Spatial categories like East and West are real yet historically constructed, not natural.

Evidence

To understand exactly what might be meant by the problem of the reality of the external world it might be worth taking up the example of the notions of “East” and “West” which do not cease to be “objectively real” even though analysis shows them to be no more than a conventional, that is “historico-cultural” construction. (The terms “artificial” and ” conventional” often indicate “historical” facts which are products of the development of civilisation and not just rationalistically arbitrary or individually contrived constructions.) … Obviously East and West are arbitrary and conventional, that is historical, constructions, since outside of real history every point on the earth is East and West at the same time. This can be seen more clearly from the fact that these terms have crystallised not from the point of view of a hypothetical melancholic man in general but from the point of view of the European cultured classes who, as a result of their world-wide hegemony, have caused them to be accepted everywhere. Japan is the Far East not only for Europe but also perhaps for the American from California and even for the Japanese himself, who, through English political culture, may then call Egypt the Near East. So because of the historical content that has become attached to the geographical terms, the expressions East and West have finished up indicating specific relations between different cultural complexes. — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 1590

Categorization

• DEFINE: Gramsci’s key move: something can be ‘objectively real’ while being a conventional historical construction — not merely arbitrary.
• XREF: Directly prefigures Said’s Orientalism: ‘East’ crystallized from the standpoint of European hegemonic classes and was accepted everywhere. — connects to: Geographical categories remain real even when they are conventional historical constructs. — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 1590; East and West are analytical distinctions, not literal geographic categories; The West and the Rest are mutable historical and linguistic constructs, not fixed entities. — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2: Identity…, 522 (+6 more)

Broader Connections

• Geographical categories remain real even when they are conventional historical constructs. #corroborates (0.95) — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 1590
• The West and the Rest are mutable historical and linguistic constructs, not fixed entities. #corroborates (0.90) — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2, 522
• Orient and West are unstable human constructs, not fixed realities #corroborates (0.90)
• The West and the Rest is constituted as a discourse, not a geography #corroborates (0.88) — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2, 503
• East and West are analytical distinctions, not literal geographic categories #expands (0.85)
• The West is a historical construct defined by development traits, not geography #corroborates (0.85)
• East-West and North-South divisions misrepresent the world’s true complexity #complicates (0.75) — Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the…, 61
• Even the categories and laws of thought are historically mutable, not fixed #expands (0.75) — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 690
• Race categories are historical and political, not pigment-based #expands (0.75) — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2, 232