The West is a historical construct defined by development traits, not geography

Evidence

But even this, on inspection, is not straightforward since we also use the same words to refer to a type of society, a level of development, and so on. It’s true that what we call “the West,” in this second sense, did first emerge in western Europe. But “the West” is no longer only in Europe, and not all of Europe is in “the West.” The historian John Roberts has remarked that “Europeans have long been unsure about where Europe ‘ends’ in the east. In the west and to the south, the sea provides a splendid marker … but to the east the plains roll on and on and the horizon is awfully remote” (Roberts 1985, 149). Eastern Europe doesn’t (doesn’t yet? never did?) belong properly to “the West,” whereas the United States, which is not in Europe, definitely does. These days, technologically speaking, Japan is “Western,” though on our mental map it is about as far “East” as you can get. By comparison, much of Latin America, which is in the Western Hemisphere, belongs economically to the Third World, which is struggling—not very successfully—to catch up with “the West.” What are these different societies “east” and “west” of, exactly? Clearly, “the West” is as much an idea as a fact of geography. — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2, 505 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Orient and West are unstable human constructs, not fixed realities; East and West are analytical distinctions, not literal geographic categories; The West is as much an idea as a geographic fact — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2: Identity…, 505 (+8 more)

Related

• The West is as much an idea as a geographic fact (similarity 0.96)
• East and West categories have never been primarily geographical (similarity 0.94)
• East and West are analytical distinctions, not literal geographic categories (similarity 0.90)
• The West’s self-conception formed only in relation to the Rest (similarity 0.89)
• The idea of the West helped constitute the West itself (similarity 0.87)
• The West concept classifies, represents, compares, and evaluates societies (similarity 0.87)
• The West and the Rest is a constructed, contingent discourse (similarity 0.86)
• Spatial categories like East and West are real yet historically constructed, not natural. (similarity 0.85)
• The West manufactured its own internal others (similarity 0.84)
• The West and the Rest is constituted as a discourse, not a geography (similarity 0.84)
• Rising non-Western cultures relativized the Western episteme (similarity 0.83)
• The West’s formation cannot be explained without reference to the Rest (similarity 0.82)
• The West operates as a system of representation condensing attributes into a composite picture (similarity 0.82)
• Orient and West are unstable human constructs, not fixed realities (similarity 0.82)
• The Rest was constitutive of the West’s identity and knowledge (similarity 0.82)

Broader Connections

• East and West are analytical distinctions, not literal geographic categories #corroborates (0.92)
• The West is as much an idea as a geographic fact #corroborates (0.90) — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2, 505
• The idea of the West helped constitute the West itself #expands (0.85) — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2, 514
• The West and the Rest is a constructed, contingent discourse #corroborates (0.85)
• The West concept classifies, represents, compares, and evaluates societies #expands (0.80) — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2, 509
• The West’s self-conception formed only in relation to the Rest #expands (0.78)
• The West required the Rest as a conceptual opposite to define itself. #expands (0.78)
• The Rest was constitutive of the West’s identity and knowledge #expands (0.75) — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2, 686