Was ist der Westen?

What is the West? Does its civilization or culture possess a core unity which is deeper than its inner geopolitical divisions? Does it share values and institutions that make it one world which is distinguishable - for the time being at least - from the Chinese, Japanese, Indian, Arab Muslim and African worlds, and even different from the Orthodox East European, Russian, Latin American and Israeli worlds, which some say are closer to it? If it is true that the West shares important values and institutions, is there enough substance uniting the various countries that might justify, one way or another, their political union? And if, in the West, certain values have indeed achieved universality, whose loss or erosion would affect the whole of humanity, would this justify a defense of the West, not only against the threat of military action, but also against communitarian disintegration or cultural intermingling? The purpose of this essay is to explore the historical and philosophical evidence in order to shed some light on the notion of the West.