Does the East and the West demonise each other ?

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chris1989
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06 Sep 2021, 8:11 am

I've said on other threads before about my interest in history and that it can be problematic because as it depends on who has written the history. I seem to think that even to this day we demonise other countries in the East as being uncivilised and barbaric and undemocratic as the countries in the Western World are, but of course, there countries out there which don't have democracy as a form of government and human rights in those countries are repressed such as China, Iran, North Korea etc and those countries may retaliate to the allegations as untrue and biased and an attempt to make them look bad. Also I seem to think that whenever western countries like the US, the UK and so on intervene to try to help or enter into wars in other countries where a crisis is going on, we are then seen as the aggressors, oppressors and war criminals. I've been trying to write a book on the crimes of the dictators with the usual suspects such as Hitler, Stalin, Idi Amin etc and yet during my research looking through online lists some people will add in leaders such as George Bush, Tony Blair etc which I seem think is quite absurd. Even though I don't like them either they were not really leaders of totalitarian regimes although its arguable that even in democracies people are still told to obey the law. Another thing for example, I'd like to add is that even though his regime was horrific, I don't know if Idi Amin's reputation was made to appear worse in the propaganda by the West in cartoons and that because the UK was once a colonial master of Uganda and we made him look more of a monster than he really was.



King0fSpades
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06 Sep 2021, 8:16 am

Yes. East is East, and West is West. And never the twain shall meet.

Coincidentally if you live in the USA the same is true for North and South.


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funeralxempire
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06 Sep 2021, 9:23 am

Where exactly is the boundary between 'the east' and 'the west'?
Personally I'm not convinced they make for useful concepts.


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naturalplastic
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06 Sep 2021, 10:15 am

The question raised is WAY too vague to have any meaning.

Subsaharan Africa is not "the east", nor is it "the west" in a cultural sense (I will get back to that later).

The terms "east and west" were used in two slightly different ways during the Cold War.

"West" meant the alliance of capitalist democracies (USA, Western Europe, canada, australia, etc), and the "East" meant "the Communist Bloc" (USSR, Eastern Europe, China, Cuba, North Vietnam, North Korea).

But before, during, and after the cold war, "east and west" were always used to mean "eastern civilization vs western civilization". Thats what Kipling meant above. Not exactly the same division that existed geographically during the cold war. Russia would be considered part of the "west" (ie Europe) in that older sense.

The traditional cultural dichotomy between "east and west" in "the West" (ie Europe) predated the discovery of america, and its conceptualized from the pov of Europe. All of Asia and north africa were "the East", and Europe was thought of as "the west". So its an Asia vs Europe thing. Africa ( south of the sahara) is niether. fish nor fowl in the east west dichotomy. Interestingly Black Africa is STILL an arena for competition for converts between Christianity and Islam (both Catholicism and Protestantism are in decline in favor of secularism in Europe itself, but both are expanding in Africa- and both compete with Islam).

Also there at least three "Eastern civilizations" seperate from each other and each comparable to the Christian civilization Europe 1) Islamic Western Asia (mideast), 2) South Asia (Indian subcontinent), and (3) East Asia (China, and the Chinese influenced cultures that surround it like vietnam and korea and Japan). But Westerners tend to lump them all together under the rubrick of "the East", or "the Orient".

The Islamic world and the Christian worlds have been badmouthing each other for over a thousand years. Indian and Chinese civilizations had less contact with the west (either good or bad) until the last four hundred years. So there is less history of rivalry and of mutual animosity then there is between the Islamic world and Christian Europe.

But starting in the 19th Centurey Europeans power began dominating and humilating China. And then one of China's former cultural satelittes (Japan) adopted Western technology and Joined the west in beating up on China ( infact was so aggressive that Japan drove the west to ally with China against Japan). So China has scores to settle.