Pirates me hearties, pirates!

[--Pete]

Hi,

. . . I think "the West" is a bit of a silly concept anyway.

So is 'left' and 'right' which focus on the happenstance of seating rather than on the political or social inclinations of the individuals so labeled. So what? Would you rather that I use "Europe west of the former communist block, primarily the highly industrialized nations, plus the United States of America and Canada; in some contexts including post World War II industrialized Japan and, occasionally, again depending on context, pre 19?? Hong Kong"? No educated, intelligent, informed person in the first decade of the twenty-first century lacks a clear mental concept (which may differ slightly from person to person, but in a quibbling rather than a fundamental way) of what "The West" is, and the remainder I do not care to engage.

"The East" is even worse, and between the two, there are gigantic chunks of the world left poorly defined. What is Latin America? What is Africa?

Yes, but the division into 'West' and 'East' is not one I make. Since 'West' is used to define a common culture rather than to designate a geographic direction, the remaining partitions can be (and are) named nearly anything. I have no difficulty, for most purposes, using the partition you gave in a later post. And, most definitely, I fully agree that "these all change considerably over time"

--Pete