Stop Splitting Earth Into East & West
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 25 มิ.ย. 2024
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SOURCES & FURTHER READING
The Western World: www.worldatlas.com/articles/l...
Western Countries: worldpopulationreview.com/cou...
East Vs West: www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/...
The Idea Of Western Civilisation: pressbooks.nscc.ca/worldhisto...
Where Is The Middle, Near, & Far East?: www.dictionary.com/e/east/
Did the Greeks Know China?: thechinaproject.com/2020/02/1...
Greek Measurement Of the Earth: www.aps.org/apsnews/2006/06/e...
History of Globes: www.whipplemuseum.cam.ac.uk/e...
Christianity in Rome: www.khanacademy.org/humanitie...
What do you think are some better terms for this split in the Earth than east and west?
My team and enemy team
There's nothing wrong with them, the entire premise of this video is obsolete. The Western World is the world whose culture values etc are defined by Europe, while the eastern world is the part of the world whose culture has been heavily influenced by China, including Mongolia, Korea, Japan, Vietnam and South East Asia. Nobody serious says Africa, India or the Middle East have anything to do with the Eastern world, which used to be known as the Orient. The former are all part of their own unique regions which could be broadly summed up as the Global South.
East and West are fine. Stop with your leftist whining.
East and West are fine. Stop complaining about petty stuff.
@@lukefleetwood7958Well said. I agree that not all regions or cultures fall into the west/east binary.
As Portuguese guy I say, you a can totaly split the globe into two pieces with Spain.
Devolve nosso ouro.
@@guanglaikangyi6054 A razão porque o Brazil não tem grandes reservas de ouro é porque o exporta. Se devolvermos o ouro podemos compra-lo devolta aseguir. (Mas Provavelmente iria para a China...)
@@silveryuno Estava brincando só amigo.
Underrated comment
@@guanglaikangyi6054 Deculpas então... Ao longo dos anos já ouvi "Devolve nosso ouro." tantas vezes como um ataque de pessoas que provavelmente pensam que se isso acontece-se agora mesmo amanhã eles iriam receber 300 sestercios da mão do próprio Octávio César na Esplanada dos Ministérios...
Saying that Peru is culturally Greco-Roman inspired but Turkey is not is a bit of a stretch...
Funny thing, in Portugese we call a turkey (the bird) peru, and the country Turquia. In English, it's the other way around, Turkey is country whose name is the homonym with the animal and Peru is only used as a proper noun.
I know this has nothing to do with your comment, but you're commenting on an etymology channel, so...
Bolivia is more Anatolian than Turkish people
To be fair it matches self identity way better. Bolivians teach Roman myths to their kids, they have theater and banking, they follow laws and traditions that can be traced from the Romans, the most common language is a Romance language and the writing system for the rest is too. Culture, religion, food, customs, politics. Same with Turkey tough, might even be MORE like ancient Roman’s culturally if we judge by their food or buildings. But Turkey probably just doesn’t like to think of themselves as Greek.
I think both of them simultaneously fit and fail that categorization. Peru is culturally Greco-Roman, but is also culturally Andean. The Andes is a cradle of civilization and its influence is the heaviest in Peru. So if we ever come to the conclusion that a country can be part of more than one civilization based on its population, then Peru would be both Western and Andean. In the case of Turkey, its Islamic heritage can't the only source of its culture. There is so much history related to the West in that country that it doesn't make sense to put it in a different category. Same as Peru, Turkey kind of exist in more than one "culture", I think.
Turkey is Muslim
In my youth, Russia and eastern Europe as the Soviet Union were cald "the East".
When I hear "Orient", I don't think of China or Japan, but the arabic world.
Ther are two movie-genres named Western and Eastern. A Western is in the territory of the US and is in the 19th century. An Eastern takes place in China and Japan, with roughly the same time. So, if you want to get rid of the terms "East" and "West", you will have to rename these two genres as well.
Eastern/Ostern movies were produced and filmed in socialist countries of Eastern Europe though. This subgenre doesn't have anything to do with Japanese or Chinese settings, movies more commonly took place either during the period of Russian Civil War or same old Wild West
Im French and even tho orient mostly refers to Middle East I think, orient just mean east, like ppl there used to call east asian "extreme orient"
We still call eastern european countries the east, and Putin himself calls America and friends The West
Oriental:
Mostly Chinese
Sometimes Japanese
Sometimes Arabs
Russian empire = western
USSR = eastern
And of course the third world wasn't aligned with either the USA or Soviet. Because of this Finland and Sweden were part of the third world, until that term got its new negative meaning.
No one uses the term eastern world.
After the end of World War II, the world was split into two: East and West. This marked the beginning of the era known as the Cold War. *Hnnngghh…*
some highly developed, wealthy, capitalist countries were neutral concerning the military alliances (not allied with USA or USSR), for example New Zealand, Australia, Japan, Switzerland, Austria, Ireland, Finland and Sweden - but for economic and (often) cultural reasons they surely also belonged rather to "the West" than to the "neutral South "
!
Only the Avatar, master of all f....oh .
@@tobyk.4911except japan
HNNNNGHHHHH METAL GEAR
It’s very telling when the “West” is deemed cohesive, while the “East” isn’t so much. Basically, this “Eastern and Western Worlds” is itself a “Western-centric” concept. The issue lies in this dichotomy’s more contemporary implications of pride and ethnocentrism (and racism and classism).
No, the issue is that we need to split it up more. The Western world works well. There should be an Islamic world, a sub-Saharan african, and South Asian World. I think 5 works well.
@@dl2839the western world doesn’t work
@@dl2839But the Islamic world includes countries from Subsaharan africa and south asia etc it's way too diverse
@ted9030 True, it is a bit ambiguous where you should draw the line for "the Islamic world" in the 5 realm classification system I proposed. I think that Afghanistan should be the eastern most country, and it should just include the Mediterranean bordering African countries. As for South Asia, including everything in the Indian continent, Myanmar, Thailand Malaysia, and Indonesesia makes the most sense. The East should have Cambodia, China, Laos, the Phillipines, and Mongolia.
@@dl2839 Well there's also the terms Middle East, Indosphere and Sinosphere
I remember your history podcast a few years ago where you said "THERE IS NO EAST OR WEST, WE LIVE ON A BLOODY CIRCLE". I still think about that quote today and it makes me laugh each time
I find the term "Western World" quite useful for describing the areas of the planet with more European influence (mainly Europe, the Americas, and Oceania) but I find the term "Eastern World" less useful. When people talk about "the East" they usually mean Asia or a specific part of it such as East Asia.
"We live on a ball" 😊
My country's state media listed japan as a western country one time. I'm from a central european country. And it's name literally means "eastern realm".
Östereich/Austria 🗿
Japan, Korea can be called western nations, even India.
Some countries are both western and eastern.
Russia
India
Japan
Turkey
Egypt
Korea
Australia
South Africa
Japan is an East Asian country. It has been heavy influenced by the West but the Japanese remain essentially Japanese.
The Korea's are also East Asian. South Korea has been heavily influenced by the West. North Korea is the same except that it's Western influence came in the form of communism.
Like the above countries, India, too, has been heavily influenced by the West and like the above countries it is not a Western country. It is the main part of the Indian civilization.
Like the above nations, Russia has been heavily influenced by the West, and like them it is not a Western nation. It is an eastern European nation.
You may have noticed that the five above countries all have been heavily influenced by the West but are not Western countries. The common thread here is that process called Westernization. It began in the late 15th century and continues ever so today. Western European civilization has influenced nearly every corner of the globe, except for a few, more remote areas. It clearly has become the most dominant of the five major civilizations.
Some areas like North America, Costa Rica, Argentina, Uruguay, Australia, and New Zealand are undoubtedly Western countries. This is because they were settled by people from the West and the original peoples have been reduced to small minorities.
Other areas like Israel, Cuba, and Brazil, have at least half the population descended from Westerners, and so many see them as heavily westernized.
Most of the world has been influenced by the West but are not part of the West because most of their people are of local origin and are part of the other four great living civilizations
Lastly, some regions can be considered Western if the local people have been thoroughly Westernized as in the Ibo region of Nigeria, or they are partly descended from Westerners and their culture is essentially Western as in western South Africa where the "Cape Coloreds" live or in Latin America where the Mestizos are partly Spanish and Indian.
Me Agreee...
Let's split the World as North & South ! 🥸🧐😤
Korea is WAAAAAAAY ahead of you ^^
We are already talking about "the global south", which is the fresh, new word for "3rd world", but just as misleading and condescending. (Example: India, on the northern hemisphere, is considered in "the global south", australia, on the southern hemisphere, is not)
@@valentinmitterbauer4196 Third world countries are countries that weren't aligned with the USA nor the USSR during the cold war, such as Switzerland. Is Switzerland considered part of the global south now?
@@chitlitlah No, and it's not considered third world anymore either
@@valentinmitterbauer4196 Australia is an exception. India is still in the southern half of asia. That would just mean the "global south" means south from the tropic of cancer, not the equator. The continents are tilted northwards, anyway, so it's only fair.
This is what I have always been saying, there is no concept of "Western world" and "Eastern world" currently, which is exactly what each one represents, the Western world commonly refers to Greco-Roman Christian values but I have seen U. S. Citizens say that Japan belongs more to the Western world than iberoamerica, the same thing that the Eastern world China and India do not share the same culture there are many cultures within the world. India and within Asia
To explain why we have the terms Near East, Far East, and Middle East but a giant chunk of Asia that doesn't fall under any of these terms, that's due to the meanings of the terms "Near East" and "Middle East" shifting over time. Originally, the "Near East" basically referred to the lands of the Ottoman Empire, including the Balkans, while "Far East" had the same meaning as today, and "Middle East" was everything in-between. It could include everything from Iraq to Myanmar. So, India was often included within the label of "Middle East." However, by the 1930s it was sometimes used interchangeably with "Near East," and during WWII the British called their forces in West Asia and Egypt the "Middle East Command," after which the current usage for Middle East became most common (and "Near East" stopped being applied to the Balkans after the fall of the Ottoman Empire, while also shifting westward so that places as far east as Iran were sometimes included).
The term Balkan also shifted westward.
In Hungarian we don't differentiate Near and Middle East, we just have Near East refer to country from Türkiye to Iran
@@pasztorferenc6741 That's how most people use the term "Middle East" in English, "Near East" is a pretty rarely used term.
Not only did the Mesopotamians come up with the ideals that the Greek later adopted, but after the fall of the roman empire many of the Greek writings, philosophies and Ideas were largely forgotten, to be rediscovered, translated and explained by the Arabs to later be translated into Latin from Arabic. So yeah, western.
🤔
Ouch and I should have known. Very dumb indeed. The world has always been a larger melting pot of ideas than most of us realize.
Source for that?
I would like to read for myself your information.
Western Roman Empire
@@obliviongigan6360 There are several sources of this, it's a well known and well documented historical fact. Any history book that covers the period will have this in there. The dark ages removed all greco roman writing from Europe. The Arabs were having "the Golden age". In the city of Baghdad, writers from all cultures the Arab interacted with had their books translated to Arabic. After the dark ages europeans translate the Arabic books back to European languages, they start talking about these ideas and say they are having a renaissance(rebirth). You could also find hundreds of videos on TH-cam talking about it.
Just an aside: in Spanish speaking countries, the words "occidental" and "oriental" are quite common and a proper way to say "eastern" and "western", with occidental not being outdated and oriental with no negative connotations.
~11:30 "Greco-Roman Inspired World" is itself problematic, because Greco-Roman civilization ALSO had huge impacts on the Islamicate world; much of West Asia and North Africa were either part of the empire of Alexander the Great and his successors, the Roman Empire (including the Eastern Roman Empire, which lasted into the late Middle Ages), or both, and Greek philosophy was incredibly influential on later societies from these regions. Keep in mind, one of the titles of the Ottoman Emperors who ruled over much of West Asia and North Africa was "Kayser-i-Rum," meaning "Caesar of Rome" - they literally considered themselves successors to the Roman Empire, much like Russia (though unlike Russia the core of their Empire was actually in historically Roman territory, and the majority of their people descended from Roman citizens!). And that's not to mention the heavy influence of "Greco-Roman Inspired" European empires across much of the rest of the world in more recent periods!
Only Russia saw itself as westerish. The west always put Russia either into the East or it's own thing
Not sure what you mean exactly, but Russia has historically seen itself as explicitly non-Western, though they would not necessarily call themselves "Eastern" either. This dates back to the establishment of the Eastern Roman Empire, to which Russia traces a good deal of its culture. Even to this day, in common Russian parlance "the West" refers to European countries generally West of the Czech Republic (as well as North America and Australia).
Do you mean the Russian people because Vladimir Putin definitely does not
It's not always a literal "east" "west" divide. Different contexts use these terms differently. There are geographic divides, but this is more about geopolitical and cultural divides. Japan and South Korea are usually considered "western" countries but not "in the west". Because they have a political and economic system aligned with the traditional western world. This is just what happens when you have layers of heritage in different parts of the world.
That's because of their current alliance with the dominant "western power," the US.
Good video. This a good explanation of this concept. Very interesting!
One of the reasons the "Eastern" world is hard to define is because it includes the "Middle East" which in many ways have more in common with the western world than the "Far East".
For example, in terms of philosophical/intellectual traditions, the Middle East had a lot of exchange with the West. Man, did those fellas read their Plato.
More importantly. Islam is an Abrahamitic religion. We really cannot leave religion out of such a discussion. It is an insanely powerful cultural force. (In this context, Secularism should probably be considered a religion, if nothing else in the sense that "zero is a number.")
Maybe we could use this as a division? The Christian, Islamicate and Dharmic (Hinduism, Buddhism etc.) sphere? Of course the Christian world is not as Christian as it used to be, so I guess we could call it Christian/Secular, but that is a mouthful. We're talking more about the history of every cultural sphere anyways.
🤔
By religion I think the dividing line would be all the way between Iran and Pakistan. Since Zoroastrianism (started in ancient Persia) is also more similar to a western religion than an eastern religion.
And by language...the name "Indo-European language family" kind of speaks for itself.
Nevertheless we are all bound by the shackles that is algebra.
@@NovaSaber Most Indo-European speakers are in South Asia
@@duckpotat9818 Not really "most", but numbers aren't the point.
The point is that south Asian languages are more related to west European language than they are to Chinese languages.
One small correction: it's not _quite_ accurate to say that the Eastern Roman Empire was "also going by the Byzantine Empire" before its collapse, as that name wasn't coined until some time after the empire's fall. Historians came up with the term "Byzantine Empire" later ("Byzantine" being the demonym for people from Constantinople, or "Byzantium" in Latin) just to more easily differentiate it from the Western Roman Empire in their writing.
Also, Zeus and Poseidon were Greek gods; the Roman versions were Jupiter and Neptune.
01:40 Fun fact: In the Russian language, the term Middle East is vary rarely used. Instead Syria, Iran, Iraq and all those countries are referred to as Near East (Ближний восток, Blizhniy vostok)
The thing about using the greco-roman inspired world to refer to the west is that the arabs were extremely inspired by the greeks, with modern arabic musical traditions even having their origins in ancient greece, not to mention the huge philisophical and even theological influences.
The persians, egyptians, and ethiopians all also have a very strong greek influence
I don't think you can simply slice the world into two halves like this because of one reason: the Orthodox world. In one sense, they do descend culturally from Greco-Roman roots and can be grouped in with the West. But in another sense, they are very, very different culturally from Northern/Western Europe and Anglo-America and don't fit in with the West. They are a real third case.
You could honestly say the same thing about Hispanic countries and Brazil, which are also very different to the "West" because of their indigenous roots (which play a non-existent role in North America).
The West really descends culturally from the Franks, not from the Greeks or Romans. The Franks just enjoyed speaking Latin, LARPing as Romans and shipping Christianity / Aristotelian philosophy, so ever since the West has continued the Frankish custom of having fun pretending to be culturally Roman and Greek. Nothing wrong with that, but if the West were really Graeco-Roman then the West would have needed to wrestle with and talk about the negative and neutral aspects of Greek and Roman culture as well as the positive, and wouldn't have needed to rediscover 'Greek and Roman culture' in the 11th century or in the Renaissance, because they would have instead just rediscovered *ancient* Greek and Roman culture and added it to their medieval Greek and Roman culture, except that they didn't have a medieval Greek and Roman culture, because by that point the Western institutions were basically post-Roman in origin and based on Germanic and Slavic laws mixed with later re-discovered Roman laws that the Germanic and Slavic peoples adapted to their own preferences rather than inheriting directly the way the Eastern Roman Empire inherited Roman law directly and continuously going all the way back. The real inheritor of the Greek legacy is the Orthodox world, which was converted to Christianity by the Eastern Romans rather than by the Franks, practices a form of Christianity based on the writings of Greek-speaking Church Fathers, and part of which still speaks Greek and never stopped speaking Greek. I don't know how much more Greek you can get than people who are literally Greek and have been speaking Greek continuously since the ancient Greeks, including before, during and after the Renaissance.
@@philswiftreligioussect9619 the main non-western influence in Brazil is not indigenous, is African. Even though they had a little influence in the culture, it wasn't so strongly as Africans did (Which are mostly the opposite of countries like Mexico and Peru, where the amerindian civilizations were). And countries like the USA also have African presence in the culture (such as in the music, language and midia) in addition to having a Latino population that will be more than a quarter of the total in the coming decades. Even so, USA is in the west
@@sechernbiw3321and the Arabs, Iranians and Turks are partially Greco-Roman in nature as well.
@gabrielmaximianobielkael3115 como se os Estados Unidos e Canadá também não tivessem raízes indígenas? Esses dois países são tão ou mais indígenas que qualquer outro país americano
I didn't think that because we call one group "the western world" that meant that we therefore refer to everything else as the eastern world. I thought there were many cultures, each with their own groupings and names, not necessarily to do with cardinal directions.
Thank you for taking on my request, Patrick, although I think you confused my initials with a certain medical treatment as I was referred to as 'CBD_at_Patreon', the 'D' and 'B' being transposed. I also think you missed a point that I was making in the process of my request, where I was thinking of Japan as part of what has conventionally become known as 'The West', as a liberal democracy. I note that some have already made reference thereto here, but the years of the Capitalist/Communist divide during the Cold War, which in many ways still echo down the decades to today, where the politics of what was the German Democratic Republic remain very different from that of what was the Federal Republic of Germany, for example, were also overlooked. Although I well know that there were/are parts of the world far to the east, geographically speaking, of the former Soviet Bloc, by and large I still stick by my choice of name for the Blog on the female Pop scene of the Soviet Satellites, 'Girls Of The Golden East'. Incidentally, I have encountered the concept of certain African nations being considered 'Oriental', although that has nothing to do with this global East/West split. It is more to do with the nations that have become associated with long-distance running as opposed to sprinting, which is generally more prevalent in the West of Africa.
3:59 and it were *Muslim* scholars that preserved the writings of ancient Greece.
what is referred to as the Middle East in English is "Der Nahe Osten" (the Near East) in German. so, there are differences for classification even within western countries
East and West in European context should only be separation of Eastern Orthodox Church and Western Catholic church. Some people still use the inaccurate Cold War Era definition but it's pretty pointless since it doesn't show basically anything about the country's culture. Luckily, this world view is steadily disappearing. As I am from Northern Europe myself, I would actually separate this region from others additionally. That is because most Northern European countries share Lutheranism as the base of the culture. These countries include Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Estonia and to some extent Latvia. Although only a small share of people in these countries are active in Lutheran church today, the teachings of it remain in the culture whether people realize it or not.
Thank You NameExplain for making this informative video. There was another TH-camr who made a video about this topic. His channel name is Cognito.
I thought it was more of an USA-Russia thing and not from Ancient Greece.
Cold-War and Post-Cold-War politics such as NATO nations such as the US and communist nations such as the USSR and China likely reinforced the idea of a "Western World" vs the "Eastern World," but I don't particularly feel surprised hearing that the origins are older than that.
No
I would love to see a video discussing the idea of a “Global North” and “Global South”
Dude, I think you missed the point of those names. Hint: they're not geographical
there is some geography involved when you look at a flat world map with europe and the americas in the west and asia in the east
We kind of already have a dividing line between east and west in the international date line. So that’s why you wouldn’t say Japan is west of Hawaii for instance. It’s an entire day ahead of Hawaii. It was an international decision to put the line there so you can’t blame the Europeans (at least not completely).
Of course, that still leaves Australia and New Zealand about as far east as it gets.
Also, Italy and Greece are in the eastern hemisphere. Even most of France and part of England are, if you go strictly by the prime meridian.
>blame Europeans
British Empire wasn't european confirmed
@@NovaSaber It’s also a cultural thing. If Australia was settled by Asians, no doubt it would be considered “the eastern world.” But geographically speaking, Australia has to be in the east because of the date line. Without that line, things would get really confusing
I use East and West in the light of the Religious divide between Eastern Christianity and Western Christianity. But if I were to refer to Africa, China, or India I would just say their proper names. Then of course there are political/geographic names like Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, etc.) and South East Asia (Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, etc.)
2:53 I live in Peru and I confirm, I dont imagine people in sweden eating Pollo a la Braza with Incacola while listening Musica Criolla often hehe
Takk!
In German the near east "der nahe Osten" is the english middle east pretty much.
8:14 it's fitting that that "Occident" is still in use in the latin languages, like Spanish, which has "Occidente".
What about the terms of global north and global south? Are they more useful?
Not really
what about the terms like the Global North and Global South?
2:18
The poles are not even north or south. Earth has a notable axial tilt which does not vary enough to make it's axial tilt 0 - and thus the poles even north or south, within any recent period of time.
Good point on that “influenced by Greece/rome” argument. Probably every “western” country sees itself as a “kind of continuation” of the Roman Empire.
For example, in my country (Brazil) the narrative used in school years is: Rome, fall of Rome and Middle Ages, renaiscence and explorations, colonization, Atlantic slavetrade, the napolionic wars and the arrival of the Portuguese royal family in Rio, independence, Imperial years, republic and then “modern history”
Looking at what is chosen to be thought, we can see clearly that they teach a line of evolution from Rome.
West longitudes versus east longitudes are geographically valid. So why is 0°E/W in London? History and politics put it there.
I personally do not use the terms "eastern world" and "western world" as they really don't make any particular sense.
They put it there because it's the place that the guy who invented it live (Greenwich)
I would like another video about how ridiculous the split between "Europe" and "Asia" is when we should be calling it "Eurasia" because most other continents are at least split apart by a very thin or otherwise small strip of land, rather than the mess of politics, culture and vague gestures towards bits of geography no one can actually agree on that the Eurasian continent line is based on.
I’ll keep saying this: The real difference between Europe and Asia is that they’re “Europe” and “Not-Europe”, respectively.
And along these lines, the Greeks did divide their known world into "the west" and "the east", except instead of directions they called them "Europe" and "Asia". (The African country the Greeks had the most contact with was Egypt, so they considered Africa to be part of Asia.)
There's a mountain range between them that made them culturally separate, that's why they're divided. Geographical separations take into account cultural differences.
And if you think we should stick to geological formations, why not add Africa to Eurasia? It was connected to Asia prior to the building of the Suez canal, after all.
And if you're taking account geological origins, it get's way more messy. What about India? It is a sub-continent continent that smashed into Asia. Is it still part of Asia?
No matter what separation you make, it will always be arbitrary and ignore certain factors.
@@guanglaikangyi6054 The mountain range running...right through Russia? And is much less of a division (regardless of whether you're counting geographically, geologically, or culturally) than the one separating India from China?
The Middle East is also more culturally similar to Europe than it is to the Indian subcontinent or the Far East.
Historically, Persia had more contact with Greece than with India.
Africa is connected to Eurasia by an isthmus; same as North America and South America. That's not the same thing at all as a land connection that's basically as long as Europe's entire north/south size.
@@guanglaikangyi6054 True. I guess ultimately our eagerness to categorize giant lumps of land into subsections is just part of what makes us human :)
9:19 more like Jupiter and Neptune, right? 😅
So the Maghreb can be considered both western and eastern?
The division today is between "the collective West" (comprised of the U.S., Canada, Britain, Norway, Switzerland, the EU, South Korea, Japan, Australia and New Zealand, plus a few micro nations) - and "the Global South" (pretty much everyone else, including Russia, however northern its location). The terms are political rather than geographical.
East vs West is more a culture thing. I would not necessarily include Latin America or any part of Africa - they aren't in the "east" either. I've never considered Russia as either West or East.
Middle east has more in common with Europe then the far east if you consider certain subjects; like religion or ancient history
Judaism and Christianity originated from Middle East, to begin with
2:53 Yeah I can confirm that as a Peruvian. This is what i've been thinking all this time and the reason why the east vs west division has been prevalent is thanks in part to the Cold war politics of the 20th century. We even do define our turf of latin speaking countries as Latin America and for some reason there's disscusion whether that's the west or not or even more dumber than that is now the new coined term "Global south" which in my opinion is pure bullshit.
Creo que el sur global es todavía mas tonto que lo de Oriente y Occidente, porque yo como Mexicano por ejemplo, si me voy a Austria obviamente voy a experimentar dificultades para adaptarme, pero tendría muy buen sentido de lo que está permitido por la ley y lo que no, también tendría un buen sentido de lo que puede resultar ofensivo y lo que no. En cambio en ciertos países de África, Medio Oriente y Asia las leyes están basadas en sus costumbres, religión, etc., así que podría estar violando alguna ley sin tener la menor idea, y ciertos gestos o cosas que uno considera normal allá son considerados insultos y eso del Sur Global pretende que un Peruano y un Somalí o un Birmano tienen experiencias de vida muy similares, eso me hace todavía menos sentido que lo de Oriente y Occidente.
Good old Australia, Put in the South East of maps yet its in the Cultural West and the Global North.
Honestly, I always thought it was the split of the Roman empire into west and east parts. And that just stayed for the people in the eastern and western zones from that vantage point and the people who moved or influenced others in different geographical locations took the terms with them. I fully agree with your point of it making little sense on a ball - even as a little kid I was confused why there's no east and west pole, if there are north and south ones, and how that was decided then :D
True
As an Aussie all I can say is every map is upside down..
(3:20) I don't know, Peru, Sweden, Nigeria, Morocco, Jamaica, Greece, Iceland, Congo, ... these western countries just seem way too different from eachother.
How can u divide east into 3 regions without mention the center of the world east (indian subcontinent) accounting 25 % of humanity and legacy of 7000 years
why d you put russia in west
7:45 Gajus Aurelius Valerius Diocletianus, or simply Diocles or Diocletian, died in AD 313, so 395 would be a bit late.
I believe Africa and Latin America are collectively referred to as the “Global South”, which tends to be more of a socioeconomic term.
That makes even less sense than the West-East division.
In recent years you are more likely to hear the term "global south" splitting the would between the economically developed countries in the north and the developing countries in the southern part of the globe. Of course, Australia and New Zealand are about as far south as you can get (Australia even means Land of the South), but are considered part of the global north. Different definitions may include China as either part of the global south or the global north, while Japan and South Korea are always part of the north.
Why split? We are one planet earth
Cultural differences.
I totally love and respect cultural differences. It's why we travel. It doesn't make us different humans. Only one species.
I mean, North and South Korea are the same peninsula. Cross that border and tell them divisions are not important.
@@cynthiashearer5710 You totally respect cultural differences, and you're asking why someone might want some amount of territory where to practice them?
We live on a ball!
From the end of World War II, until the end of the Cold War in the 1990s, the ‘Western World’ was a political term used to refer to NATO countries and their allies. The ‘Eastern Bloc’ referred to the Communist nations including the USSR and the Communist nations of Eastern Europe, China, North Korea and Southeast Asia, several allied African and Latin American nations (including Cuba). The term used for those countries who were not aligned with NATO in the ‘West’, and the Communist nations to the ‘East’ was the ‘Third World’. This term refers to political non-alignment - not poverty. Switzerland was considered (and still is) part of the Third World.
What about north and South?
Imperial core vs periphery. Culture is only superstructure. Material relations are the basic divisions of society upon which all else is built, and imperialism is the modern set of relations.
I think Eastern Europe (anything eastern of Germany, Austria, and Italy with the exception of Greece), Latin America, and Africa are considered the Eastern World. It all comes down to whose affiliated more with the US.
There’s also a new socio-economic term for non-aligned ‘developing nations’ called ‘The Global South’. And Australia and New Zealand, despite being among the most southern nations in the world (and ‘Australia’ actually means ‘southern land’), are not considered part of ‘The Global South’. I understand that this is a new term for the nations not politically aligned with NATO or the old Russia-China ‘eastern bloc’. It used to be called the ‘Third World’ but since the end of the Cold War, many people think the term means ‘poor and undeveloped’.
One solid argument for east and west is, center do exist because our current continent landmass shape is admittedly stay together. Hence it have center of area coincidentally at Europe
Consider culture and human themselves develop on land, south pacific can be considerably less important than its antipodes, the Europe
So relatively east and west considering Europe as center is acceptable
I think it's more useful to consider cultures as being high-context versus low-context. Most of the UK and the US, for example, are low-context cultures. We have to speak in specific detail to get a point across, whereas someone in a lower-context culture, like that of Japan, Greece, Finland, or Native-American cultures here in the US, can lean on shared cultural knowledge to express themselves with fewer words (but perhaps more body language, intonation, and so on). Knowing the differences can help someone from one side of that divide communicate more easily with a person from the other side.
I’ve even heard people say Latin America isn’t the west and in that definition only include Europe, Canada, and America.
wpyleent austrella be far east since it is right under indonisa? like that aint making sense
Why not corn, grain rice?
I mean, the current way to cut the map makes sense because of how big the Pacific Ocean is 🤷🏼♂️
cool
The Global North-Global South is even dumber than the East-West division, as a Mexican I would feel more at home in any so called "Western" country than in most countries of the "Global South" (outside the Latin American ones). In Portugal, Spain and Italy I think I would adapt quickly, but lets say something more different: The Netherlands. I would have much more sense of what is legal or ilegal and what is offensive or not for the Dutch than lets say in Papua New Guinea or Malawi.
"Sweet as bro" is a New Zealand sxpression.
I never split the world into east and west. Even during the cold war, there were places that did not fit into either side.
Just... use the Greenwich meridian as a base reference... plus cultural factors
Russia is an interesting case. They refer to the rest of what we usually call the Western World as "the West", but mostly do not see themselves as part of it. To some extent this extends to other Eastern European nations as well: "the West" is composed of countries mostly west of the Czech Republic, as well as North America and Australia.
I think it largely means whether the culture has a lot of Roman influence or ancient Chinese influence in their social structure. If they don't have either they aren't really eastern or western. Alternatively, another sort of idea is western nations can be those structured over the bones of the Roman Empire, and everyone who isn't is eastern. This is largely what people mean, indirectly, when they split the world that way.
Many have pointed out Greece’s influence on the east, as well as the euro-centrism of the concept, but honestly I think the idea of a “western world” is primarily from the notion of “christendom”
I think the Pacific Ocean gives most places in the world a pretty good reason to consider the Americas as "West" and Japan as "East".
"FPV Angel" has an eye opening presentation on "east and west"
I completely agree with this. The use of the terms "east and west" should not serve as a general, global mark of European and Asian cultural division. The world is way more nuanced than that, with civilizations exchanging ideas and inventions with each other through an array of locomotive methods.
Rome and China were not in contact with each other. There was travel along the silk road. People would go a distance, trade with others. The others repeated the process.
Western world having christianity majority
* Sees PH being anomaly (it should be blue!)
_East is east and west is west_
_And never the twain shall meet…_
I only think of "Western Hemisphere" and "Eastern Hemisphere" when I think of splitting the world into "west" and "east."
Surely the logical dividing line is the Greenwich Meriden 0 degrees longitude everything to the west of London by x degree is west and everything to to east of London by x degree is east. It splits the UK ever so slightly but it surely makes a tiny bit more sense in geographical terms???
So balkans are in west?
From a Japanese pov sure it's definitely not a Western country and sadly enough it's been rapidly becoming an underdeveloped country by economic measures these days but one view that I and a lot of the Japanese folks share is that we're part of the 'free' world where there isn't an outright oppressive totalitarian regime which we can't theoretically or practically dethrone without violence; and fortunately, I believe, freedom of speech, movement or choice of profession are more or less (operative word being more or less) maintained here as in other free nations.
Don't the Greeks divide the world into Greeks and barbarians?
Barbarian is someone who didn't speak ancient Greek.
It got the name because other languages sounded to ancient Greeks like they were saying "bar bar"
That's like saying:"x people separate the world into x people and foreigners"
We live on a BOLa
so what if we just refer to the "Western World" as the Latin World since these countries and their culture trace their roots back to the Roman Empire. This would also align with the types of languages they speak which are based on Latin.
The problem with coming up with a term for the ‘east’ is that ‘east’ really is just a term for everything else. Though using this world does seem kind of… ‘western-centric’, the only *accurate* label WOULD be ‘non-greco-roman’ because the rest of the world just is not similar to each other in the same way the ‘west’ is. ‘East’ and ‘west’ is just a renaming of ‘outsider’ and ‘insider.’
Best solution I can think of is specifying the east and west of *what* you’re talking about exactly, like saying ‘east asian’, or just tossing the ‘east-west’ schtick altogether with areas like the middle east and instead saying things like ‘arabic’.
Terms do change depending on the culture, like, for example, here on Brazil occident/ orient is still used (ocidental/ oriental), even more than east/ west, so... either your video was centered only on the culture of your country, or you just picked Britain/ USA's way to split the world as old/ current powerful countries... either way, other countries and cultures were vastly disregarded in your analysis.
Also, even though names do have to follow the rules, you seem to forget that we, humans, are the ones who give meaning to them. Pick, for example, the word "table": it was used to define a furniture that has a flat top and legs to prop it up where you can use it for a variety of things related to placing items on top or bottom of it... though it also can mean a list separated into lines and columns... and in other languages, like mine, a drawing tablet is transliterated as a digital table ("mesa digitalizadora" in Portuguese). It can have perhaps some logic to use the saem word, but those are three different objects or ideas altogether. Normally the Western and Eastern separation, or whatever the names used for whatever language are, uses different points of view, different points of origin for those terms, and different influences it has (for example, the western world took hold of part of the eastern after the second war; would that mean the eastern world has shrunk? That we have Japan as part of the western world due to the influence USA had? Etcetera).
The idea of having a term to simbolize all is a good idea, however you are picking cultures, comparing and trying to mush them into two terms only... where there's way more difference between them. For instance, even though both are considered western, buildings on USA will have a different architecture than other countries considered Western; houses mostly are spaced, and have yards, while there's countries that does not have such things. If we had to separate them, we already have countries, continents or ethnic groups for that.
And, lastly, origin doesn't matter. Trying to find a place where it all began will always end where the researcher wants or when the research can't proceed further, and human history is still something that's never fully complete
I'm pretty sure the East-West divide has to do with race. The West is generally seen as being European Caucasian, and the East is seen as being Chinese, Korean, and Japanese. Belong with that , the West is seen as being more developed than the East, which is why Japan and South Korea are seen as being a part of the West, while North Korea is seen as being a part of the East.
nope. eastern europeans are not western. and for that matter neither are northwest europeans. only olive skinned curly haired latins are 'western' germanic and celtic peoples are not descended from romans thus they are their own classification andare not part of the 'west'.
Using "Caucasian", which means people of Caucasus, middle east, makes it even weirder.
The most ironic thing is categorising Australia and NZ as the “west” 😂…
When I grew up the western world was seen as equivalent with Nato and the eastern world was the communist block. The rest was nonalined. But maybe this view was unique to my country because we had the deviding line running right through it.
3:33 and that is more ignorant about the actual Greek culture but when someone hurt actual classical Greek music they said to me is that a Middle Eastern song I don't know that is actually Greek