> Japan, Singapore, and Korea can get richer than France or Spain, but they still get lumped in with the other non-white people in “the global south.”
Global south/north divide lumps SK, SG and JP into the north. I have a bigger problem with it putting Russia there, but not e.g. Argentina.
Besides, note how the term "developed" sounds like it has an objective, final and fixed definition, but always invites moving goalposts. Now you use some financial metric. Tomorrow someone uses education levels or democracy.
**
The truth is that everybody should keep developing, and development can entail different things to different people. If you say "I'm developed, and that other person is developing", "we are good, but they are not good yet", all you get is resentment when in fact you want global cooperation.
"Developedness" is a vague, subjective measure that indicates duck all except hubris on the part of whoever coined the term (not coincidentally, that was developed countries).
A vague measure warrants a vague term. "Global South" is far from perfect, but it is less bad. It is obviously geographically inaccurate, which on a meta level is quite fitting.
I don't think I could ever use either term without air quotes, but at least with global south they are more or less implied.
> Global south/north divide lumps SK, SG and JP into the north.
Only if you arbitrarily make exceptions for what’s “south”—ignoring the fact that Singapore and Taiwan and Korea are south of China. The phrase itself implies a permanent association between “south” (I.e. non-white, since skin color is a function of latitude) and “under-undeveloped.”
That seems far worse to me than acknowledging that developing countries are indeed trying to become like developed countries.
Korea is hardly south of China. Regardless, the term is not supposed to be geographically correct, and to me it is a feature. It's a vague subjective term, as if it's been designed for people to think twice before using it and make their point using a more precise metric instead. That's why I think it's better than "developing nation", which is just as arbitrary but tries to hide that.
Just to clarify, the plan is to stop developing?
> Japan, Singapore, and Korea can get richer than France or Spain, but they still get lumped in with the other non-white people in “the global south.”
Global south/north divide lumps SK, SG and JP into the north. I have a bigger problem with it putting Russia there, but not e.g. Argentina.
Besides, note how the term "developed" sounds like it has an objective, final and fixed definition, but always invites moving goalposts. Now you use some financial metric. Tomorrow someone uses education levels or democracy.
**
The truth is that everybody should keep developing, and development can entail different things to different people. If you say "I'm developed, and that other person is developing", "we are good, but they are not good yet", all you get is resentment when in fact you want global cooperation.
"Developedness" is a vague, subjective measure that indicates duck all except hubris on the part of whoever coined the term (not coincidentally, that was developed countries).
A vague measure warrants a vague term. "Global South" is far from perfect, but it is less bad. It is obviously geographically inaccurate, which on a meta level is quite fitting.
I don't think I could ever use either term without air quotes, but at least with global south they are more or less implied.