[whstl]

As someone from the southern hemisphere, the only thing more patronizing and infuriating than this is the insistence from the same moralizing group that my country isn’t part of “The West”, despite it being physically and culturally there.

[parineum]

"The West" is Western Europe and it's colonial/cultural derivatives.

It hasn't been a directional term for centuries. Everyone intuitively knows this based on the usage but, every now and then, someone like you thinks they are clever and nobody else understands.

[greiskul]

A lot of Americans don't consider countries in South America to be part of "The West".

Which is wild, cause Americans also love Rome and it's influence in western culture, and Latin America literally speaks languages that are direct descendants of Latin.

[bonoboTP]

In that conception it's Anglos and the historic roots of Anglo thought. Latin America is a different branch, so it's not on the Anglo branch. But the common root (Rome, Western Europe) is on it. Seems straightforward.

[brabel]

That’s why both Australia and South America were supposed to be integral part of the Western world. Only recently South America has become kind of unwelcome due to its political and economical misalignment.

[watwut]

People on HN regularly argue that Spaniards are not part of the west and it has nothing to do with direction nor culture. It is because a lot of mumbo jumbo that tries to imply but not openly say that they are not white enough.

[whstl]

> "The West" is Western Europe and it's colonial/cultural derivatives.

Yep. This is the definition I use.

[kstrauser]

I think you got their point exactly backwards. Their country is western by the standard you described, but people tell them it’s not because it’s not Western Europe, or the North America.

[zeehio]

Oh shit I wasn't aware that this was the definition. Does this definition then include Philippines being from "The West"?

[cwmoore]

Islands have their own directions.

[vasco]

West and east don't make sense on a globe. It makes a little sense as relative directions to some point.

But it makes no sense to use them as topological area boundaries. It's a globe, nothing is "in the west". Things can just be "west of something" which really just is shorthand for "you'll get there faster going west than east".

[blenderob]

Absolutely! On the globe all countries lie to the west of something and simultaneously lie to the east of something.

[mrighele]

Until just a few centuries ago most of the world population was split between Europe (West) and East Asia (East).

Plenty of people genuinely believed that if you were to navigate to the West of Europe you would fall off the border of the world (well, some still do).

[SketchySeaBeast]

> Until just a few centuries ago most of the world population was split between Europe (West) and East Asia (East).

What about Africa? North and South America?

> Plenty of people genuinely believed that if you were to navigate to the West of Europe you would fall off the border of the world (well, some still do).

Did they? Who in particular are you referencing here? Are you perhaps falling for the myth of the flat earth[1]?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_of_the_flat_Earth

[dragonwriter]

> Until just a few centuries ago most of the world population was split between Europe (West) and East Asia (East).

An outright majority of the world’s population was, and still is, in Asia, so I'm not sure what this split between is supposed to refer to. If you mean Europe was #2 behind Asi, that was true until the 1980s if the Americas are counted as one continent, otherwise the 1990s when Africa took the #2 spot, not “a couple centuries ago”.

[vbarrielle]

Your parent post meant that a few centuries ago, the american continent was not known, so the known world could be split between east and west.

[travisjungroth]

The West only makes sense in the Northern Hemisphere. I’m in Peru right now, and people talk about the local cultures in comparison to Western culture and I find it kind of confusing. They’re certainly not Eastern here.

It gets unconfusing if you realize it just means White.

[adwn]

> It gets unconfusing if you realize it just means White.

It definitely does not. Russia, for example, would be considered "White", but is decidedly not part of "the West".

[whstl]

Exactly.

Also the "only in the Northern Hemisphere" part goes out the window as soon as Australia is mentioned.

It doesn't matter that Canada and USA have strong Native populations, "it's different in the south".

In my view the "you're not West" discourse is just another tool to fuck with the souther hemisphere. Fucks you in the head to get this crap from "both sides".

[travisjungroth]

My point is more like Australia is normally considered part of the West, even though it shares longitudes with China and Japan. “The West” and “Western longitudes” really breaks down in the Southern hemisphere. It also breaks down in other ways.

[whstl]

I still don't get the point. I come from a part of South American that is majorly white, and has European culture.

It used to be "West". Now I can't bring it up without getting lectured by people using weird rationalizations, from both sides of the political spectrum.

I'm just fucking tired of the prejudice, that's it.

[bonoboTP]

Be at least part of NATO or the Commonwealth and you'll have better chances.

[jack_h]

It's no different than the South in the US which does not include Texas, New Mexica, Arizona, or any other states that are geographically South in the modern day US. Once you understand the historical aspect of the naming it makes sense. The category itself, regardless of its label, is useful.

In terms of Latin America being a part of the West or not, that's more interesting. I'm currently reading Samuel P. Huntington's "A Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order" and in it he talks a lot about civilizations which he defines as the highest cultural grouping of people short of what makes us human. Language, law, and religion in Latin America largely derive from Europe, although there are other aspects like economics that tend can differ. Some people consider Latin America as part of the West, others believe it's peripheral to the West or its part of its own civilization as Huntington does.

As others have pointed out Russia is not part of the West and at least according to Huntington would be placed in the Orthodox Civilization. Interestingly Huntington also argues that Greece, despite being the center of Classical Civilization which is the bases for Western Civilization, is not a part of the West, rather they too are Orthodox.

Regardless of whether you agree with these groupings, I think distilling it down to skin color is incorrect and not useful. The West itself is not even remotely homogenous in this aspect. You wouldn't go to sections of the Deep South in the US and declare it as not being a part of the West anymore than you would include Belarus as part of the West.

[542354234235]

>It's no different than the South in the US

There is a saying in Florida, that the farther North you go, the more South you get.

[wang_li]

Geographically "The West" only makes sense in Europe and Asia. Once you expand your scope, compass directions are meaningless and the term "The West" refers to certain philosophies, political, and cultural similarities. And even then, it also refers to a certain time frame.

[opello]

> The West only makes sense in the Northern Hemisphere.

It doesn't even make sense there. It's not really a logical group of things that are geographically West of anything. The abstract cultural idea of "Western Civilization" or "the West" are poorly named.

[mc32]

It does make sense when you realize it’s a legacy term. Lots of things are legacies from the past.

[opello]

I do realize it's a legacy term. A legacy from the 1500s if not from earlier during the split of the Roman Empire into Greek-East and Latin-West. A legacy that predates Modern English as a language. A legacy the use of which makes no geographic sense with a line at around 22°E Longitude in Europe and then including parts of North America, Australia, and New Zealand all of which would not have been included as having representative cultures at the time of the establishment of the term. But sure, I guess a more descriptive, representative, relevant term isn't something to reasonably call out as nonsense.

Being a product of history, a legacy, is not a shortcut to sensible. It's an explanation for why the term is used. My complaint was that it does not even "make sense" in the context of the Northern Hemisphere of the Earth.

[kqr]

I try to say "countries around the northern Atlantic" because that's really what people mean by "West".

[dahfizz]

What about Australia?

I’m not sure there is one simple & correct definition of “the West”.

[voxleone]

I have a feeling you're a fellow Brazilian. Brazil has been Catholic for ages, so leaving it out of the “Western” category is honestly laughable. That said, the map actually gets it right -- it shows Brazil as not Western, but in a way that’s not cringey.