict
• See the Dutch vs the Spanish, the Battle of the Boyne in
Ireland
• Many European cultures still practice Christian rituals
• The Dutch have big windows to show they are moral and
have nothing to hide
• The influence is so strong that some argue that Europe is, by
definition, ‘Judaeo-Christian’ – Geert Wilders tried to add it to
the Dutch constitution
• Is this true?
• That’s hard to say, but we’re going to need to talk about that
32
‘Judaeo’ part in a minute
Christianity’s Influence on Culture
Whether You Believe it or Not, You Should Read a Bible

• The Jewish & Christian Bible is a hugely important book

• And not just because so many people believe it’s true
• The Bible (Vulgate version) was the first book to be mass produced in
Europe in the 1450s – people reading it for themselves caused the
Reformation
• New translations like the King James version (1611) or the Dutch
‘Statenvertaling’ reshaped European languages & literature
• To study any art or literature in Europe, you need a knowledge of
• Greek & Roman myth
• The Bible
• These are commonly referenced in most European art, literature, etc.
33
But What About That Enlightenment?
The Conventional Narrative was that We Would Secularise
• The Enlightenment (17th & 18th centuries) was supposed to change
everything
• After the Renaissance renewed interest in classical thinking and the printing
press inspired people to read (the Bible) for themselves, philosophers got
busy with ideas that were meant to replace religion as the guiding light of
European life
• Descartes says ‘Cognito Ergo Sum’ in 1637
• John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau & others iron out the social contract
and Montesquieu pitches the Separation of Powers in 1748
• Paving the way for an end to the Divine Right of Kings & Power of the
Church over them
• Immanuel Kant says that ‘Enlightenment is man’s re-emergence from his
self-imposed immaturity” in 1784, referring to “the inability to use one’s
34
understanding without guidance from another.”
How Enlightened Are We in Europe?
Did Religion Ever Truly Fade in Importance?

• The ‘Father of Sociology’ August Comte (1798-1857)

thought religion was part of human evolution
• A way to explain things until we learned reason
• He thought it would disappear but needed something
to replace cultural/community aspects
• Other philosophers like Marx (1818-1883) saw religion
as a distraction/power mechanism that needed to be
abandoned to free people
• Friederich Nietsche (1844-1900) thought religion had
outlived it’s usefulness
• The portrait of him seen here seems to confirm some
35
movement in thinking…
Modernism
A Big Shift Away from God?

• In the 20th century, European Culture saw a major

shift away from ‘the truth’
• Especially after WW1, people lost faith in
governments and gods
• They pursued subjectivity over objectivity
• Many writers of this era were labelled as a ‘lost
generation’
• But did religion fully disappear?
• The answer to this is kind of obvious…

36
Here’s The Thing
We are Enlightened, BUT…

• An old European Studies textbook said it best…

“The most plausible idea of an essential European culture builds on the

idea of the Enlightenment, which was originally (in the eighteenth
century) a European cultural development, and - it is claimed - is still
Europe’s central cultural force in the world (…)

setting aside the almost equally long European tradition of opposing the
Enlightenment.”

37
 Opposing Enlightenment
With a Little Romance

• The Romantic Era (1800-1850?) saw rebellion against science and industry and desire
to return to nature, emotion, etc.
• It also saw a rise in Nationalism (a relatively new idea), a desire for national identity and
culture
• This included a desire to return to tradition and in some cases, this meant a return to
religion
• Christianity would also go through several periods of ‘revival’ and ‘awakening’ during
and after the Enlightenment
• As cultures have changed, some cling tighter to religion as a constant
• This is present in human psychology
• Today many European nations are officially secular, but still practices quasi-Christian

It’s fair to(and

rituals say thatthat
it wasn’t religion
long ago that Dutch writers could be arrested for blasphemy
still• matters
Many nationsin Europe
(especially Catholic & Orthodox countries) remain culturally conservative
38
on a number of issue
 Another Part of This That Never Goes Away
And Not a Very Nice One

• It’s time we talk • Hatred of Jews in

about anti-Semitism Europe goes back
• It’s played a big role to Rome too
• What is it and
where does it come
from?
• Where do we still
see it’s influence
today?
39
Anti-Semitism in Europe
A Long, Ongoing Tradition

• The Jews were scattered by the Roman Empire and

migrated through Europe
• Often moving because of local suspicion and
persecution or government expulsion
• See Spain & Portugal in 1492
• They were often treated as second-class citizens
and frequently scapegoated for local problems
because…
• Some Christians blamed them for the death of
Christ
• The Church spread some nasty rumours because
they feared conversion
40
• People resented their success in Europe
Here is a True Story For You
Listen carefully

41
A True Story
You’ve Probably Seen That Movie Before

• This clip from Schindler’s List illustrates a true story

• Jews were often invited into Europe
• To do the jobs that Europeans didn’t want to do
• To help the local economy because their religion helped
Europe get around Catholic rules on money lending
• Jews often prospered wherever they went, but were rarely
accepted as ‘real’ Europeans
• By the 19th Century, when Poland & Russia were the centre of
the Jewish world, many European Jews began fleeing pogroms
& moving to America or Palestine
• Those left behind would face near extinction during WWII
42
Was that the End of It?
Sadly, No
• Anti-Semitism remains powerful all over the world, in part because of a nasty conspiracy theory

43
Anti-Semitism
Conspiracy Theories Gone Wild

• Most conspiracy theories are a product of European anti-Semitism

• The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion
• Published 1903-1905 by Sergei Aleksandrovich Nilus as a
distraction to deter talk of revolution
• A plagiarised hoax purporting to be a Jewish plan for world
domination
• Through control of economies, media, etc.
• Popularised by Henry Ford in the 1920s (500,000 copies
distributed)
• Still in circulation and even taught in schools in some places
• Proven false but still out there and believed by many
44
Anti-Semitism Today
Some Things Never Change
• Jewish people are frequently targeted by conspiracy theories
• Against Jews in General or specific people (George Soros, the Rothschild family)
• When you hear ‘globalist’ or ‘international bankers,’ that’s a dogwhistle for Jewish people
• Jews are often associated with the ‘Great Replacement’ /’Eurabia’ conspiracy theory and often accused
of controlling the world’s media, etc.
• As a result, Jews regularly face bullying, exclusion, threats AND violence
• A lot of anti-Semitic tropes come up in European politics
• Some (but not all) criticism of Israel also crosses lines into anti-Semitism

45
While We’re Talking About ‘Eurabia’
Another Religious Issue Affecting Europe Today
• About 5% of Europeans (roughly 44 million) are Muslim today
• Some European nations have been majority Muslim for centuries, going
back to the Ottoman Empire
• Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo
• Much of Span was controlled by Muslims from 711 until the Reconquista
in 1492 (the one that saw Jews expelled as well)
• A lot of migration is a product of Colonialism
• But mass migration of Muslims into Europe is a late 20th-centrury
phenomenon that started with ‘Guest Workers’
• They came to do jobs that Europeans didn’t want to do. Hey. That
sounds familiar
• Since no effort was made to integrate migrants (and they didn’t leave as
guests) Europe began having social cohesion issues that are at the hear
of our politics today 46
What’s the Deal Here?
What Causes Culture Clashes?
• Islam has more in common with Judaism & Christianity than most
Europeans seem to realise
• It sees itself as a continuation of Jewish & Christian tradition
• It recognises the Bible and prophets, including Christ (but doesn’t
think he was the son of God)
• But there are some cultural differences (rituals, etc.) and those
differences, combined with the tendency of immigrants to group
together (Dutch people do this abroad too, BTW), and economic
inequality, has created tension
• There are also occasional culture clashes on values like Freedom of
Speech
• The rise of populism since 2000 has made migration and ”the
Islamification of Europe” a hot-button issue
• The presence of some Islamic extremism (which is not representative
47
of 40 million people) in Europe hasn’t helped
So What Now?
Where do We Go From Here?

• I have no answers today, only questions

• How can you define culture in a diverse society?
• Who are ‘WE” and what is “OUR” culture?
• Can you claim to be Enlightened if you cling to old
rituals and traditions?
• Or if you aren’t willing to welcome new or different
ideas?
• Can the people’s of Europe and/or its nations come
to a common culture?
• Can Europe really live up to it’s values?
• How? What would it take?
48
Cultural Complexities
European Culture vs The United States

• Europeans share some history, art and thinking

• But much of this is not exclusive to Europeans
• It was the US that first put Enlightenment principles into practice
with their (at the time) uniquely democratic form of government
• Since it was ‘founded’ by Europeans, the US shares some cultural
continuity with the national/European cultures, but also develops in
its own way
• Now that the former colony is a superpower, Europeans often fear
its cultural influence
• See Johnny Hallyday & the rock, pop or rap across Europe
• See new rules for Netflix in NL
• Can Europe compete against Hollywood dominance?
Can local/ cultures survive?
49
Recap & Wrap Up
It’s About Time to Call it Quits

• European Culture has been shaped by religion in different ways

• Christianity dominated thinking for centuries and is still with us
• Butting heads with science and other ideas
• Europe’s anti-Semitism has also played a huge role in many
cultures and, sadly, it’s still with us
• Contemporary multi-culturalism enriches European culture
• See our music and cuisine
• But is also presents some challenges that colour our politics
and cultures at the moment
• Where that goes in the future may be up to you

50
Wrapping Up
Final Thoughts

• That’s all for now

• Remember to sign up for your books if you haven’t already
• And…

51
And Don’t Forget We Need Your Help on This

52
53
Adres
Johanna Westerdijkplein 75
2521 EN The Hague
The Netherlands
Postbus 13336
2501 EH The Hague
The Netherlands
Contact Social media
+31 70 445 88 88 @dehaagsehogeschool
@thehagueuniversity @dehaagsehogeschool
@dehaagsehogeschool
@haagse-hogeschool

thuas.com
 MAIN CAMPUS THE HAGUE
Johanna Westerdijkplein 75
2521 EN The Hague

ZUIDERPARK SPORTS CAMPUS

Mr. P. Droogleever Fortuynweg 22
2533 SR The Hague

CAMPUS DELFT
Rotterdamseweg 137
2628 AL Delft

CAMPUS ZOETERMEER
Bleiswijkseweg 37
2712 PB Zoetermeer