The only west that actually matters, politicallyThe white bourgeois insistence on 'cultural westernism' or whatever in these countries is just aspiration to the Imperial core that they ain't in
yeah japan is sometimes part of "the west" but it's not western. i mentioned in another comment that this is perhaps an opposite to the latam situation.
being "western" and 3 bucks will buy you a cup of coffee
it just doesn't matter and I think it's sus to worry about it. the only reason anybody cares about how "western" they are is to position themselves as better than someone else for the purposes of exploiting them. or, maybe to try to assuage bad feelings from being in a low hierarchical rung themselves and excluded from the imperial core. still not a good look.
I'd also argue Japan is more "western" than, say, Colombia in most cultural ways too. Full internalization of Western art, music, and most importantly political and governance structures, which are sort of a superficial veneer in most of Latam.
https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/east-asia/article/3228302/japanese-diplomat-attacked-us-woman-anti-asian-hate-crime
https://asia.nikkei.com/Life-Arts/Life/Japanese-jazz-pianist-plays-on-after-Asian-hate-crime-attack
https://www.voanews.com/a/usa_race-america_hate-crimes-targeting-asian-americans-spiked-150-major-us-cities/6202736.html
https://densho.org/catalyst/anti-asian-violence-isnt-un-american-its-a-racist-tradition-that-goes-back-over-150-years/
that's why lol
Individual instances of racism against Koreans and Japanese in western countries aren’t exactly relevant to the positions of power that South Korea and Japan, the countries, hold in relation to the west (or in relation to western issues)
Well of course China's right that they will never be able to become white
What I'm more on about is how if they made a new NATO, Japan and occupied Korea would be in it
I don’t think there is a single dogmatic definition for western, nor should we seek one out. It depends on context and has shifted over time, just like whiteness as you rightly mentioned. But while I agree with the overlap with whiteness, I don’t think western necessarily implies race every time it is used.
Western means something slightly different when speaking of philosophy compared to art. It means something entirely different in leftist (esp. Marxist) discussions because it is usually referring to the imperial core which is coincidentally in the West (as originally, arbitrarily defined relative to Rome).
Hell, one could argue that we quit using the word western altogether, first and foremost because of its imprecision, secondly because it maybe has some latent Orientalism baked in; the term western only has meaning relative to Eastern which has historically connoted inferior, backward, foreign, etc.
Edit: sorry for all the adverbs, I usually edit them out but I’m about to fall asleep
I don’t think there is a single dogmatic definition for western,
Yes there is. It's just "collective European racial interest"
The anglos in USA, Aus, NZ, Canada are all 98-100% genetically pure and look Northern European. It's not at all like Latin America where they're both 1) only from the (visibly darker pigmented) European periphery of Spain and 2) only partially descended from said periphery, which results in something like 80% of Latinos looking out of place in Northern Europe.
Why does this matter? Because the west is racist, and this racism is applied primarily based on appearance. Illegal Polish immigrants don't exactly get questioned for their papers out of the blue, but legal US citizens can be deported if they look Mexican enough (Joe Arpaio)
- White Americans (and Australian etc) are pure so they're western
- Japan and Korea are not remotely European so they're not. Will gladly fill with 100s of European-controlled military bases tho
- Russia seeks more power at the expense of other whites. (bolded very important). Thus, not western. They're betraying the collective racial interest!
- Poland used to be non-western. But now it is.
https://i.postimg.cc/MWGZ93zF/image.png
If Latin America is western, then they're doing a piss-poor job at it lol. If almost every country in Europe would rather help any other European country than help Colombia, what does that make Colombia? Even Spain would rather help much richer Northern European countries than they would Colombia. Hell even INDIA receives an overall warmer reception, though not by much, but it should tell you that Latin America is as forgettable and unimportant to the Western world as INDIA is. And the best part is that Colombia isn't even an especially offensive Latin country in terms of geopolitics, unlike Venezuela or Cuba or Bolivia etc."Western" is just another extraneous word for "white". Whites love making more words mean "white". They did it with the word "Caucasian", the word "Aryan", the word "continent" which was redefined to give white-people-land its own special snowflake status, the word "Indian", which was applied to the actual inhabitants of America in order to tacitly emphasize that they don't belong here so that white settlers could LARP as natives, etc. "Western" is just another variant of these words. Anyone who thinks otherwise is playing checkers while we're playing chess.
If you wanna complain about the concept of a direction being used as an ethnocultural bloc, then I'm all for that. Europe is a central place on the world map (which is completely arbitrary anyway). But when white westerners say "western", I promise you nobody is thinking of Chile or Ecuador when they say that.
I largely agree with you that Western means white in many contexts. Just not all. The usage of so many terms for white, far from proving a uniform history of white supremacy over different eras and continents, actually demonstrates the ambivalent and volatile nature of whiteness as a concept, that it is not something absolute but rather disputed and impermanent.
I don’t agree with identifying peoples as Western based on appearance. It is valid to consider Japan as Western in certain discussions because it forms an integral part of US imperialism today. Same for Israel, Guam, and other places. India right now is at a turning point and seems to be trying to join the west. Yet I acknowledge that in other contexts these countries are not really part of the club and could then be considered non-Western. It’s a matter of geopolitics not biology.
So I take the Parenti view on this one. It doesn’t matter to me what we call Western as long as communication is clear. At best, it is a waste of energy like it is a waste to argue whether certain nations are/were Actually Existing Socialism. At worst, it validates the existing class structure by accepting the division as natural. Like I’m not interested in fine-tuning exactly which ethnicities I would consider Aryan because the very premise is racist and unnecessary. We have terms like imperial core and global south, which shift the focus properly to social relations rather than racial ideology.
Or we can imagine an italian who moves to Sweden and is not reeeealy considered white, over there. Does that mean only the most exclusionary concept of whiteness is true?
Forget Sweden, I know Italians who couldn't move into certain neighborhoods here in the northern US as late as the 1990s
Italian was considered a different racial category from northern European as late as the 1980s, I've seen it on official job applications
Italians also just look different in a way which doesn't exist for Irish Polish or even Russian people. They're darker, and they look more proximal to Arabs or Mexicans depending on who you ask.
Rather, an european who reminds our latin american comrades that they are very much not western and "to be honest we don't even consider the czechians western" is merely exercising once again the power to define who is or isn't [ingroup] that is characteristic of whiteness and westerness.
well yea, because that's what whiteness is. It's exclusionary. It's not exclusionary to say "the whitest whites don't consider you white". That's not racism, that's just observing reality.
This whole debate is pointless because "Western" is just another weasel word, a euphemism, a dogwhistle, for "White". The point was to make it sound softer and tamer, and the fact that this debate even exists, means they succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. "The White World" sounds awkward and racist to the POC across the globe, but "The Western World" sounds soft and tame and inclusive--mission accomplished!
They can basically say "White interests" by saying the word "Western", and the White supremacists know the sound of the dogwhistle, they can claim plausible deniability ("it's not based on race, I swear!") and even half a continent full of Latin Americans will have millions of people clamoring about how they're "totally Western actually" even though most of them would be facing deportation as a LEGAL US CITIZEN in many towns and states.
Without getting into the weeds of what “Western” precisely means: racists in the imperial core might not think of them as Western, but that’s on them.
but that’s on them.
this is just cope
It's not on them, they lose nothing from it, because they own all the wealth and all the capitalIt's like me walking into a KKK meeting with your mindset and what happens? I'd just get lynched, but hey, their loss that's on them (not really)
The better question is why are so many Latin Americans, as well as a certain class of obfuscating-or-completely-ignorant actual Westerners (On this forum it's mostly the latter, on reddit and other areas it'll be the former) obsessed with the idea of Latin America being considered Western? It's because 1) honestly speaking, a ton of Latinos are self-hating/love the "ego boost" from being considered part of a powerful class and 2) actual white westerners love virtue signalling their support to Latinos because the fake camaraderie costs them nothing, and they would love to have Latin America turn into an antipodal version of Korea/Japan/Saudi Arabia covered with US/French/British military bases and funneling even more resources into the ACTUAL West.
but that’s on them.
this is just cope
My point is that just because someone in the imperial core doesn’t think someone from Latin America is Western doesn’t change the fact that many of them are (excluding people who have kept to indigenous traditions, and say for instance some non-European immigrants). My point is simply that they’re wrong. It’s their error.
And by your logic Angola, Kenya, the Philippines, huge swathes of India etc are also Western. Pretty much the whole world uses Western technology, speaks some degree of English, wears Blue Jeans, and listens to the Backstreet Boys or whomever.
The only reason people bring up Latinos being western, is because the definition of Western is inherently racial, everyone knows this intuitively including every single person debating it--that's why they even brought it up in the first place.
And Latinos are obviously only partially European racially, and they don't look similar enough to pass in Northern Europe which is where the imperial core is. So when people say "the western world" they are almost never thinking about Latin America, unless they themselves are Latin American and want to feel included under this exclusive label.So since Western is just a racial dogwhistle, AKA a polite way of saying "White" that doesn't sound as racist to the POCs ears, and since Latinos are basically only half white (from a darker than average white country like Spain), that means that Latinos are not Western in any way that matters. Are they west--ish? Sure.
I don’t know what kind of preposterous definition of “Western” you’re hoping to catch me on, but I’m not interested in playing it. Just because a country was once a colony of the UK is not by itself a sufficient reason to call its indigenous population Western.
If you say so. You’re right though, that this is all a fool’s errand anyway, because most people both within the imperial core and the periphery are creating their competing definitions of “Western” for the purposes of differentiating the in group from the out group.
this is all a fool’s errand anyway, because most people both within the imperial core and the periphery are creating their competing definitions of “Western” for the purposes of differentiating the in group from the out group.
Finally.
The only addendum I'd make is that Latin America doesn't benefit from including itself in this ingroup. As long as the (actual) West controls all the wealth and resources, vicarious ethnic identification with them only gives them more power, and gives Latinos a false sense of safety about their intrusive institutions, like the plan to eventually dot Latin America with their military bases (there are currently very few of these) and in a worst case scenario literal recolonization of Latin America
https://i.postimg.cc/1zSqXxFr/Screenshot-2023-12-21-at-01-28-27-Western-world-Wikipedia.png
Oh I agree. I still insist that a hot dog is objectively a taco, though.
My definition of whiteness is simple: it's whether you can pass as an Anglo. That's pretty much it. What counts as "passing as an Anglo" heavily depends on time and place, but that's what it really boils down to in the end. Anglos are definitionally white, and every other European ethnic group, even the French, the Danish, and the Dutch, are only white insofar as Anglos consider them close enough to be Anglo.
How else do you explain WWI when Anglos called Hitler's ubermensch a bunch of yellow-skinned, slanty-eyed, buck-teeth, dog-eating Asiatic marauders? Or this infamous poster, which boils down to Anglos, in this case an Anglo American, calling Germans the n-word. It's because there are levels of whiteness, and some ham sandwich gammon fuck is at the very top of the pyramid. And in the case of WWI, the ham sandwich gammon fuck decided that blue eyes blonde hair Germans are no longer white, so blue eyes blonde hair Germans stopped being white. And after WWI is over, the ham sandwich gammon fuck decided that blue eyes blonde hair Germans can be white again, so blue eyes blonde hair Germans became white again.
All that nonsense about blood quantum or religion or cultural affinity or language is bullshit. The real question is: does the ham sandwich consider you a fellow ham sandwich?
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Yes? Then you're a fellow Anglo and the world belongs to you and me.
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Close enough? Then you're white and the world is yours as well but us Anglos get first dibs.
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No? Then you're a filthy nonwhite who can make T-shirts and shoes for us.
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Maybe? Then you're conditionally white/white-with-an-asterisk who us Anglos will strategically employ for our gain before throwing you under the bus when you've outlived your usefulness.
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Damn, good post. Changed my perspetive a bit. (Also thanks for calling me comrade, made me feel warm)
That said, i think the material conditions part of your summation is kind of the core point of why I and others were perplexed by the idea of Hondurus being "western", in spite of the other stuff.
For me, "the west", "the imperial core", and "the global north" are very close to being synonymous in how i understand them. But maybe they shouldnt be. This is why i usually use imperial core though, since it seems the most specific.
"western" and "the west" aren't even the same thing. latam is westish in those regards but these countries certainly aren't the hegemonic "the west"
Our religions have been westernized, our mode of production is capitalism, our cultural references are western cultural products, our music is dependent on western notions of what is "good" music. The products that we buy and we sell, that we most value are influenced by westernized perceptions of value.
All of these also hold true for Angola, Congo, Kenya, Philippines, and several other countries in Africa and Asia. If everyone's "Western" then it's a meaningless term.
We already know what the answer to this, "Western" is based on race, which is the only reason Latin America is even in the running on being considered Western. But when you look at how ACTUAL Europeans behave and put their value, they don't actually consider Latin America western in any sense at all--and this is because of the other half of their ancestry.
Some good responses in this thread, I think the point about "the west" being a synonym for "the imperial core" is good, and honduras is definitely not in the imperial core.
However I think another point is that "the west" doesn't apply to even Spain, I mean not really. There is of course the racial component that someone touched on, where Italians, southern Europeans, are not considered white, but also in the development of our modern political landscape we're not so concerned with Spain but more France and Britain, or maybe a triangle of western Germany, France and Britain. I believe Spain was in decline by like the 1600s? And so the main developments of modern liberal capitalism are occurring in France and Britain, and I think "the west" partly refers to these developments - this system perfected in the locus of France and Britain, and other important countries in that triangle, like Germany (esp western), and the Netherlands. Spain is peripheral, and is only "the west" because it's not in the east. Spain, Portugal, Italy, all have important contributions to the development of capitalism (I think, I'm not super well-read on the history of capitalism), but really our modern political and economic landscape owes its existence to France and Britain. The US, as the successor of that system that they birthed, is similarly "the west."
Of course there's also a racial component to it - if Japan had picked this system up where Britain fell, would we still be referring to "the west?" Probably not - I mean geographically that makes no sense, I'm pretty sure Japan is closest to Britain going east from Britain - but also I think the US is trying to express some continuity with Protestant Northern Europe and portray themselves as the extension of such a cultural and ethnic tradition in America. But maybe there would be another term thought up because I do think an important part of "the west" is to refer not just to western Europe geographically or a racial/ethnic/religious continuity with mother Europe, but a certain political economic system that saw its triumph in France and Britain, and now the torch has been passed and it sees its highest development in the US.
just a thought
this might be a case of "we're usually more specific than that". Calzones are ravioli but there's almost never a reason to talk about them like that. In our geopolitical discussions here, western countries that aren't hegemonic are primarily discussed in the context of
doing shit to them.it's the opposite of how japan is definitely not western but sometimes is participating in "the west".
I would like to hear what some of our news mega comrade's opinions are on this. Like @SeventyTwoTrillion@hexbear.net's, or @Awoo@hexbear.net's and other Marxism-educated regulars there, because of the geopolitical focus of the news mega and how often things like the Western World, Global North, and Imperial Core are heavily discussed.
The way I've always thought of it is that "Western" is just an informal way of saying Imperial Core. That it's all a matter of who is doing imperialism to whom, who is benefiting from imperialism and who is being exploited by it. That it's not a matter of culture, language, etc., and is only a matter of race and racism because it's racist reasoning and racist justification at the heart of imperialism.
"Western" and "imperial core" are synonymous to me, too, and thus Honduras is not in the imperial core and I assume is in the periphery
I see "west" as a less valuable term than "imperial core" or "international community". They sit outside of these things, as an exploited periphery. The euro-christian connections are significantly less important than their position in global capitalism. If any existing imperial core country were to suddenly find itself becoming an exploited periphery we would see similar movements of the left succeed in that country like we see succeed in south america.
We had an interesting thread the other day about social democrats of latin america vs social democrats, and it struck me that there is a fundamental difference between the socdems of latam and the socdems of the imperial core. The socdems of latam call themselves communists, promote communism, call themselves marxist-leninist, and so on. Lula celebrates putting a communist on the supreme court. Evo calls himself a marxist-leninist completely. These people are not ideological social-democrats. Their goal is not social-democracy. They are using it simply as a means, not as an end. Unlike the Bernies and euro social democrats, who are ideological social democrats who view social democracy as an end rather than a means towards transformational change. The exception here being Corbyn and the diem group, but their success has not occurred because they do not hold the same material conditions as the exploited periphery.
In terms of racism, I genuinely don't know how important it truly is anymore. The imperial core doesn't give a fuuuuuck about race when it benefits them. Venezuela is the subject of intense unbridled levels of hate for successfully being opposed to the imperial core. Argentina on the other hand is not. Racism is a tool, a means to an end for the bourgeoisie, the end they want is exploitation as a periphery country and they weaponise it or de-weaponise it as required. This holds true for the middle east and asia as well but does not hold true for africa making me think that they have a unique racial battle - no amount of being an exploited periphery country reduces the racism directed at them from the "west". Where are the "good" african countries in the eyes of bourgeoise western society?
I think of latam as having a western layer in the upper and more white classes that exploit a non-western majority.
My interpretation is that "Western" implies a cultural adherence/devotion to Western or classical liberalism -- so things like rights of the individual, liberty, consent of the governed, political equality, right to private property and equality before the law. To that end I'd say that LatAm is ideologically a lot more like North America than it is, say, China, but it's a sliding scale.
My interpretation is that "Western" implies a cultural adherence/devotion to Western or classical liberalism -- so things like rights of the individual, liberty, consent of the governed, political equality, right to private property and equality before the law
You forgot to add "for white people"*
The way you have it written now nothing in North America or Europe is a western country
To make an analogy with phenomena within "western in the strict sense" places, it is known that US WASPs did not consider italians or poles or sometimes even germans to be white. Or we can imagine an italian who moves to Sweden and is not reeeealy considered white, over there. Does that mean only the most exclusionary concept of whiteness is true?
this isn't really true, and it's something leftists love to say for some reason. Italians, Irish, Jews, etc. are white, have always been considered white, to say otherwise is pretty silly.
being 'white' doesn't mean you never face discrimination. white people can face discrimination too, like those examples you pointed out.
Gonna go ahead and disagree with you there. Whiteness is a social construct "oppresor club" and in America italians and irish were once not included in the definition. Theres an abundance of scolarship about this, such as "how the Irish became white".
it's just not true. historian Eric Foner says the same here. that entire scholarship is based on viewing 'white' as meaning 'never facing discrimination', which is silly.
Irish, Italian, Jews, whatever other group people say aren't white had rights specifically because they were white. they could vote when black people couldn't, miscegenation laws never applied to them and it did to black people. to say these groups weren't white is really ridiculous and frankly just insulting to groups that faced discrimination specifically because they weren't white.
They were disciminated against because they werent seen as entirly white by the people discriminating, regardless of laws being different for them
Whiteness is an opressor club. If youre being opressed by the people in the club, you arent entirly in the club, even if there are people lower on the totem pole than you.
The British even made racist conspiracy theories about the Irish being a “lost tribe” of Africa to justify their double racism
I think you're basically getting into astrology at this point. "oh Italians weren't 'fully' white, they were only 70% white whereas WASPs were 100% white and black people were 0% white, and the line to have rights is 50%"
it's silly. again, these groups had certain rights specifically because they were white. if they weren't seen as white, they wouldn't have those rights.
racism is astrology, it's not based on any objective, measurable metrics and has constantly changed throughout history. people point this out by talking about anti-irish racism, because it was a real thing but farcical under the current construction of race. Eric Foner brings up interesting points for American-specific situations where people make mistakes in their narratives---but that isn't a rebuttal to the existence of anti-(people-who-were/are-considered-white-in-the-US) racism in Europe. the white/nonwhite dichotomy itself is US-ian, not the only way to construct a racialized social hierarchy
"oh Italians weren't 'fully' white, they were only 70% white whereas WASPs were 100% white and black people were 0% white, and the line to have rights is 50%"
...But that's exactly how most racists saw it (and many still do). It is silly, but that doesn't change the fact that it was indeed a common worldview that did shape laws that in turn reinforced it. Are you saying that racists didn't believe in a racial hierarchy?
Whiteness is a social construct its not at all "astrology" to say you can be partially in the club and partially not in the club come on.
White is a class of people shorn from all social relations and existing in a state of pure liberalism. If a sufficiently British enough person were to be alive today they would not be recognized as white. I don't know enough about that backwater island to know if there are still like little fishing villages where people are making eel jelly and nettle soup with their cousins. Those people would be the antagonists in a horror film. They wouldn't be recognized as being part of the white world.
If a sufficiently British enough person were to be alive today they would not be recognized as white
Jacob Rees-Mogg is a man from the 18th century, and no one has any trouble seeing him as white
I don't think they have always been considered "white" exactly, but they are now for sure. Jewish people that's like 80-90% true
I found YouTube links in your post. Here are links to the same videos on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
Link 1:
Link 2:
