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Culture War Roundup for the week of January 9, 2023

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...There's a lot here, but I'm kinda done with the alt-right/WN arguments after the last couple threads, so I'll leave it at noting that this entire thread is the rhetorical equivalent of a giant, killer-asteroid-sized billboard painted with the words " @HlynkaCG 's thesis about the alt-right is indisputably correct."

This is because the traditional conservative opinion is unique amongst political views: only the non-intellectual conservative who is anti-change is truly 'right-wing': all other politics, including reactionary and fascist, are a type of progressivism. The reason is the intellectuality of the thing: if you believe you can rewrite reality as you experience it from summoned up abstract concepts you are a progressive. Hence 'conservatism' continually loses because definitionally it can nothing else. It is a question of philosophical rationalism first, not politics.

Both reactionaries and leftists justify their views on a presumed success in a different time, with the leftists believing it lies in the future and the reactionaries the past. Neither is true, as neither can transpose the entirety of the agents or things which they believe can bring this about (or rejuvenate it) into the present moment all at once, but have to do it piece by piece, with reality then defeating them in detail. Reactionaries claim that their preferred state having once existed, whether as they claim it truly was or no, yet this is no stronger a plea than the progressives, as the events that conspired to destroy that past state did actually manage it even when the state was at its strongest. It's the old question of anti-revolution: we shouldn't have had a revolution because we don't know what it might bring on and the complex system of a state can never be interfered with without suffering: we must have a counter-revolution because this currently existing state is so bad that huge change must be wrought to bring things back to order.

Care to post a link to that thesis (or at least summarize it)?

Here you go. You've probably seen him make the argument a time or two before; he's been saying it for years now.

The first time I saw him make the claim, I thought, "that's crazy". But he kept hammering the point, every time providing additional examples. Quite a few of the posts in this thread make the point rather eloquently.

I mean, I’m not really interested in picking a fight with Hlynka or with taking unprovoked potshots at his worldview, but it can simultaneously be true that 1. he has accurately identified that both the far-right and far-left have converged on a recognition that identity politics are valuable and that classical liberalism is a failed project, and 2. his proposed solution - “and that’s why everybody should be a Reaganite conservative who Doesn’t See Color™️ and worships at the altar of Martin Luther King, ‘content of their character’ yada yada yada” - is a total non sequitur and doesn’t even begin to address the actual reality we’re facing.

The use of Reaganite as a slur on the racial front bugs me. He tried to kill disparate impact theory (ie. the theory under which the government enforces affirmative action) but was overriden by congressional republicans, tried to stay friends with apartheid South Africa (the party led by McConnell I believe, overrode him again), and had some pretty based quotes. "To see those monkeys from those African countries - damn them, they're still uncomfortable wearing shoes!" Then again, he did screw up on amnesty for illegals but that seems more justifiable.

The thesis I was referencing is that WNs and alt-righters are, in fact, Blues applying a fundamentally Blue worldview. You are jointly your own closest brothers and worst enemies.

If I can say to you, "A mighty fortress is our God, a bulwark never failing", and mean it, live by it, raise my children and build my community by it, what does any of the above or below have to entice me? The standard response is that Christianity has failed... delivered, generally, by people who willingly chose to abandon the faith of their fathers to embrace an alien and alienating worldview, and refuse to let it go.

Your post honestly deserves a more detailed response than that, but this, to me, is the core of the issue: You're looking for a banner to rally behind, but you've rejected the most proven banner known to man because it's incompatible with fundamental elements of the Blue worldview, which you still hold. Meanwhile, the Reds that comprise most of the people you're trying to rally have no interest in the alternative banners you offer, because they recognize their fundamentally Blue nature.

The standard response is that Christianity has failed... delivered, generally, by people who willingly chose to abandon the faith of their fathers to embrace an alien and alienating worldview, and refuse to let it go.

The biggest flaw of Christianity, which sets it apart from many other religions- including the pagan traditions of the fathers of their father, is that Christianity requires a superstitious belief in the literal truth of claimed miracles. Is such a religion sustainable?

Paganism was about worshipping symbols and myths of the people, with collective public and familial rituals, to direct society in a positive direction. Other non-theistic religions like Buddhism also do not require the allegiance of faith in the truth of claimed miracles. Whereas there is no shortage of superstition in Judaism, especially among religious Jews, the Religion is ultimately about The Chosen People and so it coheres even non-religious Jews who internalize that sense in a non-theistic manner.

Christianity on the other hand... it's ultimately about belief in the truth of claimed miracles that emerged from the body of Jewish superstition. It's in fact historically unusual in this regard. If those claims are false then the religion is a farce, whereas the Jews exist as a coherent people even if you don't believe in a literal Yahweh. Yahweh as nothing more than a tribal mascot of the Jews is infinitely more real than Christianity if you take away the truth of the miracles. If you don't believe in the literal truth of those miracles, even if you were to support the religion in every other way, you are a heretic and in the outgroup.

You think Christianity is based? That it promotes good morals and is necessary to save Western Civilization? Too bad, you can't be a Christian if you don't believe in the literal truth of it. Or you can just pretend, and sit in the pews with a Religious experience that is totally discordant with everyone else sitting around you.

I've seen fairly large-sample Telegram polls in the DR and the polls were split exactly 50/50 on the Christian Question, making it highly divisive in that space. But the divisiveness is good, because it's a hard problem that has to be solved to move forward.

@Job mentioned he's seen people turn towards religious extremism. I've also seen the same, high-quality people (some previously atheist) who turn inwards towards their relationship with God and closely studying Christian doctrine. They avoid the alienation but what is that going to accomplish?

You think Christianity is based? That it promotes good morals and is necessary to save Western Civilization? Too bad, you can't be a Christian if you don't believe in the literal truth of it.

This isn't how anyone but weirdos like us think about things though. The majority of good christians are just followers. For them, believing in the "literal truth" of it is not challenging, but it also isn't a profound intellectual thing. Most people don't analyze the truth claims of their religion like that. They just believe and repeat and thats it. No bigger implications.

Or you can just pretend, and sit in the pews with a Religious experience that is totally discordant with everyone else sitting around you.

In my experience, you can participate without believing in the miracles, and not have a Religious experience that is totally discordant with everyone else sitting around you. The collective effervescence is there for you whether you intellectually accept the physical reality of miracles or not. Why can't you accept it symbolically like the pagans you refer to?

The biggest flaw of Christianity ... is that Christianity requires a superstitious belief in the literal truth of claimed miracles. Is such a religion sustainable?

There are clear "game theory" advantages for social groups espousing wild shit. It represents a signal with a cost. A core selective challenge for social groups is to sort people who are actual team players from parasites. There is a minor cost associated with saying something crazy like "Jesus rose from the dead". It harms your credibility with every other group that doesn't claim that crazy thing. That cost acts as a clarifying pressure for people to either be all in on being truly members of christianity (who will cooperate with christians) as opposed to fakers who want to play both sides.

The biggest flaw of Christianity, which sets it apart from many other religions- including the pagan traditions of the fathers of their father, is that Christianity requires a superstitious belief in the literal truth of claimed miracles. Is such a religion sustainable?

I'm not at all convinced by this. Any social group with good mechanics to maintain cohesion over multiple generations is going to have systems to make signaling group identity somewhat costly. I think many groups require their members to claim that actively believe weird shit, that's not just christianity. There are plenty of miracles professed by other religions. There are other methods to make signaling group membership costly, like wearing stupid looking clothes, or ritual scarification, etc. But publicly espousing weird nonsense is a really common trait. And it looks adaptive to me.

I do feel you on it being uncomfortable because I am also a weirdo that cares about things like that. Thats part of what is so grating about modern american progressivism - that it requests me to say so much weird stuff, so I don't. But if I thought it was "based" and would lead to healthy outcomes for me and mine - I might not be as bothered.

Paganism was about worshipping symbols and myths of the people, with collective public and familial rituals, to direct society in a positive direction. Other non-theistic religions like Buddhism also do not require the allegiance of faith in the truth of claimed miracles. Whereas there is no shortage of superstition in Judaism, especially among religious Jews, the Religion is ultimately about The Chosen People and so it coheres even non-religious Jews who internalize that sense in a non-theistic manner.

It does not work this way.

"If YHWH is just ancient myth, if the bible is just book of ancient tales, why shouldn't I marry this nice Gentile in romantic interfaith Jewish-Catholic-Buddhist-Wiccan ceremony?

"Ancient tradition? You mean thousands of years of persecution, pogroms and genocide? Thanks, but no thanks."

Actual Jewish leaders do not share your complacency about great future for Jews in absence of religious faith.

"Ancient tradition? You mean thousands of years of persecution, pogroms and genocide? Thanks, but no thanks."

Secular Jews seem no less inclined towards worshipping their own suffering and persecution. Their identity as the eternally, innocent persecuted is a pull factor rather than a push factor for secular Jews.

Christianity on the other hand... it's ultimately about belief in the truth of claimed miracles that emerged from the body of Jewish superstition.

Which miracles do you question?

Resurrection of Jesus for start.

I'm not a white nationalist, but I would dispute the red/blue framing for understanding very online dissident right wing thought (which itself isn't really white nationalist or alt-right anymore than progressives or wokes are all antifa socialists).

To my perspective it is the blue worldview that is christian, and the non urban, lesser educated, bluecollar workers are decidedly not religious and not Christian. Furthermore they have been non Christian for all intents and purposes since the industrial revolution. It is only in what I read or hear about one country (the USA) that the reds are christian.

Being a christian makes you just one subset of the blue tribe. Only atheists can be in opposition to a fundamentally christian derived worldview (blue progressivism) imho.

To someone from the UK who knows their ancestry is entirely working class/peasant for 500 years, and great grandparents spoke of their own grandparents speaking of their grandparents thinking god and church was all horseshit.... it really is hard to understand this american religion of your forefathers view.

It never was our religion, it was imposed. Top down, by the sword at times, and then by the zealot middle class as Britian underwent the pre industrial revolution demogrpahic and cultural spasms of the 1500-1750 period as far as I am aware.

The glib overly simplified history would then have the christian nutcases mostly leaving for the new world.

In this model dissident right wing anti left-progressive, anti woke, anti blue thought can be fundamentally anti christian at the same time, while simultaneously being non conservative (as that would require being blue-left-progressive-christian).

Christian conservatives and the woke are the same when viewed from far enough away.

Christian conservatives and the woke are the same when viewed from far enough away.

Well, both movements are composed of humans, and as individuals we both shape our lives around metaphysical claims centering on questions of good and evil, wrongdoing and justice. Much of this debate hinges on how the boundaries should be drawn.

The entire red/blue analysis is based on analysis of American culture, and obviously isn't going to transfer well to foreign cultures. I'm skeptical of your claim that Christianity had no penetration into rural life in England, given everything I've read about British history in particular and European history generally; the explicit fights between various factions of the faith would seem to be fairly solid supporting evidence.

I've no disagreement that there's a dissident-right faction that's specifically anti-Christian. I also maintain that Christianity has been fighting Progressivism more or less since the invention of Progressivism, for reasons that have not significantly changed over time. But then, various factions of progressivism have likewise fought each other, so fights clearly aren't a workable way to determine how the boundaries should be drawn. Still, if you think Progressivism and Christianity are ultimately similar, shouldn't that similarity cash out in some sort of similarity in observable outcomes?

"Well, both movements are composed of humans" - on the internet no-one can tell if you are a dog.

With regards to christian pentration into rural areas I refer to the class distinction being one that Christian belief is a sign of wealth, working people less so afaik. I am arguing that it is top down and.most peasants or working class individuals did not, and do not actually have religious belief of any kind. Which seems inverted im the cultural analysis of the USA.

There was a time in the not-so-distant past that the country was effectively 100% Christian and weekly church attendance was the norm. Where did that lead us? Obviously God is not such a bulwark after all and doesn’t automatically eternally guarantee based tradwives until the end of time.

You have to then answer the question: Why will it turn out differently this time?

There was a time in the not-so-distant past that the country was effectively 100% Christian and weekly church attendance was the norm. Where did that lead us?

To many good things. Where did the abandonment of such practices lead us? Who started that abandonment rolling: the most committed Christians or the least?

Obviously God is not such a bulwark after all and doesn’t automatically eternally guarantee based tradwives until the end of time.

"My wife kicked me out, that bitch."

"Found out you were fuckin' strippers, huh?"

"Yeah, but I bought her a nice diamond bracelet to make up for it. Crazy skank threw it at me, and slammed the door in my face. Crazy, huh?"

...Which is to say, only the very foolish treat meaningful, intimate relationships as transactional. To dumb it down to the level of chanspeak, Trad wives are best pursued via Trad lives. God is a bulwark in many ways, but the fact that I am committed to him in a durable way, and so are those I surround myself with, is certainly not the least of them. You are looking at the people who chose to abandon Christianity, and then suffered serious consequences, as evidence that Christianity does not help. You might as well argue that, having been shot after leaving your body armor at home, the armor is what failed you.

Or to put it even more simply, mankind cannot build things that other men can't tear down, if they choose. Understanding this, we still have a responsibility to build good things and tear down bad ones. The pleasantness of our lives greatly depends on the degree to which we take this responsibility seriously and execute it well.

Why will it turn out differently this time?

Because the Enlightenment is dying, and the historical and social conditions it relied on to sustain and grow its power no longer obtain. I think that if you understand how and why the Enlightenment operates, you'll likewise understand why it's breaking down, and why there is little hope that breakdown can be reversed.

In short, it's a movement that claims very smart people can solve all our problems, when in fact they cannot actually do that. People bought in when science and tech were hitting a growth spurt, which the Enlightenment itself did not actually generate, but which it very effectively took credit for. That credit was then spent advocating an endless series of insane policies that wreaked havoc on societies world-wide. The Enlightenment is not, centrally, Newton and Einstein, but Rousseau, Marx, Freud, Dewey and so on.

Now, science and tech are stagnating or collapsing, with few hopes for a breakthrough on the scale of the industrial revolution*, and the Enlightenment's modern standard-bearers find themselves suffering policy starvation. The runaway blaze of the Culture War post-2014 is a symptom of that policy starvation and it will continue to get worse until the existing system breaks down. Whatever comes out of that, long-term, won't be the Enlightenment or Progressivism in its currently-popular forms.

*The best counter-argument being, obviously, AI. It's one of the reasons it's such an interesting time to be alive, though I doubt most Blues would have expected Christianity to be one of the last ideologies standing at the cusp of the hypothesized Singularity.

What the heck does "policy starvation" mean? I've seen it a few times here and I can only sort-of guess at what it means.

Also, from my point of view, I suspect that any breakdown of Enlightenment power will only lead to a return to massive, bloody war, and less so any re-discovery of God. The conditions under which the Enlightenment was born were, if I'm not mistaken, near-constant sectarian conflict.

What the heck does "policy starvation" mean?

An explanation can be found here.

Also, from my point of view, I suspect that any breakdown of Enlightenment power will only lead to a return to massive, bloody war, and less so any re-discovery of God.

The Enlightenment seems to have led to some pretty big wars of its own, likewise based on fairly close analogues of sectarian conflict, until nukes and the Pax Americana put the lid on. ...And by "put the lid on", let's be clear that we're talking about Enlightenment Ideology only motivating mass slaughter in half the world rather than the whole of it. It does seem pretty likely that significant political unravelling will result in a lot of dead people. Look around you: do you honestly believe such unravelling can be postponed indefinitely?

The point is that, for all the bodycounts post-Martin Luther, things could get so, so much worse.

Do you think there's a golden path available that precludes significant future hardship?

In short, it's a movement that claims very smart people can solve all our problems, when in fact they cannot actually do that.

But it can tell us it had, or would have if not for those Red Tribe wreckers, and the vast majority will believe it. (COVID being the textbook example)

And thus what comes out long-term is not a religious revival, nor a rollback to 18th century Enlightenment, nor a return to feudal or Roman systems. Instead, it's either Orwell's boot stomping on a human face forever, or a true collapse of civilization with the megadeaths that entails.

And thus what comes out long-term is not a religious revival, nor a rollback to 18th century Enlightenment, nor a return to feudal or Roman systems. Instead, it's either Orwell's boot stomping on a human face forever, or a true collapse of civilization with the megadeaths that entails.

I disagree. I see little evidence that attempted dystopias are any more stable long-term than attempted utopias. Social science doesn't actually work that well, and so sooner or later, human nature regresses to the mean. Collapse of civilization is certainly a thing that can and has happened, and then new structures rise from the ashes. This is certainly inconvenient for us individually, but life is about significantly more than individual convenience, or even individual or group survival. I'm comfortable betting on my faith long-term, regardless of the circumstances.

My wife and I actually had a conversation about this a year or two after we got married. Looking at the increasing craziness of the world, the question arose of whether it was worth having children, given what a mess the world was in. My answer was that it was obviously worth it; the world is always a mess, and children are good regardless. Everyone experiences hardship and suffering in this life, and they also experience delight, joy, love, and many other good things besides. The idea that comfort or pleasure determines the value of life is a pernicious falsehood.

If the boot stomping on a human face isn't stable, we get gored by the other horn of the dilemma -- collapse of civilization and megadeaths. Yes, new structures arise from the ashes, and they probably will even if we get a collapse accompanied by a major nuclear exchange. That perhaps humanity will eventually rebuild a non-dystopic system is not much of a consolation. And while it is likely the structures arising from the collapse of civilization will include religion, it is quite possible Christianity will not survive in any recognizable form.

The new society will indeed be "red tribe" for a time; the unconstrained vision cannot survive easily visible and always-struggled-against constraints. Again, not much consolation.

You are looking at the people who chose to abandon Christianity, and then suffered serious consequences, as evidence that Christianity does not help. You might as well argue that, having been shot after leaving your body armor at home, the armor is what failed you.

It would be fair to conclude the armor is no good if it has some flaw that causes us to repeatedly leave it at home. Perhaps it is too bulky or too uncomfortable to wear.

Also you are just responding to Christianity’s failure by saying that we just didn’t Christianity hard enough. Which is not very persuasive to say the least

Also you are just responding to Christianity’s failure by saying that we just didn’t Christianity hard enough.

That isn't what he's saying. He's saying that if you don't do Christianity at all, your problems can't be reasonably laid at the feet of Christianity.

But that's still not answering the question of why, in the past, more people did Christianity than today and why Christianity could not prevent this.

To draw the obvious parallel: we know that CICO sufficiently explains the weight gain in the general population since the 50s on a mechanistic level: the amount of extra calories that people have started to consume since then lines up perfectly with the extra amount of weight the standard model predicts they would and that they actually have put on. If you don't want to be fat, eat less calories. But none of this answers the much more interesting question of why, as a society, we consume so much more and why large swaths of it are unable to self-regulate, despite obvious consequences in terms of aesthetics and health.

If I can say to you, "A mighty fortress is our God, a bulwark never failing", and mean it, live by it, raise my children and build my community by it

All the "red tribers" who've done this for the past century have had their childrens' values turn much bluer, while also being economically and politically dominated by the blues. Just saying "god is really really good" doesn't actually do anything, and it certainly won't stop the 280lbs churchgoing christian from enjoying tiktok and pornhub.

If you don’t understand the differences in behavior between church attending and non-attending Christians, then you have no business pontificating on demographic or social trends in Christian communities.

All the "red tribers" who've done this for the past century have had their childrens' values turn much bluer, while also being economically and politically dominated by the blues.

No, in fact, the failure to do this, and some other things as well, is what caused so many Reds to lose so badly for so long. The losses we have sustained are grievous, but I do not think they are terminal, nor is the dominance the Blues enjoy eternal. The conditions and the tactics they've derived such storied success from have more or less run their course, and will not be effective a second time. Policy starvation and its knock-on effects will bring them down, and it does not seem likely to me that they will recover.

Just saying "god is really really good" doesn't actually do anything, and it certainly won't stop the 280lbs churchgoing christian from enjoying tiktok and pornhub.

Well in the first place, there's a good bit more involved than "just saying God is really, really good," hence the part about believing it, raising one's children by it, building one's life and community around it. In the second place, those things that you're evidently missing is in fact one of the only things that stop people of any weight from "enjoying tick-tock and pornhub", by helping them to understand why they benefit from removing such things from their lives.

In East Germany the church was allowed to remain under only limited molestation, and to have it's own an associated political party, provided it proclaimed that actually Christians are perfectly loyal communists. I wonder how many people actually ended up believing this. It can even be supported biblically, but was clearly not the source of the East German Lutheran's professed values. No Christians had not been loyal communists, until the powers that be told them, and then they cited their faith to support it. The fact is the average evangelical Christian was perfectly fine with racial identity and segregation until power told them they were wrong. Evangelicals found a way to overlook the historic Christian opposition to abortion, and correspondingly the Southern States had the most liberal abortion laws until after Roe v. Wade. Belief in the morality of inter-racial marriage was at 4% when the laws banning it were struck down. It only reached 50% in the 1990s.

Christians, being a group of Humans, bend under pressure. Christianity has not yet broken. The Enlightenment's adherents began writing our obituaries three centuries ago. The Communists thought they were digging our grave a hundred years ago. Dawkins and Harris and the rest tried to write us off as irrelevant a decade ago, cheering on a social inflection that has now eaten their movement alive.

I like our chances, honestly.

Well that, and it’s simply not how the 95 IQ rednecks that motteizans like to use as a median red triber think about race or recent racial policies. Cletus and Jamal mostly get along pretty well in person, and when they don’t get along they simply don’t interact and don’t get why Karen is so insistent that they do.

Red tribers are very aware that anti-white racial policies mostly do not come from people blacker than Meghan Markle, and they are aware that the median black thinks these policies are ridiculous. These ideas can be lain squarely at the feet of the blue tribe, which is mostly white and hapa.

Yeah, because the blues told them to! Those peoples' ancestors would be in agony if they saw their great granddaughters' mixed-race husbands today. This doesn't make them wrong, but does indicate the "red tribe" isn't as red as they used to be.

White women marrying black men- or partly black men- is an uncommon and not particularly red tribe phenomenon.

Actual rednecks and working class black people will just… not interact with each other if they can’t come to an agreement. This isn’t politically correct, but it does work at avoiding conflict.

If the reds listened to what the blues were telling them at the time when anyone was in agony at the thought of their great granddaughters' mixed-race husbands, we'd probably still have an active eugenics program right now.

Whitey bad, white woman racist cuz she won't look at me. Whitey did slavery, he lied and put papa in jail, he owes me money. This is not complicated, and doesn't require acceptance of some batshit academic theory. Your insistence that this kind of thinking is not common among blacks is utterly baffling to me. Have you ever been near lower class blacks; talking amongst themselves about racial issues?

Furthermore, specific racial contempt is hardly relevant given how they treat each-other without needing any ideological excuses for it. The question is can my child walk the streets in a neighbourhood where they are around without fear of being hurt. I don't care why someone threatens me and those I care about, just that they do.

Whitey bad, white woman racist cuz she won't look at me. Whitey did slavery, he lied and put papa in jail, he owes me money.

Stop doing this. If you want to discuss race relations and your opinion of lower class black culture, do it without the diatribes and the caricatures.

Your insistence that this kind of thinking is not common among blacks is utterly baffling to me. Have you ever been near lower class blacks; talking amongst themselves about racial issues?

Worked with a whole bunch of them daily for about a year and a half in a factory. We never talked about racial issues; we mainly did our jobs and bitched about the usual annoyances of life. They were people, same as any.

The question is can my child walk the streets in a neighbourhood where they are around without fear of being hurt. I don't care why someone threatens me and those I care about, just that they do.

If you live in a bad neighborhood, move. There are a lot of bad neighborhoods. There are a whole lot more good ones. Black criminals are not an existential threat to you or your family. Mostly they are a threat to each other, and to a lesser extent other blacks and the blues who live around them. There are significant racial problems in our society, but they are highly localized and can be avoided without too much trouble by most functional, net-positive citizens.

Well, I can only say that my personal experiences with American (as opposed to immigrant) blacks have been pretty universally hostile and this was before I had any racist tendences, but I guess personal experiences or tolerance must vary. Thank you for your anecdote.

''' Black criminals are not an existential threat to you or your family. Mostly they are a threat to each other, and to a lesser extent other blacks and the blues who live around them. If you live in a bad neighborhood, move."'

  • More whites are victimized by blacks than blacks are. Note that given the rates of residential segregation, which are maintained by whites spending something like a third of their income in bidding wars to price out blacks, this often involves them leaving their neighbourhoods to get us. True most lethal victims of black violence tend to be black, but do you really think this is the only justifiable concern when it comes to walking the streets safely? Source: NCVS 2021 - https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/cv21.pdf.

Yes, most whites in proximity to black violence tend to be blues, but that's because most people who haven't fled the big cities already are blues. Should I not have the right to live in the (severely declining) centers of our civilization if I want to be safe?

That too, and it's a point I've brought up myself as well.

Right, this is all well and fair, and I don’t disagree with much of it. Where I differ from you and Hlynka is that I don’t actually believe Red and Blue are true enemies. They’re two complementary halves of a syncretic whole - two equally-valuable parallel strains of the European psyche, which function best when they can strengthen each other by checking each other’s worst impulses. They’re the two components of a Babble & Prune machine, cyclically working in ostensible conflict in order to ensure long-term mutual success. The fact that Red and Blue are locked into what appears to be an existential conflict is due to a complicated mix of factors, which have been discussed to death here already, but in the long run both must succeed equally for European man to continue in the next step of his cosmic journey.

Where I differ from you and Hlynka is that I don’t actually believe Red and Blue are true enemies.

That is certainly a significant difference. I'll try to make the time for a more substantive comment soon.