Pour Yorick - Alas

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Oooooh. That's a juicy one.

Greece actually groups with places further east in terms of its musical tradition, among other things. Fussy Westerners whine endlessly when exposed to historical music from Europe that "sounds Eastern" because it hasn't broken away from Greek influence yet.

it all depends on what we're discussing.

The West in its most default uses usually implies the US, Canada, and Western Europe. Whether anyone is thinking about Australia, for example, varies widely.

"Is it subject to lots of orientalism because the Ottoman Empire is scary and exotic?" is one lens to look at this through. Eastern vs. Western Roman Empire is another.

I don't think it's just about them being Muslim, but the historical forces that led to the major religious groups around Europe are relevant. Catholics and Protestants: Western! Eastern Orthodox and Muslims: those weird people over there!

If we were coming from the vantage point of Eastern Europe, I don't think we'd group things quite like this. It's like how I was taught as a child that the Roman Empire fell and then the Byzantine Empire was something else. The Western European bias is baked into the whole system. It's useless to try to remove it since it's the entire conceptual framework.

Basically, much of English and such history is devoted to going "We're the true heirs of the Classical world" while ignoring modern Greece. The US owes a lot to the UK, a bit to Germany and France, etc. And such discussions in English are heavily US/UK-flavored. How "The West" gets used follows a similar pattern. There's logic, but geography isn't necessarily what's driving that logic.

No parts of it extended beyond the lines, and the paper ticket was clearly displayed, impaled on a horn.