‘The West is Best’? The Role of Historians in Perpetuating a Problematic Term

Abstract

“The West” is a commonplace in everyday speech, presuming a fixed set of values, often figured as inherently positive, applied to and seen as emanating from (a certain version of) Europe and also the United States, and imputing a model for the rest of the world to follow. Historians of these regions have played a critical role in naturalizing the term and advancing it as “scientifically” meaningful. But, in fact, the meanings associated with the term have been highly variable, usually relating to an historian’s own time period and values. Further, deployment of the term, disseminated across broad populations, has had deleterious effects, including reinforcement of binary images of the world, as divided e.g. between “advanced” and “backward” populations, and particular notions in turn of how the latter can “advance.” Even as prominent historians increasingly challenge salutary figurations of the term, moreover, its continued use altogether seems to validate politicians’ and public figures’ continued use of the concept, as uncomplicatedly affirmative as well as meaningful; this is especially problematic concerning any concept of “Western values.”