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Comment by zarzavat | Hacker News Reader

Western culture has taken over the world. People from all corners of the globe wear western clothes, listen to western music, watch western TV, talk about western current events, speak western languages and practice western religions. Not all, of course, but western culture is more dominant than any other. The place for white Europeans to practice their culture is called Earth.

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Isn't that mostly American culture rather than Western one? "Western culture" is a huge generalization, like "Asian culture" would (what would that even mean? Japan, China, India, Israel? All of them are Asian countries).

You won't find many traces of Finnish or Austrian culture on an Indian TV channel.

Most European cultures are fairly regionally limited and, in some cases, threatened with extinction (see: Lusatian Sorbs [0]). Indeed there is some resentment in Europe against American commercial culture squeezing out and killing off old local traditions.

For a bit of a fun, last Christmas the Czech Army produced a video of shooting down intruding Santa, as we have a different traditional figure bearing gifts to children. [1]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorbs

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0TgUsUfaVE

I think you underestimate the diversity of the Old Continent. Small places like The Isle of Man, Basque Country, Flanders or Malta have their own unique culture that cannot be simply classified as a generic "white European" thing.

This isn't even a category we tend to think in, this is a very American take on things. We consider ourselves Czechs, Poles, Kashubians, Danes, Lithuanians ... not "white Europeans".

There are parts of the world that speak Dutch, that are very far away from the Netherlands. Not many, the Dutch were a bit too cruel and after independence former colonies were eager to do away with the Dutch language. Nevertheless you can find aspects of Dutch culture dotted around the planet. Be it Dutch language in Suriname, Afrikaans in South Africa, Dutch architecture in Indonesia or people who converted to Christianity because of the Dutch.

If you are Dutch, French, British, Spanish, Portuguese, Belgian, German or yes American, I don't think you can complain too much that your culture is being lost given that these countries have spread their culture all around the planet more than most. If you are Swiss or Polish then you may have more of a point.

This is a very crude division. There are way more Poles than, say, Galicians (a small and fairly unique community of Spain). As for Britain, how many people do still speak Scottish Gaelic? Etc.

At the end of the day, loss of any culture in the world is tragic and previous colonialism isn't a good reason to wish punishment of cultural obliteration on contemporary inhabitants of the same countries, who are several generations distant from the perpetrators.

Well Dutch care about their culture, not American Hollywood, mcdonald's, English language and American values that have taken over the world. And that goes for every European country small or big.

One might even argue that it is a bit racist to assume all white people have the same culture.

Superficially. But deeper cultural beliefs and orientations different dramatically. See Lee Kuan Yew’s reflections on American culture through the perspective of an East Asian: https://paulbacon.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/zakaria_lee.pd.... Yew was pretty westernized, wore a suit, spent much time in America. Yet he recoils at American individualism and it’s consequences.

Even inside America cultural differences abound. As a south Asian immigrant raised in the American south, I’ve come to realize I just don’t get along in the Pacific Northwest. I thought my Oregonian wife was just rude and blunt, but after spending some time in the state I realized most people there just don’t have the same notions about e.g. saving face or dancing around upsetting facts that I do.

Having lived in Portland, at least you and I agree on something. I ran screaming out of there as fast as I could.

> Western culture has taken over the world. People from all corners of the globe wear western clothes, listen to western music, watch western TV, talk about western current events, speak western languages and practice western religions. Not all, of course, but western culture is more dominant than any other. The place for white Europeans to practice their culture is called Earth.

Couldn't agree more.

I see this appeal to the early common roots of western culture as a point of union and positivity.

Sadly I think the mentality of division and protagonism, as opposed to the western value of individualism, has poisoned the well of our culture and people are much more susceptible to react taking offence that their micro-tribe isn't represented in full HD.

There is value in seeing the world painted in a broad spectrum of strokes and observing the patterns that emerge from different perspectives, but this requires tolerance and curiosity.

Christianity is a Western religion now? What’s next, Jesus was white?

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