Talk:Western world/Archive 1

message: What about countries, which have higher standard of living thatn third world countries, but still much lower than in  USA, but they do share more or less the same culture, ideas, kind of government and history? I mean countries like Poland, Czech, Russia... (ok, maybe i exaggerate with Russia a bit) szopen
:Depends on the context.  In most contexts, I'd say yes. --Robert Merkel
I can't see how Japan, South Korea, Taiwan can be considered part of the West.  They are about as East as one can get.
Not sure about that. They are modern capitalist countries.
China is arguably at least part Western too, as Marxism is a western ideology based on a materialist world-view, at odds with traditional Oriental philosophy.
It might be useful to list the attrubutes we consider Western.
High standard of living? Consumer society? Pluralist democracry?
Generally secular/materialist philosophy? European or european-derived culture? 
I would suggest few if any countries would not qualify as at least partially westernised on at least one of these grounds, wherever they are geographically located.
Exile 16:38, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Page One

message: I think the statement that Japan is not considered part of Western society needs qualification and/or expansion.
200.165.239.87 17:20, 31 Oct 2002
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The following is the full text from Occident:
: Opposite of "Oriental," "Occident" is a rare term for "Western" but let's look at it this way: it's actually a distinctive concept from "Western". The Japanese can be "Occidental" when they take an "Occidental" position to investigate the "Oriental" civilization of Islam. A Muslim Arab can likewise take on an "Occidental" position when s/he chooses to investigate the "Oriental" civilization of the Japanese.
: see, this is all relational, unlike "Eastern" and "Western" which have a definite center on earth.
Looks like a load of gibberish to me, but I'll leave it here in case anyone thinks there is anything salvageable in it. I'm redirecting the "Occident" article to this one. -- Oliver P. 06:00 12 Jul 2003 (UTC)
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See: http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Western_countries&diff=176285&oldid=176256 where Austria, Sweden and Finland are added to the list of countries. I don't find any explanation to why Sweden should be classified as a Western Country according to a more narrow definition but Finland only according to a broader. Culturally Sweden and Finland show very few differences. The have similar religious traditions (Lutheran state church since the 1520s) and close to similar laws on most matters, much more similar than for instance Germany and France, not to mention Greece. I guess this must be some kind of mistake, why I make the change without waiting for comments here.
-- Ruhrjung 14:53, 3 Aug 2003 (UTC)
replies: text: I seem to recall adding non-aligned countries to the list, and I suppose I was thinking of political alignment instead of cultural factors.  I am sure you are aware that one could justifiably claim that during the cold war Austria, Sweden and Switzerland were politically more aligned with Western countries and Finland was more in line with the Eastern Bloc.  Of course these are nuanced issues subject to interpretation. 62.78.198.78 08:19, 14 Dec 2003 (UTC)
thread_title:  Japan? 

message: I removed one instance saying "Japan can't be west", but well, the article zigzags back and forth on the subject of Japan.
What to do. Can't we say that Japan has *BOTH* eastern and western traits? I'd argue that the distinction is artificial anyway. 
(Besides that, Japan is not not-western. They do science, produce many western goods, etc...)
Hmph. Kim Bruning 12:10, 7 May 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: If Japan is not not-western, then I would conclude that "west" simply means "modern". - Nat Krause 16:37, 7 May 2004 (UTC)
replies: text:  Some people and NGO's simple refer to "rich countries" when talking about "Western world". Furthermore, governments may call Japanese immigrants "Western immigrants". Other definitions (market economy, democraty may occur). This is really about how "Western world" is defined. Discussions on definitions are usually not productive, in contrary to presenting the different definitions. 83.162.19.42 13:17, 26 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Japan, East Or West? 

message: Perhaps one element of this issue is that Japan's economy is western.. meaning they employ free-market capitalism, a western invention, in the same way and with the same results as the western nations.--Nectarflowed T 8 July 2005 09:34 (UTC)
:: Some people and NGO's simple refer to "rich countries" when talking about "Western world". Furthermore, governments may call Japanese immigrants "Western immigrants". Other definitions (market economy, democraty may occur). This is really about how "Western world" is defined. Discussions on definitions are usually not productive, in contrary to presenting the different definitions. 83.162.19.42 13:17, 26 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Western economy

message: I think it should read:
:The founder members of NATO the EU and Switzerland. A broader definition might extend to Australia and New Zealand and sometimes  Israel.
:The Asian countries  Japan, South Korea, the Republic of China (Taiwan), are sometimes considered part of the West and sometimes not...
This would clean up the sentence, cover Western Europe and automatically extend the coverage as countries joined the EU. At the moment the page misses out all the newer EU members and netural Ireland!  With this construction, the fareast Asian countries get the same definition as South America as does Israel.
Does anyone have any objections to me making that change?
:Change made Philip Baird Shearer 06:00, 20 May 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  A solution to "current" definition 

message: After the war Austria was partitioned into four zones by the Allies it so the whole country was not under any one other country's sphere of influence. I think that after 1955 and the Austrian State Treaty it was under the American sphere of influence. In that its boarders were open, it had free democratic elections, its economy was similar to the rest of Western Europe and closely tied into it, its citizens were free to travel without restrictions etc. I can also see that it can be argued that it had a status similar to Switzerland. It was not in the Soviet sphere of influence. Philip Baird Shearer 16:46, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Austria

message: Three paragraphs on the (controversial) theory of Samuel P. Huntington is really to much for an article on Western world. There is already an article on Samuel P. Huntington and on Clash of civilizations. 83.162.19.42 07:17, 1 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Samuel P. Huntington