one of the problems you have in trying to define a difference between the occident and orient - and i'm taking an idea in said and running with it, here, rather than citing him directly - is the blurriness in assigning the origins of ideas to east or west, because it's not there in history. it's actually the same kind of problems that we come up with in trying to define a concept of race. it just breaks down with any meaningful analysis.

so, were the greeks occidental or oriental? how about the achaemenids? buddhism? christianity?

the renaissance?

it flips both ways - to the extent that said was right that the east, as it is understood in the west, is a racist projection by the west, it is also true that the west was largely created in the east.

how does something like the arab slave trade work it's way into that narrative? i mean, the arabs had the most vicious empire, ever, at the time, if not still. the ottomans? the mongol empire?

the point is that there isn't a clear way to divide east and west when you look at it holistically, and it's not helpful to try. so, you inevitably get stuck in racist tropes, because it's all that the division is rooted in in the first place.

there is an east, but it's the far east, not the middle east. rather, the middle east, india, russia and europe form a united cultural block with a shared linguistic, cultural and religious origin that has a strong bottleneck through alexander and his tutor, aristotle (and his teacher, plato). that's the right way to look at it, and the correct starting point on the left - we're not different, we're the same, and our popular movements should be more similar than not.