Chi siamo e non siamo noi occidentali

What is the West? Who are we Westerners? What is the relationship between the “I” and “The Other”, the “different”? What is the notion of culture that suits us, our present, in a word, contemporary humanism? These are the questions this short contribution attempts to answer. Studying the “elsewhere” allows us to better perceive ourselves: who we are and, above all, who we are not. All cultures - and, therefore, not only the others, but also ours - are located in history and, as such, are not static, being, on the contrary, more dynamic and complex than the unilinear conception of time would have us believe. Normally, we use the term West to refer to the culture that is common to Western Europe and North America. However, historically, the term has not always been used with this meaning, but has an essentially relative semantic value. Thus, it happens that the West is defined in opposition to the East, but this dichotomy only has value in relation to a meridian that history has shifted many times.