[Smertios]

Well, I have a feeling that the similarities America share with Brazil is mostly the non-western part of America...

Define "non-western part of America", please...

And no, I mean the society in general. For example, the Southern region of the US shares a lot of common characteristics with the Northeastern region of Brazil. Both regions were heavily influenced by the Black culture and have the highest Black demographics in each country.

The Southeast of Brazil, on the other hand, is a lot more similar to the Northeast of the US. The population is predominantly white and the region richer than other areas. The culture is also more dynamical and less traditional in those areas. You are more likely to see young people in the streets till late, a lot of coffee shops, bars, malls etc. And you will see similar issues. You will see poorer areas, a small black population, similar levels of criminality etc.

The South of Brazil, on the other hand, is very similar to the Northwest of the US. The white immigrant culture predominates. There are virtually no influential black population. The region itself is a bit far from the more developed area of the country etc.

For a visitor that speaks no Portuguese or English, it would be really hard to differ one nation from another, while if they go to a country like Mexico, for example, they would immediately see the difference.

And I know from experience that Asians (particularly Chinese and Koreans) tend to know very little about Brazil. I only have experience talking to them through the Internet, but the results were pretty much shocking. Most of them believed that Brazil was majorly black and spoke Spanish, for example. Foreigners have a really wrong impression of Brazil, unfortunately...

[Chill]

So you're still talking about similarity in ethnics...which is not similar enough to America.

And I know from experience that Asians (particularly Chinese and Koreans) tend to know very little about Brazil. I only have experience talking to them through the Internet, but the results were pretty much shocking. Most of them believed that Brazil was majorly black and spoke Spanish, for example. Foreigners have a really wrong impression of Brazil, unfortunately...

It's true that I don't know much about Brazil. But I do know majority of Brazilians are white and they speak Portuguese.

[Smertios]

So you're still talking about similarity in ethnics...which is not similar enough to America.

Oh, no, I'm not talking about ethnic composition only. I'm saying that the demographics are all very similar. Of course, there are some obvious differences, mostly relate to economic factors, but the society itself is really similar...

But about ethnicity, I agree that it is not identical to the US. But it is one of the countries with the most similar ethnic distribution. A white majority in most of the country, the black population is of about 10% etc. The main difference is that we had no one-drop rule. So a person who is mostly white would be white and a person who is mostly black would be considered black. But yeah, I agree that the ethnicity factor alone doesn't mean much...

It's true that I don't know much about Brazil. But I do know majority of Brazilians are white and they speak Portuguese.

Let me ask you directly, then. That way I might understand your opinion. Why do you consider Brazil not to be Western?

At the end of the day Occidental Man is white, something which precludes most of Latin America.

Okay, sorry to come back to this, but I have been wondering something. I suppose that, by white, you mean European, right? Or would you consider arabs/berbers/assyrians to be part of the West as well? Because most of the Portuguese and Spanish population have some arab/berber ancestry, thanks to the long arab occupation of the Iberian Peninsula, after all...

[Thunderhawk]

I don't understand what you meant there... Are you saying that those things are needed in order to define the West or that is the other way around, that they are not needed?

Not needed.

But Eastern europe was secularized too. And the Orthodox and Catholic churches were once one as well. I consider Eastern Europe and Russia to be the east-most portion of the Western world. But, from a cultural point of view only, it is hard imagining countries like Greece not being part of the west, don't you think?

Ancient Greece is one of the forebears of Western Culture. Byzantine Greece is not a forebear of Western Culture. I consider Eastern Europe to be close to Western culture and becoming more Westernized, but its not there yet IMO.
BTW, I saw this as some one whose family is from Eastern Europe - Poland which wants to be considered Western (for the last 600 years) and Ukraine/Russia/others which aren't Western.

As for Albania, they are direct descendants from Illyrians. The only major difference between them and other Europeans is the religion, really. I don't know why they would not be considered Western, really...

Religion and nearly a millennia of history. Zog moved it closer to the West. Current secular policies are also helping. I see Albania being part of the West in time. But not today.

I agree. However, as I said, geopolitics is hardly a good idea to define cultural regions... I mean, would you consider Cuba to be a different civilization (as Huntington described) than other hispanic countries, just because it is communist?

I dont consider Cuba to be a separate culture from the majority of Hispanic America.

[wat0n]

That's an interesting question Smertios.

I don't know if Latin America should be considered as a mixture between Western and indigenous cultures or if it should be considered a Western Sub-group. BTW that could apply to other countries as well (e.g. Israel and Turkey could be seen as a mixture between Western and Middle Eastern cultures or special cases in the West)

[Thunderhawk]

In addition, can one have multiple cultures and be considered full members of at least one of those cultures?

[Smertios]

That's an interesting question Smertios.

I don't know if Latin America should be considered as a mixture between Western and indigenous cultures or if it should be considered a Western Sub-group. BTW that could apply to other countries as well (e.g. Israel and Turkey could be seen as a mixture between Western and Middle Eastern cultures or special cases in the West)

What? I can understand Israel, which was colonized basically by European Jews, but Turkey? There is nothing western about Turkey. Turks descend from peoples that migrated from Central Asia and conquered the Byzantine Empire. They are closer to Mongols than Europeans. I mean, yes, there was some westernization since the fall of the Ottoman Empire, but that is not different than what happened in Japan, for example.

In addition, can one have multiple cultures and be considered full members of at least one of those cultures?

Well, the US has multiple cultures and is considered full member of the Western world, isn't it?

Plus Brazil doesn't really have multiple cultures, like that. There is a mainstream Brazilian culture, which is represented by over 99% of the population, and then there are indigenous peoples, immigrant communities and quilombos (communities of descendants of runaway slaves), which represent less than 1% of the population.

As for the Hispanics, well in their case, there is multiple cultures, but that varies from country to country, not within the same country. All nations have a predominant culture. Look at Mexico, for example, there are indigenous peoples, but the main culture is that of spanish-speaking Mestizos with their own customs, celebrations, clothes, music etc. If you go to Argentina, on the other hand, you will see a culture based mainly on immigration, closer to the Spanish and Italian ones. In the Dominican Republic, by its turn, you will see a Mulatto culture with a lot of customs in common with other Caribbean peoples. So, if you compare these nations which one another, you will see several different cultures. But if you analyze one country per time, you will see a predominant culture.

This is not different than Europe, for example. There is the catholic and mediterranean Latin Europe in the south, a protestant and teutonic Germanic Europe in the north, a catholic/protestant and alpine Celtic Europe in the West, an orthodox and alpine Slavic Europe in the East etc. And even some European countries are more multicultural than some countries in the Americas. Look at Spain, for example. There are catalans, galicians, basques, aragonese, navarrese, valencians, leonese, asturians, castillians, canarians, ballearics etc, each with their own language and culture.

And the Indigenous heritage in the Americas shouldn't really mater much. Portuguese and Spanish have a large amount of Arab/berber descent, as the Moors conquered most of the Iberian Peninsula for quite a while, for example. But their culture is Latin, European and Catholic. Similarly, in Brazil and Hispanic America, there was an influent Native and African contribution to the ethnic composition of the people, but the culture is basically Latin, European and Catholic as well (maybe with a few notable exceptions, like Guatemala, Peru and Bolivia). This should be seen even more clearly in the case of nations that have a predominant white background/majority, like Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, Cuba, Puerto Rico and Uruguay.

So, if Latin America can't be considered Western because there were non-European contributions to the formation of their societies (i.e. Native Americas and Africans), neither should Portugal and Spain, as there was a very important non-European contribution to their ethnic composition (Arab/Berber, from the Moors)...

[Rugoz]

Agree, latin america (especially brazil, argentina, chile, uruguay) is very european, I always considered it to be part of the west. Pretty obvious why, isn't it?

Same opinion as smertios

[Far-Right Sage]

It's certainly a topic of great intrigue, but throughout this discussion it seems that everyone (except for Dave) is ignoring what seems to me rather obvious - Western, in all reality, is a term for white people of European descent who adhere to Christianity (if not personally, in the society of their heritage and ancestors).

There are a couple Latin American nations that are predominately white.
Multi-generational black Americans are American, and arguably more so then many hyphenated Americans. I don't see how they can be considered non-Western.

Argentina and Chile have large European populations and do share more of an affinity with southern Europe, but these areas are still lacking in a shared history with Europe.

Black-Americans are (obviously) people of African descent living in a Western country. The country is Western as a result of the colonization by ethnic Englishmen, Frenchmen, Spaniards, Swedes, Dutch, and others, and in the shared religion of Europe and shared language of England, a European country, as well as elements of Greek and Roman classical philosophy providing an influence for its democratic republican ideology. Little of this has to do with the impact of culture from Ghana or Nigeria.

[Smertios]

It's certainly a topic of great intrigue, but throughout this discussion it seems that everyone (except for Dave) is ignoring what seems to me rather obvious - Western, in all reality, is a term for white people of European descent who adhere to Christianity (if not personally, in the society of their heritage and ancestors).

Argentina, Uruguay, Chile Brazil, Costa Rica, Cuba and Puerto Rico all fall into that criteria... In fact the white population of Uruguay is proportionally larger than the white population of the US. And all Latin American countries are much more christian than the US. In fact, in many of them, the catholic church was a established official church through part of their story. There are proportionally more people speaking one single European language in Brazil than in the US.

Paraguay, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Panama, El Salvador, Belize, Nicaragua, Honduras Mexico etc have a mixed-raced population, but their culturally and their society are clearly European and christian.

Argentina and Chile have large European populations and do share more of an affinity with southern Europe, but these areas are still lacking in a shared history with Europe.

lol what? Latin America has much more shared history with Europe than the US. 500 years of colonization

Black-Americans are (obviously) people of African descent living in a Western country. The country is Western as a result of the colonization by ethnic Englishmen, Frenchmen, Spaniards, Swedes, Dutch, and others, and in the shared religion of Europe and shared language of England, a European country, as well as elements of Greek and Roman classical philosophy providing an influence for its democratic republican ideology. Little of this has to do with the impact of culture from Ghana or Nigeria.

This is also valid for all of Latin America, maybe with the exception of Peru, Bolivia and Guatemala...

This kind of contradiction is pretty much what makes you look like a fool when you use your arguments. People like you, Dave and Chill keep using the argument that the Western culture is predominantly that of the white men, but you keep ignoring the facts that countries like Argentina, Uruguay and Cuba were founded on deep white immigration, just like the US; that countries like Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica etc all have majorly white population, descending directly from European colonists; and that all other countries, while having either a mixed-raced or indigenous majority, fall under your last criteria (people under an European-influenced society, speaking an European language, practicing christianity and living under a democratic and liberal system of government. All Latin American nations have a culture that is more in common with Europe than the Pre-Columbian Americas. And that is why your argument basically fails. It is pure hypocrisy based on racist ideas I'll agree if you use this argument for Haiti or Jamaica, for example, but even that case is complicated...

[Thunderhawk]

Black-Americans are (obviously) people of African descent living in a Western country. The country is Western as a result of the colonization by ethnic Englishmen, Frenchmen, Spaniards, Swedes, Dutch, and others, and in the shared religion of Europe and shared language of England, a European country, as well as elements of Greek and Roman classical philosophy providing an influence for its democratic republican ideology. Little of this has to do with the impact of culture from Ghana or Nigeria.

What language do the vast majority of black Americans speak? Their religion? Their culture has distinctive elements from the mainstream white culture, but its a pittance. Aside from skin colour, how would you distinguish them from white Americans? Their culture has been formed wholly within the USA, contrast to Euro-Americans who talk and pine about their ancestor's history, culture and geography.

It's certainly a topic of great intrigue, but throughout this discussion it seems that everyone (except for Dave) is ignoring what seems to me rather obvious - Western, in all reality, is a term for white people of European descent who adhere to Christianity (if not personally, in the society of their heritage and ancestors).

I don't consider eastern Europe to be Western.

[Smertios]

I don't consider eastern Europe to be Western.

What is there of non-western in Eastern Europe? The only thing I can think of is their geopolitical interests in the 20th century, given the communist period and such. But other than that, their culture is essentially European, white, christian, directly influenced by Ancient Greece and Rome etc. Even Huntington noticed that, while Eastern Europe wasn't currently western, communism had fallen and they were taking a new direction. And given the cultural similarities, they could very well be considered western, imho...

[deSouza]

Samuel Huntington, in The Clash of Civilizations, considered Latin America to be a hybrid civilization which blends Indian and European elements. I subscribe to this view, and am not at all willing to welcome Latin America into the family so to speak.

At the end of the day Occidental Man is white, something which precludes most of Latin America.

Like italians, spaniards and african americans right

[Far-Right Sage]

Like italians, spaniards and african americans right

Italians and Spaniards are most definately white.

This is also valid for all of Latin America, maybe with the exception of Peru, Bolivia and Guatemala...

This kind of contradiction is pretty much what makes you look like a fool when you use your arguments. People like you, Dave and Chill keep using the argument that the Western culture is predominantly that of the white men, but you keep ignoring the facts that countries like Argentina, Uruguay and Cuba were founded on deep white immigration, just like the US; that countries like Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica etc all have majorly white population, descending directly from European colonists; and that all other countries, while having either a mixed-raced or indigenous majority, fall under your last criteria (people under an European-influenced society, speaking an European language, practicing christianity and living under a democratic and liberal system of government. All Latin American nations have a culture that is more in common with Europe than the Pre-Columbian Americas. And that is why your argument basically fails. It is pure hypocrisy based on racist ideas I'll agree if you use this argument for Haiti or Jamaica, for example, but even that case is complicated...

I'm aware of the large white populations found in Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, and to a lesser extent, in a few other South American nations, and of the history of Spanish, Italian, and German immigration to Argentina in particular, but have these nations culturally aligned themselves with the white world? Hispanic is still the term thrown around and there are plenty of people walking around Buenos Aires or Santiago who are not white and consider their mixed-race ancestry to be the representative force for the nation as a whole. This hasn't as much to do with the pre-Columbian Americas as it has to do with Latin America's economic and cultural divide from the two nations considered white/Western in the Americas - the United States and Canada.

[Kman]

Demo edit: Post removed for racism.

[Andropov]

Hispanic civilization is unique, neither Western nor Amerindian.

[Smertios]

I'm aware of the large white populations found in Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, and to a lesser extent, in a few other South American nations,

To a lesser extent? Brazil has the largest white population in Latin America and the third largest in the world, just after the US and Russia...

and of the history of Spanish, Italian, and German immigration to Argentina in particular, but have these nations culturally aligned themselves with the white world?

Yes, since the beginning.

Hispanic is still the term thrown around and there are plenty of people walking around Buenos Aires or Santiago who are not white and consider their mixed-race ancestry to be the representative force for the nation as a whole.

This is not true. The "level of culture" of a hispanic, as I mentioned in the opening post, was measured through two variables, the concept of race and the concept of reason. Nowadays, that idea still persists. If you ask a mexican-american where his ancestors came from, they will always say Spain, not the Aztec Empire (trust me, I have tried asking that a lot). Most hispanics value their European culture the most. In fact, all hispanics I have asked told me they do consider themselves to be part of the West.

And culturally, many hispanic nations are a lot closer to Southern Europe than the US will ever be, for example...

This hasn't as much to do with the pre-Columbian Americas as it has to do with Latin America's economic and cultural divide from the two nations considered white/Western in the Americas - the United States and Canada.

Well, it is interesting that you mention that. I'll give an example about Brazil (which isn't a hispanic nation, I know, but it is the only direct example I know). Most Portuguese refer to Brazil as a brother nation. When Portugal had its crisis earlier this year, the eurosceptic opposition started asking the government to accept help from Brazil instead of Germany and the EU, because Brazil was a brother nation and Portugal was culturally closer to Brazil than Germany. Portuguese eurosceptics normally like to refer to the EU as the "Fourth Reich"...

So, culturally, most Latin American countries are closer to Europe than even the US. It is hard to understand the idea of comparing them to the US or Canada, considering the West started in Europe.

So, there isn't really any cultural divide. There is, however, an economic divide, I agree. But labeling countries culturally based on economics is a terrible idea. If you look at the demographics, you will see that countries like Argentina and Canada are actually closer to each other than to the US. Even if you compare Brazil to the US, you will see a few demographic patterns (like a christian white majority, a lesser developed black periphery, a fast food society etc).

In some aspects, I'd say that Latin America is even more western than the US lol

Because the people living in the hispanic world are worse at adhering to western values than people living in the white parts of the world, western civilization is characterized by a variety of virtues and values, alot of which hispanics are not good at following and because of this hispanic countries are poorer, more backwards and more corrupt than more white countries.

That is an interesting point, can you list such values and virtues so we can debate them properly?

That is not to say all hispanics are equally bad, there are clearly a minority of very high quality people who just happen to be hispanic, people who if they created their own country could create a very western nation.

Please continue this line of thought a bit. What minority exactly?

Basically the percentage of low quality human beings is too high in hispanic countries for them to really become ''western''. It is the same thing with southern europe, I dont consider those countries as western as the UK, Australia or the US for example.

That is an interesting development, so you don't consider Southern Europe to be Western? In that definition, I'd certainly agree that Latin America isn't western either...

[Corporatios]

I support the use of the 'West' term in its original form, which is the post-war division between the Eastern and Western block. I don't think the pre-revolution Russia and the non-Ottoman eastern Europe to be so different culturally than their western counterparts pre-war, to abide to the Catholic-West argument. Also Byzantine influence was already dying when western Europe started developing a civilization of some cultural significance. The two of them could only be in competition for a very short period of time.

That said, countries like most of Latin America ones, were far from the red line, and so I would consider them mostly western friendly or western like than directly western. (yes, I think even Turkey is western)

[Chill]

Why taking so many efforts trying to squeeze into the 'west' when many westerners don't want you in?

[Smertios]

Why taking so many efforts trying to squeeze into the 'west' when many westerners don't want you in?

Because that is not a matter of people wanting anything. It is a matter of what is and what isn't. If you show me a screwdriver but tell me that it is an egg, you are wrong. It is as simple as that.

There is nothing non-occidental about Latin America. The culture is 100% iberic in most of the region. The mere idea that it is not part of the West is ridiculous and idiotic... It is like saying that Japan is not part of the East, because it has aligned itself with the US, for example. That simply doesn't work. Or a better example. The Serbian attempt to get rid of Bosniaks claiming that they were not Slavs in the 19th and 20th century. It doesn't matter what people think. This is an anthropological term, and, as such, it is a scientific one. It is not up to a vote. Either it is like that or it isn't.

However, if we go by Kman's interpretation that Southern Europe isn't Western (which is ridiculous, in my opinion), then Latin America definitely isn't either. It makes no sense to separate Latin America and the Iberian nations (and other Southern European ones, actually) into different geocultural regions. And if we go by Thunderhawk's interpretation that not even Eastern Europe is western, despite the white christian background, then I can agree that Latin America should not be either. Though this last interpretation is political, not cultural.

Saying that they are not westerners because other westerners don't want them to be is simply ridiculous. It is probably the single most stupid commentary I have seen in this thread so far. Especially because, if you ask other groups that would be considered westerners, like the Portuguese, they will immediately tell you that Brazil is a Western culture and a direct descendant of the Portuguese nation. Most Portuguese conservatives that I know even get mad when people consider the US to be a direct descendant of the British culture while consider Brazil to be separate. But, well, most Portuguese get mad by the mere fact that everyone forgets the Portuguese Empire and focus only on the British one. I seriously invite you to travel to Brazil and then to Portugal to see if you can see any substantial cultural difference. Brazil is probably more similar to Portugal then the US to Britain. Then go to Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Costa Rica, Cuba, Puerto Rico and Italy, Spain. Most historians I am aware of also classify Latin America as western.

I don't know how it is like in other parts of Latin America, but in Brazilian schools, we certainly learn that the Occident includes both Europe and the Americas. In fact, I even had a discussion with a teacher in elementary school once, because she said that Australia is not part of the Occident, because that made no sense.

Googling this subject for a few minutes, I found quite a few articles about this (supporting both sides). I'll post two that I think are the best to understand my points here:
http://www.analitica.com/bitblio/emily_monroy/western.asp
http://www.analitica.com/bitblio/emily_monroy/indian.asp

And there are a few interesting discussions in other forums that I can't post here because that would be against this forum's rules. But please google "is Latin America art of the West?" and take a look at the discussions in the first two pages of the search results. There are very interesting discussions.

I believe that the main idea behind the argument of those who do not consider Latin America to be western is that they see Latin America as an entity on its own. A region that had its own amerindian culture and suffered colonization by western forces (i.e. Portugal and Spain), but kept their amerindian traditions intact. And this is not true in the slightest. The Amerindian cultures were replaced by European ones in most of Latin America. In many parts, they did survive, like in Mexico, Guatemala, Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia etc. But in other countries, either a new white population was established, or a mixed-race europeanized one was so. In the first case, we have the countries that were whitened directly by colonization (for example, Chile, Cuba, Puerto Rico and Costa Rica), those who were whitened by immigration (for example, Argentina and Uruguay), and those in which both factors contributed (which is the case only for Brazil, in which the population was mainly black before immigration started, but even after immigration successfully established a white population, the majority of genes in the average Brazilian come from Portugal). In the second case, we have Colombia, Venezuela, Panama, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Belize etc, which clearly don't have an amerindian culture, but have a major mestizo population (or mulatto, in the case of the Dominican Republic only).

So, Chill, I would like to answer the first question you asked in this thread. The question was this:
[quote=Chill]Why does Hispanic America want to be identified as part of west?...Because it was once colonized by westerners? Sounds like colonization is really popular there...[/quote]

I'll answer this as Latin America instead of Hispanic America, because the conversation clearly evolved that way. And the answer is actually quite simple. Latin Americans identify with the colonists because they (we) are mostly descended from those same colonists. The colonists replaced the original amerindian populations with their own kind. In places like Peru or Paraguay, in which the amerindian characteristic predominated, they are less likely to identify with Europe. A Paraguayan will always be proud of speaking Guarani as his mother tongue instead of Spanish. And in Peru, the current President came from a political circle that considers Amerindian blood to be sacred. They are some sort of Native supremacists . In Mexico, many people are proud of their native heritage as well (though they do prefer their Spanish heritage). But in countries like Brazil, Argentina or Chile, where the amerindian factor did not play such a major role, it is easy to understand that the European heritage serves as a better identification.

In short: we identify with the colonists because we are direct descendants from those colonists, not the colonized

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And this is directed mainly at Thunderhawk. I had a Bulgarian girlfriend once. When someone asked her if it wasn't hard dating a guy from a different background, her exact words were that no, because her and me were both part of the same Western civilization. Both our cultures were christian and European, so they would not clash. And she knew that, because I know she had a boyfriend who was muslim of Turkish background once. So I think that they consider themselves to be Westerners just like the rest of Europe and the Americas. To be honest, if you compare Bulgaria or Romania to Greece, you won't see that much of a cultural difference. All those countries are orthodox, white and European. It doesn't make much sense to say that they are culturally distinct. The only variable that has changed was communism in the second half of teh 20th century. But that was political and it has changed already...