your imaginary Long Island schlub exhibits the base layer of 'the West' being, in many cases a simple "us vs. them". but the writers and politicians who made the thing up have had to justify it in more detail, and they've always introduced contradictions. working from the 'intellectual' justifications & calling out the inconsistencies is an important step toward undermining the vulgar team mentality of the schlub

although idk why we're arguing about it here as if we're vested, when we should all agree 'the west' is a liberal term and we have our own terms [core/periphery, imperial/colonial etc]