Where have you seen it used outside of Americans pretending their culture is somehow a standard and NATO apologists? The world doesn't even exist as such in my own language. It's a staple on Hacker News and nearly always for the bad reasons. I'm supposed to politely nod and shut up when people are casually erasing my culture?

What even is a "nato apologist"???

> Where have you seen it used outside of Americans

Well, there was this minor thing called "the western roman empire" for a few years, so that might be a starting point.

I am fascinated to learn how a claim that westerners "prefer liberty over security" is somehow erasing your culture though.

The Western Roman Empire has nothing to do with "the West". I think it's fascinating that that's even suggested.

I lived in Germany for a while. Germany is definitely a part of "the West", have been the defining border with "the East" in the Cold War. Germans do not share a cultural viewpoint about liberty and security with the USA. So claiming that westerners "prefer liberty over security" while also including Germans (and others) in the definition of "the West" is absolutely erasing their culture.

> The Western Roman Empire has nothing to do with "the West". I think it's fascinating that that's even suggested.

I got that bit from wikipedia, it amused me.

As for germans, if they do not share such a viewpoint (and now I want evidence either way), the claim about the west is merely wrong, not "cultural erasure".

French have fairly serious differences against USA too.

I mean, at some level, every single human is different, at another level we're all the same. I'm not sure what we're proving here.

The original claim was something about liberty and security and no one in this chain seems interested in bringing in any actual specifics about who thinks what where.

I (British/Australian) use it, but not in a cultural sense. I use "the West" when talking about military or economic matters.

I generally prefer the term "Anglosphere" to refer to only the bits of "the West" that share that cultural viewpoint when I'm discussing cultural matters. It's not perfect, but it's useful.

Given the widening gap between the USA and Europe (and Canada) in economic and military matters, I'm not sure how much longer "the West" is going to be useful.

What are you talking about? Nobody is erasing your culture except for maybe you because you aren’t even talking about your culture. You’re just ranting about Americans.