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All in all, the West has displayed far more territorial movements, cultural novelties, and revolutions in the sciences and arts. For this reason, answering ‘where is the West?’ requires one to ask ‘what is the West?’ with an awareness of the fact that both the ‘what’ and the ‘where’ have changed over time.[40] This civilisation, for example, is not simply ‘Christian’ in the way others are ‘Confucian’ or ‘Hindu’ in a more stable, less varying way. Its Christian character alone has been infused with a theological and institutional dynamic (flowing from its synthesis with Classical reason and Indo-European aristocratic expansionism) stimulating a multiplicity of monastic movements (i.e. Cluniacs, Cistercians, Franciscans, Dominicans etc.) and heterodox movements (Pelagians, Waldensians, Cathars etc.), not to mention Crusades and numerous Protestant denominations lacking elsewhere.[41] The West — depending on locality, time, and groups — has been Platonic, Aristotelian, Epicurean, Stoic, Cynic, Augustinian, Monarchist, Newtonian, Gothic, Anglican, Humanist, Republican, Machiavellian, Hegelian, Fascist, Marxist, Darwinian, Surrealist, Cubist, Romantic, Socialist, Liberal, and much more. By contrast, the intellectual traditions set down in ancient/medieval times in China, the Near East, India, and Japan would persist in their essentials until the impact of the West brought some novelties.
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