Western identity predates and is independent of modernity

Evidence

The argument that they do rests on the assumption that modern society must approximate a single type, the Western type, that modern civilization is Western civilization and that Western civilization is modern civilization. This, however, is a totally false identification. Western civilization emerged in the eighth and ninth centuries and developed its distinctive characteristics in the following centuries. It did not begin to modernize until the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The West was the West long before it was modern. The central characteristics of the West, those which distinguish it from other civilizations, antedate the modernization of the West. — Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the…, 183 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Western identity developed centuries before it modernized, so it is not reducible to modernity — Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the…, 183; Europe as a self-conscious identity boundary is surprisingly modern (nineteenth-twentieth century) — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 175; The modern meaning of identity as recognition emerged only after the Second World War (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Western identity developed centuries before it modernized, so it is not reducible to modernity #expands (0.96) — Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the…, 183