The unlocatable "West"

The geographic and philosophical location of the "West" in reality is sometimes hard to pin down. I am talking about the "West" as a term that generally refers to the civilizational defining concept often used loosely to define Western Civilization. To define the "West" as it is used in modern parlance, is to try to pin down a concept that is always in flux and has different meanings in different contexts. Sasha Abramsky in this excellently written, succinct and probing essay succeeds in pining down this amorphous concept that has a location as well as a set of ideas attached to it.