The West is made up of the countries of Western Europe, North and South America, Oceania, South Africa and most of the cities of black Africa. It grew out of the western, Latin-speaking half of the Roman Empire. It is based on Greek, Roman and Christian ideas.
Some countries are partly Western, having taken on some Western ways, such as Japan, Turkey, Indonesia and Russia.
Current features:
- writing: Latin letters
- numbers: Arabic numbers
- religion: Protestant or Roman Catholic
- calendar: Gregorian calendar
- epoch: years are counted from the birth of Christ
- measurement: metric or English
- philosophy: based on Plato and Aristotle
- universal states: Roman Empire
- cities: Rome, Florence, Venice, Paris, Berlin, London, New York, Los Angeles, Rio
A quick way to tell if a country is Western, or at least part Western, is to look at the writing.
The West compared to other parts of the world is violent and warlike. That is because it is divided into so many countries. It lacks a true empire that would keep it at peace. It is not for want of trying: Charlemagne, Napoleon and Hitler have tried.
Its longest period of peace was at the height of the British Empire. The current American Empire has kept the West at peace for most of the past 60 years. When it weakens, the West will again find itself at war.
Two things make the West different than the rest of the world:
- The truth as something that can be known and written down. It gets this from Greek philosophy. You see it from the Nicene Creed to Einstein. God, physical laws, all of it can be known and written down and reasoned about. It is not a mystery, it is not beyond man’s understanding, it is not beyond word or number. It is black and white. Not only that, the truth matters. The truth is what will save mankind. So it is not just knowable, it is sought after. It is one of the highest callings of life, to seek the truth.
- The West as universal. The West does not see itself as belonging to just one people or age, but as something for all mankind, as the purpose and end of history itself. Everything has been building up to this moment when the West burst upon the scene with all the answers (be it Christian or Communist or whatever).One other part of the world sees itself this way: the Muslim world: Islam is the faith for all mankind.
Many in the West will smile at this now. That is a sign that it is changing.
The West has been moving away from both of these positions over the past forty years. The truth is not knowable and not all that important. The West is not for everyone and certainly not what history has been working towards. It is just another part of the world, and maybe not even the best part.
The self-confidence that the West once had is giving way to self-doubt and despair. This is especially true in Europe, less so in America.
See also:
“The West is made up of the countries of Western Europe, North and South America, Oceania, South Africa and most of the cities of black Africa.”
Uh? “Most of the cities of black Africa“??
Yes, latin letters, protestant and catholic religions, gregorian calendar can be found in some parts of Africa. That does not make us part of the West. It’s just the aftermath of colonialism.
Africa has its own paradigm(s) and its interests are distinct from the ones of the West.
Actually, the West includes North America and central-Western Europe and that’s pretty much it.
Loosely speaking, Latin America can be considered part of the West, but the ‘West’ is usually used to categorized DEVELOPED countries.
Oh, I forgot Australia, too.
And, of course, Brazil – with the sixth largest economy in the world – isn’t at all “developed”. Neither are Chile, Mexico, or Argentina, for that matter.
What you mean to say is “rich”, Mel. Most of Latin Americ has been “developed” for 50 years now.
Some countries are partly Western, having taken on some Western ways, such as Japan, Turkey, Indonesia and Russia.
Turkey and Russia – no doubt. Japan – I guess I can see that.
But how does Indonesia classify as partly Western? I guess it depends on your definitions, but I don’t think it’s any more Western than say, Thailand or Tunisia for example.
Interesting that you say ‘the truth is not knowable and not all that important’.
Why?
Surely seeking the truth is about trust, justice and advancement. Not advancement for the sake of advancement, though certainly that is the result sometimes. Advancement which leads to a better understanding of matters of nature, science and self, and a higher quality of life that everyone aspires to even if they believe that they don’t.
So maybe I have the wrong idea – why do you think the truth is unknowable and not all that important?
You’re right that most Europeans of a middle class/intellectual bent have accepted postmodernism and cultural and moral relativism [I know they are not the same which is why I have not conflated them into one term as right-wingers seem to in their rhetoric against "multiculturalism"] in the past 40 years in a way Americans are loath to do- hence the US distrust of a “liberal elite” which is the sort of language only the far right use in public over here. Certainly whiteness has a lot to do with the concept of Western supremacy and I won’t defend that for one minute, but as a Christian I’m also against postmodern ideas and the denial of truth. Jesus is universal, and died for the sins of all men- including racism and the colonialism, war and other violent oppression claimed to be in His name by whiteness in history. I also affirm that sexual morality is universally ordained by God as “one man, one woman within marriage” -just the biblical doctrine, not the whiteness or the misogyny which led Christian men to justify concubinage, marriage of immature girls to grown men, raping slaves or other evils.
I accept that other terms such as “modesty” are by necessity dependent on cultural factors and few believers of today outside the fundamentalist movement (who preach a standard for women not far from the Islamic fundamentalist model) would say otherwise. It is possible to uphold the marriage-based standard without any racist Euro/Anglo-centric ideas from the past such as topless women in African societies where the breasts have never been sexualised being “immodest”. The concept of marriage of man and woman as the ideal context for sex has been a part of many pre-Western cultures after development from primitive hunter gatherer phase to agriculture in a way which I think it a legitimate human universal. Those in academia who have tried to promote “free love” have always came from bad faith -the early 20th century first wave of Mead, Dewey, Ellis and Sanger who were openly racist while exoticising the sexual openness of far-off civilisations, lying, plagiarising and trying to convince Western elites to adopt such an attitude as would later be called “sex-positivity”, and the mid-century second wave who were much more successful with both elites and the general public in pushing sexual revolution but favouring a large state and government control in nearly all other aspects of life at the same time they were ordering it to “get out their bedroom and their uterus”- see 2012 Democratic campaign… The much earlier examples such as Casanova and the Marquis de Sade of attempts to change sexual morality away from marriage-based standards were not done by blameless men seeking the advancement of all, either.
Jeremiah Wright and MLK are closer to Christ’s prophetic model than “status quo” preserving white racists who use cultural tropes loosely associated with Christianity, required by no scripture, to justify their superiority and entitlement.