6 ms·

A lot of past decade news sound like onion satire. Both in europe and the us. We have to be careful which way we steer things as a lot of things appear to take

A lot of past decade news sound like onion satire. Both in europe and the us. We have to be careful which way we steer things as a lot of things appear to take a very very non democratic non western direction.

AlexandrB 4y ago
> ...non western direction. What does this mean and how is it relevant to the article or the parent comment? A lot of the recent rollback of rights are very much "western" in nature. The overturn of roe v. wade, for example, is a long standing project of various Christian groups. Nor is "the west" immune to dictatorship - you only have to go back to WWII for proof of that.
- PathOfEclipse 4y ago
  [flagged]
- whitepaint 4y ago
  > What does this mean and how is it relevant to the article or the parent comment? It is very relevant. Freedom of speech is one of cornerstones of the West.
  - NoGravitas 4y ago
    Galileo will be pleased to hear it. As will Socrates.
    - kube-system 4y ago
      The reason you know those things about those people is because your teachers (and their teachers) thought those mistakes were worth learning from.
      - NoGravitas 4y ago
        My dude, as recently as 1921, England was imprisoning people for blasphemy[1], and the law was on the books until 2008. Throughout the history of Christendom, the usual punishment for blasphemy was death by hanging or stoning, and such hangings were common up until the turn of the 18th century[2]. "The West" is nothing special when it comes to freedom of speech. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blasphemy_law_in_the_United_Kingdom#Common_law_offences https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blasphemy_law_in_the_United_Ki... [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blasphemy#Punishment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blasphemy#Punishment
        kube-system 4y ago
        There are places where death sentences for blasphemy are enforced today. This doesn't happen anywhere in the west. While not all of the western world is as liberal about speech as the US is, when you consider both political and religious speech, the western world is squarely more progressive than other regions of the world.
        NoGravitas 4y ago
        Today? Yeah, it is. But the previous claim was that freedom of speech was some kind of essential, enduring feature of "the west". But Europe's (and its colonies') history in that regard is actually a patchwork of freedom and oppression — but mostly oppression, much like the rest of the world. Europe's trend over the past couple of hundred years has been good regarding political and religious speech, but I wouldn't base any sweeping conclusions about long-term cultural differences on that.
        sfjailbird 4y ago
        > There are places where death sentences for blasphemy are enforced today. And many warmly supported (or even placed in power) by 'the West', funny how that works.
        Nomentatus 4y ago
        The current Pope strongly supports the return of blasphemy laws, and not just re Christian beliefs, apparently.
    - sofixa 4y ago
      Good question, by what measure is Ancient Greece "Western"?
      - wombatpm 4y ago
        It’s not China or the Indus River valley?
        sofixa 4y ago
        By that logic Albania, Bosnia, Libya, Chad are also "Western"?
- cronin101 4y ago
  With the US thrust into the de-facto "centre of the Anglo-sphere" (note: I am not American, as astute readers might deduce from preceding spelling), many terms are in need of an overhaul. It's particularly amusing how news of the "West" comes from the East and the "East" is accessed by flying West. Words are hard (and currently under a lot of scrutiny). Has anyone tried turning the language off and on again?
  - mmcdermott 4y ago
    > Has anyone tried turning the language off and on again? Wouldn't do any good. The English language has a venerable codebase, a high turnover development team and lava flow development all over the place. Modernization attempts haven't gone well, but more PRs come in by the day.
    - cestith 4y ago
      At the end of the day, English is less a language in the sense of other languages and more a pluggable framework an empire developed for adopting the vocabulary of other peoples and stuffing them into a loose sort of syntax together.
      - Steltek 4y ago
        I often think of "Worse is better" when teaching my kids reading and writing. In fact, Internet memes in the past 2 decades have dialed this up to 11. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worse_is_better https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worse_is_better
  - yamtaddle 4y ago
    Words like this always end up being wrong if they're used long enough, but are still useful and everyone gets what you mean, so they're fine, since that's the whole point. See also: "3rd world".
- marcus_holmes 4y ago
  It's a euro-centric term. The West of Europe has a historical bias towards freedom of expression, democracy, religious freedom (arguable) etc, and that got extended to include America when it got big enough to join the party. The East of Europe, by comparison, tended to authoritarianism, and that extended to include China when it got big enough to join the party. Of course, it depends on where you draw the line on East vs West - Germany could be either, or both, and historically has been all flavours of political spectrum. As others have said, it makes no sense from an American viewpoint because geography. The christian evangelic movement is very authoritarian, which makes them Eastern. Christianity (or professed christianity) doesn't automatically make them Western.
  - kgarten 4y ago
    >the west of Europe has a historical bias towards freedom of expression etc what?? since when ... ? Spain (franco, Spanish Inquisition)? France (Robespierre, Napoleon)? Germany? Italy(Mousolini)? ... most countries are now leaning towards freedom od expression, yet freedom of sppech is much more restricted compared to the US (and other countries) for example ... the term western does not make sense at all in this context. I sounds to me similar to "Judeo Christian values" something made up to exclude people.
    - PathOfEclipse 4y ago
      The French Revolution was decidedly atheist and leftwing. Most French thinkers of the time looked down on the American revolution and it's Christian values. The French revolution is more closely related to Marxism than what people generally refer to when they talk about Western roots. Similarly, Germany's Nazi party was highly anti-religious and anti Western values. Hitler said that, after the Jews, the Christians would be next on the chopping block. The Nazi party explicitly sought out to destroy the Christian values of universal human dignity and the responsibility to care for the poor and needy. The fascist movement similarly rejected Christian Western roots. Giovanni Gentile, father of fascism, was decidedly atheist. His influence, H.W.F Hegel, was also a strong influence of Karl Marx. I don't know much about the history of the Spanish inquisition, but most of the examples you gave were of people in the west who were actively rejecting Western tradition. Not coincidentally, they all came up with something far worse and far more evil. When you achieve a local maximum as great as we have, it's virtually impossible to make any revolutionary change that is not catastrophic.
- golemotron 4y ago
  > What does this mean and how is it relevant to the article or the parent comment? Freedom of speech does not exist outside the Western tradition.
- bcrosby95 4y ago
  You don't even have to go back that far. Spain was a dictatorship in the early '70s.
  - cycomanic 4y ago
    And the US became significant supporters of Franco in later years.
    - api 4y ago
      That was the "if it's not communist and fogs glass we support it" era of US foreign policy.
      - NoGravitas 4y ago
        "Was"? Although now I guess it applies to geopolitical rivals, whether communist or not.
- kmeisthax 4y ago
  "Non-western" was originally used by right-wingers complaining about tolerance of Muslims, but given that a lot of people really far out on the right actually want to tear down Western institutions, it seems more like them making a smug grin[0] and saying "You like theocracy, don't you Mr. Liberal?" nowadays. [0] https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BpwDP3IIEAAV9pK.jpg https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BpwDP3IIEAAV9pK.jpg
brightball 4y ago
There’s an entire satire site that categorizes parody articles they wrote which later became reality.
- panxyh 4y ago
  Would you be so kind?

AlexandrB 4y ago

> ...non western direction. What does this mean and how is it relevant to the article or the parent comment? A lot of the recent rollback of rights are very much "western" in nature. The overturn of roe v. wade, for example, is a long standing project of various Christian groups. Nor is "the west" immune to dictatorship - you only have to go back to WWII for proof of that.

PathOfEclipse 4y ago
[flagged]
whitepaint 4y ago
> What does this mean and how is it relevant to the article or the parent comment? It is very relevant. Freedom of speech is one of cornerstones of the West.
- NoGravitas 4y ago
  Galileo will be pleased to hear it. As will Socrates.
  - kube-system 4y ago
    The reason you know those things about those people is because your teachers (and their teachers) thought those mistakes were worth learning from.
    - NoGravitas 4y ago
      My dude, as recently as 1921, England was imprisoning people for blasphemy[1], and the law was on the books until 2008. Throughout the history of Christendom, the usual punishment for blasphemy was death by hanging or stoning, and such hangings were common up until the turn of the 18th century[2]. "The West" is nothing special when it comes to freedom of speech. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blasphemy_law_in_the_United_Kingdom#Common_law_offences https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blasphemy_law_in_the_United_Ki... [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blasphemy#Punishment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blasphemy#Punishment
      - kube-system 4y ago
        There are places where death sentences for blasphemy are enforced today. This doesn't happen anywhere in the west. While not all of the western world is as liberal about speech as the US is, when you consider both political and religious speech, the western world is squarely more progressive than other regions of the world.
        NoGravitas 4y ago
        Today? Yeah, it is. But the previous claim was that freedom of speech was some kind of essential, enduring feature of "the west". But Europe's (and its colonies') history in that regard is actually a patchwork of freedom and oppression — but mostly oppression, much like the rest of the world. Europe's trend over the past couple of hundred years has been good regarding political and religious speech, but I wouldn't base any sweeping conclusions about long-term cultural differences on that.
        sfjailbird 4y ago
        > There are places where death sentences for blasphemy are enforced today. And many warmly supported (or even placed in power) by 'the West', funny how that works.
      - Nomentatus 4y ago
        The current Pope strongly supports the return of blasphemy laws, and not just re Christian beliefs, apparently.
  - sofixa 4y ago
    Good question, by what measure is Ancient Greece "Western"?
    - wombatpm 4y ago
      It’s not China or the Indus River valley?
      - sofixa 4y ago
        By that logic Albania, Bosnia, Libya, Chad are also "Western"?
cronin101 4y ago
With the US thrust into the de-facto "centre of the Anglo-sphere" (note: I am not American, as astute readers might deduce from preceding spelling), many terms are in need of an overhaul. It's particularly amusing how news of the "West" comes from the East and the "East" is accessed by flying West. Words are hard (and currently under a lot of scrutiny). Has anyone tried turning the language off and on again?
- mmcdermott 4y ago
  > Has anyone tried turning the language off and on again? Wouldn't do any good. The English language has a venerable codebase, a high turnover development team and lava flow development all over the place. Modernization attempts haven't gone well, but more PRs come in by the day.
  - cestith 4y ago
    At the end of the day, English is less a language in the sense of other languages and more a pluggable framework an empire developed for adopting the vocabulary of other peoples and stuffing them into a loose sort of syntax together.
    - Steltek 4y ago
      I often think of "Worse is better" when teaching my kids reading and writing. In fact, Internet memes in the past 2 decades have dialed this up to 11. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worse_is_better https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worse_is_better
- yamtaddle 4y ago
  Words like this always end up being wrong if they're used long enough, but are still useful and everyone gets what you mean, so they're fine, since that's the whole point. See also: "3rd world".
marcus_holmes 4y ago
It's a euro-centric term. The West of Europe has a historical bias towards freedom of expression, democracy, religious freedom (arguable) etc, and that got extended to include America when it got big enough to join the party. The East of Europe, by comparison, tended to authoritarianism, and that extended to include China when it got big enough to join the party. Of course, it depends on where you draw the line on East vs West - Germany could be either, or both, and historically has been all flavours of political spectrum. As others have said, it makes no sense from an American viewpoint because geography. The christian evangelic movement is very authoritarian, which makes them Eastern. Christianity (or professed christianity) doesn't automatically make them Western.
- kgarten 4y ago
  >the west of Europe has a historical bias towards freedom of expression etc what?? since when ... ? Spain (franco, Spanish Inquisition)? France (Robespierre, Napoleon)? Germany? Italy(Mousolini)? ... most countries are now leaning towards freedom od expression, yet freedom of sppech is much more restricted compared to the US (and other countries) for example ... the term western does not make sense at all in this context. I sounds to me similar to "Judeo Christian values" something made up to exclude people.
  - PathOfEclipse 4y ago
    The French Revolution was decidedly atheist and leftwing. Most French thinkers of the time looked down on the American revolution and it's Christian values. The French revolution is more closely related to Marxism than what people generally refer to when they talk about Western roots. Similarly, Germany's Nazi party was highly anti-religious and anti Western values. Hitler said that, after the Jews, the Christians would be next on the chopping block. The Nazi party explicitly sought out to destroy the Christian values of universal human dignity and the responsibility to care for the poor and needy. The fascist movement similarly rejected Christian Western roots. Giovanni Gentile, father of fascism, was decidedly atheist. His influence, H.W.F Hegel, was also a strong influence of Karl Marx. I don't know much about the history of the Spanish inquisition, but most of the examples you gave were of people in the west who were actively rejecting Western tradition. Not coincidentally, they all came up with something far worse and far more evil. When you achieve a local maximum as great as we have, it's virtually impossible to make any revolutionary change that is not catastrophic.
golemotron 4y ago
> What does this mean and how is it relevant to the article or the parent comment? Freedom of speech does not exist outside the Western tradition.
bcrosby95 4y ago
You don't even have to go back that far. Spain was a dictatorship in the early '70s.
- cycomanic 4y ago
  And the US became significant supporters of Franco in later years.
  - api 4y ago
    That was the "if it's not communist and fogs glass we support it" era of US foreign policy.
    - NoGravitas 4y ago
      "Was"? Although now I guess it applies to geopolitical rivals, whether communist or not.
kmeisthax 4y ago
"Non-western" was originally used by right-wingers complaining about tolerance of Muslims, but given that a lot of people really far out on the right actually want to tear down Western institutions, it seems more like them making a smug grin[0] and saying "You like theocracy, don't you Mr. Liberal?" nowadays. [0] https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BpwDP3IIEAAV9pK.jpg https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BpwDP3IIEAAV9pK.jpg

brightball 4y ago

There’s an entire satire site that categorizes parody articles they wrote which later became reality.

panxyh 4y ago
Would you be so kind?