European identity formed through internal cohesion paired with contrast to other worlds

Evidence

But in the Age of Exploration and Conquest, Europe began to define itself in relation to a new idea—the existence of many new “worlds,” profoundly different from itself. The two processes—growing internal cohesion and the conflicts and contrasts with external worlds—reinforced each other, helping to forge that new sense of identity that we call “the West.” — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2, 565

Categorization

Category: Causal Relationships

• XREF: Identifies the twin mechanisms — internal consolidation plus external contrast — that later readings apply directly to how ‘the West’ defines itself against Islam.

Related

• Europe’s identity as the West fused internal cohesion with opposition to external worlds. (similarity 0.97)
• Islam’s challenge helped forge western Europe’s collective identity as the West. (similarity 0.87)
• The West’s formation cannot be explained without reference to the Rest (similarity 0.85)
• Islam has been Europe’s defining other across centuries (similarity 0.83)
• The West manufactured its own internal others (similarity 0.83)
• The idea of the West helped constitute the West itself (similarity 0.83)
• The Rest was constitutive of the West’s identity and knowledge (similarity 0.82)
• The West’s self-conception formed only in relation to the Rest (similarity 0.82)
• Europe’s self-identity depends on constructing Islam as its hostile other (similarity 0.81)
• The West and the Rest is constituted as a discourse, not a geography (similarity 0.80)
• The West produced its own internal others while excluding non-Europeans. (similarity 0.80)
• Christian Europe is divided from its beginning between an inner and outer enemy (similarity 0.80)
• Rising non-Western cultures relativized the Western episteme (similarity 0.80)
• Europe’s identity was constructed against the Orient as its surrogate self (similarity 0.80)
• A coherent internal image of Islam survived because it was internally consistent (similarity 0.80)