Despite being American myself, I don’t see the frontier between the Enlightenment and reaction as being an American military front.
The situation in Europe — including the resurgence of fascism in Greece, the emergence of Putin-Stalinism, and the various national conflicts over Muslim immigration and the status of immigrant communities with violent anti-woman, anti-dissident, or anti-free-speech practices — looks much more like a “clash of civilizations” to me than the current generation of American overseas adventurism does.
What is delivered by tank is not civilization; it is resource extraction.
including the resurgence of fascism in Greece, the emergence of Putin-Stalinism
You linked that to “legitimate fear that Enlightenment-… is self-undermining” (emphasis mine).
The Greek fascism is a reaction to the excesses and failure of a semi-socialist crony-capitalist corrupt state. Putin is partly a reaction to the same and partly just business-as-usual for Russia. The conflicts in e.g. France, etc. over Muslim immigrants are pretty clearly tribal conflicts on the basis of “these weird people don’t even look like us, have strange customs, and, most galling of all, are unwilling to recognize their cultural inferiority”.
So I am not sure where this Enlightenment meme complex (which you clearly think is a positive thing, not leading to failures of corrupt states) is undermining itself.
Despite being American myself, I don’t see the frontier between the Enlightenment and reaction as being an American military front.
The situation in Europe — including the resurgence of fascism in Greece, the emergence of Putin-Stalinism, and the various national conflicts over Muslim immigration and the status of immigrant communities with violent anti-woman, anti-dissident, or anti-free-speech practices — looks much more like a “clash of civilizations” to me than the current generation of American overseas adventurism does.
What is delivered by tank is not civilization; it is resource extraction.
You linked that to “legitimate fear that Enlightenment-… is self-undermining” (emphasis mine).
The Greek fascism is a reaction to the excesses and failure of a semi-socialist crony-capitalist corrupt state. Putin is partly a reaction to the same and partly just business-as-usual for Russia. The conflicts in e.g. France, etc. over Muslim immigrants are pretty clearly tribal conflicts on the basis of “these weird people don’t even look like us, have strange customs, and, most galling of all, are unwilling to recognize their cultural inferiority”.
So I am not sure where this Enlightenment meme complex (which you clearly think is a positive thing, not leading to failures of corrupt states) is undermining itself.