this post was submitted on 17 Jan 2024
212 points (99.5% liked)
chapotraphouse
13505 readers
29 users here now
Banned? DM Wmill to appeal.
No anti-nautilism posts. See: Eco-fascism Primer
Vaush posts go in the_dunk_tank
Dunk posts in general go in the_dunk_tank, not here
Don't post low-hanging fruit here after it gets removed from the_dunk_tank
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
When you ask the average Joe on the street what "western" means, they think "the countries where rich white people are", it's really that simple, nobody is out there talking about hemispheres or gps coordinates, any other definition is ad hoc, uncommon, and personalized
That sentence literally just describes the entire world
Let's clock how ad hoc this kind of logic is by using a country I'm familiar with; Morocco or the Maghreb: name literally means "the west", close links with America and Western Europe historically, politically, and even culturally; by the definitions used in this thread, it's a western country
See what happens when you don't stick with the obvious conclusion that even your average Long Islander figures out intuitively
your imaginary Long Island schlub exhibits the base layer of 'the West' being, in many cases a simple "us vs. them". but the writers and politicians who made the thing up have had to justify it in more detail, and they've always introduced contradictions. working from the 'intellectual' justifications & calling out the inconsistencies is an important step toward undermining the vulgar team mentality of the schlub
although idk why we're arguing about it here as if we're vested, when we should all agree 'the west' is a liberal term and we have our own terms [core/periphery, imperial/colonial etc]