The idea of the West helped constitute the West itself

Evidence

We cannot attempt to resolve here the age-old sociological debate as to which came first: the idea of “the West,” or Western societies. What we can say is that as these societies emerged, so a concept and language of “the West” crystallized. And yet, we can be certain that the idea of “the West” did not simply reflect an already-established Western society: rather, it was essential to the very formation of that society. — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2, 514

Categorization

• XREF: The constituting-not-reflecting claim prefigures constructionist accounts of race and nation the reader will meet in later module texts. — connects to: The West is a historical construct defined by development traits, not geography; The West concept classifies, represents, compares, and evaluates societies — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2: Identity…, 509; The Rest was constitutive of the West’s identity and knowledge — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2: Identity…, 686 (+11 more)
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2: Identity…, 514

Broader Connections

• The West’s self-conception formed only in relation to the Rest #expands (0.88)
• The Rest was constitutive of the West’s identity and knowledge #expands (0.85) — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2, 686
• The West required the Rest as a conceptual opposite to define itself. #expands (0.85)
• The West and the Rest is a constructed, contingent discourse #expands (0.82)
• The West is as much an idea as a geographic fact #exemplifies (0.80) — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2, 505
• Islamic challenge forged the collective identity of ‘the West’ #exemplifies (0.80)
• The US needed Islam as a foil to define itself as Western #exemplifies (0.78) — Khaled A. Beydoun, American Islamophobia_ Understanding…, 154
• The West manufactured its own internal others #expands (0.75)
• Western scholarly discourse about the Orient was entangled with colonial domination #expands (0.75) — Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Introduction to…, 206