The West (as a concept)

In the last round, Pro brings an interesting element to discussion. Her idea of boundaries and prototypes seem quite convincing at first sight, but, with a deeper analysis, it’s not difficult to realize that those concepts can’t explain the idea of the West the same way they can explain colors, simply because, while you have objective ways of describing colors, especially those core prototypes, that can be objectively defined as “blue” or “green” without arbitrariness. As pro states, it’s possible to draw a boundary between these colors on grounds of wavelength for practical effects, like in industry or academy, and also, it’s possible to find a certain wavelength value where there is no disagreement about whether it’s blue or green. This can’t be done with the West, because there is no a priori elements that can be used to measure the “Westerness” of a country, and no element that, when reaching a certain value can objectively describe a country as definitely western. Rather, when someone finds it necessary to describe the West in a more objective way, like in an academic works, the boundary is often drawn a priori, and the elements that are used to justify such a boundary are only set a posteriori. This results in some weird chimeras, like in Samuel P. Huntington’s “Clash of Civilizations”(1), where the Western Civilization includes Spain, Portugal, Italy, Poland, and even the Philippines. Huntington claims that the trait that can best define his civilizations is religion, and therefore, the element he uses to measure westerness is Christianity. However, when he tries to explain why Eastern Europe and Latin America were left aside a, he says that Catholicism and Orthodox Christianity, which dominates Latin America and Easter Europe, respectively, are different enough from Protestantism to form different civilizations from the West, yet, he makes no effort to explain why the catholic countries cited above were included in his West. While explaining her prototypes theory, pro raises the possibility of treating prototype categories from a perspective of purity, which is basically idea of only considering those things that are undoubtedly considered blue or green, ignoring everything in the middle. Let's see what happens when we apply this idea of purity to the concept of Western Europe: Pro uses Eurovoc definition of Western Europe, but there are many others, which can include or exclude different countries. To find a pure Western Europe, we must find the region that is consistently included in Western Europe in every major source, so, let's start with the CIA World Factbook's Western Europe: (2) That's right. Not only the Iberian Peninsula was excluded, but also Germany is considered in Central Europe instead of Western, so Germany is definitely not pure.This is Central Europe According to Alice F. A. Mutton (3): The Benelux is out too. Now, let's see what's the UN's verdict (4): Yes, that's what you are seeing: the UN doesn't consider Britain a Western European nation, but rather Northern European - Together with Scandinavia and the Baltic nations, so they are also not pure. Their former colonies, obviously, have the same fate.The only country left now is France.After a deep analysis on Western Europe, we have come to the ridiculous conclusion that France is the only country can be considered definitely Western, and even then, not entirely (Alsace and Lorraine are in Central Europe in my second example). I wouldn't say this is arbitrary "to some extent". This is the epitome of arbitrariness.Now, I must admit, Pro outsmarted people like Samuel Huntington when she refused to fall on my trap by answering my request to justify the boundaries of the West with objective definitions and characteristics that are exclusive to the West. She didn't go further than some abstract concepts like "beliefs, habits, norms and behaviors", but if she had dared to define any specific belief, habit, norm and behavior she believes that defines the West, it wouldn't be had to find a series of nations that are not considered western by any standard that still embrace those elements just as much as any average Western nation, or nations that are considered definitely Western that don't present enough of those elements to be Western. Here is a list of the elements that are commonly used to describe the West and lists of nations that could be included or excluded from the West if they are considered:1) Religion: Basically, Huntington's theory: the West as a synonym of Christendom:Countries included: All of Latin America, Eastern Europe (Except for Bosnia and Albania), the Philippines and a great deal of Africa.If the West is equated to Protestant Christendom, as Huntington considers, not only southern Europe would be excluded, but, ironically, France too - the country we just proved to be the only purely Western one!!2) Language: The West as countries with native European languages.This definition would not just include all of the Americas, but Persian, Hindi and Urdu are languages of the same trunk as the majority of European languages, while Finnish and Hungarian are not.3) Economy: The West as a synonym for the developed world.Many Asian countries, specially Japan, are among the most developed countries in the world.4) Politics: The West as the countries under democratic regimes.There is a long list of countries that could be added to the list, going from South Korea to Botswana and Costa Rica to Indonesia.5) Race/Ethnicity: Countries with a majority of ethnically white population.This wouldn't just include the entire Eastern Europe in the West, as it would make Russia and Argentina more Western than the USA.6) Ideology: This was the definition used during the Cold War: The West was the developed capitalist world, and the East was the Communist Block.In the years immediately following the fall of the Berlin wall, most communist countries abandoned that ideology. Only a handful of countries kept the regime, but even those have adopted market economies. It could be said that Cuba is the only truly communist country left.As you can see, all of those elements that could potentially be used to measure the westerness of countries, like wavelengths can measure the "blueness" or the "greenness" of colors fail miserably in conforming to the predefined boundaries of what is expected to be the "definitely western world". The only thing that can sustain the existence in the West is the fact that people believe that it exists. Since unfounded beliefs can't be treated objectively, there is no reason to consider the existence of is any trace of objectiveness in the concept of Western World. Having said that, I believe I have substantially proved the resolution. My opponent, on the other hand, proved to be a great debater, however, she can't prove the unprovable.Therefore, vote Con. Notes: a He says that there is a possibility that they can be part of the West, but doesn't work on this idea and treat them as non-western nevertheless. Sources: (1) http://books.google.com.br... (2) https://www.cia.gov...(3) http://books.google.com.br...(4) https://unstats.un.org...