Japan is twice as far from California going East as it is going West. The parent must be using that definition. ;)

I remember once it felt a bit jarring when I heard native American cultures contrasted with "western" ones. Surely they are more "western" than Europeans.

"Western" in this context is referring to the western tip of the Eurasian landmass. The western hemisphere is part of the cultural "West" because of the European diaspora, not because of its geographic location.

Because of Western Rome and Catholicism, I think Eastern Europe and Russia weren't part of the West. Aren't they?

Correct. The division goes back to the Roman Empire and the reforms of Diocletian. Arguably however there were underlying cultural differences between the Latin Romans and the Greek Romans that were beneath those reforms and the later Great Schism between East and West.

Yes I understand. Yet it in another sense remains geographically inaccurate or contradictory, and amusingly so.

It's my personal opinion that when we see such a discongreguity that we should perhaps choose other words.

Words are never some sort of perfect encapsulation of their meaning. They only achieve that via their definitions.

What you're suggesting is basically using the etymological fallacy as a basis for changing words. Because of linguistic drift, a majority of words would have up be changed at some point - words like "nice" which came to mean their opposite, for example.

I think my suggestion that we should "perhaps" choose different words occasionally was mistaken for a demand that we must.

Choice of words is an individalized thing and language allows us to be as flexible as we like within still getting the point across. If I choose to say "European" instead of "western" when contrasting with indigenous Americans that sounds fine to me. If you don't make that same choice that's fine too. We'll all be understood.

>It's my personal opinion that when we see such a discongreguity that we should perhaps choose other words.

Not really. Then we'd be changing terms established for centuries, that most people understand in their two contexts (geographical and cultural), with some new words we'd have to explain every time we use them -- so making things worse.

If I contrasted indigenous Americans with "European" culture rather than a "western" one, you would completely understand the meaning and it wouldn't be a big deal.

Not exactly.

I wouldn't know if you mean "European culture" in the sense of something unique continental European (the way Europeans have unique cultural traits different from US traits, e.g. analytical vs continental philosophy), or the shared western culture Europeans and US Americans, and Australians, etc have?

That would sound to me like a deliberate misread in the same way that taking "west" literally is to you. You would know what I meant to say, and so would I should you say it the other way.

>You would know what I meant to say

Not really, only with extra context/explanation.

It's common to divide US/European culture (even though both western), or to include Japan in the western culture (even though not in the west, and their culture is not European of origin -- west in that sense is more like "westernized").

West/East and western/eastern does not just have a geographical meaning.

It also has a political/cultural meaning, which has some roots in geography, but is otherwise totally different.

Native Americans and pre-Christian pagan Europeans had a lot in common. Both cultures that honor seasonal cycles, animals, nature, ancestors, animism etc.

Unfortunately “western” is now seen as the Abrahamic judeo-Christian capitalistic worldview, even though the west sprang out of pagan Greece and Rome.

Rome was Christian when the Western and Eastern empires were founded, and when they fell. My understanding is that modern West/East etymology is heavily influenced by the Western/Eastern Roman empires.

Yes, strictly speaking the West, the Occident, is born out of the leftovers of the Western Roman Empire.

>Unfortunately “western” is now seen as the Abrahamic judeo-Christian capitalistic worldview, even though the west sprang out of pagan Greece and Rome.

The west "sprang out of pagan Greece and Rome" when they decided to become Christian. The actual pagans had been slowly abandoning paganism as a dead-end and turning more into esoteric religions and neo-planonism etc and the influence of Egyptian etc religions for several centuries before Christianism was a thing...

>Native Americans and pre-Christian pagan Europeans had a lot in common.

Other than not having the Christian religion, no, not really.

>Both cultures that honor seasonal cycles, animals, nature, ancestors, animism etc

"Both cultures" ? What cultures ? Neither pre-Colombian Americas nor Europe shared a culture on their respective side. Even if most of Europe shared a common Indo-European root, religious practices were varying widely. Be it from the cross-pollination with different tradition (pre-Indo-European, Semitic and whatnot) or social changes. It's very hard to argue the official Roman religion as practiced in cities was any more "closer to nature" than Catholicism is.

>the Abrahamic judeo-Christian capitalistic worldview

Any more grand words to force into that sentence ?

Making the Christian religion itself being the deciding factor in your reading of history is a position that's very... Christian.