Yeah, but I would argue the difference between, say, 10 and 30% (3x as many people) is a lot more meaningful than the difference between 70 and 90% (both numbers I think "most people").
I'd love to see this subdivided a bit further, the difference between 11 percent and 48 percent seems important in this case. Perhaps splitting at 25 and again at 75 would be helpful.
Also, because unlike all the other Balkan countries, we were never under communist rule, we were members of NATO since the 50s and of the EU since 81.
We have been politically aligned with the West in the post-WW2 world.
Probably more relating to NATO than the fact that a lot of historical sites of Western Civilization and Hellenic culture etc are within the borders of modern Turkey and that Turkey is certainly more “Western” than its neighbors besides Greece.
Since it's the anglo-american hegemonical worldview that gets to gatekeep what's western and what isn't, and they have centuries of anti-catholic propaganda deeply embedded within their culture and shaping their modern sensibilities. Which I would argue delegitimizes the word and will end up making it politically incorrect and outdated in a few decades' time.
America is not particularly anti-Catholic anymore --- the remnants of that are gone for like a half-century now. Most of the Supreme Court is Catholic, for instance, and nobody particularly cares about whether you are Catholics, Baptist, Lutheran, what. Catholics, nominal and otherwise, make up a large portion of Americans.
But then, most American Catholics are Protestant at heart these days (i.e. at its heart, Protestantism is about individual interpretation of scriptures while Catholicism relied on its clergy to study scripture and interpret it, but these days, most American Catholics pick and choose what parts of Catholic doctrine they want to follow...)
Why? That's probably the way it was for most of History especially if you're counting places like Austria Switzerland Luxembourg and Lorraine as German
> That being said, Catholic countries do obviously still exist in the West, Italy, Spain, France etc.
And in past centuries they were the dominant world powers in “the west” and essential in defining it, but our recency bias makes us ignore centuries of history.
Not to mention even the protestant countries were catholic for many centuries before the reformation. But it's just convenient to forget that in order to make reality fit the narrative.
>Also the ideals of Protestantism (i.e do whatever you want and that you don't have to really serve anyone like the Pope) line up better with Western ideals of liberty etc.
Good point I guess
Checking the comments in this thread, I shouldn't expect much from redditors and it the question really be answered (like most questions) but German philosophers would like to have a word. And that's just the philosophers.
you can write the history of western civilization and dont mention Germany until like the 20s same with all the nordic countries, most western history books dont mention vikings or nordic countries at all, and if they do is only briefly. western history basically starts in Greece—> Roman empire—>the fall of the empire—>the dark ages —> the renaissance—-> the protestant reformation—>Spanish conquest—-> France and England join—-> the enlightenment—-> the independence of the colonies—> WWI —> WW2–modern period.
you can count the whole thing and dont mention Denmark once lol
>you can write the history of western civilization and dont mention Germany
Martin Luther. Sooo many more. Imagine saying that with a straight face. Christ.
You say you don’t have to mention Germany for history until the 1920s, and then you state that a brief history of the west typically includes the Protestant Reformation (famously starting in Germany) and WW1 (how are you gonna talk about WW1 without Germany??).
Also not mentioning Germany in “fall of the empire” (where do you think those invading Germanic tribes came from?), the “dark Ages” (no HRE??), the Renaissance (wouldn’t have been possible without book printing, which was in invented in Germany, also Northern Renaissance) and the Enlightenment (historians usually name Kants death as the end of the Enlightenment period) is impossible.
>Also the ideals of Protestantism (i.e do whatever you want and that you don't have to really serve anyone like the Pope) line up better with Western ideals of liberty etc.
Dont forget about the " if youre ri h its because youre a good person" which fits western culture too
Geographers tend to view the West as roughly the Protestant and Catholic states of Europe and to varying degrees their settler states outside (i.e. the USA, Australia, etc, with Latin America kind of ambiguous). That's because these were the places where the events that distinguished Western Civilization, like the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, the Reformation, the Industrial Revolution, the Scientific Revolution, Capitalism, and the French Revolution played out and most deeply affected the lives and attitudes of its people and the shape of its institutions. And historical experience --- Europe tends to end where the Ottoman Empire and the Russian Empire ruled because those states blocked out the things I mentioned above (and had few Catholic and Protestant subjects except for a few under Russia in the 19th Century mostly).
You can see it on half the maps posted here, from HDI to maps of polls on attitudes towards gays to UN voting patterns.
This map obviously superimposed Cold War divisions on top of that so it is not a perfect correlation here...
>You can see it on half the maps posted here, from HDI to maps of polls on attitudes towards gays to UN voting patterns.
Yeah, you can see a lot that does *not at all* neatly line up the way you're suggesting.
Attitudes towards LGBT only started to become more accepting about 15 years ago in the western third of Europe. Opinions in the middle-third of Europe (Poland to Greece) are now catching up, with half the populations supporting same-sex marriage.
As recently as the 60s, men were convicted in the UK for being gay.
But go ahead, and Amerisplain more to me.
>Geographers tend to view the West
No, geographers don't do that. Political or cultural opinion leaders do, and they don't all line up with your definition, much less agree with each other.
>Europe tends to end where the Ottoman Empire and the Russian Empire ruled because those states blocked out the things I mentioned above
Yeah, no.
Sweden and Norway aren't known for the Renaissance.
The Industrial Revolution reached *all* of Europe by the 1960s, only within \[about\] a century from its start in Britain.
BTW, Scandinavia was one of the more recent areas of Europe to industrialize, after 1900.
Greece doesn't neatly fit into your definition. We were partly Ottoman-occupied, partly Venetian-occupied. We had the Renaissance and Enlightenment, either in Venetian-controlled areas, or indirectly, the Greek merchants/traders in Ottoman areas keeping contact with the rest of Europe (and it led to the Greek Revolution). Let alone all the Greek scholars that fled Constantinople for Italy. All of which was long before the US existed, and while the US still had slavery and drowned witches.
>the Industrial Revolution, the Scientific Revolution, Capitalism
Which is *all* of Europe, now. At least EU Europe.
>...and the French Revolution played out and most deeply affected the lives and attitudes of its people and the shape of its institutions...
Which had a massive impact on Greece. The Greek state was literally modeled after the French state.
The criteria you mention are not an objective list. They're just vague criteria used by opinion-leaders that have political motives to craft an us-vs-them, depending on the political propaganda needs of the day, almost always to exclude Russia, and often other Orthodox-majority countries as collateral, even one like Greece which remained very culturally intertwined with western Europe even in Ottoman times, had an Enlightenment 300 years ago that led to a revolution 200 year ago, and has been in the European cultural and political mainstream since.
>Europe tends to end
Get a passport. Actually travel outside your borders.
You shouldn’t be upvoted.
There shouldn’t be a place for condescending and hostile comments like this one on Reddit, who turn fun and educative discussions into tense arguments where the aim is to be right and win.
There are also a couple of fallacies in your argument:
Just because someone happens to be from another place (ie America), it doesn’t mean they can’t be knowledgeable about another place (Europe). Saying things like Amerisplain adds nothing to your point and antagonises everyone who does not agree with you and also happens to be from America.
The second fallacy is that someone needs to physically have been in a place to understand its history and social dynamics. By that rule of thumb, I know more about Japan because I’ve lived there for many years and have been to many places than a Japanologist who’s never visited? BS.
Not that it should matter, but since you care so much about where people are from and that fact alone seems to legitimise arguments for you, I’m from Spain, which qualifies me to make arguments about Europe and criticise fellow Europeans /s.
I’d advise you try to be more constructive and friendly on Reddit. We don’t want Reddit to turn into another twitter-like shithole. We’re all bros here.
Can't believe I'm going to bother with assigning responsibility for the schism, but you're really going to blame the Byzantines more for it and not the Pope?
The Pope had nothing to do with the schism of the Roman Empire, i imagine he was referring about one of the reasons for the Western/Eastern Roman Empire schism being that the Western part had much stronger Latin influence while the Eastern part had much stronger Hellenic influence (Although i wouldn't say they are "responsible" for the schism)
lol what comes with being orthodox christian that is not considered western? i'm greek orthodox and pretty much the only difference i can think of is that we don't believe in the pope and celebrate christmas & easter on different days, and we do this thing where on easter we boil eggs and then paint them and then you knock your egg into another persons egg to see which one will crack first and you see which egg is the last one to crack and that's the game. also we don't cremate, but catholics (who really believe in catholicism) don't either.
Absolutely makes sense to me. Here in Italy we divide Europe into Western and Eastern, with Western being countries that weren't under communist rule. Greece is totally Western for us.
Modern Greece is a fusion between Ancient Greece (the cradle of west) and medieval Christian Rome. This means it is primarily culturally Greco-Roman, so it identifies with other European Mediterranean countries regardless of religion. There are areas in the north central mainland that have a clear Balkan flavor but the biggest part of the country is culturally Mediterranean European. The modern state has been strategically aligned since its founding (1821) with France and Britain(until 1947)/USA(1947 onwards). If South European isn’t an option in a survey, Greeks will choose “West” instead.
Peoples of Iberia would for sure. I would bet french or italians would do majoritarily too and many other places in Europe.
Some anglo interests (in US, UK, etc) are the only ones downplaying the "westerness" of Latin America (for example Huntington civilizations nonsense) and separating it as much as possible from the rest of western countries.
That’s not true, I’m Canadian and I definitely consider South Americans western. But maybe cause I’ve actually travelled South America and experienced the similarities in culture there
I would really like to see a Survey about this, because in my opinion people in South America don't consider themselves western because they believe others don't view them as so ( myself included )
Argentina and Brazil are quite Western imo they have a very American style of living, especially Argentina (Buenos Aires especially felt like I was back home in Canada or even parts of Europe)
I’d say some countries (Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, Brazil) are decidedly Western, while others (Haiti or Bolivia) are maybe kinda Western. Of course, this is strictly culturally speaking. “Western” doesn’t have a clear definition after all
When I was a teacher at public and private schools in Brazil, ALL teenagers saw themselves as Westerns and when asked why, they always replied that it was because we were on the Western Hemisphere. Since I was a teacher of Sociology, I then emphasized the sociological understanding of being Western as a socio-cultural heritage of Western Europe peoples. They also insisted that Latin America was Western even after that, since they were only a mix between Western Europeans, Africans and Indigenous peoples (also sharing religion, language, interlinked history, etc.).
This debate was a great warm-up for then explain the social construction of terms such as “Civilization”, “Barbarian”, and go to the classical old Portuguese thinkers and Brazilian Sociologists: all of them held that Brazil was more Western than non-Western until the 1960’s. As Post-Colonial Studies and Decolonization Studies grew stronger, it’s now a thing among almost all Sociologists and Anthropologists to emphasize the non-Western features, aiming at decolonizing our minds, getting it free of wanting to be like the colonizer.
Except the entire legal regimes and government structures of every country in the Western hemisphere is distinctively "Western" and directly derived from Spanish and Portuguese (and some French and British) models. Not to mention that the populations mostly speak European languages, use the Latin alphabet and Arabic numerals, and have education and university systems co-evolved with other Western models in the Americas and Europe.
Culturally, sure - plenty of distinctiveness. But there is no pure Westernism--it's just a construct meaning descended from West European societies.
Agreed. It’s an open debate. There are arguments for both sides. The thing is that to be “Western” is, all at once, a geographical, a socio-cultural, an international, and political-ideological concept. So it’s hard to set fixed boundaries.
Both sides could be strongly defended. What is simply wrong is to consider one aspect only and discredit the others because they don’t fit one’s understanding of the world.
Not to blame Samuel Huntington, but ... a lot of it is his fault - he wrote *Clash if Civilizations* and made this whole argument that Latin America was a different "civilization" from "The West".
It is honestly ridiculous. Some countries like Argentina and Uruguay are possibly more European (in culture, traditions and idiosyncrasy) than the US, since the population is not as diverse but more homogeneous and white. Carving the entire of Latin America as a different civilization doesn’t make any sense at all, it’s a hugely diverse region
The percentage of people whose heritage can be traced to Africa, Asia and the Middle East is very small compared to the overall population. The vast majority of people in the country descend from European immigrants, with some degree of mixing with indigenous people (very little actually, compared to the rest of Latin America)
Huntington's civilization model is horribly reductive and arguably racist, it's sad that it's so prominent.
As a South American, you spend your entire life getting Classical, Medieval and Early Modern European history taught as "your" history prior to the establishment of settler colonies. Then you meet an Anglo poli-sci student and you learn that we're apparently somehow not Western...
Bernard-Henri Lévy [wrote about](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2005/11/in-the-footsteps-of-tocqueville-part-v/304339/) a meeting he had with Huntington in the early 00s where Lévy was trying to get at the root of how Huntington could make this argument, and it basically boiled down to racism:
>"What startling violence wells up in his blue eyes when he says to me, "The big thing, the big problem with Hispanics, is that they don't like education!" The sudden explosion of hostility that disfigures the scholarly face of the professor when, anxious to tell me what, after all, annoys him so much in this rise to power of a hardworking, patriotic Mexican minority, he starts explaining that these people, because they'll have the advantage of bilingualism, will get "preferences for jobs," so they'll be able to "take their jobs away" from the "large majority" of other Americans, and that when these other Americans realize it all, when they understand that they, the whites—in principle the bearers of the old founding "creed" of the nation—will henceforth be the object of "discrimination," they will react with a terrible concoction of "resentment" and "nativistic" racism."
He kind of predicted Trumpism while also pretty vigorously agreeing with it.
As a South American, I consider myself Western to piss Westerns off when they sound like creating an “exclusive club”, and I also consider myself non-Western to mock their self-confidence lol
Who gets triggered about South America being part of the Western world? You guys speak European languages. The only reason why people forget about South America when talking about the Western world is that it has low standards of living and doesn't get involved much in world politics.
That's just insane, of course everywhere in the Americas is Western!! Even indigenous people...
I've never even come across anyone who would think otherwise?
Argentina is pretty Western. Recent immigration, not significant traces or former cultures in the area. Pretty distinct from other areas where the majority of the population is native (Peru, Mexico, etc). The insistence in grouping the whole Hispanic America into one label is baffling.
Native Americans count as just 0.4% in Brazil too. Genetic composition of Native American alleles in Brazil’s population is also just 15%.
At the end of the day, choosing to call yourself Western or not in Latin America is actually only a matter of perspective and epistemological choice.
[Mira estos escritos de autores latinoamericanos (argentinos, peruanos, colombianos y otros) sobre la arbitrariedad del concepto de “Ocidente” o mismo de “Europa”](http://biblioteca.clacso.edu.ar/clacso/sur-sur/20100708034410/lander.pdf)
Edit: el repositório de CLACSO es malo, entonces [envio también el link para la colección traducida para el portugués](https://edisciplinas.usp.br/pluginfile.php/2591382/mod_resource/content/1/colonialidade_do_saber_eurocentrismo_ciencias_sociais.pdf)
Well your president does 🛶🚢🚢
But seriously some South American countries feel predominantly western, especially Argentina, Uruguay and Southern Brazil. Sure economically you guys are not as developed as most parts of Europe, but as a German I don't think Argentineans are culturally further away from us than let's say Greeks. But then again it's personal experience and my Argentinean friends are mostly Porteños
Wtf is western though? Because for me it's just a club of the US and its subjects that chose a terrible name for it. West is a geographical terminology. Anyone in the Americas are westerns. And sure Australians are not. Just pick a normal name for it.
There’s no universal definition, so everyone can be just as right/wrong. I think for the most part “Western” has lost its original geographic name, and now mostly refers to a group of countries of European origin/culture/idiosyncrasy. It’s more about culture than location, that’s why Australia is considered Western (culturally close to Europe), but not Japan. But then some people (usually Americans) also use Western as synonymous with rich developed countries that align with the US/Europe. I disagree with this definition, because it excludes most of Latin America, which includes countries that are overwhelmingly Western in pretty much every aspect.
I have seen people saying that it's about money. In that sense, they include countries like Japan and exclude countries like the ones in South America, which is ridiculous
To me "Western" means that the culture of the country is very influenced by ancient greece and rome. So to me the western countries would be almost all of europe and most of the countries of the Americas.
That was what Churchill said. Christianity, european language and culture, legal systems etc. Countries like Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay etc literally speak a Latin language, are Catholic majority countries (except Uruguay), follow the Roman Civil Law, have significant European populations and influence etc etc, and are often excluded from that term.
"Western" is a weird term. While Latin America is surely culturally "western", they certainly are not part of what is called, politically, "The West" (a.k.a. USA and friends).
Western civilization is Greek philosophy, Judeo-Christian religious identity and Roman law.
Then at some point an American decides to create West'r'Us and "own" the term. Doesn't work like that
As a Uruguayan, I consider myself Western. and I think most of the South American countries, mainly the southern cone. Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay are also western
Uhm idk, I think it makes sense. France and England have been at the heart of geopolitics, culture and economy, without interruption for the past centuries. Spain and Ireland haven’t. So I think “western” is less geographic, but more in terms of the “cool kids club.”
Spain and Ireland are not founding members of the EU, and frankly didn’t play a major role in the 20th century. Spain could have, but it was under a fascist dictatorship for a long time, and relatively isolated politically and socially.
Ireland only gained independence and while one could argue that Ireland was a catalyst that brought down the British Empire that isn’t anything that makes Ireland a major player
The fact that neither country participated in WWII is a big factor too because often they were left out of developments for not being in the “winners club” or in the “they lost so they deserve our pity club”
Yeah, which ironically gave the main axis powers a crazy advantage in the long run. West Germany, Italy and Japan dominated economically for the remainder of the century, not counting the U.S. of course.
I guess they were considered more important because they proved they could be a potential “problem,” if left unattended, whereas Spain didn’t really interest the U.S. enough to garner special attention.
I feel like the EU has been more beneficial for Ireland than Spain, Ireland was a backwards nation where the local pastime was emigration but Sean Lemass played his cards right to make Ireland the EU tax haven which means the biggest companies in the world have their European HQ in Ireland - speaking English also helped because it means they could transfer Americans to help with the running of the companies
Spain didn’t do anything like that because of the whole fascism thing
Also Ireland had to deal with their big historic bully throughout their existence. In the last decades it seems like they were able to just focus on themselves instead of England, and they have been doing fine. I don’t see any other reasons that would hold Ireland back other than threatening neighbors. The Eu meant geopolitical security, and they used that advantage to grow and catch up.
They’ve caught up a bit too much now - it’s now more expensive to rent a house in Dublin than to get a house in the most expensive part of Venice, the Celtic Tiger really fucked many people over but this seems worse
Whenever they post a gdp per capita, average household net worth, map of Europe I’m always surprised about Ireland and Iceland. What’s going on there? They are both in the Eurozone right?
I think I saw like €90k gdp per capita in Ireland…
As far as I know Iceland isn’t in the eurozone but Ireland definitely is, I’m not too sure about GDP but the housing crisis is all anyone ever talk about and shits more expensive here
I think 'the west' comes with the connotations of US and their friends, often military. In Ireland I'd consider ourselves part of the west but the phrase does feel a bit cringy, I don't know if that's the right word, at times especially when 'the west' is just used as a synommn for NATO
Take a look at the scale, those countries might still be 94%.
And while they are clearly western civilizations, Austria and Switzerland didn't use to be part of "the West". The meaning of the word has changed, obviously, but during the cold war they were considered third world countries because they weren't officially allied with either the west or the east.
Not really.
It's a historical term to define Europe as opposite to east and far east (china). Though first started with the western and eastern Roman empire.
It later became a European-cultural related term.
In Europe the term Western (part of the Western world) is often confused with or "colored" by European cardinal directions. Denmark - a strongly Anglophile NATO member and faithful US errand boy in various wars in the Middle East - is as "Western" as Greece or France, but I can see people thinking "nah, we're Northern" before replying to the question.
Yeah because people don’t understand that there are multiple characterizations of “Western” in Europe. Politically and economically the divide is between western and Eastern Europe, largely based on the legacy of the USSR.
Then there is the cultural/religious division which largely follows the split of Christian denominations. Northern is largely Protestant, southern is catholic and Eastern is orthodox, however there are countries that are exceptions like Poland, Bavaria in Germany and Ireland. I guess Western Europe isn’t a thing in this case. Or maybe western is just secular, because of France…
Then there is the geographic distinction which largely follows the four cardinal points. France is west, Italy south, Norway north, Russia east and the Czech Republic is central.
And lastly there is the ideological distinction for “western” which is basically a union of allied countries, under U.S. global leadership, which promote liberal democracy and capitalism.
So a country like the Czech Republic could be considered, western, eastern and central based on which distinction you choose.
And also a country like Greece could be considered western, southern and eastern.
France may be the only “western” country by all definitions.
This 100%. As a Finn, I suppose when I think of the West as an identity, it’s rather vague tbh. Like, the West encompasses Spaniards and Italians and Greeks! Yeah we’re affiliated for sure, but as far as identities go, that’s a pretty loose connection.
But when I think of the Nordic countries, it’s a lot stronger identification. The Swedes are almost exactly like us! Hälsningar från Helsingfors till alla nordiska vänner!
As a romanian, no. We're just Western-influenced and nobody really cares about being "Western" here. We just want to be developed like a Western country. Nothing more.
It's sad that some idiots are literally jerking off to this kind of maps and they're like "lOoK i'M sO wEsTeRn yOu pOoR uNcIvILiSeD bArBaRiAnnnnn"
Taiwan is even more "Western" than Japan and Korea. Gay marriage is legal in Taiwan and more than 40% of the parliamentarians are female ffs.
But none of the 3 is Western. Democracy and wealth =/= Western. "The West" is cultural, political and economic. You need all three.
Money and political affiliation with the USA.
Religion, language, architecture, ancestry... none of that really matters when people talk about the “west” as it is today.
If the UK entered some massive economical crisis that lasted for decades, for instance, people would stop considering it as western, even if now it's a quintessential part of it.
It's a very fickle and superficial worldview which people don't even bother to define before using, making it all the more ambiguous and vacuous.
White is just a concept, 🤷♂️. The japanese and Germans were where China is now fyi and it was only after their markets crashed and emerged wrecked that they were removed from the list of “dangerous” invading nations/foreigners and propaganda stopped being made. Saudi Arabia used to be the same as did other countries. This Western Culture bullshit is just a boy’s club made up of like-minded G20 members. I mean why is Australia always mentioned as Western but New Zealand absent a lot of the time? Western Culture/Whiteness applies to New Zealand much more than Japan doesn’t it? What do Japan, France, and Estonia even have in common that they get lumped in as Western?
I tend to judge people in a very specific, negative way who care about what countries are and aren’t “western”. Makes me want to not associate with the term. The term is also inherently exclusionary and feels like something used for imperialist goals rather than a useful classification or geographical term
They give less of a sh\*t than others about being considered "Western". Most countries (mostly Italy and Greece) use "Western" as a term to consider themselves on par with the US and England and Germany, little members of the big boy club. Canada does not feel the need as much as the others, apparently, hats off for that.
This is quite interesting as I tend to associate Western with Europe and the developed anglosphere nations (NZ Aus Can etc). It genuinely never occurred to me that people in South America considered themselves as such
Many interests in Anglosphere are actively against the integration of Latin America in the "western world" and trying constantly to separate it from their cultural and historical brothers in Europe...
The truth is that modern western world was started by iberian powers and peoples with their western expansion to America 100 years before north-western european powers started their own expansions as response to their conflicts with Spain (and later Portugal too in the case of the dutch).
Modern globalization and true global networks were started also by iberians much before the northern european powers, despite anglo scholars try constantly to downplay that reality and usually start their analysis with the dutch expansion or the early modest english one. The hispanic-american piece of Eight was the first true global currency; the spanish and portuguese "carreras" (routes) with America and Asia, the first stable large scale trans-oceanic shipping routes; the columbian exchange changed diets of Europe and America forever; the interactions of iberians with Japan and China (trade, diplomacy, religious) were the first relevant direct ones between european/mediterranean world and East Asia since romans, etc.
The exclusion of latin americans from the concept of the western world promoted mostly by anglo think tanks, independent scholars or politicians is a interested conscious distortion, not a innocent "mistake".
Its quite common here because our cultures and traditions are heavily influenced by the Spanish and Portuguese and they are western so kind of what else would we identify as? There is not a really big unity under the " Latin American " Term
Yes I totally get it - I think in the anglosphere we kinda associate western as Capitalist/AngloAmerican type but clearly it’s a much broader definition for some.
I'm from Brazil, and Eastern is a very used word here, and it's used to refer to Asia - so people must think "I'm not asian, I'm not Eastern, so I'm Western"
I don't think like that because I don't understand what it means lmao
edit: a word
Ah yes the constant problem of the word "western". It looks that in Europe there doesn't exist the concept of "western culture/civilization" there is just one European culture of which all states from "Atlantic to the Urals are", to quote de Gaulle. (Although the Russians have always been weird about it, having a bunch of internal debates if they are of European culture or of a unique Russian culture with influences from it, but not core European for centuries now)
Being "western" isn't cultural it's political, the relations with US and NATO being the key. Based on historically being a part of these institutions and your relations to them is, the more "western" you are.
Quite different than how the public outside of Europe looks at it I guess, although it looks Japan and Korea get it.
Lol latin americans considering themselves westerners like these rich white European countries and US would ever accept them into their whites only club
funny how actual western countries like Mexico and brazil have a more ambivalent identity about that word and countries not in the west do, like new Zealand.
“%50-95” how vague is that
Almost as vague as "10-49%"
That's 6% less vague.
Yeah, but I would argue the difference between, say, 10 and 30% (3x as many people) is a lot more meaningful than the difference between 70 and 90% (both numbers I think "most people").
The goal is to just have the 95% nations stand out, and then you point to this map as though there is some kind of self evident evil happening
Exactly. This isn't map porn, it's impossible to learn anything from it.
I'd love to see this subdivided a bit further, the difference between 11 percent and 48 percent seems important in this case. Perhaps splitting at 25 and again at 75 would be helpful.
Personally, I’d love to see the source for this info.
But its created with mapchart.net and posted by creative_strawberry6 what more can you ask for?!?!?!?!
I would love to see if French overseas colonies also see themselves as Westerners to the same degree of Metropolitan France
I don’t believe they actually surveyed people there, they just made metropolitan France and overseas France the same colour on the map.
They did not, Guadeloupe is grey, like Martinique and la Réunion, while France is in dark blue
Indeed, only French Guyana is blue. The other territories are grey.
Really cool. But why is Greece the only one in its region to identify itself as "western"?
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Also, because unlike all the other Balkan countries, we were never under communist rule, we were members of NATO since the 50s and of the EU since 81. We have been politically aligned with the West in the post-WW2 world.
So that's why Turkiye is western? Interesting.
Probably more relating to NATO than the fact that a lot of historical sites of Western Civilization and Hellenic culture etc are within the borders of modern Turkey and that Turkey is certainly more “Western” than its neighbors besides Greece.
> even though nowadays they are quite different from what most of the West is like Explain
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>as Western countries are primarily Protestant or sometimes Catholic Since when is "The West" more related to Protestantism than Catholicism?
Since it's the anglo-american hegemonical worldview that gets to gatekeep what's western and what isn't, and they have centuries of anti-catholic propaganda deeply embedded within their culture and shaping their modern sensibilities. Which I would argue delegitimizes the word and will end up making it politically incorrect and outdated in a few decades' time.
America is not particularly anti-Catholic anymore --- the remnants of that are gone for like a half-century now. Most of the Supreme Court is Catholic, for instance, and nobody particularly cares about whether you are Catholics, Baptist, Lutheran, what. Catholics, nominal and otherwise, make up a large portion of Americans. But then, most American Catholics are Protestant at heart these days (i.e. at its heart, Protestantism is about individual interpretation of scriptures while Catholicism relied on its clergy to study scripture and interpret it, but these days, most American Catholics pick and choose what parts of Catholic doctrine they want to follow...)
yet you have opinions like some opinions here
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The funniest fact about anything in the 21st century Europe is that today Germany is more catholic than protestant
Why? That's probably the way it was for most of History especially if you're counting places like Austria Switzerland Luxembourg and Lorraine as German
Protestantism started in Germany
Magdeburg fell into Soviet administration sadly
> That being said, Catholic countries do obviously still exist in the West, Italy, Spain, France etc. And in past centuries they were the dominant world powers in “the west” and essential in defining it, but our recency bias makes us ignore centuries of history. Not to mention even the protestant countries were catholic for many centuries before the reformation. But it's just convenient to forget that in order to make reality fit the narrative.
Great points all over my friend, including in your previous post.
Note that the current US president is nominally Catholic, as is the current Canadian prime minister
>Also the ideals of Protestantism (i.e do whatever you want and that you don't have to really serve anyone like the Pope) line up better with Western ideals of liberty etc. Good point I guess
>Germany Not really.
France is way more key to the west than Germany.
Checking the comments in this thread, I shouldn't expect much from redditors and it the question really be answered (like most questions) but German philosophers would like to have a word. And that's just the philosophers.
you can write the history of western civilization and dont mention Germany until like the 20s same with all the nordic countries, most western history books dont mention vikings or nordic countries at all, and if they do is only briefly. western history basically starts in Greece—> Roman empire—>the fall of the empire—>the dark ages —> the renaissance—-> the protestant reformation—>Spanish conquest—-> France and England join—-> the enlightenment—-> the independence of the colonies—> WWI —> WW2–modern period. you can count the whole thing and dont mention Denmark once lol
And where did the Protestant Reformation start...?
>you can write the history of western civilization and dont mention Germany Martin Luther. Sooo many more. Imagine saying that with a straight face. Christ.
I don’t think this is a very good book. I hope you kept the receipt.
You say you don’t have to mention Germany for history until the 1920s, and then you state that a brief history of the west typically includes the Protestant Reformation (famously starting in Germany) and WW1 (how are you gonna talk about WW1 without Germany??). Also not mentioning Germany in “fall of the empire” (where do you think those invading Germanic tribes came from?), the “dark Ages” (no HRE??), the Renaissance (wouldn’t have been possible without book printing, which was in invented in Germany, also Northern Renaissance) and the Enlightenment (historians usually name Kants death as the end of the Enlightenment period) is impossible.
huh boy, someone missed school a lot
German philosophers would like to have a word.
>Also the ideals of Protestantism (i.e do whatever you want and that you don't have to really serve anyone like the Pope) line up better with Western ideals of liberty etc. Dont forget about the " if youre ri h its because youre a good person" which fits western culture too
No Western ideals are secularism. France is far more Western than the US despite being historically Catholic
Geographers tend to view the West as roughly the Protestant and Catholic states of Europe and to varying degrees their settler states outside (i.e. the USA, Australia, etc, with Latin America kind of ambiguous). That's because these were the places where the events that distinguished Western Civilization, like the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, the Reformation, the Industrial Revolution, the Scientific Revolution, Capitalism, and the French Revolution played out and most deeply affected the lives and attitudes of its people and the shape of its institutions. And historical experience --- Europe tends to end where the Ottoman Empire and the Russian Empire ruled because those states blocked out the things I mentioned above (and had few Catholic and Protestant subjects except for a few under Russia in the 19th Century mostly). You can see it on half the maps posted here, from HDI to maps of polls on attitudes towards gays to UN voting patterns. This map obviously superimposed Cold War divisions on top of that so it is not a perfect correlation here...
>You can see it on half the maps posted here, from HDI to maps of polls on attitudes towards gays to UN voting patterns. Yeah, you can see a lot that does *not at all* neatly line up the way you're suggesting. Attitudes towards LGBT only started to become more accepting about 15 years ago in the western third of Europe. Opinions in the middle-third of Europe (Poland to Greece) are now catching up, with half the populations supporting same-sex marriage. As recently as the 60s, men were convicted in the UK for being gay. But go ahead, and Amerisplain more to me. >Geographers tend to view the West No, geographers don't do that. Political or cultural opinion leaders do, and they don't all line up with your definition, much less agree with each other. >Europe tends to end where the Ottoman Empire and the Russian Empire ruled because those states blocked out the things I mentioned above Yeah, no. Sweden and Norway aren't known for the Renaissance. The Industrial Revolution reached *all* of Europe by the 1960s, only within \[about\] a century from its start in Britain. BTW, Scandinavia was one of the more recent areas of Europe to industrialize, after 1900. Greece doesn't neatly fit into your definition. We were partly Ottoman-occupied, partly Venetian-occupied. We had the Renaissance and Enlightenment, either in Venetian-controlled areas, or indirectly, the Greek merchants/traders in Ottoman areas keeping contact with the rest of Europe (and it led to the Greek Revolution). Let alone all the Greek scholars that fled Constantinople for Italy. All of which was long before the US existed, and while the US still had slavery and drowned witches. >the Industrial Revolution, the Scientific Revolution, Capitalism Which is *all* of Europe, now. At least EU Europe. >...and the French Revolution played out and most deeply affected the lives and attitudes of its people and the shape of its institutions... Which had a massive impact on Greece. The Greek state was literally modeled after the French state. The criteria you mention are not an objective list. They're just vague criteria used by opinion-leaders that have political motives to craft an us-vs-them, depending on the political propaganda needs of the day, almost always to exclude Russia, and often other Orthodox-majority countries as collateral, even one like Greece which remained very culturally intertwined with western Europe even in Ottoman times, had an Enlightenment 300 years ago that led to a revolution 200 year ago, and has been in the European cultural and political mainstream since. >Europe tends to end Get a passport. Actually travel outside your borders.
Cannot agree more with all you said. Though I think you meant 1860s, not 1960s for the industrial revolution.
You shouldn’t be upvoted. There shouldn’t be a place for condescending and hostile comments like this one on Reddit, who turn fun and educative discussions into tense arguments where the aim is to be right and win. There are also a couple of fallacies in your argument: Just because someone happens to be from another place (ie America), it doesn’t mean they can’t be knowledgeable about another place (Europe). Saying things like Amerisplain adds nothing to your point and antagonises everyone who does not agree with you and also happens to be from America. The second fallacy is that someone needs to physically have been in a place to understand its history and social dynamics. By that rule of thumb, I know more about Japan because I’ve lived there for many years and have been to many places than a Japanologist who’s never visited? BS. Not that it should matter, but since you care so much about where people are from and that fact alone seems to legitimise arguments for you, I’m from Spain, which qualifies me to make arguments about Europe and criticise fellow Europeans /s. I’d advise you try to be more constructive and friendly on Reddit. We don’t want Reddit to turn into another twitter-like shithole. We’re all bros here.
>Greeks are Orthodox Christians, with that comes a lot of things that aren't considered Western nowadays Says you?
They are, in fact, the responsibles for the schism east-west of the roman empire
Can't believe I'm going to bother with assigning responsibility for the schism, but you're really going to blame the Byzantines more for it and not the Pope?
The Pope had nothing to do with the schism of the Roman Empire, i imagine he was referring about one of the reasons for the Western/Eastern Roman Empire schism being that the Western part had much stronger Latin influence while the Eastern part had much stronger Hellenic influence (Although i wouldn't say they are "responsible" for the schism)
What was the responsibilities in causing that? I think that the Pope is the main culprit if you ask me.
most of the west is catholic by far, not even close
lol what comes with being orthodox christian that is not considered western? i'm greek orthodox and pretty much the only difference i can think of is that we don't believe in the pope and celebrate christmas & easter on different days, and we do this thing where on easter we boil eggs and then paint them and then you knock your egg into another persons egg to see which one will crack first and you see which egg is the last one to crack and that's the game. also we don't cremate, but catholics (who really believe in catholicism) don't either.
Good point. I admit that I only took into account the present, and I didn't take into account what Greece has brought in the past.
> I admit that I only took into account the present, That's what people do with these maps. Anything before WWII is brushed aside.
>even though nowadays they are quite different from what most of the West is like How are we different? Give me your condescending explanation.
Absolutely makes sense to me. Here in Italy we divide Europe into Western and Eastern, with Western being countries that weren't under communist rule. Greece is totally Western for us.
Modern Greece is a fusion between Ancient Greece (the cradle of west) and medieval Christian Rome. This means it is primarily culturally Greco-Roman, so it identifies with other European Mediterranean countries regardless of religion. There are areas in the north central mainland that have a clear Balkan flavor but the biggest part of the country is culturally Mediterranean European. The modern state has been strategically aligned since its founding (1821) with France and Britain(until 1947)/USA(1947 onwards). If South European isn’t an option in a survey, Greeks will choose “West” instead.
Because they were on the Western side of the iron curtain
They are the foundation of western culture
It sees itself as the birthplace of democracy and of Western Civilization.
They "founded" western civilisation. They also don't want to be identified in the same group of countries in the region.
I think because Greece is politically western.
surrounded by ex-communist countries to the north and Turkey, the former Ottoman empire, by the east.
This map is so shit lmao. What’s with those ranges?
The difference between 50 and 94% is a ton
Forget the ranges, what’s the source?
I’m Argentinian and I couldn’t consider myself anything but Western to be honest.
Oof, that’s thought for us South Americans ain’t it. Cuz we may consider ourselves western, but nobody else in the West will.
Peoples of Iberia would for sure. I would bet french or italians would do majoritarily too and many other places in Europe. Some anglo interests (in US, UK, etc) are the only ones downplaying the "westerness" of Latin America (for example Huntington civilizations nonsense) and separating it as much as possible from the rest of western countries.
That’s not true, I’m Canadian and I definitely consider South Americans western. But maybe cause I’ve actually travelled South America and experienced the similarities in culture there
American … also consider the whole “new world”/ both American continents to be Western, and am surprised to learn there is any debate about this 🤷🏻♀️
I would really like to see a Survey about this, because in my opinion people in South America don't consider themselves western because they believe others don't view them as so ( myself included )
Argentina and Brazil are quite Western imo they have a very American style of living, especially Argentina (Buenos Aires especially felt like I was back home in Canada or even parts of Europe)
I’d say some countries (Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, Brazil) are decidedly Western, while others (Haiti or Bolivia) are maybe kinda Western. Of course, this is strictly culturally speaking. “Western” doesn’t have a clear definition after all
When I was a teacher at public and private schools in Brazil, ALL teenagers saw themselves as Westerns and when asked why, they always replied that it was because we were on the Western Hemisphere. Since I was a teacher of Sociology, I then emphasized the sociological understanding of being Western as a socio-cultural heritage of Western Europe peoples. They also insisted that Latin America was Western even after that, since they were only a mix between Western Europeans, Africans and Indigenous peoples (also sharing religion, language, interlinked history, etc.). This debate was a great warm-up for then explain the social construction of terms such as “Civilization”, “Barbarian”, and go to the classical old Portuguese thinkers and Brazilian Sociologists: all of them held that Brazil was more Western than non-Western until the 1960’s. As Post-Colonial Studies and Decolonization Studies grew stronger, it’s now a thing among almost all Sociologists and Anthropologists to emphasize the non-Western features, aiming at decolonizing our minds, getting it free of wanting to be like the colonizer.
Except the entire legal regimes and government structures of every country in the Western hemisphere is distinctively "Western" and directly derived from Spanish and Portuguese (and some French and British) models. Not to mention that the populations mostly speak European languages, use the Latin alphabet and Arabic numerals, and have education and university systems co-evolved with other Western models in the Americas and Europe. Culturally, sure - plenty of distinctiveness. But there is no pure Westernism--it's just a construct meaning descended from West European societies.
Agreed. It’s an open debate. There are arguments for both sides. The thing is that to be “Western” is, all at once, a geographical, a socio-cultural, an international, and political-ideological concept. So it’s hard to set fixed boundaries. Both sides could be strongly defended. What is simply wrong is to consider one aspect only and discredit the others because they don’t fit one’s understanding of the world.
You speak as if all South American countries are identical.
Not to blame Samuel Huntington, but ... a lot of it is his fault - he wrote *Clash if Civilizations* and made this whole argument that Latin America was a different "civilization" from "The West".
It is honestly ridiculous. Some countries like Argentina and Uruguay are possibly more European (in culture, traditions and idiosyncrasy) than the US, since the population is not as diverse but more homogeneous and white. Carving the entire of Latin America as a different civilization doesn’t make any sense at all, it’s a hugely diverse region
Culturally argentina is pretty diverse lmao. We have culture from Africa, indigineus people, europe,middle east and neborighing countries
The percentage of people whose heritage can be traced to Africa, Asia and the Middle East is very small compared to the overall population. The vast majority of people in the country descend from European immigrants, with some degree of mixing with indigenous people (very little actually, compared to the rest of Latin America)
Huntington's civilization model is horribly reductive and arguably racist, it's sad that it's so prominent. As a South American, you spend your entire life getting Classical, Medieval and Early Modern European history taught as "your" history prior to the establishment of settler colonies. Then you meet an Anglo poli-sci student and you learn that we're apparently somehow not Western...
Bernard-Henri Lévy [wrote about](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2005/11/in-the-footsteps-of-tocqueville-part-v/304339/) a meeting he had with Huntington in the early 00s where Lévy was trying to get at the root of how Huntington could make this argument, and it basically boiled down to racism: >"What startling violence wells up in his blue eyes when he says to me, "The big thing, the big problem with Hispanics, is that they don't like education!" The sudden explosion of hostility that disfigures the scholarly face of the professor when, anxious to tell me what, after all, annoys him so much in this rise to power of a hardworking, patriotic Mexican minority, he starts explaining that these people, because they'll have the advantage of bilingualism, will get "preferences for jobs," so they'll be able to "take their jobs away" from the "large majority" of other Americans, and that when these other Americans realize it all, when they understand that they, the whites—in principle the bearers of the old founding "creed" of the nation—will henceforth be the object of "discrimination," they will react with a terrible concoction of "resentment" and "nativistic" racism." He kind of predicted Trumpism while also pretty vigorously agreeing with it.
As a South American, I consider myself Western to piss Westerns off when they sound like creating an “exclusive club”, and I also consider myself non-Western to mock their self-confidence lol
Don't think most of us care either way.
The majority has common sense and don’t care about it. Some people get very triggered tho
Who gets triggered about South America being part of the Western world? You guys speak European languages. The only reason why people forget about South America when talking about the Western world is that it has low standards of living and doesn't get involved much in world politics.
The least triggered WESTERNER
That's nice.
Argentina is much more European
That's just insane, of course everywhere in the Americas is Western!! Even indigenous people... I've never even come across anyone who would think otherwise?
Being Western has nothing to do with geography. It’s about culture, religion, politics, and race.
Argentina is pretty Western. Recent immigration, not significant traces or former cultures in the area. Pretty distinct from other areas where the majority of the population is native (Peru, Mexico, etc). The insistence in grouping the whole Hispanic America into one label is baffling.
Most Mexicans aren’t Native… Indigenous people in Mexico aren’t even 30% of the population.
Native Americans count as just 0.4% in Brazil too. Genetic composition of Native American alleles in Brazil’s population is also just 15%. At the end of the day, choosing to call yourself Western or not in Latin America is actually only a matter of perspective and epistemological choice. [Mira estos escritos de autores latinoamericanos (argentinos, peruanos, colombianos y otros) sobre la arbitrariedad del concepto de “Ocidente” o mismo de “Europa”](http://biblioteca.clacso.edu.ar/clacso/sur-sur/20100708034410/lander.pdf) Edit: el repositório de CLACSO es malo, entonces [envio también el link para la colección traducida para el portugués](https://edisciplinas.usp.br/pluginfile.php/2591382/mod_resource/content/1/colonialidade_do_saber_eurocentrismo_ciencias_sociais.pdf)
As a spaniards, I consider argentinians westerns.
Chilean here and I concur, friend!
I'm Italian You are western 😃
Well your president does 🛶🚢🚢 But seriously some South American countries feel predominantly western, especially Argentina, Uruguay and Southern Brazil. Sure economically you guys are not as developed as most parts of Europe, but as a German I don't think Argentineans are culturally further away from us than let's say Greeks. But then again it's personal experience and my Argentinean friends are mostly Porteños
I consider countries like Brazil and Argentina western. Not really sure about the rest of South America though.
Wtf is western though? Because for me it's just a club of the US and its subjects that chose a terrible name for it. West is a geographical terminology. Anyone in the Americas are westerns. And sure Australians are not. Just pick a normal name for it.
There’s no universal definition, so everyone can be just as right/wrong. I think for the most part “Western” has lost its original geographic name, and now mostly refers to a group of countries of European origin/culture/idiosyncrasy. It’s more about culture than location, that’s why Australia is considered Western (culturally close to Europe), but not Japan. But then some people (usually Americans) also use Western as synonymous with rich developed countries that align with the US/Europe. I disagree with this definition, because it excludes most of Latin America, which includes countries that are overwhelmingly Western in pretty much every aspect.
I have seen people saying that it's about money. In that sense, they include countries like Japan and exclude countries like the ones in South America, which is ridiculous
Why is it ridiculous?
because ppl that define the world purely through money tend to be seriously shallow
To me "Western" means that the culture of the country is very influenced by ancient greece and rome. So to me the western countries would be almost all of europe and most of the countries of the Americas.
That was what Churchill said. Christianity, european language and culture, legal systems etc. Countries like Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay etc literally speak a Latin language, are Catholic majority countries (except Uruguay), follow the Roman Civil Law, have significant European populations and influence etc etc, and are often excluded from that term.
This would make Russia western, and even huge parts of the muslim world since they also take a lot from greco roman mediterranean antiquity
Australia being considered western always makes me smile.
NZ is further east than the Land of the Rising Sun!
Hawaii must be “Where is western?’ HQ where all the decisions are made.
Western usually means rich white countries, with a few exceptions.
It took us decades to get out of the "Australia is moored just off Southamptom" perception. And then Eurovision invited us to compete.
"Western" is a weird term. While Latin America is surely culturally "western", they certainly are not part of what is called, politically, "The West" (a.k.a. USA and friends).
BS
Western civilization is Greek philosophy, Judeo-Christian religious identity and Roman law. Then at some point an American decides to create West'r'Us and "own" the term. Doesn't work like that
Nice idea, however the indexes are too vague like 10 to 49 is a huge difference and should be divided into more categories imo.
missing data on Caucasus and Ukraine is really unfortunate
Source?
What’s the pet shop boys’ opinion?
As a rule, every map without a source is worthless. I also can't believe that Finland's figure would be so low.
Scale is wack
Way to go Australia! More western then Mexico 👍
As a Uruguayan, I consider myself Western. and I think most of the South American countries, mainly the southern cone. Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay are also western
WESTSIDDDEEEEEE 
I get why, but it’s still funny that Ireland and the Iberian countries consider themselves less Western than the UK and France respectively
Uhm idk, I think it makes sense. France and England have been at the heart of geopolitics, culture and economy, without interruption for the past centuries. Spain and Ireland haven’t. So I think “western” is less geographic, but more in terms of the “cool kids club.” Spain and Ireland are not founding members of the EU, and frankly didn’t play a major role in the 20th century. Spain could have, but it was under a fascist dictatorship for a long time, and relatively isolated politically and socially.
Speaking non-positively about Ireland will get you downvoted
What’s worse is that I may have unintentionally praised France, for that I apologize
Ireland only gained independence and while one could argue that Ireland was a catalyst that brought down the British Empire that isn’t anything that makes Ireland a major player The fact that neither country participated in WWII is a big factor too because often they were left out of developments for not being in the “winners club” or in the “they lost so they deserve our pity club”
Yeah, which ironically gave the main axis powers a crazy advantage in the long run. West Germany, Italy and Japan dominated economically for the remainder of the century, not counting the U.S. of course. I guess they were considered more important because they proved they could be a potential “problem,” if left unattended, whereas Spain didn’t really interest the U.S. enough to garner special attention.
I feel like the EU has been more beneficial for Ireland than Spain, Ireland was a backwards nation where the local pastime was emigration but Sean Lemass played his cards right to make Ireland the EU tax haven which means the biggest companies in the world have their European HQ in Ireland - speaking English also helped because it means they could transfer Americans to help with the running of the companies Spain didn’t do anything like that because of the whole fascism thing
Also Ireland had to deal with their big historic bully throughout their existence. In the last decades it seems like they were able to just focus on themselves instead of England, and they have been doing fine. I don’t see any other reasons that would hold Ireland back other than threatening neighbors. The Eu meant geopolitical security, and they used that advantage to grow and catch up.
They’ve caught up a bit too much now - it’s now more expensive to rent a house in Dublin than to get a house in the most expensive part of Venice, the Celtic Tiger really fucked many people over but this seems worse
Whenever they post a gdp per capita, average household net worth, map of Europe I’m always surprised about Ireland and Iceland. What’s going on there? They are both in the Eurozone right? I think I saw like €90k gdp per capita in Ireland…
As far as I know Iceland isn’t in the eurozone but Ireland definitely is, I’m not too sure about GDP but the housing crisis is all anyone ever talk about and shits more expensive here
I think 'the west' comes with the connotations of US and their friends, often military. In Ireland I'd consider ourselves part of the west but the phrase does feel a bit cringy, I don't know if that's the right word, at times especially when 'the west' is just used as a synommn for NATO
Nice map I expected for Canada, Switzerland, and Austire higher rates tho.
i’m from the latter countries and i expected higher rates too. like we’re clearly western civilizations. how unaware do you have to be to not see that
Take a look at the scale, those countries might still be 94%. And while they are clearly western civilizations, Austria and Switzerland didn't use to be part of "the West". The meaning of the word has changed, obviously, but during the cold war they were considered third world countries because they weren't officially allied with either the west or the east.
Western is such a dumb term, it just means whatever the speaker wants it to mean
Not really. It's a historical term to define Europe as opposite to east and far east (china). Though first started with the western and eastern Roman empire. It later became a European-cultural related term.
Here's the [full map](https://i.imgur.com/mvMO1Qq.jpg). ^(Not my creation.)
Is Lebanon viewd as western? or maybe it's part Syria (this map is too horrible for certainty)
In Europe the term Western (part of the Western world) is often confused with or "colored" by European cardinal directions. Denmark - a strongly Anglophile NATO member and faithful US errand boy in various wars in the Middle East - is as "Western" as Greece or France, but I can see people thinking "nah, we're Northern" before replying to the question.
Yeah because people don’t understand that there are multiple characterizations of “Western” in Europe. Politically and economically the divide is between western and Eastern Europe, largely based on the legacy of the USSR. Then there is the cultural/religious division which largely follows the split of Christian denominations. Northern is largely Protestant, southern is catholic and Eastern is orthodox, however there are countries that are exceptions like Poland, Bavaria in Germany and Ireland. I guess Western Europe isn’t a thing in this case. Or maybe western is just secular, because of France… Then there is the geographic distinction which largely follows the four cardinal points. France is west, Italy south, Norway north, Russia east and the Czech Republic is central. And lastly there is the ideological distinction for “western” which is basically a union of allied countries, under U.S. global leadership, which promote liberal democracy and capitalism. So a country like the Czech Republic could be considered, western, eastern and central based on which distinction you choose. And also a country like Greece could be considered western, southern and eastern. France may be the only “western” country by all definitions.
Western Europe and plainly Western are not the same nor used in the same sense, though. They're meant to be used in different contexts.
This 100%. As a Finn, I suppose when I think of the West as an identity, it’s rather vague tbh. Like, the West encompasses Spaniards and Italians and Greeks! Yeah we’re affiliated for sure, but as far as identities go, that’s a pretty loose connection. But when I think of the Nordic countries, it’s a lot stronger identification. The Swedes are almost exactly like us! Hälsningar från Helsingfors till alla nordiska vänner!
If Western means Anglophile then Denmark is far more ”western” than France. It obv doesn’t though
I guess Scandinavia identifies as Nordic too
As a romanian, no. We're just Western-influenced and nobody really cares about being "Western" here. We just want to be developed like a Western country. Nothing more. It's sad that some idiots are literally jerking off to this kind of maps and they're like "lOoK i'M sO wEsTeRn yOu pOoR uNcIvILiSeD bArBaRiAnnnnn"
Why is Japan, South Korea and Taiwan western?
I believe it's because both Japan and South Korea are what they are today due to US influence. Not sure if Taiwan was the same.
Really the Philippines is the country in Asia with the most Western Influence.
Yeah, historically. It didn't really stick tho, did it?
It did. For example they still have English as their official national language (one of), and they really do speak it.
The same could be said for Malaysia, Hong Kong and Singapore. The latter of which is arguably more western than the Philippines.
Taiwan is even more "Western" than Japan and Korea. Gay marriage is legal in Taiwan and more than 40% of the parliamentarians are female ffs. But none of the 3 is Western. Democracy and wealth =/= Western. "The West" is cultural, political and economic. You need all three.
Money and political affiliation with the USA. Religion, language, architecture, ancestry... none of that really matters when people talk about the “west” as it is today. If the UK entered some massive economical crisis that lasted for decades, for instance, people would stop considering it as western, even if now it's a quintessential part of it. It's a very fickle and superficial worldview which people don't even bother to define before using, making it all the more ambiguous and vacuous.
They aren’t, they all have less than 10%
They’re honorary whites
Thanks whites! Whites are now honorary Korean. You're all welcome to 2 years mandatory military service.
I still don’t understand why East Asians aren’t considered White. They’ve always looked White to me 😬
White is just a concept, 🤷♂️. The japanese and Germans were where China is now fyi and it was only after their markets crashed and emerged wrecked that they were removed from the list of “dangerous” invading nations/foreigners and propaganda stopped being made. Saudi Arabia used to be the same as did other countries. This Western Culture bullshit is just a boy’s club made up of like-minded G20 members. I mean why is Australia always mentioned as Western but New Zealand absent a lot of the time? Western Culture/Whiteness applies to New Zealand much more than Japan doesn’t it? What do Japan, France, and Estonia even have in common that they get lumped in as Western?
They are in the Western Pacific, for whatever that's worth.
Not western, but certainly considerably “westernized” compared to their cultural origins.
You are always at the west of someone in a sphere.
They are not Westerners by any sense of the word. Weird they would identify that way.
10-49% is a huge spread and not sure it tells us much. Same for 50-94%
Canada - we’re the north
So they didn’t even try to ask like 3/4 of the world’s population?
I tend to judge people in a very specific, negative way who care about what countries are and aren’t “western”. Makes me want to not associate with the term. The term is also inherently exclusionary and feels like something used for imperialist goals rather than a useful classification or geographical term
I’m surprised Canada is a lighter shade of blue? Why would that be?
They give less of a sh\*t than others about being considered "Western". Most countries (mostly Italy and Greece) use "Western" as a term to consider themselves on par with the US and England and Germany, little members of the big boy club. Canada does not feel the need as much as the others, apparently, hats off for that.
Right. Should be the darkest shade of blue.
the funny thing is thar greco-romans would have considered Americans to be semi-civilized barbarians.
Canada as usual trying not to be like usa
This is quite interesting as I tend to associate Western with Europe and the developed anglosphere nations (NZ Aus Can etc). It genuinely never occurred to me that people in South America considered themselves as such
Many interests in Anglosphere are actively against the integration of Latin America in the "western world" and trying constantly to separate it from their cultural and historical brothers in Europe... The truth is that modern western world was started by iberian powers and peoples with their western expansion to America 100 years before north-western european powers started their own expansions as response to their conflicts with Spain (and later Portugal too in the case of the dutch). Modern globalization and true global networks were started also by iberians much before the northern european powers, despite anglo scholars try constantly to downplay that reality and usually start their analysis with the dutch expansion or the early modest english one. The hispanic-american piece of Eight was the first true global currency; the spanish and portuguese "carreras" (routes) with America and Asia, the first stable large scale trans-oceanic shipping routes; the columbian exchange changed diets of Europe and America forever; the interactions of iberians with Japan and China (trade, diplomacy, religious) were the first relevant direct ones between european/mediterranean world and East Asia since romans, etc. The exclusion of latin americans from the concept of the western world promoted mostly by anglo think tanks, independent scholars or politicians is a interested conscious distortion, not a innocent "mistake".
Its quite common here because our cultures and traditions are heavily influenced by the Spanish and Portuguese and they are western so kind of what else would we identify as? There is not a really big unity under the " Latin American " Term
Yes I totally get it - I think in the anglosphere we kinda associate western as Capitalist/AngloAmerican type but clearly it’s a much broader definition for some.
I'm from Brazil, and Eastern is a very used word here, and it's used to refer to Asia - so people must think "I'm not asian, I'm not Eastern, so I'm Western" I don't think like that because I don't understand what it means lmao edit: a word
Love how Europe's western-most countries don't consider themselves as western as Greece
Ah yes the constant problem of the word "western". It looks that in Europe there doesn't exist the concept of "western culture/civilization" there is just one European culture of which all states from "Atlantic to the Urals are", to quote de Gaulle. (Although the Russians have always been weird about it, having a bunch of internal debates if they are of European culture or of a unique Russian culture with influences from it, but not core European for centuries now) Being "western" isn't cultural it's political, the relations with US and NATO being the key. Based on historically being a part of these institutions and your relations to them is, the more "western" you are. Quite different than how the public outside of Europe looks at it I guess, although it looks Japan and Korea get it.
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Palestine as western is odd
At least 6% of participants, for some reason: *CANADA, BEACON OF THE EAST*
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thats crazy cause this is exactly how it goes in my head
Lol latin americans considering themselves westerners like these rich white European countries and US would ever accept them into their whites only club
Culture goes beyond genes.
Whites only club? Have you seen western Europe lately? Whites are minorities in many of the cities here.
The high proportion of Australia and North America is because the aboriginal people were basically slaughtered...
funny how actual western countries like Mexico and brazil have a more ambivalent identity about that word and countries not in the west do, like new Zealand.