ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the unique path of social differentiation in Western Europe and discusses the differentiation of institutional realms. With a simplification approved by most everybody, it is said that European civilization has its historical roots in ideas from Athens about reason, in ideas from Rome about the rule of law, and in ideas from Jerusalem about charity. The European continent, with its cultural leaders Spain, England and France in the forefront, was responsible for imperial occupation, slavery and exploitation. The West-European idea expressed as "two swords," one worldly and one spiritual, prevailed. The European conception of modern man as an eminently choice-making creature shaped by a history of structural differentiation that forces choices between rather incommensurable values. The chapter discusses some implications of the differentiation process at the special historical junctures: the Western European empires, the emergence of the Latin American and North American societies, the post-Communist Central and Eastern Europe, and the prospects for the European Union.
