Is There Even a Cohesive West?

While we were discussing the identity of the West, I thought maybe there possibly is not this one, universal Western culture that many people tend to believe. From the Ox Bow Incident and All the Pretty Horses, we see they are all set in the West, regardless of whether it was in the Continental US or in Mexico. One thing I tend to forget is the vast expansion of territory the West covers. This leads me to believe that the West is not tamed to the strict territorial boundaries but more of it as separate pockets of societies that are scattered all over the West that are not united nor share common traits that define the "idealized" West. The West could not be this melting pot or crossroads where cultures from different parts of America (Mexico and US) but rather a "salad bowl" where things do not mix at all. This salad bowl would resemble the different societies scattered in the Western frontier, where each society has its own set of value hierarchies that conflict with others. In the Ox Bow Incident, the town where everything begins can be seen as an attempted civilized order, where society values justice and order, settled by Northern thought. In All the Pretty Horses, the town John Grady comes from is in a changing from a cow-boy and ranch accustomed society to one that is slowly modernizing with the advent of industrialization. The ranch is seen as a desperate attempt to keep what the romanticized West is known for, emphasizing hard work, horsemanship, and nobility are the most important values. The prison and the mountain pass (Ox-Bow Incident) are seen as this lawless, almost primitive area where mob rule and violence are seem as superior. The fact that there are so many of these pockets of civilization with vastly different values hint at the possibility that the West is not unified nor is there some sort of cohesion in the lands. Ultimately this disconnect between all societies can imply that the West as a unified, rugged land that needs to be conquered is man's falsified illusion of the West. It is something that people tell themselves in order to hide the harsh realities of what the West actually is. I think this can still be seen today as different areas of what the West used to be is heavily dominated by certain cultures, from Tex-Mex, South-West, California's West, etc.