QuoteReplyTopic: Is Latin America Western? Posted: 25-Mar-2009 at 22:01
Originally posted by pinguin
However half the programs on TV I have seen in my life ( how many thousand hours? ) come from the U.S. I can see the way Americans think just looking at how they are on TV.
Top-rated sit-coms like " 3's Company " & " Friends " are actual reflection of White social scene in America.They like to have White neighbors who they would visit each other's home and party with etc.
My 80 years old mother complains there are too many Black faces on America TV and Hollywood films.She now prefers watching classic movies on cable TV.
I am exagerating, of course. But one of the main complains Latinos always made is that Americans don't have idea of geography. For instance, Bush confussed Slovenia with Slovakia.
Things I heard in Mexico: "The Netherlands, that's another name for Denmark, isn't it?" "Did you come to Mexico by train?" "So, in what part of the United States are the Netherlands located?"
It was explained to me by one half-Armenian & half German person that Whites view " Spanish " population as 1/2 European and 1/2 non-European.It appears American-Whites areaware of notall Spanish-speaking people in the Hispanic-world have European origins.
Indeed. However, they should be aware, too, that half the population of the U.S. have not European origin either .
Americans and Europeans, used as they are in regimes of segregated minorities, don't realize people mix.
At least the Asians are comfortable to the Asian identity and feel free of acknowledging own non-European origin.We don't pretend to be European descent or talk to foreigners as if we're " the Western people ".The problem with Latin Americans is the superficial Mestizos category has a percentage of indigenous origin,these indviduals hide own heritage to fudge as Spanish and talk to people as if they are " the Spanish " .It would be perfectly fine if they just regard themselves by nationality.
Referencing below AE thread link,me and OP have suspected some Hispanics aren't really European descent.It's backed up by another poster's reading source pointed to "acculturation " of indigenous people.
America's Whites do know there are mixed people in the society.They have " a drop rule " for the Black population here and Amerasian children are well accepted by Whites.
Can someone tell me what the purpose of this thread is at page 11? I do not see anyone being convinced that Latin America is or is not "western."
Nor do I see being persuasive any other arguments about other places or people that are held up as being this or that characterization, when it is those who hold most dearly to their conceptions of themselves doing the arguing. It is an endless circle.
To be honest I've seen more idiotic threads here discussed on 11 pages or more e.g. "Were Moors black?"
Categorize countries by world class & Western standard as world benchmark are the " brainchild " of post-WW 2 superiority view of racist US political establishment.
If suggest,Japanese would reject Japan is a second-world nation or belongs to this grouping along with predominately " Slavic " Russia & Eastern Europe.
To be honest I've seen more idiotic threads here discussed on 11 pages or more e.g. "Were Moors black?"
Idiotic? Maybe. But at least It has been more fun.
Anyways, most people in the inquire answered yes to the question if Latin America was part of the Western Civilization. So, I am happy they realize we are not playing when Latinos say who they are.
At least the Asians are comfortable to the Asian identity and feel free of acknowledging own non-European origin.We don't pretend to be European descent or talk to foreigners as if we're " the Western people ".The problem with Latin Americans is the superficial Mestizos category has a percentage of indigenous origin,these indviduals hide own heritage to fudge as Spanish and talk to people as if they are " the Spanish " .It would be perfectly fine if they just regard themselves by nationality.
Referencing below AE thread link,me and OP have suspected some Hispanics aren't really European descent.It's backed up by another poster's reading source pointed to "acculturation " of indigenous people.
America's Whites do know there are mixed people in the society.They have " a drop rule " for the Black population here and Amerasian children are well accepted by Whites.
Yes, I know.
However, what is more pathetic is when a Latino (me) said to North Americans (Canadians) I had Indigenous ancestry they correct me and said:
Impossible. You are smart
I remember one day an American fellow ask me why I didn't migrate to the states to continue my studies. I said I was concerned by the way Americans treated Mexicans.
I remember one day an American fellow ask me why I didn't migrate to the states to continue my studies. I said I was concerned by the way Americans treated Mexicans.
-How come ? He said. You aren't Mexican!
America has a few derogatory labels for Mexicans not other Latin-Americans though.
US regards Russia Japan & Eastern Europe as " second-world " nations.
Eastern Europe and Russia, maybe, but Japan ? That makes no sense.
The country is as technologically advanced as the foremost Western nations, their economy is bigger than Germany’s and their society is arguably more well-organized than any in the West.
I questioned it too back in the 1980's,Japan's " golden age " in post WW2.My elder brother explained it's because Japan is a " secondary-culture " adopts from an advanced civilization.
Japanese work twice as many hours so they could manipulate annual income per capita to present the image of first-world like that of N America & W Europe.In reality,their hourly pay is less than counterparts of the Western World.
Since 1990's,Japan is facing decline in moral values and deterioration in some social facets.
It is an other concept of civilisation, I tend to think the most objective criteria to call a nation civilised is not only technological advances and the best organisation to mass exterminate human beings, but moral and human values, like democracy and human rights for instance.
The
Graeco-Roman culture never pervaded so many societies on such a vast scale over
so short a time.
Egypt and the rest of the Middle-East dominated by Greek dynasties quickly Hellenised themselves though, Carthage and Numidia were influenced by Greece as well. In the huge territory Rome conquered, the whole Mediterranea and surrounding areas, the locals have been Romanised and adopted the civilisation of their conquerants. This legacy is reflected by the Latin languages of Spain, Portugal, France, Belgium, which were once Celtic speaking, not to mention Romania.
How do people speak Western languages? People speak their native tongues, and many people can speak English as a second language because it appears to be one of the easiest tongue of
the world and is universally intelligible.
You're using a writing system originating from the ancient Arab World
to communicate on the net right now, even when you write in Norwegian in everyday life, at school or university, at work, it doesn't mean
you're Middle-Easternised.
Chinese are not adopting Western culture, and it is logical the Inuits are "Westernised" because they are living under a Western
government in a Western society. Americas and Oceania are exceptions because they're
mostly inhabited by European people, but Africa and Asia follow their
own cultures, especially Islamic societies.
You can say the world is Westernised because people use cars, besides the concept of transporting human beings and goods by wheeled vehicles existed in the Middle-East since ancient times, and having added a motor to make it easier and less archaic doesn't change the basis of the concept.
But if you base your reasoning that people are Westernised on a simple element as clothing, which are not seen as Western clothes as said above because they now became standard in the world and are only Western varieties of clothes that always existed long before (trousers, tee-shirts, skirts, and so on), not to mention they're mostly made with cotton, an other thing brought to Westerners by the Muslim Arabs,
then one can say Westerners have a Middle-Eastern life-style since the concept of mass grouping humans to inhabit in a common sedentary settlement called city is purely
Middle-Eastern, same for your house and your town's shops and buildings, because they contain glasses everywhere.
An other major argument is the Middle-Eastern religion of Christianism, and its moral values, they shaped the European society and still dominate Europe and the West to this day, not to mention Algerian Saint Augustine whose theology is the basis of the teachings of the various branches of European Christianity (Orthodoxism, Catholicism, Protestantism including Norwegian Lutherism).
Sugar is found in every basic dish and noone could accept to be deprived from it, using sugar is also a concept brought into Europe by Middle-Easterners, just like drinking coffee , Western people drink coffee every morning at home, at work, in coffee shops, same for the act of using Arabic algebra constantly in everyday life for everything from calculating how much flour is needed to bake
a certain number of cookies to figuring out how long it will take to
travel by car at a certain speed to a destination that is a specific
distance away.
The earliest traces of books, writing, sciences, mathematics, and banking, are found in countries like Iraq. The simple acts of writting something, educating yourself by reading books, in other words the basis of your life, is influenced by the Middle-East.
Western economy, industry, sciences, all work with mathematical branches adopted from the Midlde-East, and just like Latin letters are found everywhere in Western cities while they're derivated from Semitic scripts from Lebanon and Palestine (same for the Cyrillic alphabet in Eastern Europe), the Arabic numerals are found everywhere in the West and Europe too (in the whole world actually, as a result of European colonisation), but were created in North Africa during the Middle-Ages. Arabic numerals are based on the system of the civilisation of the Indus Valley (today Pakistan, and a part of India), adopted by Middle-Eastern Arabs but changed in their current form (0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9) by Maghrebi Arabs.
If you add the fact Europeans grow food by cultivating their lands to survive, and the fact they practise animal husbandry to drink milk and eat meat and eggs, or to make clothes with then you can say Europeans are totally Middle-Eastern, no matter how many centuries lasted since their ancient ancestors adopted such foreign habits from other civilisations.
I still doubt you feel Middle-Easternised in every day life, and If you're a woman, you probably take care of your body
and use cosmetics, an other idea influenced by Middle-Eastern women, and I doubt Western women feel they're being Middle-Easternising themselves every 3 weeks when they remove their body hair through sugaring, the most common method of epilation, originating from the Middle-East too. By the way, I do not feel I am becoming Italian when I make pizza or spaghetti at home, but if you trace the exact origins, then yes it is Italian, even if some sources say Muslims introduced pasta in Sicily in the Middle-Ages.
Indeed. Europe and the West hardly recognizes how much is indebt with the Middle East. Just imagine how would be the Western Civilization without the alphabet spread by the Phoenicians, the numbers of the Arabs, the religion of the Jews, the music of the Middle East, or the Arab literature.
What I meant is that the West gives quite a lot more merit to the Greek-Roman world than to the contributions of the Middle East, or even China.
Becasue West is built rather on Greek-Roman heritage than Chinese-Arabian so there is nothing strange they give more credit to Greeks and Romans. The fact that West adopted many things from Arabs or Chinese doesn't change that Greece and Rome were most important ancient cultures for Western civilisations.
Hello. I am the person who actually wrote the article. I'm pleased to see that it has generated such a huge amount of discussion!
I'll stand by my original thesis: I do believe Latin America is Western, overall. I compare it to my own country, Canada (of course that's not the greatest analogy, as Canada is a single nation rather than an entire region). I believe Canada is overall a Western country culturally. However, there are parts of this country that are definitely not Western, even though everybody has been touched by one way or another by Western civilization. For example, in the northern territory of Nunavut (that I've actually visited), the majority of population are Natives who in many case speak their original language on a daily basis. So I'm compare that with many countries in Latin America (Mexico, Peru, Bolivia, etc.) having an important Native component. But the region as a whole is culturally Western.
I would also say that if Latin America were not Western (again, as a whole), it would have ended up like the Philippines (if I haven't posted it on this forum, you can look it up under "Race mixing and Westernization in Latin America and the Philippines), where the people, yes, have been influenced by the Spanish conquest but have kept their native language. Almost no Filipinos speak Spanish as a mother tongue, whereas the majority of Latin Americans speak Spanish, not even a creole, as their first language. Certainly the Philippines has been impacted by Spain; ex. most Filipinos are Catholic, perhaps even better Catholics than Westerners (at least Filipinas aren't going half-naked to church, which was a concern of a priest in the Colombian city of Barranquilla ). But Filipinos have kept their original heritage. Most Latin Americans have not. I think if Latin American mestizos (the majority of the region's population) spoke a native language, for instance, rather than Spanish as their mother tongue, for example, I might even consider them to be at least partially non-Western. But they don't, so I don't.
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