Thomas Mann has an essay about this, in Reflections of a Nonpolitical Man. This was a theme in 19th-20th century German thought, which emphasized the distinctiveness of a central European Germanic 'Kultur' against Atlantic (Anglo-French) 'Zivilisation'. For the most part, this distinction was meant less as a genuine historical classification (though they did also apply it this way), and more of a case of ideal types opposed to one another (like the late-18th and early-19th century fascination in writings like, e.g. Benjamin Constant, of the "ancients and the moderns").

"Zivilisation" represents the self-conception of Anglo-French life, which, according to Mann, is an extension and perfection of the Latin-Roman self-conception. It is meant to be superficially impressive, on account of its advancements and refinements, but Mann and other Germans who spoke of this opposition viewed it as profoundly morally and culturally corrupt. Zivilisation is rooted in a kind of reflective, rationalist character. Zivilisation conceives of itself in terms of rational, universal ideals, to which it must continually approximate. It's intensely self-critical, but in all the worst ways, so that it's self-criticism becomes a kind of arrogance and self-assertion (the universality of its ideals requires that it imperialistically spread and impose them on others, which it cannot tolerate as genuinely different). Zivilisation is also liberal (due to its rationalist character), and tends toward individualism, atomization, and ahistoricity.

"Kultur", by contrast, is meant to signify a more pre-reflective, immediate form of social relation, rooted in historically inherited ties and traditions. Unlike Zivilisation, it is not based on 'universal ideals', so it is comfortable with its parochial nature: it has neither the self-critical impulse to purge itself of what is particular, nor the imperialist drive to homogenize the whole globe. It is essentially illiberal, emphasizing forms of community which are not based upon individual rational assent.

Mann expresses this eloquently in the context of the First World War, which he saw as a contest between Zivilisation (Anglo-French democracy, which aims at world domination) and Kultur (the traditional societies of Central Europe). Themes like this, however, are implicit in much of 19th century German thought, perhaps beginning with Friedrich Schiller's Ästhetische Briefe (1794), which emerged as a criticism of the rationalist excesses of the French Revolution, intensifying with the Romantics (along with the later Schelling and Hegel), and culminating in late-19th century German historicism and Nietzsche.

Friedrich Tönnies, the sociologist, gave a very lasting formulation of a similar idea in the distinction he drew between Gesellschaft (society) and Gemeinschaft (community): the latter is the pre-reflective, immediate common life of people, while the former presupposes the distinctiveness and independence of people, their being related (and individuated) through forms of mediation like property, contract, the state, etc. The great crisis of Western modernity, for people like Tönnies and (in a different, but not unrelated, vein) Max Weber, was the loss of the 'unity' of the old world (be those the medievals, classical antiquity, or whatever) through rational specialization and disenchantment, leaving us moderns with a deracinated, atomized, soulless, but also highly technologically refined 'Zivilisation'.